Review: Goodboy Galaxy (Switch) – A Brilliant GBA Throwback That Loves Taking Your Toys Away

You can teach an old dog new tricks

Fans of Metroidvanias are used to the genre’s design conventions: obtain new abilities, and tantalisingly inaccessible areas of the map gradually open up. What sets Goodboy Galaxy apart is that, despite giving you upgrades, its design is ultimately far more interested in what happens when it takes things away.

Kickstarter-funded in 2021 after starting as a game jam project by homebrew developers with a love for the Game Boy Advance, the long-awaited Switch port oozes charm and looks wonderful on an OLED screen, feeling far more substantial than anything built for a handheld powered by two AA batteries has any right to.

Goodboy Galaxy is packed with collectibles, quests, and minigames, while its dense sci-fi maps loop back on themselves from left to right and top to bottom, often blending the gimmick-driven exploration of a Wario Land 4 level with the outlandish 'weird little guy' creature design of a Gak-coloured ’90s Nickelodeon cartoon.

Befriending such oddballs is also partly how you progress. Some hand over their ‘friendship cards’ immediately, while others require you to solve a problem for them elsewhere. It all plays out against a soundtrack full of synthy earworms that loop with a carefree, tinny quality that feels so accurate to the GBA era.

Going back to how it takes things away, Goodboy Galaxy structures its levels by having you pass through separate gates when entering that temporarily restrict your use of a blaster, shield, or jetpack. Playing as Maxwell, a spacefaring crash-landed pup, you’ll be rewarded for discovering how and where a map’s siloed paths converge.

Losing an ability is all part of the puzzle, and Goodboy Galaxy expects you to be clever. Without the jetpack’s extra lift, for example, a ledge that would normally be trivial can become completely inaccessible, while a no-blaster route forces you into dodging enemies and finding ways around obstacles you’d ordinarily shoot apart.

While each gate strips away a core ability until you reach its exit, permanent upgrades provide game-changing tools that keep exploration fresh, including a very Drill Dozer-inspired drillhead and a Shrink Module that reduces Maxwell’s size, letting him manoeuvre through tiny passages that have been hitherto inaccessible.

The game’s level layouts are meticulously designed, but what really makes them enjoyable to inhabit is the sheer abundance of character. Planets you visit are teeming with eccentric NPCs who have oddball quests to take up, as well as minigames that involve burger flipping, fishing, an arcade shooter, and rhythm sections.

There is a one-off platform sequence where you bait enemy lasers into destroying the floor beneath you, while another turns into a precision chase across pools of acid. Elsewhere, you’re using percussion blocks to shepherd little musical critters around the map. Goodboy Galaxy rarely lets any one mechanic overstay its welcome.

None of its diversions are especially substantial on their own, but it is impressive just how competently realised they are. Even brief story beats are sometimes given their own animated cinematics. The overall level of polish and modern snappiness is even more remarkable given that the game genuinely runs on Game Boy Advance hardware.

That said, the Switch version is infinitely more comfortable, especially during boss encounters and later platforming sequences that demand surprisingly precise inputs. That comfort matters, especially given that some boss encounters and later platforming sequences demand surprisingly precise inputs, particularly on shieldless routes where a single hit means instant death. Having previously dabbled with the GBA version, I found the game much better paired with a modern controller.

There was occasionally a sense of lost momentum during backtracking, particularly when you’re lost and just trying to figure out what the game wants next. Goodboy Galaxy has a marker system that flags an exclamation point over a route containing any unfinished business, but what you’re supposed to find is never simply spelt out.

While these markers do help by flagging routes with an active event or requirement, I still found myself wishing the hint system went a little further. There were times when I wanted to dip back in for a quick session, only to rerun the route and be left none the wiser about what objective the game actually wanted me to find.

For all the imagination poured into NPCs and environments, the basic enemy roster is comparatively limited, and its run-and-gun combat is mechanically simple, with jumps and charged shots. Traversal is hard-coded into the game design, but the combat itself isn’t deep enough to make retracing old ground consistently engaging.

For puzzle-box completionists and players who love peeking into every corner, there’s a lot to love here. Friendship cards, hidden passages, and optional diversions are tucked throughout its maps. The game rewards your memory as much as your curiosity, with old dead ends suddenly opening up as your toolkit expands.

The Switch version runs at a rock-solid 60fps in both handheld and docked modes, with the entire game presented in vibrant 16:9 widescreen. Rather than simply stretching or cropping the original 240×160 (3:2) GBA image, the port expands the visible play area horizontally and vertically so you can see more of the stage.

Conclusion

Goodboy Galaxy occasionally asks for more patience than it should, particularly when its backtracking and hint systems leave you circling familiar ground. But it never rests on its laurels, constantly introducing new characters, scenarios, gadgets, and gameplay wrinkles before any one idea has time to wear thin.

It’s rare for a game this compact to feel as dense. As both a love letter to the GBA and a richly designed adventure in its own right, Goodboy Galaxy is easy to recommend.