This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

After dropping a trailer and a few more screens earlier this week, Yoshi’s Crafted World devs Good Feel have revealed a little more info about their upcoming shooter Monkey Barrels.

The game itself is set in a post-apocalyptic Japan, one that’s ruled by an electronics giant by the name of ‘Crabbenwold Electro’. An army of home-appliance robots has wiped out humanity, and animals are living peacefully amongst the ruins. That is, until the evil CEO kidnaps Kotetsu, the best friend of hero monkey Masaru.

It’s an absolutely bananas plotline (sorry), but we kinda love it.

Good Feel have also revealed a little more info about each of the monkeys within the game. The aforementioned hero Masaru is described as ‘cheerful, enthusiastic, zany, and couragous’, as well as wearing a leather jacket that is ‘really cool!’

He’s joined by Hanako, ‘a female monkey who was formerly star of the monkey mountain in Ueno Zoo’ and Shibayama-san ‘a fashionable gorilla genius’ who ‘always keeps his cool and can be relied on’. The kidnapped Kotetsu is apparently ‘like a younger brother’ to Masaru and Hanako, which explains why they set off to take down the nefarious home-appliance manufacturer.

As to the gamplay itself, there’s 22 stages for players to work through across five areas. Each area contains a boss battle, and players can utilise a combination of 98 different weapons on their adventure. There’s vehicles such as motorbikes and tanks to operate at certain stages too.

Players also have a WILD Gauge that fills up whilst you’re shooting, or when you receive damage. A full gauge can be unleashed for an area-of-effect attack to wipe out foes and enemy bullets - always a handy feature in bullet-hell games.

You can check out character art for the four main primates, as well as a bunch of new screenshots, in the gallery below.

Are you excited to blow up some microwaves as a leather jacket wearing chimp? Let us know down in the comments.