One of the best Google Doodles I’ve enjoyed in the whole of recorded history was released recently in honor of the 2020 Olympic games in Japan, which were postponed 1 year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The doodle is an HTML5 game that feels distinctly nintendo-esque. You play as Lucky Cat, who visits Champion Island to play in games and do good deeds for the island’s inhabitants, who are all anthropomorphic animals. The game pays direct homage to the sort of fetch quest and minigames found in action/adventure/RPG games for the GameBoy, with a distinct Zelda/Link’s Awakening feel to much of it, perhaps mixed with a bit of pokemon. Of course, the entire thing celebrates many aspects of Japanese culture, both traditional and modern.
The graphics are in a 16-bit SNES style and the cut scenes are done in an anime style. Overall the minigames are not super challenging, but are fun and enjoyable as light entertainment, although the mountain climbing gave me some trouble due to the time limit to complete the courses.
I played through the entire thing and thoroughly enjoyed it.