Update #2 [Thu 30th Nov, 2023 14:30 GMT]: Good-Feel's Ganbare Goemon spiritual successor Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitaroi non Sainan!! is now available in Japan on the Nintendo Switch eShop and Amazon Japan.
The game reportedly follows a young raccoon boy named Bakeru as they travel across all 47 prefectures of Japan, encountering various twists on popular Japanese folktales and fairytales.
Here are some more screenshots of the game taken from its store page:
Update #1 [Fri 1st Sep, 2023 10:00 BST]: Good Feel has released another trailer for its Ganbare Goemon spiritual successor Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitarou no Sainan!! and has revealed that the game will be launching in Japan on November 30th, 2023.
There's still no news on whether it will receive a Western release in the future, but we'll obviously try and keep you updated should that change at any point.
Original Story [Thu 22nd Jun, 2023 11:00 BST]: Yesterday's Nintendo Direct saw a lot of great announcements from a Super Mario RPG Remake to a new Wario Ware game to a brand new 2D Mario game called Super Mario Bros. Wonder. But if you were tuned into the Japanese direct, you would have seen yet another exciting reveal that was sadly missing from the Western livestream.
As spotted by GoNintendo, Good-Feel, the developer of games like Yoshi's Woolly World and Kirby's Epic Yarn, finally revealed its Ganbare Goemon successor Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitarou no Sainan!! for Nintendo Switch (which it first teased back in 2020).
Ganbare Goemon, in case you're unaware, is a series of games from Konami that was based on the legendary Japanese outlaw and had its origins in the arcades with 1986's Mr. Goemon.
It later went on to spawn a number of sequels and spin-offs for Japanese home computers and consoles, with only a handful of these ever being localized to the West (most notably The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon). Nevertheless, it has still managed to build a strong cult following internationally through word of mouth.
The last non-pachislot-related game, Ganbare Goemon: Tōkaidōchū Ōedo Tengurikaeshi no Maki, was released all the way back in 2005 for the Nintendo DS, and since then fans have been hoping to see the series make a return. This latest announcement, however, seems like the next best thing.
After all, Good-Feel is a company that was originally formed by the ex-Konami employee Ebisu Etsunobu (who was the person who lent his name and likeness to Goemon's ridiculous sidekick Ebisumaru and has been involved with the games since Ganbare Goemon 2 on the Nintendo Famicom). The studio also contains a bunch of other ex-Goemon developers and is based in Osaka, which is the cultural home of the Goemon series (the series pulled inspiration from the Manzai-style of stand-up mostly associated with the Osaka region).
At the moment, there's sadly no word on whether this new successor will come to the West, but we have to hope that the incredible response to the trailer online will convince the developers to localize it in the future. We can dream, right?