Ah, the lush greens and secluded roads of Akita Prefecture. It’s a nice little place for Shinnosuke Nohara to spend his upcoming summer days. This little five-year-old boy who frequently goes by the name “Shin-chan” (honourific and all) finds himself a little far from home after his dad, Hiroshi, gets a new assignment to develop a new foods service. Bags packed and now closer to the countryside, players will talk to new people, collect lots of bugs stones fish and what-have-you, and more importantly: save a strange coal town from the hands of a cartoon villain in developer h.a.n.d. inc and Neos Corporation’s 3D adventure ‘Shin-chan: Shiro and the Coal Town’.
This’ll be a quick look over of the game before it launches next week, covering the first three days of the game’s story. If a laid-back, amusing little narrative adventure is what you need right now, keep on reading because that’s exactly what Shin-chan is all about.
Shin-chan: Shiro and the Coal Town is a 3D adventure game where you primarily spend your time speaking to folks around the village of Akita and the Coal Town. Folks will ask things of little Shin-chan, usually to deliver things or find them specimens for them to finish whatever doohickey they’re working on—all in the name of progressing the game’s story. When you’re not chatting it up, you’re keeping an eye out on the ground for shiny things you can catch with your net, pick up, or trolling nearby rivers to go fishing. You won’t be able to explore either town in its entirety right away as, true to the genre, you’ll have plenty of people blocking paths to make sure Shinnosuke doesn’t get hurt (or just break something I suppose).
As you can imagine from looking at Shin-chan, he’s an amusing little kid. This five-year-old is very good at collecting things, having fun, and making everyone repeat themselves because he doesn’t understand half the words they’re saying. And though all of the game takes place through his perspective, the game gives ample room for the supporting cast to express themselves. Usually through cutscenes of course, like when Shin-chan’s dad goes on air to explain his coming work and how you can see his nervousness turn to a surprising bit of enthusiasm once he gets over his stage fright. We have grandpa Ginnosuke who is a laidback old man that loves his grandson and is a bit of a rascal himself, a near spitting image of Shin-chan. Besides the rest of the family and Akita Village, there is also the Coal Town and its denizens, and how Shin-chan is the only one that seems to know of this place…
Now if you’re not aware of the series, it’s a kid’s television and manga series that has been running since the early 90s. It’s an absolutely adorable little series thanks to Shin-chan’s shenanigans and I got quite a few chuckles out of the cast as they try to explain to Shinnosuke that they didn’t refer to a “derriere” anytime they try to explain something to him—even from kids around his age. Crude humour pervades this game and, because I still enjoy fart jokes, Shiro and the Coal Town has been an amusing venture thus far.
This game is absolutely beautiful. The characters use 3D models and are backdropped against hand-drawn 2D environments with shadows baked in. The image quality is crisp as can be, especially during the nighttime when the stars come out. Shin-chan: Shiro and the Coal Town has a day and night cycle that progresses as you move between sections of the game world and you’ll get to see beautiful sights of rice and vegetable fields, forests, and the like. Couple in all that with excellent animation work and a smooth 60 frames per second (besides some glitches here and there) and Shin-chan’s game is a sight to behold.
Shin-chan: Shiro and the Coal Town launches on PC via Steam and the Nintendo Switch in western territories on the 24th of October. It will feature multiple languages for subtitles (including English) and dubbing in Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Hang tight for our full review of the game—and while you’re here, give our interview with the game’s producer Akira Nagashima right thisaway! ∎
