I would never have guessed a relatively unknown, long-dormant franchise would be one of the few new Switch 2 launch games, yet here we are. Survival Kids is a reboot of an old Konami title for the Game Boy Color from 1999. Most of you may never have even heard of it until the launch of the Switch 2 brought it back from obscurity.
However, I had heard about this game over the years (many, many times) from a friend who said it was one of the best games they had ever played. Last year, I caved and got the original to try it out. Survival Kids on the GBC is an RPG where you build, craft, and learn to survive. With cute aesthetics akin to Link's Awakening, I soon settled into this charming adventure and had a lot of fun.
When this rebooted version was announced, I knew I had to play it too. And with Nintendo recently adding the original to the NSO service, everyone can at least try the original hidden gem for themselves. But you aren't here for all that. I'll get straight to the point. Survival Kids on the Switch 2 might be a must-buy game.
But there's a catch...
The premise in Survival Kids is simple: explore the island, collect a bunch of stuff, craft some items, and leave for the next island. However, each island adds more to your task list than the previous one. You may have been tasked with finding wood to make a fire and cooking food on one island. Next, you could be asked to assemble an elaborate sequence of trampolines to reach higher ground while using your fishing rod or fan ala Breath of the Wild, to activate an ancient moving wall.
Survival Kids likes to mix things up and slowly builds upon everything you have learned so far. Each island gets progressively larger and more complex as you complete them, creating a nice, steadily rising challenge. Your goal is to clear the storm by... lighting up a lighthouse with orbs. Yep.
Gameplay is pretty simple here; there aren't any complex button combos or pages-long recipes to remember, and if you do forget anything, there are usually prompts close by for you to read as a refresher. Minor puzzles are also throughout the many islands; the challenge increases as you progress. The only real survival-type element you need to monitor is your stamina level, which is required for climbing higher places or moving things faster. But there is usually food at hand to boost you up to 10 (the highest level), and nothing too taxing came my way, though younger gamers may need help with trickier sections.
And that's the best thing about Survival Kids: you can play the game with 3 friends and work together as a team. I am not a huge fan of multiplayer games (unless it's Splatoon 3), but it is almost baked into the game's core. Yes, you can play the game solo, but team up with a friend and you'll have a much better time.
Tasks can be halved and even sped up in some instances, such as cutting down trees for wood or breaking stones, which can be done much quicker when playing with others. Game Chat came in clutch for a game like this, where communication is key. I played with a friend (yes, the one who loved the original), and we had many laughs in the early hours as we tried to carry a log together back to our base camp.
Once you unlock the fan and the canon, the complexity increases again. I even stumbled across puzzles I couldn’t figure out at first. The narrator eventually gives you hints when you are ready to call it quits, which is very helpful, even for more seasoned gamers!
Another thing to point out, adding to my dislike for multiplayer, is that I am not a huge fan of survival games. The genre just creates too much anxiety in me as I worry over which thing to prioritise. In Survival Kids, the wholesome and charming nature layered over the top of every part keeps me from sweating as I decide whether to eat more food to climb the climbing net or craft a trampoline instead. Yeah, ok, so the perils here aren't quite as tense as others in the genre, but that water still rises and you could end up sunk!
Outside of crafting and surviving, you can find items to customise your character on the menu screen; I am attempting to make my guy look as much like Rufio from Hook as possible. But the choice of how your character looks is up to you, provided you find the hidden glyphs around the map and collect challenges to unlock new items.
There are also bestiaries to fill up by finding new fish, and a compendium listing every item you have discovered. Survival Kids isn't complex at all, outside of fixing your raft on each island, collecting treasures (we will get back to this later), and completing challenges, there isn't much more involved. Yet that is part of the charm here. If the cozy genre needed a survival game under its banner, Survival Kids is the one.
That's the good out of the way, unfortunately, Survival Kids has a few things that just didn't feel right for me.
As I detailed above, playing online is a great time, especially if you and your friends use Game Chat to communicate and work things out. However, switching to playing solo is a different story.
I tried solo mode, and it drained all the fun I had previously had. Tasks I had fun with before became mundane, and the gameplay became repetitive when I wasn't working with a team. Hazards like the towers that shoot purple blobs at you and the bomb flowers that explode as you walk past went from creating hilarious moments when a friend gets knocked off to laborious obstacles that just hinder progress with the outrageously huge hit boxes your characters have.
Lastly, there comes a point when you get close to clearing the storm and seem to be approaching the end, and Survival Kids decides to pad things out. If you have not collected enough treasures, you must return to the levels and replay them. I have never been a fan of this gating style in games, and collectibles should always be optional. It was a shame it cropped up here and soured the experience further after playing a few hours solo.
So, would I recommend Survival Kids on the Switch 2? Yes, but only if you plan on playing the entire game with friends. The solo experience here just isn't enjoyable, and it highlights the game's issues that are negated while having fun as a team.
I hope groups of friends take a chance on this game and play it through, as it can be very fun. Younger players may enjoy it too as their first steps into the survival genre, but for those who don't play online, you would be better off playing the original on NSO.
