Stray Children: Moon Creator Yoshiro Kimura's New RPG

Yoshiro Kimura, the head of Onion Games, has released a new RPG titled Stray Children. The game serves as a spiritual successor and subversion of his 1997 classic, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure. Kimura's return to the RPG genre was influenced by the connection between Moon and Toby Fox's Undertale.

Stray Children follows a young boy transported into a video game world. The project required significant development time, marking a shift from the smaller titles Onion Games has produced over the last decade. Kimura describes the game as a niche experience that rewards players familiar with his previous work.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, originally released in 1997 for the PlayStation 1, is described by Kimura as an "oddball" RPG. The game subverts traditional genre tropes by casting the player as a child who enters a Dragon Quest-like world to rescue the souls of monsters killed by the supposed "hero."

The game features unique mechanics that set it apart from standard RPGs. It utilizes a seven-day time schedule similar to Majora's Mask and replaces a traditional soundtrack with an in-game music player featuring tracks from 90s Japanese underground bands. Due to its esoteric nature, Onion Games later released the original manual online to help new players understand mechanics like the timer and sudden collapses.

Despite its complexity, Moon gained a dedicated following. Its profile was significantly boosted when Toby Fox, creator of Undertale, cited it as a major inspiration for his own work. The similarities between the two games are evident, creating a link between Kimura and Fox.

The development of Stray Children was driven by Kimura's long-standing desire to create an RPG. Since founding Onion Games ten years ago, Kimura had considered making one but hesitated due to the resources required for hit points and experience systems. He also doubted his ability to fund such a project via Kickstarter, given his relative lack of fame at the time.

Kimura eventually decided to proceed without compromise, prioritizing the game he wanted to make over commercial concerns. The narrative of Stray Children mirrors Moon in that a young boy with a dog-like face is convinced by a stranger to leave his home and enter a video game world. Kimura describes Stray Children as a subversion of Moon, which was itself a subversion of RPGs.

The mutual respect between Kimura and Toby Fox played a role in the game's creation. After Fox acknowledged Moon as an inspiration, the two met and discussed their games. This friendship seemingly encouraged Kimura to return to the RPG format.

Yoshiro Kimura is a veteran developer with over 25 years of experience in the industry. His credits include work on Romancing Saga 2 and 3, No More Heroes, and Little King's Story, as well as co-creating Moon: Remix RPG Adventure.

He currently leads Onion Games, a studio that has operated for a decade. The studio is known for a catalog of "silly games" such as Million Onion Hotel and Black Bird. They also gained global attention for localizing and re-releasing Moon on the Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Kimura notes that Stray Children can be enjoyed as a standalone title, but many of its best moments rely on the player's knowledge of Moon. This approach makes the game a niche experience, but one that reflects Kimura's uncompromising artistic vision.