Last year, indie developer Kohachi Studio, formed by members of Nazca’s Metal Slug team, announced its 2D retro RPG Navinosuke: The Yo-Kai Buster for the Nintendo Switch. Scheduled to launch in 2026, Navinosuke is a canceled project originally created as a “geolocation-based” RPG for the Game Boy Advance, and is finally being revived by its creators after 20 years of silence. In a recent X post, the game’s artist Akio Oyabu shared an update on the development progress, discussing some of the quality-of-life changes that were made to the 20-year-old game to make it more accessible for modern gamers – specifically, the addition of objective and event markers.
Revisiting a recent discussion he had with studio representative Shinano Ishiguro, Akio was surprised to see that the new gameplay footage features “GO” and “event” markers which weren’t present in the original game back when they developed it for the Game Boy Advance. Looking at the new gameplay screenshots posted by Akio, the “event” markers in the game seem to point players towards interactable objects, while the “GO” markers serve as waymarks guiding to objectives.
As Ishiguro explained to him, “All recent games have this. If you don’t implement it, people will get angry at you.” This is why, for the modern release of Navinosuke, Kohachi implemented a “kindness system,” which will allow the players to toggle the markers on if they get stuck, or off if they prefer to play the game on its original “difficulty.”
“With RPGs back in the day, it was pretty much normal to get stuck if you forget the story. There also weren’t any maps, and it was common to end up wandering around lost for hours. And the only way to push through was by taking notes and making hand-drawn maps,” Akio writes. While he says he prefers the “sadistic” RPGs, he understands that the ages have changed, and he says he even might toggle the “kindness system” on when he’s running short on time.
However, as a small rebellion against the blatant “GO” markers, Akio decided to implement “hints” directly into the game’s mechanics. Apparently, Navinosuke features a “crow pet” that will guide you to your objectives more smoothly. Though, the crow will likely not be available from the start, and players will probably have to grind a bit before they’re able to buy it from the game’s shop.
Navinosuke: The Yo-Kai Buster’s is set to release in 2026 for the Nintendo Switch.
