The Kids We Were Review – The Nostalgia We Had

I want to thank developer GAGEX for sending us a copy of this game to review.

Back in September Source Gaming attended BitSummit in Kyoto and got the opportunity to try out the Switch port of the award-winning mobile adventure game The Kids We Were. We only got to play a bit of the 5-6 hour game but as the full release is upon us, we’ve had the opportunity to play the game through its entirety. Did it make us cry like it promised? Not quite, but it was an emotional time with a few caveats.

Story

As a story-driven adventure game, let’s discuss that story first. We won’t spoil anything that happens but the main premise involves a kid on a mission to solve the 7 mysteries of this small Japanese town and deals with several dark subjects, such as death and the guilt-inducing idea of time traveling to fix past misfortunes. Thankfully, due to using a group of 11 year old kids as the focus point, the story isn’t presented in a dark way. These kids react to heavy stuff with charming naivete, and make fun remarks that help to break up its more serious moments. There is some real heart here and even though we didn’t grow up in the Japanese suburbs it still managed to make us nostalgic for a time when we were kids.

But despite its good writing it can sometimes feel slow and this is definitely an issue as the majority of this game will just involve pressing the A button repeatedly to get through long moments of dialogue.

Gameplay

Which brings us the gameplay. This is an adventure game, but really it is more like a visual novel broken up by moments of exploration. This exploration does a good job of keeping the game from feeling like a book and giving the player some control, the freedom to investigate every nook and cranny of his small suburb.

And the player is incentivised to do so, not just to collect information that will help advance the story but to also find the many collectibles sprinkled throughout the town in the form of low-poly items and coins (that can be used in the gachapon machines to get more low-poly items). There’s no story incentive to do this but fans of Super Smash Bros. trophies and items from the 80s will probably get a kick out of all these. With their nostalgia-ladened descriptions it is clear what feeling the developers wanted players to feel from these and it comes through even if you didn’t grow up eating japanese sweets and buying mecha figurines.

With that said, the game has two problems, a lack of ‘action’ and a lack of balance. By action, we don’t mean it needs fighting or platforming or anything like that, rather just having dialogue options could make the player more involved. There are around 10 main areas in the game to explore and they are all quite small. If you avoid the collectables and focus on the story you’ll likely find yourself only controlling the game about 10-30 seconds for every 3 minutes of cutscenes, give or take, which may not feel like enough.

The collectibles are clearly meant to break this up and make exploring longer but if you want everything you might find the balance of dialogue to action tipped very much towards the other extreme. Coins change location per chapter and if you miss them they are gone for good. While the game does tell you how many coins are in each area in a given chapter you have to go to that area to find out, and it doesn’t tell you if there are other collectables around. This ends up leading to the player spending most of their time hugging the same walls in the same 10 areas every single chapter, checking every nook and cranny again and again and again until it begins to feel like this is the main focus of the game. Obviously it’s not but it eventually began to feel like a grind and the lack of ability to fast travel meant that you might walk from one side of town to the other just to discover there was nothing there and you need to go all the way back. The balance is just off if you want 100%.

That said, at least the town you’re exploring is good to look at.

Presentation
The game looks very good on the switch and the voxel art is cute and fun. The animations are practically non-existent but the characters are all distinct and thanks to the dialogue and simple movements it is easy to tell what everyone is feeling. We think where the presentation truly succeeds is how the game creates a cozy, nostalgic, feeling in the player. A combination of comforting music, good use of camera and gorgeous lighting helps to make the game look “spacious” despite technically being made of mostly corridors.

The dialogue sections could use a bit more energy. Character dialogue all looks the same and the lack of animation means you only have their names to inform you who is speaking and because so many scenes can take place in a single locale for long periods it can feel too long for its own good. That said, there are some cutscenes that are surprisingly stunning for how simple it all is, so it’s really a series of highs and mids, rather than any lows.

The Kids We Were is a game all about nostalgia, a game about yearning for the yesteryears and making what could have been a reality. It’s an encouraging message about trying to live your life without regret and doing the right thing in the moment. But, it’s also a game about kids coming to grips with the bitter reality of mortality, the cruelty behind the suffering of other kids your age and making sure to appreciate the heartwarming company of friends, especially in bad times. It’s a game for both adults and children and one we do recommend for player who want a quick, emotional and heartfelt trip into 1980s Japan.

Once again, a special thanks to developer GAGEX for the review code. This review was actually done by two of us: myself, NantenJex, and Voyager, and we both had a good time playing through the title and sharing our thoughts on what worked and what didn’t. If you are interested, at time of recording the game will go live on Switch in early December and on steam in January so check it out. A special thank you to all of our patrons on screen right now and you can support us by becoming a member yourself, sharing our video with friends, commenting and always remembering to return to the source.