Probably my favorite post-Square, post Love-de-lic Akira Ueda involved project. Keeps the charming visual style of Contact while opting for a simpler adventure game with occasional boss fights and imho is all the better for it.

It matches up to be, along with "Houkago Shounen", the DS's version of Japanese summer vacation simulator type games (like Attack of the Friday Monsters for 3DS or Boku Natsu for Playstation)

Only issue is that the game is surprisingly short, when I got to the ending, I was surprised. I might have exclaimed "already?" Yeah, this game has 4 chapters and is only around about 5 hours if you only do the main story, I'd say. Still, there are sidequests in each chapter that add up to a replayable experience. You also unlock scenes by collecting people's tears each chapter (the gimmick the game centers around), and you get little scenes based on "pets", animals around town that you also unlock via tear collecting.

Really awesome third person pre-rendered graphics, odd but great music, and a weighty yet sentimental and nostalgic story of childhood. I honestly had no clue what was being said in the dialogue while playing it, and curbing my usually obsessive google translate attempts I just played through it without translating a bit of the dialogue. I did get a sense of the emotional weight of what was happening. It's a story of kids, their parents, and the sometimes misguided childhood desire for escape.

Really recommend this one.