Developer Tiny Wonder Studio has announced koROBO, a spiritual successor of sorts to the cult classic Chibi-Robo! series with ex-developers from Skip Ltd. working on the project.
The game follows koRobo, a small robot alongside his 10-year-old owner, Tom, set within the 'urban jungle' of New York City. When Tom receives koROBO as a birthday gift, he's completely unaware of what the little robot is capable of.
Soon enough, you'll be taking on the role of koROBO as you work to keep the house tidy, help out Tom with his homework, and defend the family against a mysterious time-travelling enemy.
Tiny Wonder Studio is also set to launch a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter for the project on 22nd July 2024. In speaking via the press release, director Kenichi Nishi said:
“Our goal is to create a game that everyone can enjoy, so koROBO is intended to be a cosy and comfy game that we hope everyone will fall in love with. The core of koROBO is all about bringing people together and working towards a better tomorrow and this campaign, combined with your support, is a wonderful opportunity to bring fans of video games together – something that would make our tiny hero proud! The future is a dream we all share! Let’s make it a reality together.”
We'll update you on whether Tiny Wonder Studio is successful with its Kickstarter campaign along with any development updates in the coming weeks and months.
What do you make of koROBO? Can it hold a candle to the Chibi-Robo! franchise? Let us know your thoughts with a comment.
Comments 51
It literally gives off the exact same vibes as the first Chibi-Robo game.
But hey, if the copyright owners (I’m honestly not sure who it is at this point) don’t care, then I hope this game succeeds and is what people want.
We're cooking again
It's got the original dev team, so it's got my interest.
Ok. I love me Chibi Robo. I have wanted a proper sequel for decades now and the weird side projects were an insult. But this looks a little too similar to the original game, even for being made by the original team. Like... It literally looks like it was made for the GCN. A little janky and really dated. I hope they plan on modernizing it a little bit. You can have love letters and still be updated.
Good luck to them!
I haven't played the original games, despite having interest for them (and even the Amiibo for some reason) but this doesn't look or sound interesting to me so far.
Awesome! But I still hope we get an actual new Chibi Robo one of these days.
The character design is better and worse at the same time. It doesn’t have as much personality.
@Mrkittyhead So you'd rather have some random people make a new game called chibi robo then play the exact same game with a different name by the original devs?
I wish they would do a reboot/sequel to Park Patrol. Loved that game, had to import it due to no release in the UK.
can't wait for koROBO: Zip Lash.
I know its early in development, but I cant be the only one who really hates this artstyle. It reminds me of Balan Wonderworld and it just doesn't have an ounce of charm to it. I'll wait to see how this turns out...
It looks EXACTLY like chibi-robo.
They might want to do something there.
Kickstarter eh? While there has been some good stuff to come from it, it does warrant some level of caution
Oh lord, the graphics look so awful, like YouTube spam videos.
Ooooooh! The first Chibi-Robo game holds a special place in my heart so this is interesting. Not sure I dig the art style just yet. Will be good to see it in motion.
Hhhmm, the design of the new robot is not very cute. It kinda looks like an AI rendition of a 'Chibi Robo' prompt.
Still really nice to see the original team back together.
Finally. Day 1 buy for me. So happy about this. Wish it was a full sequel with the old art but I'll take it.
100% my support! I love the series and it was a crying shame we never got a sequel to the GameCube game back then! The spinoffs were not that great sadly
Very happy about this. The graphics look nice to me. I do prefer Chibi-Robo's character design, but maybe I'll grow to like this guy too. It would be cool if the time of day changed in real-time. I want to chill on a window ledge and watch it become sunset lol
@JalapenoSpiceLife Sadly, the sequel to the Gamecube original was a Japan exclusive DS game Chibi-Robo's carer was the daughter from the original game as an adult.
Chibi Robo is one of my favourite series of all time, and I'm actually replaying the Japanese exclusive DS game right now. But this has me worried a bit. It's lacking charm, the animations are stiff, the art style isn't anything special, the UI is kinda ugly, and the character designs are basic. Instead of going for a more realistic style like this I feel like they should have pushed further into a Katamari-like colourful and weird path instead. It would have fit the vibe of the original much better.
They haven't shown anything about solving toys' problems yet, which I hope is a thing. Makes the world feel more lived in and those wacky characters are part of what gave Chibi Robo its charm.
Regardless I'll still probably back this. I've been dying for anything Chibi Robo related for years. I sincerely hope it turns out well.
I'm still gutted that Chibi-Robo seems destined to stay stuck on GameCube/Wii forever. It was such a great game and deserved a remake or remaster (at the very least) by now. I get that it's a niche game but I think it could have really found a big audience on Switch.
@ShiroiTaka
Agreed. I didn’t actually import it but I managed to find a reseller who had imported it themselves, from Australia.
CR is such an underrated series! Nintendo just loves leaving IPs in the dust. Hype for this!
Meanwhile, I am still waiting for Giftpia (or a spiritual successor).
@Vivianeat
This also applies to Custom Robo, another CR underrated series from Nintendo.
How is this not going to be shut down? Looks great but whoever holds the rights to Chibi-Robo will surely have something to say.
I'm with some others in regards to the character design - it's playing things a little too safe for my liking and as a result feels like a lesser imitation - but I do wish this project the best of luck. Who knows, maybe they'll perfect the look as things go on. This is game development after all.
The character design needs a little bit more work, but I am absolutely keeping my eyes glued to this. The original Chibi Robo has a special place in my heart.
Will absolutely take it as long as it's well executed, but I hope we'll eventually get at least a rerelease of Chibi Robo since I unfortunately missed it back in the day (and don't think I've managed to find a copy of it at a decent price unlike other GameCube games apart from me preferring to have it on Switch and/or its successor if possible)!
Man, I loved Chibi-Robo.
I don't know if I like this era of cool franchises don't get sequels, so we get the original devs trying to make spiritual successors which rarely turn out as good.
Chibi Robo is one of very few game series that I missed out on that I feel sad that I didn’t get to give it a shot. I would definitely buy this. Count me in!
Oh wow! When the series announced it's hiatus I never thought we could get something similar I guess there isn't really anything proprietary about chibi robo. This looks promising!
@Jayvir Did you ever play the DS Chibi Robo game that was exclusive to Japan? I think the title roughly translates to "Welcome Home Chibi Robo." I've heard that one is really good and actually rivals the original Gamecube game, but I've never played it.
@Yalloo the only game that you should really judge it on is the first one on GameCube. It definitely isn’t for everyone and the animation style, particularly of cutscenes, can seem a bit…odd. But the gameplay loop of doing chores, finding new ways to climb to higher places in each room, all the while needing to make sure you’re close enough to plug into an outlet to recharge is so satisfying.
Welp time see what the ChibiRobo concept is made of. See if the devs make a hit spiritual successor or not.
I wonder if Tiny Wonder will be tasked with Chibi-Robo itself in the future. For a series that never did well and kind of lost its way after the first game (at least in the West, since Japan got a pretty faithful followup on DS), Nintendo sure seemed interested in keeping it going. Now that the dust has settled a bit, and we have a clear successor to Skip...who knows? Maybe ko-Robo would end up retroactively folded into the series, even?
This is great! While I still want at least a remastered port of the first Chibi-Robo, this is more than welcome. I'm very interested to see how a solar-powered battery pack alters the gameplay in place of the classic plug tail.
@Poodlestargenerica you know what? I don’t remember saying anywhere it my comment that I wanted a new team to handle it. How strange of you to assume so.
@Broosh same. A port would be so fun!
I would definitely love this since the original chibi-Robo game is amazing along with its sequels! Also am I the only one that likes zip lash?
@Greatluigi I played through Zip Lash earlier this year and enjoyed it! The whole level-roulette system is completely unnecessary for sure, but it's still easy to get the desired number and not replay stages...Still a sad way for the series to go out though😔 Also special mention to the awesome final boss fight.
Highly excited but been burned twice from crowdfunding so just gonna wait for it to actually be released.
@Mrkittyhead Ok well clearly this team using the IP wasn't an option or they would have, so it wasn't to strange to assume that.
@Broosh yeah the level roulette thing is kinda dumb and there should’ve been a regular level select. Other then that great game.
@HotGoomba I bet that game will blow.
Good to see. Will it be a point n click like the original was before it changed? Even if not I'm excited.
Nintendo made the marketing really bad for past Chibi Robo games and the series suffered even if it was Skip's most well known IP even then still were underground to most people.
Can't be less unfortunate than those circumstances.
Hopefully this studio can succeed with the IP in this current gaming timing.
It's moments like this were I hope the studio succeeds. Making Judas, Bloodstained, Azure Gunvolt (or other Castlevania/Mega Man clones) or Yooka Laylee as successors to Bioshock or Banjo is one thing but they were well known enough staff or IPs. In this case they need all the help they can get.
As average as Zip Lash was it was ok but yeah the games deserved better marketing. If Pikmin can, if Toy Story can, if Grounded can, if Bugs Life can, if Tinykin can, if Metamorphosis can (Indie I played the demo of), if Deadly Creatures on Wii can, if Mushroom Men on Wii/DS can and many others with a small scale character doing things in their worlds, whether Chibi Robo being a cleaning robot and tv shows can do it. Why can't it be possible? It can I assume if they try hard enough.
@LoroTalby Thanks for your message! 😃
This new robot is such a step down. It's getting out emoted by a metal cylinder with two black dots for a face.
I'm mixed on the doll like character designs and visuals. But the original devs are involved so I am interested.
Just a heads up that the Kickstarter for this is now up! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tinywonderstudio/korobo
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