Better late than never for Bakeru, which was released in Japan last year and arrives here at an odd time given its carnivalesque themes, as its native country’s summer festival season draws to a close. Not that the timing matters to chief villain Oracle Saitoru, whose magical troops have brainwashed the people of Bakeru’s alternate-reality Japan into never-ending festivities. So begins the adventure for the titular shape-shifting tanuki boy, as he journeys up and down the country, first seeking the powers of other fairytale heroes, then striving to save seven maidens who have the power to break the festival’s evil seal.

While Good-Feel is better known for working on Nintendo properties, this isn’t its first original venture, with twin-stick shooter Monkey Barrels hardly a distant memory. But this time the studio breaks from largely two-dimensional planes, harking back to 3D action platformers of old, particularly significant given founder Etsunobu Ebisu’s work on N64’s Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. That does make it feel like something of a throwback, not least with its release so close to the dazzling light of Astro Bot, but the extra development time for localisation has had its benefits. It’s welcome, for example, that Bakeru’s default walk speed has been revved up a touch from the original release, since many of the game’s stages are quite sprawling affairs.