"In the capital of the Digital Kingdom, the great mother Motherboard supports Trichrome. With the advent of Stallions, the Digital Kingdom code and the Trichrome stream became unstable." – this is one of the first phrases that the player sees in Narita Boy. Wading through tons of text explaining the plot and translated into Russian in the most strange way, a person doesn’t really understand a damn thing – if he abandons this platformer within an hour, no one will blame him. However, it is better to hold out until the end, although it may not be easy.

Viruses are more insidious than they seem

The beginning Narita Boy as old as time: the universe of a fictional video game is attacked by a virus, and we are the “Digital Hero” who saves it. But the story is presented as if you were reading a scientific work on this topic – with ubiquitous terms, names and titles, a lot of “water” and self-repetition. This is a whole universe with a bunch of locations (each has a name), many characters and a conflict that has arisen between the Digital Kingdom and a traitor named HIM.

Over time, when you learn to sift out chatter from truly valuable information, you begin to become imbued with the story. It turns out to be deeper than it seems at first, and quite early on it begins to demonstrate the connection between the digital world and the real one. It becomes more and more touching and at times heartbreaking, and the puzzle, whose pieces, as it seems at first, do not fit together, comes together into a whole picture. That’s why it’s better to give Narita Boy chance – the more important details you find out, the more interesting the plot becomes. This happens closer to the second half of the five-hour adventure.

However, the information-overloaded narrative is, unfortunately, not the only problem with the game. Many elements in it are either not made very well or are missing, although you expect to see them. Structurally, it’s a cross between a linear platformer and a Metroidvania – you can’t return to cleared areas, but they themselves are quite large, and locked doors and terminals at one end of the location become accessible by obtaining skills or key cards at the other.

At the same time, there is no map here, and obviously no one will remember the names of each building and each office. Therefore, when they give you another key and tell you to go somewhere, you don’t go there specifically, but re-visit all the rooms in the hope of seeing the right terminal. Because of this, I was afraid to take breaks until the location was completely cleared – it’s better to finish everything while you remember the location of the rooms and closed doors. At the same time, there were never any moments when I was confused and didn’t understand what to do for a long time. That is, you can complete the game without a map, but it still wouldn’t hurt.

Although in most cases Narita Boy https://macau-casino.co.uk/ limited to simple riddles (you will have to search in three places for signs that will help open a portal more than once), sometimes it turns into an exciting attraction. I’ll do without spoilers, but there are moments here when simple mechanics bring great pleasure and make the game more diverse. They combine everything: gameplay, unusual style in the spirit of 80s science fiction, and a wonderful soundtrack from the composer Salvinsky. The music here is especially luxurious – the title theme makes you want to listen to it separately from the game, and you don’t want to skip the credits thanks to the final composition.

But outside of these episodes, problems with platforming become noticeable. The game often requires the user to accurately jump from one narrow area to another, but the character does his best to prevent this – he is light and seems to slide after landing. You can get used to this, as well as to the lack of a map (you just move the stick in the opposite direction a second before you fall), but it’s very strange to put the player in a situation where the controls cause such problems.

There is humor in the game, but often in small details. For example, one of the bosses is a VHS Lord with a videotape on his hammer.

Chaos in the kingdom

But the combat system is not bad. The character unlocks his abilities gradually – after receiving the sword, he learns to shoot shotgun, release a destructive beam, dash with a blow and dash with armor penetration, perform an uppercut, hit the ground after a jump – there are many possibilities. But you forget about many of them, since ordinary melee attacks are enough in most cases. The same dash with penetration is needed only against one type of enemy – armored guards, whose protection cannot be removed otherwise.

The beam is largely useless, no clever combinations required. You can call upon your side assistants who set fire to the ground, but I didn’t remember them at all throughout the entire playthrough. However, in general, the combat system is quite exciting – rushing around small arenas in jerks, handing out blows, did not get boring. Each enemy requires a different approach – you need to run up to someone and immediately jump away so that he hits the ground with a sword and hangs for a couple of seconds, someone shoots from a cannon at a certain interval.

At first I wanted to blame the low difficulty as a shortcoming of the game, but over time I still encountered several difficult episodes. Some of them use a mechanic where you can strengthen the hero’s attacks against enemies with lights above their heads, but at the same time their damage to the protagonist also increases. Sometimes the risk is worth it, and sometimes you lose a lot of health. The bosses are also not bad, even if they are often killed on the first try.

There is only one noticeable drawback in combat episodes – there are no first aid kits, and you can only be treated by spending energy that you accumulate by hitting enemies. It accumulates too slowly, so when approaching the next arena, you are preparing to die immediately in order to be reborn with a full supply of health. The save points are located close to each other, but sometimes after such shenanigans you have to run back through a couple of rooms. And the game sometimes forces you to do this anyway – with the mechanics of treatment it was worth coming up with something more convenient.

So it turns out that for every plus there is a minus. The visual style is cool, but due to the lack of a map you are in a hurry to go through locations before you forget the location of the doors. The combat system is cool, and some scenes are delightful, but the controls are clunky. The story is worth seeing in its entirety, but the plot is overloaded with dialogues with endless terminology.

In such situations it is always difficult to give a rating – sometimes the game seems like a pass, sometimes it reaches a strong “Commendable”. I still completed the game not without pleasure and did not regret the time spent – since the recent Olija, for example, everything was different. The rating will be positive, but I still recommend waiting for the discount rather than taking it Narita Boy for full price. Perhaps by the start of the sale at least some of the shortcomings will be corrected with patches.

Pros: great story, which at first seems banal, but reveals itself as you progress; a rich universe that is cramped within one game; interesting visual style; amazing soundtrack; fun fights with a variety of opponents.

Cons: a map would be nice; overkill with dialogues full of terms and strange Russian localization; management problems.