Atsushi Fujio & Yasuhiro Ichihashi - Survival Kids (1999)

Composer: Atsushi Fujio & Yasuhiro Ichihashi

Console: Game Boy Colour

Game Release Date: 1999-06-17

Bootleg Release Date: 2020-07-28

Ripper: Zophar

Runtime: 51:33, 31 Tracks

I've been out camping for the past 5 days out in the wilderness. I tried to get a post up before I left back on thursday but there wasn't enough time. We will have to save the Daxter OST for later. 

While I was up there I had brought up my DSi with flash cart and my modified 3DS to just play some small games in the downtime. The two main games I brought with me were Survival Kids for the Gameboy Colour (run on Lameboy) and Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Revenge (run as a VC injection). I managed to beat both games (Crash Purple still has a little bit of postgame left) in the time I was out there. While I am not going to post the soundtrack for Crash Purple (it's not that good) I will instead post up the other one I played, Survival Kids. 

Survival Kids is a game boy colour game and the first in the Survival Kids / Lost in Blue series of games for the Gameboy and NDS. Each game features out protagonists getting shipwrecked or stranded on an island. You then have to survive on the island and find a way off (or just live there indefinitely). The games protagonists aren't really related to each other and its just a new group of protagonists each time but the previous main characters do appear in cameos. 

This game is a top-down with the main character exploring the island, trying to reduce fatigue, hunger and dehydration. There's plenty to do on the island between fishing, exploring caves, cooking food, shaking trees, fighting off predators like wolves and bobcats and more. The game is actually really similar in gameplay to the Oracle Zelda games. It is instead based on a grid-based system wherein things only happen when you move. This acts as a saving grace because you can easily plan out your next move when your being chased or dying of hunger and need to conserve as many steps as you can. I didn't find the game particularly hard but I almost always had to reset when faced with a wolf or bobcat. The only option is to just run. The kid is not prepared to handle beasts like that. 

Spoilers are pretty much a must for all my posts so if you don't want to see it probably don't read this paragraph. The game has an overarching plot that can vastly change the ending. There are a total of 8 possible endings that range from the protagonist dying at sea to saving another kid that got stranded and eventually marrying them. I unfortunately could only get ending 5 or ending 3. None of the available guides stated that after you rescue the second kid that you have to beat the game in a certain amount of time otherwise ending 8 becomes impossible. I don't mind. Ending 3 isn't that bad. I ended up playing for a total of 67 in game days. The game can be a bit cryptic at times so I won't lie about using a walkthrough. There was definitely lots I could trimmed in the run. I don't mind though. I had a great time playing it. 

I never died of hunger, dehydration or fatigue. Only thing that ever killed me were wolves/bobcats/bears, etc. The island was plentiful enough that it never really got to me. There was even so much freshwater around that I could have easily beaten the game without ever using the canteen. I maybe used it once to replenish thirst. 

The music made use of the Gameboy Colour's 8bit sound chip. It's very similar to NES music. It made me really nostalgic for that kind of lo-bit, chiptune sound the Oracle games had. The Oracle soundtrack was more technical but both soundtracks achieve that kind of nostalgia that I enjoy from that era. If I had Survival Kids when I was a child I would have loved it as much as I did the Oracle games. 

The soundtrack and game sound effects were composed by Yasuhiro Ichihashi and Atsushi Fujio. Both men here have extensive video game music history and have been active since the 80s. Atsushi Fujio is known for composing many different Konami games such as The Adventures of Bayou Billy and Castlevania: Bloodlines. Similarly, Yasuhiro Ichihashi has also been working for Konami for some time has scored classics like Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia and Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. 

I've included some extra stuff in the download as well. You'll find some photos of the game guide, cartridges, and art I found. I couldn't find a PDF of the guide anywhere but maybe one day it will surface. I may buy it one day. 

The cover I briefly put together from a scan of the cover of the guide I found on a Japanese auction site. I couldn't link the post because every time I go to it I get a 403 forbidden message. 

This version I am sharing is sourced from the below linked YouTube video with each track split and tagged appropriately. Afaik that video is using the Zophar rip but I could be wrong. 

Original Rip: https://www.zophar.net/music/gameboy-gbs/survival-kids-[stranded-kids]

SnowBlue Retagged: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvS1k1Q2pJSVMjLTQxaUlzNkNILUpEYmQ4Y1ZBT2NmcUpKRU1xeGdFTmlxSWZSNTNvMlhNMA==

Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMB1nW9bYLw

p@ss: kenmeryandbub