Literally translating to “My Summer Vacation”, this is a game I’ve had some greater or lesser interest in for well over a year now, but it took me this long to actually find a copy for sale in Book Off XD. Before playing it, I honestly didn’t have much idea of what it was about at all. I knew it was some kind of life sim taking place over a young boy’s summer vacation, and I knew it was lauded very highly for its writing, but that was really it. Sure, the later releases were easier to find, but I wanted to see where the series started! X3. It ended up taking me around 13 or so hours to play through it on real hardware.
Boku No Natsuyasumi is the story of the titular character, Boku (which can be a first-person pronoun for a boy/man and is sometimes used as a cutesy nickname for a young boy, but in this case it’s just used as the character’s name) and his summer vacation the year he was nine years old. His mother was about to have a baby, so his parents arranged for him to stay with his aunt’s family as to give his parents some breathing room during that period. His aunt’s family, the Sorano family, are composed of his aunt and uncle as well as his older cousin Moe and his cousin of similar age Shirabe. The opening narration says simply that this was a summer whose events he has never forgotten, and that actually brings me to an interesting point in and of itself.
Our opening narration is done by an older man speaking from Boku’s perspective. The narrative is specifically framed as an older man (likely in his 40’s, much like the game’s creator was at the time this was made) reflecting upon his childhood. This framing device makes clear what otherwise might be a little more buried in the subtext: this is first and foremost a nostalgia piece, and a reflective one at that. Though the topics in this game aren’t anything M-rated that a kid couldn’t or shouldn’t see, the audience for this game is absolutely an adult one. Boku No Natsuyasumi is a game about looking back at your adolescence, about a time when you had no responsibilities of the harsh adult world, and not just getting to go through them again, but being able to reflect on what it means to do so. That’s not to say that Boku’s summer break is entirely devoid of interesting or impactful happenings, quite far from it, but I hesitate to say much more about the actual events (or possible events) of the story because this is a game I think it makes much more sense to simply experience yourself.
The actual gameplay of BNNY is relatively simple as such things go. Though this game is most easily described as a life sim, I think it fits the mold of an adventure game much more easily. There are no stats or survival elements to worry about, being that you’re just a grade-schooler staying up in the mountains with your extended family, but you do have various chores you can be responsible for and other activities you can do. You can explore the mountains, talk to your family, fish in the ponds and streams, or catch bugs (to either preserve in your bug catching kit or use to battle other kids in beetle fights), though there honestly isn’t a ton more than that. Granted I had a lot of fun exploring, trying my best to partake in story events, and also catching as many bugs as I could, but this is just a rural Japanese home in the 70’s. There’s not a massive amount to do, but making the best of your month off from school is what this game is all about. You don’t really have to do anything: It’s your summer vacation, so make the best of it the way you see best~.
The presentation is very simple but also homey in a way that fits the game very well. People are relatively simple looking 3D models that almost resemble a child’s drawings of people, but I found that to be both charming as well as come off as very intentional. You have a picture-diary that you write in every day to save the game, and Boku draws people just as they appear in the game. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume that, because we’re going down his memory lane, we see the people in his life as he remembers them through his drawings. Aside from that, the game is basically all those good old 2D pre-rendered backdrops that PS1 rpgs and adventure games love so much, and being a quite late-life PS1 game, they all look very nice. The sound design is also very well done in this game, having overall very little music save to underscore very important scenes/events, and most of the soundscape is just the background sounds of living in the Japanese countryside. The game is also fully voice acted, with all spoken dialogue (and even a fair bit of the narration) being voiced very well. The aesthetics work together with the writing beautifully, and I couldn’t possibly imagine the game not having all the VA to help bring the story to life the way it does.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is a truly excellent game and easily one of the best games on the PS1, to my reckoning. This is one of the earliest examples in games history of a game where I can point to and say “this is a game that is making art in a way that only a video game can.” This is sadly also a game that’s unlikely to get a translation anytime soon (largely because of all of the oh-so-common in the PS1 era videos with voiced dialogue but no text over it), and it’d honestly be a very hard game to translate at the best of times, in my opinion. There’s a lot here both culturally and historically that you’d need to be quite familiar with Japan in the first place to really take in in the way you probably should, so any would be localizer would have an extremely daunting task on their hands. Regardless, for those who can understand the language and enjoy story based games, this is an all time great of the generation that is absolutely not one to miss out on.
Boku No Natsuyasumi is the story of the titular character, Boku (which can be a first-person pronoun for a boy/man and is sometimes used as a cutesy nickname for a young boy, but in this case it’s just used as the character’s name) and his summer vacation the year he was nine years old. His mother was about to have a baby, so his parents arranged for him to stay with his aunt’s family as to give his parents some breathing room during that period. His aunt’s family, the Sorano family, are composed of his aunt and uncle as well as his older cousin Moe and his cousin of similar age Shirabe. The opening narration says simply that this was a summer whose events he has never forgotten, and that actually brings me to an interesting point in and of itself.
Our opening narration is done by an older man speaking from Boku’s perspective. The narrative is specifically framed as an older man (likely in his 40’s, much like the game’s creator was at the time this was made) reflecting upon his childhood. This framing device makes clear what otherwise might be a little more buried in the subtext: this is first and foremost a nostalgia piece, and a reflective one at that. Though the topics in this game aren’t anything M-rated that a kid couldn’t or shouldn’t see, the audience for this game is absolutely an adult one. Boku No Natsuyasumi is a game about looking back at your adolescence, about a time when you had no responsibilities of the harsh adult world, and not just getting to go through them again, but being able to reflect on what it means to do so. That’s not to say that Boku’s summer break is entirely devoid of interesting or impactful happenings, quite far from it, but I hesitate to say much more about the actual events (or possible events) of the story because this is a game I think it makes much more sense to simply experience yourself.
The actual gameplay of BNNY is relatively simple as such things go. Though this game is most easily described as a life sim, I think it fits the mold of an adventure game much more easily. There are no stats or survival elements to worry about, being that you’re just a grade-schooler staying up in the mountains with your extended family, but you do have various chores you can be responsible for and other activities you can do. You can explore the mountains, talk to your family, fish in the ponds and streams, or catch bugs (to either preserve in your bug catching kit or use to battle other kids in beetle fights), though there honestly isn’t a ton more than that. Granted I had a lot of fun exploring, trying my best to partake in story events, and also catching as many bugs as I could, but this is just a rural Japanese home in the 70’s. There’s not a massive amount to do, but making the best of your month off from school is what this game is all about. You don’t really have to do anything: It’s your summer vacation, so make the best of it the way you see best~.
The presentation is very simple but also homey in a way that fits the game very well. People are relatively simple looking 3D models that almost resemble a child’s drawings of people, but I found that to be both charming as well as come off as very intentional. You have a picture-diary that you write in every day to save the game, and Boku draws people just as they appear in the game. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume that, because we’re going down his memory lane, we see the people in his life as he remembers them through his drawings. Aside from that, the game is basically all those good old 2D pre-rendered backdrops that PS1 rpgs and adventure games love so much, and being a quite late-life PS1 game, they all look very nice. The sound design is also very well done in this game, having overall very little music save to underscore very important scenes/events, and most of the soundscape is just the background sounds of living in the Japanese countryside. The game is also fully voice acted, with all spoken dialogue (and even a fair bit of the narration) being voiced very well. The aesthetics work together with the writing beautifully, and I couldn’t possibly imagine the game not having all the VA to help bring the story to life the way it does.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is a truly excellent game and easily one of the best games on the PS1, to my reckoning. This is one of the earliest examples in games history of a game where I can point to and say “this is a game that is making art in a way that only a video game can.” This is sadly also a game that’s unlikely to get a translation anytime soon (largely because of all of the oh-so-common in the PS1 era videos with voiced dialogue but no text over it), and it’d honestly be a very hard game to translate at the best of times, in my opinion. There’s a lot here both culturally and historically that you’d need to be quite familiar with Japan in the first place to really take in in the way you probably should, so any would be localizer would have an extremely daunting task on their hands. Regardless, for those who can understand the language and enjoy story based games, this is an all time great of the generation that is absolutely not one to miss out on.