Narita Boy

Narita Boy is among the best Metroidvanias in recent years. Its beautiful world, surprisingly emotional story, and diverse enemy pool will leave you wanting more from its short run time.

Narita Boy is a unique game, witch beautiful pixel art, handmade animations and a great level design full of references from the eighties.

Narita Boy is a spectacularly hand crafted experience that starts slowly to become a powerful and funny ride through a cathode-ray tube television from the 80s.

Narita Boy is an extremely competent 2D platformer. The guys from Studio Koba have succeeded in the uneasy task of giving a unique personality to a video game whose basic mechanics could sometimes appear derivative.

Narita Boy is a great debut project from Studio Koba, and hopefully not the last. A world steeped in love and detail deserves your attention.

Fantasy, science fiction and electronic music mingle in this 80's neon drenched adventure. The visuals are striking, and the presentation is top notch. On the other hand, gameplay and exploration fall more on the serviceable side and that is a little disappointing because with more care put into them, Narita Boy could be a classic.

Gorgeous 2D visuals, great music and fast faced gameplay sounds like a great tribute to the 80's.

I’ve reached an age where the games I would have enjoyed 20 years ago and more are a distant recollection of quick wits, skill and muscle memory, of the ‘how-on-earth-did-I-play-that?’ variety. Yet here we are, four years on from Studio Kobe’s Kickstarter launch and while it feels like a lifetime has passed in the interim, not just in videogames, I find myself playing a game in a genre that I had all but given up hope of finding any kind of pleasure in again. In Narita Boy, beating seemingly insurmountable odds can still be fun.

This is a fantastic, epic adventure that, even with its shortcomings, delivers a fantastic experience.

Narita Boy's difficulty is balanced well enough to offer challenge without frustration, and the combat is sublime. Not to mention it's visually incredible.

Without being perfect, Narita Boy offers a pleasant neo-retro ride. Visually sublime, it manages to push the codes inherited from the 80s further than a few games before it.

The Digital Kingdom needs you and you will be pleased to enter the fantastic world of Narita Boy, one of the best indie games of the year.

Narita Boy is a surprise. Maybe it's not a masterpiece, but it's a case of being good in things that we don't expect to be there.

In the end though it will most likely be Narita Boy’s visuals that grab you – and on that front Studio Koba has delivered and then some. Even though there’s a lot of lore and explaining going on it’s all met and even exceeded by the stunning backdrops, wonderful animation, and a consistent tone that strikes a balance between awe and familiar. Between analog and digital. Accompanied by an excellent synth-driven soundtrack, and a story that is ultimately bittersweet if not entirely unpredictable – Narita Boy is worth seeking out, installing, and experiencing in full VHS-era CRT-vision.