The developers at Eden Industries have done something pretty cool with their games Citizens of Earth and Citizens of Space. Instead of just porting the games onto the Nintendo Switch (and pretending we all have enough money to pay for the same game multiple times), they’ve merged the two storylines together, thus creating; Citizens Unite!: Earth x Space. Two games, two timelines, one “true ending.”

(Check out our original review of Citizens of Earth here.)

I really like the concept, and it’s pretty cool that they were able to entwine two different games to create a parallel storyline. One of my favorite things about Citizens Unite is switching between the two timelines of Earth and Space. If I got bored with one, I could switch over with the press of a button and play a different game. While both are similar in many ways, they also have quite a few noticeable differences that will have players choosing one over the other.

For example, when you battle in Citizens of Earth, the gameplay is very similar to Earthbound. Less interactive, more strategic. While Citizens of Space reminds me of the old Final Fantasy games. Visually more appealing and a bit more interactive. They’re both fun in their own ways, and it’s good to have a little variety. Regardless of preference, you’ll want to play through both timelines to save the universe and unlock the “true ending.” Which is technically just a new end game cinematic that is only available in this version of the game. But it’s still pretty cool and gives returning players something new to work towards.

Citizens Unite lets you recruit team members to help you out on your adventure. There are all kinds of different characters to collect. Each of them has special attacks and abilities that will help you succeed in battle. Recruiting them is the fun part, though. I liked doing all of the side missions and seeing all of the cutscenes required to gain a new team member. Some of them are trickier to persuade than others, but it’s fun trying to figure out what you need to do to get them to join you.

All of the characters from the original versions of Earth and Space are back, plus a few new recruits. It will be fun for fans of the original game to try and find the new characters as well as their old favorites. That also means there are new missions to find and complete. The only downside is that the new missions are pretty much optional, which means you will have to actually look for them or you may miss getting to play them all together.

The characters are kind of what makes this game fun. The humorous dialogue, the voice acting. It’s all done very well. If I had to guess, I would say that over 80% of the dialogue in Citizens Unite has full voice acting. And I’ve already pressed how many characters there are, so just let that sink in for a second. The humor and storyline coincide awesomely with the cartoony visuals and quirky music you’ll hear throughout the game. It’s honestly my favorite thing about this series. I love when a game is bright and silly and the characters pop like an actual cartoon.

If you ask me, this is a better experience than playing both of the standalone titles. It adds more to the storyline, gives it more variety, more replay value, and overall more gameplay time. It’s probably not for someone who prefers serious gameplay, seeing as the whole thing is pretty silly most of the time, but that doesn’t make it any less good. Citizens Unite is a great “filler” if you’re like me and waiting on some of the bigger first-party games to be released.

Unless I really love a game, it’s hard to justify buying it multiple times just because the developers want to release it on a newer console. But this is a neat alternative that gives players a different experience and lets them play two great games for the price of one. Players will get around 30 hours of storyline gameplay, not to mention all of the hidden missions and side quests you can complete. If you’re a fan of Earthbound, Paper Mario, Final Fantasy, or RPGs in general, I highly recommend checking out Citizens Unite!: Earth x Space.