Today we’re looking at Narita Boy, which no matter how many times I’ve heard the name said in the game’s opening title along with the end credits, I still feel like I’m saying it wrong. But then I’m Cuban and can barely roll my R’s so do not expect greatness from me.

So I was very skeptical going into Narita Boy because it’s got that retro look that’s so popular now along with an 80’s coat of paint and synthwave music, and I usually recoil away from things that are trendy, but then I decided to give it a shot anyway, and I was very, very pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this game and am happy to say that all my reservations about it were gone by the time I beat it.

The story is reminiscient of movies like the original Tron and The Last Starfighter and it’s actually so good that I’m not going to spoil much here. You play as this kid who’s been summoned into a game by an entity called The Motherboard to help save this virtual world of Narita One from an evil called HIM, who intends to use his army called the Stallions to get out into the real world and take it over, but first he’s gotta take over the system. Your job among other things is to restore the memories of the Creator to help destroy HIM once and for all.

So there’s a ton of world building throughout the game but the first 10 or 15 minutes, at least in my opinion, start pretty slowly and then after that it’s a good mix of action and a little exploring. You’ll learn about the world and all the characters that make it up. Occasionally this was all hard to follow because the game uses a ton of different, more computer-y names for real life objects and people, and I get that the intent was to make the game more immersive, but there were times where I just couldn’t keep track of what was being talked about.

If you’re someone that likes to skip past the story and get to the action, you can still do that here, but you’re not going to know what the hell is going on and you’re going to be lost most of the time. Not just storywise but also in the game, as there’s plenty of times that characters will talk to you and give you a directive of where to go, and they’ll only tell you once. And that’s one of the few real problems I had with this game, which is the exploration and progression.

See, just checking out objective window isn’t always helpful enough and you’ll do a lot of backtracking in this, though in the game’s defense your backtracking is usually limited to each world you’re in. It’s not going to be like Resident Evil where you’re 3 hours in and you get a key to a door in 1st hallway you walked through in the first 10 minutes of the game that you totally forgot about, and you don’t want to go all the way back there because you have 2 shotgun shells, a voucher for a free Happy Meal from the McDonald’s that once again got your 7 year old’s order wrong, and a sock with quarters in it left to defend yourself.

No, a simple map would’ve done the job and there’s a ton of times in this where I really just wanted to remember where I was going. Also irritating is that you can’t read the keys you pick up, so that’s going to further confuse you in figuring out how to progress. So for example maybe you decided to put the controller down to go pour a drink. Then you get asked by your kid to do something. Then you use the bathroom. Then you get harassed by work for something they could’ve done themselves. Then you use the bathroom again because you’ve been drinking. Then you get a snack because you’ve been drinking and maybe you go buy something online because by now you’re feeling pretty lit and why not? Then you come back to the game and forget what the key was for before getting up for another drink. See what I mean now? Maps.

The pacing in the game is totally fine but when you’re not fighting enemies, you’re just finding keys and also looking at the backgrounds for passwords that’ll get you into other areas. This does get pretty boring by the end of the game you really just want to skip past that stuff to fight more and see where the story is going.

And I have to mention the music again – if you like synthwave or early to mid 80’s pop at all then you’ll love the soundtrack for this game. It’s deliciously 80’s and even out of combat the music is subtle but brings a ton of atmosphere to the world you’re in, and then ramps up to 11 for the combat.

The art style in this game is great. As you can already tell it’s got this pixelated are style but also has some pretty decent animation to it, and the detail and effects of things like fire and sword swings and explosions look really good and you don’t get tired of looking at it all. Each world has a different theme and you’ll see plenty of computer-y looking backgrounds but also city skylines, deserts, rainy lighthouses and oceans, and sprawling red landscapes that really feel like you’re this small character in a vast world. Each world has a distinct color but despite that, I didn’t really get bored with the aesthetics of each one. The characters all have a certain clothing and style to them that reminded me a lot of Tron, but this doesn’t just feel like a computer program. Bits of code that look like citizens walk around, go to bars, have jobs there’s even more dark material like seeing ones that have been tortured and killed.

The art style also changes when going through the Creator’s memories, as you’ll learn more about him and all the events that lead him to creating Narita One and why he’s lost his memories. So from beginning to end there’s a lot of personality on display in this game.

I loved the enemy design in this game. You get a quick introduction to each new enemy you encounter – and there’s a lot of them – and it’s everything from zombies to skeleton knights to witches and all sorts of others that are unique in looks and attacks and how you defeat them. The bosses start kinda basic in the beginning, but they also get increasingly crazy and unique in the design and you you’ll really enjoy fighting them. They’re not that difficult but the encounters are still fun and memorable, and the synthwave and rock music used for fighting these guys is suitably epic. Their life bar is a beating heart that pumps faster and starts spurting blood as you damage the boss, and eventually it explodes when they take the final hit. It’s really satisfying, and it also reminded me of that episode of the Simpsons where Homer had a heart attack and they had that close up of his heart freaking out.

And I have to mention the music again – if you like synthwave or early to mid 80’s pop at all then you’ll love the soundtrack for this game. It’s deliciously 80’s and even out of combat the music is subtle but brings a ton of atmosphere to the world you’re in, and then ramps up to 11 for the combat. The end credits also features a karaoke track with the words on the screen. It’s one of the few games where I looked up how to buy the soundtrack separately because I dug it so much.

So that brings me to the combat. The game is basically a 2D hack and slash and it has plenty of variety keep things interesting, though the movement and especially the jumping is a little floaty. Like it reminded me of Little Big Planet and how Sackboy jumps and you never quite feel 100% confident in where you’re landing. You’ll unlock a bunch of abilities over time including an upward and downward strike, a dash, and the ability to heal during combat. The healing sounds like it works in theory, but in practice it’s clunky.

Basically you hold down one of the buttons – in the Xbox’s case the Y button – and he’ll start charging up like he’s about to become Super Saiyan and then he’ll get a unit of health back. By the end of the game you’ll get a max of 4 units you can heal back mid combat, and in order to get back the energy to do it you damage enemies. Healing breaks up the combat and leaves you open to get punished more than it’ll help, and there’s lots of times I’d try to sneak a heal in and get nailed by an enemy and I’d wish I hadn’t even tried. Other than that there’s no other ways to heal. Don’t be surprised if every boss fight you get to you’re at half health or worse, and in that case I found it’s just easier to die and come back with full or in some cases half health and have a better chance at winning. Checkpoints are pretty frequent and there’s no penalty for dying so why not?

There’s also special abilities you get over time that let you match your character’s color to the colors of enemies you’re fighting so you’ll do a lot more damage to them, but also take more damage in return. It’s an interesting risk-reward system that helps speed up combat and it’s fun to tear through enemies quickly.

At the end of the day Narita Boy is a really cool action game that has fun combat, beautiful graphics and a story that’s full of heart and actually got me in the feels on a few occasions. It starts slow but by the ending I was really glad I stuck with it and at the very end it sets it up for a sequel, and for once I’m really excited for that. The exploration could use some tweaking and guidance, and I wanted the combat and movement to feel tighter than it was, but you do get used to it and these are just minor complaints about an otherwise great game that you should certainly try out. It’s on Game Pass currently so you have nothing to lose if you’ve got a subscription.