Do the names Survival Kids and Lost in Blue ring any bells? I wouldn’t fault you if both sound foreign, outside of the former’s inclusion in the Nintendo Switch 2 launch lineup. I, myself, had only the faintest recollection of these past games, mostly triggered by seeing pictures of their box art. As it turns out, Survival Kids on the Switch 2 is actually a series revival of the aforementioned Konami games that once appeared on the GameBoy Color, Nintendo DS, and Wii. Finding this old school connection to the Silent Hill publisher’s launch title for the Switch 2 was surprising, and piqued my curiosity in regards to what form the survival game would take after its extended absence and how it would justify its revived existence.
Survival Kids (2025) is a family-friendly survival game that sees players island hopping across the backs of Whurtles (read: whale turtles), solving puzzles and partaking in light exploration along the way. It’s a brightly-lit romp across tropical locales, leveraging streamlined mechanics to keep a breezy, sessionable flow. However, it’s low-lift, low stakes nature also makes for a rather shallow, repetitive experience that doesn’t seem to have a standout characteristic. Given the importance of quality launch games to consumers when considering being day-one buyers of a new console, I can’t see how Survival Kids adds much value to its spot in the currently limited lineup.
Identity Crisis
The resurrected Survival Kids takes much of its past allurements, which were already contested by some, and strips back its identity to nearly the point of lacking a single defining characteristic. The essence of its former self has been distilled into a generic survival game that just happens to be wearing the same name tag. The newest iteration offers up a slew of survival-related to-do lists to be completed across a collection of miniature island environments. Upon landing on a new island, resources must be gathered to establish the player base. Anyone with a loose familiarity of any survival game ever made knows this resource gathering requires a ton of chopping trees and breaking rocks. And that’s exactly what players will be doing much of the time in Survival Kids.
Each themed island possesses its own set of crafting and puzzle-solving objectives. It always kicks off the same way: gather the necessary materials to establish the base camp. Then it’s off on the winding trails to seek out the rest of the island’s secrets. The early moments show how players will work together to craft equipment that will aid them in conquering the islands’ tests. This starts with a fishing rod, which can be used for more than fishing; it can attach to objects to pull them up to your level or get them out of the water, if dropped. Then came the trampoline, providing access to higher ledges. These craftable items play an integral role in overcoming the present obstacles, and they make for some fun moments with friends.
More Friends, (Slightly) More Fun
Survival Kids is best played in co-op, which can be done via two-player splitscreen or four-player online, but it also manages to partially work against itself in the company of other players. In what should be considered a smart move, the game scales its mechanics based on the number of players present. In single player, this means chopping down trees and breaking up rocks is relatively quick. However, the individual actions slow down when another player joins. The design is supposed to encourage cooperation, I imagine, but if the team decides to divide and conquer they’ll quickly learn that something as simple as chopping a tree takes notably longer. And this feeds into the growing tedium as Survival Kids reveals the full extent of its tricks early on. Even with the occasionally fun puzzle, most activities lean toward chore than entertainment—the stamina system, which can be temporarily boosted through cooked food, only furthers the pacing problems at times.
Although there are not any hard failure conditions, Survival Kids does contain special objectives and unlockables to entice completionists. Stars are earned for each level which directly correlate to how many special objects were collected and the speediness of the final completion time. There are also glyphs scattered about that unlock additional cosmetics for the player character. At the very least, these provide an overarching goal for players because when is fashion not the real end game anyways?
Survival Kids isn’t necessarily a bad game; it’s just not memorable. It’s a functional experience that provides a guided, sessionable survival game experience. But it’s also one that fails to define itself in a meaningful way that would result in people exchanging their experiences. It may bring joy to newer and/or younger gamers as a way of onboarding them into the wonderful world of video games, but I also don’t see its scaled back approach appealing to longtime fans. In the end, Survival Kids is a serviceable, short-lived distraction that is begging for added depth.
Survival Kids Review Verdict
Survival Kids: Survival Kids brings a sessionable survival experience to the Switch 2 in a surprising series revival. Although co-op moments manage to rise above the solo affair, it doesn't do much to justify its return, offering a mixed bag that loses momentum too quickly. – Joshua
[Editor’s Note: Survival Kids was reviewed on Switch 2 and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]
