In 2000, a recreation known as Boku no Natsuyasumi (“My Summer season Trip”) was launched on the PlayStation. Because the identify suggests, it was about being a child on summer time trip, and its gradual tempo and cruisy setting made it one thing of a cult traditional, although one which sadly by no means noticed an official English-language launch.
Over the a long time quite a lot of different video games had been launched within the sequence, on PlayStation 2, PSP and PS3, and each was largely the identical expertise, asking gamers to information a younger boy by the day doing stuff like fishing, accumulating bugs and going for a swim.
Based mostly round a calendar, the easiest way I believe I can describe the video games to anybody who hasn’t performed them is to think about Persona 4’s every day schedule and idyllic rural setting, after which image a recreation the place going round city speaking to individuals and doing idyllic sidequests was all you needed to do. No monsters, no preventing, no RPG stuff.
Right here’s the intro of the second recreation, launched on the PS2. Please get pleasure from how lovely the hand-drawn backgrounds are.
And right here’s the third recreation, this time with very useful (and fan-made) English subtitles:
The newest recreation within the sequence, Crayon Shin-chan: Ora to Hakase no Natsuyasumi, was launched in Japan final 12 months, however final month turned the primary one to ever get an official Western launch, dropping on PC, PS4 and Change. That is, for probably the most half, excellent news! It exhibits somebody was paying consideration when Westerners mentioned we wished to play the video games, and on a structural degree no less than, permits people to lastly get to know probably the most chilled-out gaming experiences going round.
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There’s a slight downside, although. Whereas this recreation—known as Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer season Trip The Limitless Seven-Day Journey in English—has the identical calendar-based design as its stablemates, and largely allows you to have interaction in the identical leisurely pursuits, the actual fact a cartoon license has been slapped excessive of it robs it of a few of its attraction.
Positive, you’ll be able to nonetheless go fishing and catch bugs, and certain you’ll be able to nonetheless simply wander round having fun with the sounds of cicadas and operating water, however the entire tone of the sport feels barely off, from the character designs to the wackier storyline operating by occasions.
An enormous a part of the attraction of the primary My Summer season Trip video games was that you simply had been simply enjoying as a daily child, hanging out for a month doing common child stuff. There weren’t any mad professors, fancy devices or dinosaurs to mess with. Right here, the presence of all this Crayon Shin-Chan stuff kinda drags the expertise away from what made the opposite video games so relatable. I wished to be on trip, not starring in a child’s cartoon sequence!
It’s not a dangerous recreation due to it; there’s nonetheless an exquisite sense of humour right here should you’re a Crayon Shin-Chan fan, and like I’ve mentioned this performs a lot the identical as different My Summer season Trip titles, so if the routine and setting are probably the most interesting issues to you then you definately’ll probably discover little to complain about right here.
However I dunno, I really feel like a part of the attraction right here (for me no less than) is how a lot we will all relate to a traditional child having a traditional Summer season, and that it might have been nice if we’d been in a position to benefit from the earlier video games within the sequence first earlier than getting what’s primarily this off-kilter spin-off. I can solely hope this one sells sufficient, or no less than attracts sufficient consideration, to persuade somebody to launch a number of the older video games in English as effectively.
