Navinosuke: The Yo-kai Buster is an upcoming RPG that originally began development in the early 2000s and has now been revived by Kohachi Studio. Earlier this year, we had a chance to talk to Shinano Ishiguro, the director of Kohachi Studio, to learn more about this game and its history.
The history behind Navinosuke is fascinating. What led to the revival of an unreleased game originally developed over two decades ago?
Hello, I’m Shinano Ishiguro, representative and director of KOHACHI STUDIO.
Back when we were still working at SNK (then known as SNK Playmore), some of our senior colleagues from the Metal Slug team told us, “Right after we finished developing Metal Slug 3, the entire team moved to another company for a few years and made an RPG, but for various reasons, it was never released.” They then showed us the design documents for Navinosuke.
The concept was incredibly appealing. Naturally, it made us want to play the game more than anything. Unfortunately, our senior colleagues no longer had the playable data, so we never got the chance.
Even after leaving SNK, I couldn’t let go of that feeling. Twenty years passed as I continued looking for an opportunity to somehow bring Navinosuke back to life.
By then, many of our senior colleagues had left SNK. I didn’t want their games to become something people could never play again, so I founded KOHACHI STUDIO with the goal of developing Black Finger JET, a spiritual successor to Metal Slug. Fortunately, we succeeded in reuniting the core members of the Metal Slug team.
I felt that the time had finally come to revive Navinosuke.
Determined to experience this legendary lost game, I consulted various people in the industry and searched for a way to contact the company that owned the rights to Navinosuke.
Eventually, I managed to get in touch with a key person at the company. However, we discovered that the original completed game data had already been discarded and could no longer be found. All that remained were scattered, incomplete fragments of data and a collection of inconsistent design documents.
Fortunately, KOHACHI STUDIO has developers who worked on the original game. We figured that we could simply recreate whatever was missing.
After an enormous amount of hard work, Navinosuke was finally brought back to life in the modern era.
At BitSummit, someone who had playtested Navinosuke externally back in the day suddenly appeared at our booth and tried the game. They told us, “I’m genuinely happy to be able to play a game that had been on my mind all these years. It brought back so many memories from that time. On top of that, the parts that were missing back then have now been further developed.”
The game is still in development, and we intend to keep refining its quality for as long as time allows.
We’re now moving forward with development with confidence in what we’re creating.
What are the biggest differences between the original version of Navinosuke and the rebuilt version that will be released now?
The original Game Boy Advance (GBA) version was designed around the system’s resolution of 240 × 160 pixels. For the rebuilt version, we’ve adjusted the camera to pull back slightly, expanding the field of view and allowing us to display finer pixel details, effectively increasing the visual resolution.
The original GBA version also had to sacrifice many animations and visual effects due to storage limitations.
With those restrictions no longer in place, we’ve been able to enhance the game in several ways to make it more enjoyable for modern players. These improvements include adding new character animations and using hand-drawn illustrations by akio for many of the battle effects.
The description of the combat mentions something called the Shikigami system. Could you go into more detail about what that is?
In this game, battles are fought using a team consisting of one main battle yokai and three support yokai.
The main battle yokai takes the lead in turn-based, command-driven combat, but players can activate the support yokai’s special abilities at any time of their choosing. By using these abilities strategically, players can gain an advantage in battle.
For example, if an enemy is about to unleash a powerful attack, players can interrupt with a defensive ability to avoid taking massive damage.
We refer to this overall mechanic as the Shikigami System.
Finally, if there’s one thing you want to make sure our readers know about Navinosuke: The Yo-kai Buster, what is it?
Navinosuke: The Yo-kai Buster features a wide variety of yokai, each with its own unique personality.
Of course, part of the fun lies in recruiting these yokai, building your own team, and setting off on an adventure. But I also hope players will discover what makes our team unique through the story, characters, pixel-art animations, music, and other aspects of the game. I encourage everyone to keep an eye on these elements as they play.
With this rebuilt version, we’re continuing development and making improvements with the goal of creating a game that modern players can fully enjoy, while preserving the charm of the original.
Navinosuke was created by some of the veteran SNK developers I admire and respect most as the head of KOHACHI STUDIO.
That’s precisely why I want to handle their work with care, preserving what they put into this game and taking responsibility for delivering it to players around the world.
After an incredibly long journey, we’ve finally reached the point where everyone will be able to play it.
Our entire team is committed to seeing this project through with the care it deserves, right to the very end. We hope you’ll look forward to Navinosuke: The Yo-kai Buster!
Navinosuke: The Yo-kai Buster is planned to be released in 2027.
