Yoshiro Kimura is among the game developers I respect the most. Kimura had a hand in Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, Chulip, Rule of Rose, No More Heroes, Dandy Dungeon, Blackbird, among others. A few of those are among my favourite games of all time. Guy knows how to speak to me on a level I wish my therapist could figure out.

His stories and scenarios just poke my brain in all the right spot, always giving me lots to chew on. He seems to effortlessly find a wonderful balance of whimsy and melancholy. And he teams up with other talented folks that bring everything together.

But I was extra-special excited about Stray Children. Recent titles by Onion Games haven’t really been narrative focused, which is one of the things I value most in the games I play. Stray Children is an RPG, mostly. It feels like a sort of nexus between a Moon’s joy-maker standards and Undertale’s joy-focused RPG flavour. Most importantly, though, it feels right.

NO CRYING UNTIL THE END

Right off the bat, I think Stray Children is at its best if you go in knowing nothing about it. All the trailers and ad material leading toward launch did a great job of leaving it very nebulous, so even for someone eagerly awaiting its (English translated) launch, I didn’t fully know what I was getting into. It’s better if you play Moon: Remix RPG Adventure first, but don’t feel like you have to. What I’m getting at is that I’m going to spoil some things, because I have to talk about them, and it’s hard to disentangle certain elements. I’m not going to do something lame like spoil the ending. I’ll treat it like any other game. I just think that knowing nothing is the best way to approach it.

Stray Children opens up as though it’s a sequel to Moon. Similar to Moon, you play as a child who gets sucked into a video game. What makes the connection more obvious is that the child lands in a world that is extremely reminiscent of Moon’s. But it’s a Return to Oz situation, where everything is in ruins. Many of the characters have become Slymes for some reason, and the ones who haven’t are horribly depressed. They’ve grown tired of the hero’s endless quest, and the world is slowly disappearing.

You don’t spend very long taking in the sights, however, as it takes no time at all before you inadvertently trigger the final collapse of the world. Nice job.

Leaving the land of Oz, you find yourself in Wonderland. Try not to murder this world, too.

In this new world, children live in the shadow of the “Olders.” The Olders are strange creatures filled with anger and regret, and at the top of their hierarchy are a handful of kings; the angriest and most regretful of them all. For some reason, each of them holds a peace of the RUMROM; the ROM chip of the game you just seemingly destroyed. Most importantly, putting the pieces together might form the hero you just obliterated. Kenken, the stranger who helped abduct you, thinks the hero might be your missing father.

THE GRASS IS DEAD, THE GOLD IS BROWN

Stray Children is a very linear RPG. Whereas something like Undertale and Earthbound might allow you to backtrack, that’s just not possible in Stray Children. If you leave the beaten path, you can find all sorts of secrets, but if you miss those secrets, you can’t circle back. It’s very vexing in a way, since it reinforces the urge to avoid “going the right way” in RPGs. But it also allows it to maintain a consistent pace and is thematically in tune.

When you face off against the Olders, you have the option to talk to them, which will seem familiar to anyone who played Undertale. Stray Children lifts a lot from Undertale, which is interesting, since Undertale was inspired, in part, by Moon. The starkest similarity is the way you defend yourself from enemy attacks. You play little mini-games that usually involve dodging hazards and bullets.

But, while Undertale was clever in the way that it allowed you to simply turn enemies into friends by taking the peaceful route, Stray Children has you open their hearts instead. Enemies typically pop up through a random battle system, and if you kill them, they’ll continue to pop up. But if you talk them into submission, they’ll stop being angry and regretful and move on. They’ll never randomly battle you again.

DUMB DOG AND DOG-FACED BOY

The peaceful “route” (in actuality, there is only one route) in Stray Children will break some people. To put it simply, you’re given a choice of, usually, around six phrases. To soothe an Older, you must find the right combination of phrases. On each turn you pick one, and if it’s wrong, the enemy will attack you. If it’s right, the enemy might not immediately attack you, but they might anyway. On your next turn, you pick the phrase you think might come next. If you’re wrong, you have to start over on your next turn, but if you’re right, you’re onto the next part of the sequence.

Sorry, that’s pretty confusing. But if you’re confronted by a savage Adzuken, you’d have to say, “It will be okay -> It will be okay -> Want a taco?” and then you finish off by saying “Open Sesame” and then I’d tell you a lesson I had learned like, “Sometimes life just shits on you,” and I’d vanish. Mess up that order at all, and you’re starting over.

You can find the cast off shells of the Olders in the area you encounter them, which will give you a research page on them. Sometimes these pages will give you hints on what you should say to them. Sometimes these are pretty overt hints, and other times, they’re not very helpful at all. So, it turns out to be a mix of puzzle solving and trial and error.

I have a little notebook I keep on my desk for games like this, and it now has eleven pages worth of notes on what to say to Olders. At least subsequent playthroughs will be a lot easier.

But it can suck. Especially since some Olders require you to have found an item to fully pacify them. If you get stuck in the trial-and-error process, you find yourself replaying the same mini-game over, and over, and over. It’s sometimes a slog, honestly. I think it could have been handled better.

MY BUTT? DUN DUN

Where Stray Children shines, however, is, as I had hoped, in its narrative. Everything is sliced rather rigidly with the bosses, but each area gives you something new. Each one presents a different society, full of its own problems, joys, and, especially, delusions. There’s a surprising amount of depth in every one of these areas.

Broadly, Stray Children seems to be about the weirdness of life and death, as well as the relationship between younger and older generations. It doesn’t have any answers, just sympathy. A bizarre exploration of the human condition. And it’s deadly effective.

You meet a lot of strange characters, but they’re largely transient. Only two characters really pop up consistently. Most of the time, you leave them behind when you leave a chapter. It gives the whole game a sense of loneliness, something that’s rare for its genre.

To be honest, I’m somewhat disappointed that Stray Children deviated from Moon and Chulip. Those were worlds where you got to exist. You lived among the other characters, got to know them and the world, and were part of a place. In Stray Children you’re just drifting through, alone. Kind of like life, guy.

BIG FISH EAT THE LITTLE ONES

As an RPG, I didn’t exactly love Stray Children. Its trial-and-error combat system could have used a bit of work to excise some of the frustration within. As an adventure game, its puzzles are just right. They often have a lot of chew. They can lead to some rough head-scratching, but I never became hard stuck. I never needed a guide; just my notebook and my brain.

The artstyle is wonderful. It’s pixel art that commits the sin of mixels, and there’s a heavy bloom everywhere, but the art of Kazuyuki Kurashima (see also, Moon, Dandy Dungeon, Black Bird) is consistently top-notch and charming. And there’s so much of it.

The music is another highlight. Not surprising since it’s done by one of my favourite composers, Hirofumi Taniguchi (see also, Moon, Chibi-Robo, Black Bird), this time joined by Masanori Adachi (See also, Moon, Rocket Knight Adventures). It’s varied, showing off a lot of different styles, moods, and techniques. And there’s so much of it.

Stray Children is a bigger game than I expected. I don’t have an accurate estimate, as I let the game run idle a few times, which racked up my Steam clock, but I’d say that it’s at least 20 hours long. It’s crammed with enemies and never repeats itself. It’s impressive, especially since it feels so polished.

OPEN SESAME

My advice is to go into Stray Children expecting something new. Don’t go in thinking you’re going to be playing a variation of Moon or Undertale or Earthbound. The connection to Moon made within is a misdirection just like the fake RPG at the beginning of Moon. It’s certainly in the orbit of those games, but if you’re looking for again/more, you won’t find it.

I suppose one expectation you can have is to experience more of Yoshiro Kimura’s whimsical melancholy. That weirdness with gravity. That colour with weight. Sometimes funny, sometimes thought-provoking, but always quirky.

I just hope that this isn’t actually the last game of this magnitude that he works on. He hinted as much during the initial announcement, but that’s since softened in a more recent interview. Phew.

Like Chulip, I can understand why someone wouldn’t like Stray Children. There’s a lot of pushback in the mechanics, it can be quite unfriendly, and it sometimes gets onerous. It will frustrate completionists with its rigid forwardness and high expectations. It can be a bitch. But that’s life.

But regardless of how other people might feel about it, Chulip is among my favourite games. I can hear and understand the criticism toward it, but I don’t care. And that’s how I feel about Stray Children. I’m not ready to put it among my favourite games. That will become clearer with time. For me, I know that despite all the trials, I walked away feeling I gained something. I’m not happy. I’m moved. The walls of my heart have been broken.

9/10

This review was conducted on a digital Steam version of the game. It was paid for by the author.