I was born in the 1990s, so I grew up with floppy disks, the Commodore64, NES, and much more. But a few years later, we also gained access to the internet, and my whole childhood changed quickly. Narita Boy focuses on the 80s a lot, so I get most of the references, but maybe I missed some as well. What I’m trying to say? Well, we have to dive in to find out. Don’t we..?
Welcome to the ’80s!
In Narita Boy, you play as a young boy in the 80s who is sucked into his computer after playing a simple action game for the whole day (this sure sounds familiar). You have been summoned by the Digital Kingdom’s priests, a kingdom in the digital realm inhabited by thousands of programs and threatened by HIM. It is a world with quite a few similarities to the world of Disney’s Tron. Inside the binaural code, the digital realm connects with reality. Him has returned and deleted The Creator’s memories. The supervisor program, Motherboard, and her agents have activated the Narita Boy protocol. Him is an evil program that sends his minions to enslave the whole Digital Kingdom. No one can fight the minions of Him; only you, Narita Boy, the wielder of the Techno-Sword, can kill them.
Narita Boy – Metroidvania with a twist
Narita Boy floats on the edge of Metroidvania meets action-adventure and consists of exploring the kingdom, talking to its inhabitants, fighting the minions of him. You fight, jump, climb and try not to get lost. Fighting starts easy, but the game continuously presents you with new enemies, who all require a different tactic to fight them. Most are easy to dispatch, but when you have to fight more of them simultaneously, it can get a bit more challenging – and you die a lot. The bosses reminded me a lot of Salt & Sanctuary – They are all completely different, and they do require a bit of thought, sometimes the use of the environment, and a few retries. Or many retries, with made me hate the game over screen – a lot.
Since the whole game is coated in a Tronesque sauce, it’s sometimes hard to find your way around the world of Narita Boy. This goes for things like a climbable wall or the solution to a portal puzzle. Like a good Metroidvania, your character downloads new packages to learn new abilities, like a dash or the ability to heal. Actually, your hero has many upgrades to find, and you will need most of them to beat the game. There are pools of data to mediate in, and you need to know the correct symbols for each pool. They are hidden in the world and are easily overlooked – so you have to keep your eyes open. Apart from that, there are not many puzzles to solve. You receive Techno-keys to unlock the many doors, but there are no other interactive spots. You fight, find your way and listen to the inhabitants of the realm – all in the lovely 80s setting with so many easter eggs and nods I stopped counting after 30.
Storytime!
The story is simple – defeat Him and his minions – but the Digital Kingdom and its inhabitants are presented in a very creative way. A kingdom based on the sacred source code, which was designed line by line by The Creator, inhabited by sentient programs that pray to The Creator in temples, with holy relics and Tech-Priests, the beam of the Trichroma as the foundation. When I met Motherboard, supervisor program and protective mother of all the programs in the Digital Kingdom, in the beginning, I thought what a creative idea. Still, to my surprise, this creativity goes on and on during the whole game. Him, the former manager of the data dumps, his generals like Lord VHS or the Inquisitor, the Synth-Sensai – Bard of Trifurcation playing synth music, a priest who mediates in the mists of the code to connect to the Creator’s oneiric flow, the three Houses of the Trichroma… there is a lot to see and read during the game. Knowledge of the Holy Bible, the inner workings of a computer, and coding experience help me understand it – so I probably missed a lot.
Conclusion
So to conclude! Narita Boy is a fresh take on the Metroidvania genre with a cool outtake on the whole 80s vibe. It’s not your average game and probably will find its true audience with a niche older audience, but that’s oké because that’s where it really shines. If you’re from this era and enjoy Tronesque games mixed with Metroidvania, this one is right up your alley.
