Review: Metro Quester: Osaka Is More of a Good Thing

Back in 2023, KEMCO handled console versions of Thousand Games’ RPG Metro Quester, and it was pretty great! It was an unorthodox, post-apocalyptic game that really felt unique due to its approach. Metro Quester: Osaka, its sequel, isn’t really all that different, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s more of a good thing! This time, I’d even say it feels more welcoming to those who might be unsure how to approach it.

The world ended. Some remain, fighting against the monster, charting what’s left of the world, and searching for resources. In Metro Quester: Osaka, players find themselves in a new region of the decimated Japan. After selecting an initial squad of teammates, your warrior set out to scavenge and survive, perhaps also learning more about the region and finding more survivors as they do.

Did you like Metro Quester? I hope you did, because Metro Quester: Osaka is basically that same experience and elements! It’s just taking place in a new region of Japan. There are bodies of water you need to cross! Instead of 24 characters, you have 32! There are more monsters! More dungeon! Also, something I honestly appreciated, which is more tutorial and text. 

The original Metro Quester, as great as it is, ended up being an RPG with little text and background to it. Much of it is about the experience. You explore the region, uncover secrets, find resources, fight monsters, and survive. Metro Quester: Osaka has a little more story to it. The introduction is a bit meatier and does a better job of explaining gameplay elements. Plenty is still left to your imagination. Just it feels like there’s a little extra to it, which is appreciated. 

But for the most part, the gameplay is untouched. Which is fantastic, since it is so unusual and entertaining. You wander through the world, digging through more prone pieces of ground and testing walls to see if they’re solid, to chart what the new world looks like. As you do, you may find reliable search spots to potentially find food or resources. Maybe you’ll even be lucky enough to find new equipment, an extra ally, or another campsite. While your overall goal is to explore it all, your weekly one is to find 100 food so you can actually keep playing and stay alive. (Though if you want to move campsites, you need an additional 30 food to cover that move.) Since the areas are corrupted and polluted, you can only perform so many actions per each excursion and day. This prevents you from clearing all of the region in a run. Well that, and the monsters and monster nests can also appear both on land and, when you head in a canoe, in the waters around you.

Said fights don’t proceed like a typical turn-based KEMCO RPG, though there are those sorts of elements in Metro Quester: Osaka. You set your party of five’s actions before starting the battle. You need to take into account resources and the amount of actions each one can perform. Then, you opt to start a battle and it plays out automatically in front of you. Everything you dictated people do? They do it! Just monsters also act between them, there are no stop gaps, and you have to hope your selections are sound and resources don’t run out. I did notice that between the initial entry and this one, both some ordinary enemies and bosses in the last third of the game might feel a little unreasonable due to the scale of attacks they’ll use. The equipment options you can acquire feel pretty strong and starting with the default “balanced” party does put you in a pretty strong starting position, from what I found. 

While getting to go through a new area with new class updates and additions with more equipment and enemies are all great things, there is one element that got to me once I was more established in the adventure. Metro Quester: Osaka improves on the original KEMCO and Thousand Games RPG in many ways, but I felt like the setting maybe wasn’t one of them. It’s interesting to make watery sections such a priority and so prolific! However, I think perhaps it’s more interesting in concept than execution. When I was faced with so much water, I didn’t find it as thrilling as my adventures on land. It just doesn’t end up being as interesting mechanically or visually. 

Still, Metro Quester: Osaka is an absolutely great game and follow-up to the original KEMCO and Thousand Games RPG. It maintains the same feeling of desperation as you strive to find resources. There’s the same thrill as you uncover new paths or helpful items. The battle system still feels really different and efficient. I highly recommend it and, if someone hasn’t played the original, might even say to play this entry if you only can pick up one of them.

Metro Quester: Osaka is available on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.