Update: The game is now available in Europe, too (which has brought with it new info and screenshots)! You can download it now for £17.99.
Original Article: Out of nowhere, Nintendo has released a brand new game on the Switch eShop in Japan. It's called The Stretchers and is a two-player game where you must drive around and rescue people.
The gameplay is broken up into two components and looks like a combination of Sega's Crazy Taxi series and the upcoming release Moving Out. The game requires a single Joy-Con per person, meaning friends and family can easily join in.
Here's a Nintendo website translation, courtesy of Gematsu:
A two-person rescue team must stay in sync to save the islanders!
The Strechers is set on Green Horn Island, where people spent each day in peace until the self-proclaimed genius Captain Blaine suddenly appeared and hypnotized the islanders to become lightheaded, sending the island into major panic!
Players take on the role of a two-person rescue team called “The Stretchers,” and must respond to rescue calls from around the island to rescue the lightheaded islanders.
The game can be played with one Joy-Con, allowing family and friends to play together via two-player co-op. Additionally, a single player can control both of the rescue team members.
The Stretchers will set you back 2,000 yen and the Japanese version includes English language support. We'll be sure to let you know if this game gets a local release in North America and Europe.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 53
This looks delightfully bonkers.
This looks like a lot of fun, doubt we will get it in the US.
That looks like fun!
Oh that looks hilarious. Hope it comes west.
Need this localized STAT!
English is listed as a language option on the Japanese eShop.
Looks silly and fun
Well this looks really fun. Hopefully it is released in the West.
Love seeing a new Nintendo ip and this one I could get behind. Please bring it west.
I'll just get this out of the way....The Stretchers for Smash!
Yeah. I want this.
Crazy Ambulance
This looks awesome! It reminds me of a game I used to play a ton as a kid called Matchbox Emergency Patrol. The gameplay only consisted of driving to the location of the emergency and watching a cutscene, but what made it actually fun was how you could basically drive anywhere in the city, and it had tons of destructible elements and crazy physics, a lot like this. Really hope it comes to the States.
@60frames-please Fun fact: Sega released an arcade game called Emergency Call Ambulance in 1999.
I'd give this a shot.
Whoa this looks great! Why wouldn't they have been talking this up in a Direct before now?
That's the kinda of Nintendo weird stuff I love seeing!
It supports the usual European languages too.
My guess is that it will be rolled out internationally over the next 24 hours or so.
I’ll definitely grab this, but I’ll wait a little while to see if we are getting it here before going through the trouble of the Japanese eshop.
Some crazy co-op fun... love it!😂 Hope it comes to the west soon.
To me it looks like a cross between Brothers and Blast Corps.
O.k this absolutely looks like fun. Crazy Medics.
Alright that looks class!
Lol it looks insane, but it seems to be a lot of fun! A coop title like Brothers or A Way Out, but less serious. Me and my bro would enjoy it a lot, bring it along Nintendo!
I didn't expect this. Such a simple concept, yet the execution seem great, lots of fun and entertaining chaos.
Leave it to Nintendo to suddenly release a game that normally you couldn't care less and make it look so much fun that you suddenly want it day one.
This looks quirky and cute!
It‘s already in the European eShop for 19,99€
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/The-Stretchers-1655738.html
Listed there and various language support with release date today so a matter of time before it pops up.
Yeah available in UK.
Looks like a good laugh, want !
What a laugh this looks
@mystman12 omg I had that also 🤣
It’s available now in uk.
This game looks amazing! I'll probably get it sometime down the line.
I love this so much! XD
This looks really cool. May pick this up to play with my son.
Nice surprise! Fun looking dad and kid game.
Doesn't look half bad! I like the whacky animation, sounddesign and general aesthetic
NL you’ve had the game for at least 29 minutes where’s the comprehensive review already? How long does it take to 100%? What are the resolution and FPS? I’m jesting of course. Title looks like a lot of fun. Gonna play with my daughters me thinks.
Looks way better than I imagined. Feel like this could have been marketed as a Wonderful 101 spin-off where you follow the team around and rescue civilians after all of those fights.
Anyway I'm a bit leery of the co-op aspect after watching my kids struggle and fight with the tacked on co-op in Astral Chain which is so bad it probably shouldn't have been added, though my concern here is that driving the ambulance seems like the best part and it's probably player 1 only.
Demo would help, other we'll wait a couple of years until it's $5 unless we read some really good reviews - games that drop unannounced worry me as well.
@Liam_Doolan the Segages line is never going to catch up to all the awesome 90s games...
@rjejr
Astral Chain was clearly a 1P game, designed with complex gameplay strategies involving your legion and dual analog control (something they explored with W101 as well). But given you can control your Legion it does seem like a good opportunity for co-op, even if it isn’t that great in practice. I appreciate that it’s included as an option because... well why not. I’ll probably never use it but it’s not hurting anything by being there.
Unannounced games can worry me, but at the same time I think it’s just a marketing technique to create buzz. The ones you really have to worry about are the ones we’ve known about for years, hyped up to for so long and to such an extent that, despite all mediocrity to the contrary, people will themselves into liking it, then tell everyone else how “great” it is. That’s much more insidious than a stealth drop.
@60frames-please Yeah, not at this rate. As much as I love what they're doing right now, I would like to see them move onto some Dreamcast and arcade stuff.
I got it as quickly as I could. Only played the first mission with my brother so far and I’d say it’s sort of wonky?/sorta fun.. could get much better but my much too to early opinion is that I’m a little disappointed..
This looks delightfully crazy in with Japanese voiceovers. Gonna play it that way!
Could anyone tell us if the game is good? I don't know if there will be any review about this game.
Yes, I want this game, and I want to play it with Japanese language. It sounds great and looks fun.
Not bad game, but feels....boring. After first few missions my wife didn't want to play. The world feels kinda empty. Ofc no real talking, just text and blablabla... hey it's almost 2020! For me its 6/10.
Looks fun but the idea just reminds me how much I want a Burning Rangers remake from Sega.
Agree with previous sentiments, we played for about 30 minutes and got rather bored. A shame, since it looks very quirky!
@JaxonH Only in our case the co-op did hurt us, b/c the ONLY reason my son's bought the game was to play it co-op together, and they do struggle sometimes. Last night's forced stealth chapter was an unmitigated disaster. Platinum games should have taken a few more hours to include multi-player tutorials b/c the buttons they show you in the single player tutorials just don't work, it's all trial and error. So just adding that, co-op tutorials for when you are playing co-op, would have made the game playable and enjoyable. That's is on them for not including that. Even some of the menus and pop up instructions are wrong, which complicates things.
I understand they can only make a single player game work so well co-op, but they really really really needed to include tutorials, menus and on screen pop-ups to match the mode. And it's not just drop-in drop-out co-op, you literally have to go into the menus and change the mode, the game knows. That's just lazy workmanship is what it is.
Also, player 1 should get to use a Pro Controller so they have enough buttons to actually access the menus, player 2 can live with 1 Joycon. They broke the game by forcing player 1 to use 1 Joycon. Literally broke it, some things they simply just can't do unless they get out and co-op and change to single player. And that's ridiculous.
Gee, I wonder what other long hyped game you can possibly be talking about? 😂
@rjejr
Oh really... well that is unfortunate. And ya, they should have done drop in drop out. I hate menus. I don’t understand why they would make you use a joy con. A lot of games have done that and it’s really puzzling to me. I do believe there are some cases where that’s really the only viable option but I’d say the majority of the time other controllers would work just fine too. At least those Surge grips make them feel like legit controllers. Highly recommend. Doesn’t solve the button issue though.
Hopefully you’ll get some enjoyment out of the game for single player too, since you have it now. It’s an interesting game and definitely a fresh take on the Platinum action genre. At first I wasn’t sure about it, then I fell in love with it to the point I was saying it’s even better than Bayo2, but then I went back and played a bit of Bayo2 and was like ummm, ok that game’s still really awesome, I can’t pick.
I think Red Dead 2 also was overhyped and the glitz of graphics caused everyone to praise it. I bought it, was really impressed for like an hour, then started to hate the tedium of the game. Moving felt horrible. Trying to pick up an item right at your feet could take 4 tries to position correction. I got shot, killed and lost my money for barely brushing against somebody on my horse in town. And again for not leaving town quick enough when the sheriff told me to. The game became a slog to play through. There were many amazing aspects about it but at the end of the day the game play wasn’t that fun. And I think if you ask people now in hindsight, a lot of them will agree that they couldn’t even finish playing the game because it just got so tedious and boring. Yet there the game sits as one of the highest rated games of all time. I don’t think it’s a bad game, but they took the realism too far. Way too far. People are easy bedazzled. Especially with regard to shiny graphics, cutscenes and AAA hype. You can’t trust what ppl say.
Good news! It’s available in North America too!
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-stretchers-switch/
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