English

Back in 2023, Nintendo held one of those Direct thingies it likes to do, and as it often does the Japanese version of the stream had some games the western one didn’t. In particular, there was one game that drew my attention: Stray Children. It caught my eye in part because it has a really unique pixel art look to it, but also because Yoshiro Kimura was its director, one of the original designers of cult-classic Moon: Remix RPG Adventure. And now, after a bit of a wait, developer Onion Games have confirmed it’s getting its English release later this year, and it’ll even be doing so on PC.

If you haven’t heard of Stray Children before, here’s the lowdown of the oddball game: you play as a young, dog-like boy who gets whisked away to another world through a strange old console. In this new land, its inhabitants are all children, a wall set up around them keeping out The Olders, “monstrous adults, carrying the heavy load of their own inadequacies, self-doubt, and all of the grievances that grown-ups gather.”

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Much like Moon before it, it’s not a typical RPG adventure. Battles take place in small arenas with enemies sending out occasionally bullet-hell like attacks for you to dodge. You can either fight these messed up adults literally, or figuratively with your words, all of this adding up to something definitely reminiscent of Undertale, which is a bit ironic given how much of an influence Moon was on that game.

Stray Children actually released in Japan last year, but only on Nintendo Switch, and an English localisation was promised right from its announcement. The bad news is that there’s still no exact date in place just yet. It’ll arrive sometime in 2025, at least, and we’re basically halfway through the year already. No, you’re having a crisis about the passage of time, bog off, go and wishlist Stray Children on Steam or something.

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