Stray Kids launched on the Japanese eShop on twenty sixth December 2024. We weren’t in a position to evaluation it again in October when it arrived within the West, however we have now managed to meet up with Onion Video games’ newest…
Your dad’s lacking and a few bizarre “uncle” is on the door, claiming to know you. Stray Kids simply chucks you straight into issues with barely a title display – however maybe that type of stylistic confidence is unsurprising coming from folks behind Moon: Remix RPG Journey. Yoshihiro Kimura and Onion Video games have delivered a compact, auteur-driven venture, heading off on adventures into emotional storytelling relatively than into refined mechanics. And it uncovers some spectacular treasures on its quest.
The story we’re instructed is that of a dog-faced child venturing right into a fantasy world by way of the display of a online game. That world is surreal, humorous, and generally very darkish. In distinction to this unsettling tone, the graphics current charming, cute pixels, with a color palette stirring recollections of the Sport Boy Advance. That smooth presentation is the lens to point out relatively unusual and uncomfortable issues: Lord of the Flies orphans in a jail, for instance, or a stalking frog paparazzo.
The sport takes its unexplained opening and runs with it, shunning easy exposition and buying and selling as a substitute on emotions and obscure impressions. Nonetheless, the gist of it’s that you’re trapped in a trippy, sinister world populated by kids who’re deserted and misplaced.
It’s the world of a online game, and its heroic knight has been destroyed – your job is to place it again collectively. The youngsters, in the meantime, are missing clear figures of authority, but topic to judgement, labelled “unhealthy” and punished. You discover from a top-down perspective within the 16-bit type, speaking to myriad inhabitants of this endlessly off-kilter world.
The themes of parental authority and a baby’s perspective are taken additional by the enemies within the lands you discover. You’ll face random encounters with the “Olders” – creatures based mostly on adults, themselves failing to deal with hang-ups and demons. They inflict struggling and strict expectations whereas wrestling their very own inside frustrations.
In apply, that is represented by bullet-hell-style assaults dealt out in a turn-based construction. Kimura was reportedly impressed by Undertale, which isn’t any unhealthy factor. The Olders could be defeated by attacking in your flip, which requires you to cease a spinning arrow on a section of a circle. The dimensions of the section, its place, and the variety of rotations you’re allowed earlier than it’s important to press all get modified up. Nonetheless, it’s not precisely the deepest mechanic – that’s simply not what the sport’s going for.
As an alternative of preventing, the Olders can as a substitute be talked down from their fixations and freed, excluding them from additional random encounters. This speaking mechanic is a continuation of the inscrutable method Onion Video games has taken to the sport. Varied speech choices have to be chosen in the precise order throughout fight, taking one flip per possibility, and resetting when errors are made.
Discovering out the precise order on your statements, nonetheless, is mysterious within the excessive. It’s very simple to overlook out fully on releasing the Olders, and even those you get will nonetheless require some guesswork. Later, harder bosses make trial and error fairly extreme, too.
That have of speaking to the Olders is emblematic of the sport’s common angle to you as you play. There may be loads of friction right here, but it surely’s so constant from minute one which it’s clearly intentional. Experiencing the world as one thing complicated and unexplained — inexplicable maybe — is alienating however childlike. This hammers dwelling what the sport’s about, but it surely doesn’t all the time really feel good to interact with. There’s a stress between delivering on the theme and being enjoyable to play, however that simply makes the sport attention-grabbing.
One factor that constantly delights, nonetheless, is the sound. The music sits completely with the sport’s surreal world and its colors, which appear without delay washed out and oversaturated. Eerie woodwinds, for instance, make the proper theme tune for tailing pigs alongside a prepare monitor, one thing like 2000s J-pop accompanies a lily pad gliding minigame, and a trilling harpsichord leads you round a grand palace.
The stand-out characteristic of the sound results, in the meantime, needs to be the character voices. These sit someplace between the obvious sentences of Simlish and the one-dimensional jibber-jabber of Animal Crossing. They’re clearly by some means composed from totally different languages, with some distinctly German snowmen being significantly memorable.
Regardless of some irritating repetition (unskippable dialogue proper between a save level and a boss combat? Examine!), Stray Kids is just not overlong, clocking in at about 12-15 hours. A number of my time was spent wandering, looking for hidden objects in each nook and cranny, and speaking to each character I noticed – generally a requirement for development.
Once more, although, the sport will get away with the friction: the disorientation and lack of consolation create a way of vulnerability – of being a stray. Little doubt some gamers will discover this opacity all a bit a lot. However for these feeling affected person and intrigued by the artwork type and storytelling, it’s a joyful factor to play general.
Whereas I used to be within the latter camp — loving the surreal world regardless of the challenges — I used to be undoubtedly grateful for the pick-up-and-play nature of the Change. The pixel artwork seems to be nice on the small display, too. The hybrid console remains to be the easiest way to play the correct of video games, and that is one among them.
Conclusion
Stray Kids is nothing if not opinionated. From its abrupt opening to its inscrutable mechanics, it outright refuses to carry your hand. This readability of goal builds a world that’s completely fascinating – if it will get its hooks into you.
Should you don’t have the time and persistence to discover and experiment whereas being labelled a “unhealthy little one”, this might not be for you. Nonetheless, when you’re sport for some surreal challenges, this can be a memorable and in the end optimistic journey.
