A Cancelled Game Boy Advance RPG Made By Metal Slug Devs is Coming Back From The Dead
It’s not everyday a game made by well-known developers that was completed but never released gets resurrected by those developers, but that’s exactly what’s happening with Yo-kai Buster Navinosuke. Initially created for the GBA by the original team behind the Metal Slug franchise, it’s currently being rebuilt for the Nintendo Switch with the aim to release in 2026.
Yo-kai Buster Navinosuke is set in an alternate ancient Japan and follows apprentice onmyoji (mechanical robot) Navinosuke as he solves problems caused by yokai (the collective name given to creatures of Japanese folklore). The game includes over 150 types of yokai and features a story and pixel art by Akio (R-Type, Metal Slug).
“Yo-kai Buster Navinosuke tells the tale of a fearless onmyoji who rises to protect the ancient land of Zipangu from the menace of evil yokai,” the studio behind the game, Kohachi, said on the game’s official site. “Turn countless yokai into loyal shikigami (servant spirit) and face off against the forces of darkness.”
GBA GPS RPG
The majority of Metal Slug games are sidescrolling platformers/shooters, so a more traditional JRPG was something of a curveball for the developers 20 years ago, but one that noted game developer and artist Akio Oyabu said was welcomed, in an enlightening post he made to X (Twitter) on June 12, 2025.
“Navinosuke started as a project that started with a rather ambitious concept of connecting a GPS unit to the Game Boy Advance,” he said. He then revealed that the original pitch was for an RPG that had players out and about in the real world finding great figures from history that would then appear in the game.
“When I saw the proposal, I suggested that ‘this would definitely be more interesting if it was about monsters,’ and I had them change the theme from great figures to monsters,” Akio added.
“However, midway through development, talk of the GPS unit fell through, and the crucial core element of ‘walking around the country and meeting yokai’ became impossible to realize. The survival of the game itself was in jeopardy, but development continued after modifying it so that it could be played without GPS linkage, and it was completed, but due to various circumstances, ‘Navinosuke’ was ultimately shelved.”
Kids Love Monsters
Akio is once again leading development of the game which is getting updated to better suit modern gamers, in terms of some of the UI and gameplay being redesigned to be more modern, while retaining as much of the charm of the original pixel art and presentation as possible.
In Yo-kai Buster Navinosuke, players can travel around and fight or otherwise collect yokai. Then, they can assemble teams of monsters and use them to fight and capture other yokai. Each has diverse skills, allowing for multiple strategic team-ups and complementary abilities.
Part of the game’s charm is its story, and colorful roster of monsters. Akio revealed that his daughters, as youngsters, loved to playtest Navinosuke as they found it “scary, strange and fun.”
“Recently, my adult daughter had suddenly started talking about the story of Navinosuke, a game she played a long time ago, as if possessed by something,” Akio said.
“Every time I heard my daughter say, ‘I want to meet those yokai,’ I felt a sense of loneliness that I never got to share it with the world. But lo and behold! The day when my daughter will be reunited with those yokai is just around the corner! I never dreamed that this day would come.”
The last word on the game also goes to Akio: “If you ever get your hands on this game, please play it with a pure heart, just like my daughter did back then.”
