My heart yearns to go back to that summer. I want to stay there.
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 is a beautiful game full of so much heart. You spend a summer as a child, called Boku, staying with his aunt and uncle in a small island village by the sea. You spend your days fishing, swimming, catching and fighting bugs, the usual holiday fare.
But you also form deep connections with everyone on the island and their visiting friends and relatives. You help so many people with their issues. No one is surface level, everyone is genuine and well thought out.
This game gracefully and realistically explores aging population, neglect, death and grieving, love, crime, cultural differences and more.
You have no goal in this game. You can choose to, or not to do any of this. Its entirely up to you what you do with your summer holiday. But its hard, truly to do nothing. There is an undescribable amount of love and care put into every element of this game, it feels me with deep peace and joy knowing that something like this is out there and was highly popular in Japan.
Play this game if you want summer, if you want to swim, if you miss home, your family, childhood, if you miss humanity and colour and you find yourself drowning in the greys and cruelty of the city. Go and spend your summer in the country.

Really really loved the world of this game, super beautiful and melancholic.
I would never like a game about coping with loss! Ever! Obviously lol
Fr tho this game is just so effortlessly beautiful, the art style is great and the world feels so distinct and lived in. There are so many little interactions and experiences to be found just from appreciating it's beauty. The characters are wonderful and I cried a lot talking with them tbh.
I don't want to say too much to spoil it but if you need some time in nature, in quiet and connecting with your past, play this game. And then go and touch grass and your community.

ALSO PLAY WITH DUALSENSE IF YOU HAVE THE OPTION I WONT SPOIL WHY BUT KEEP AN EAR OUT

Imagine I-Spy mixed with Ghost Trick mixed with an MRI machine

This game is incredibly heartfelt and authentic down to every single cross-section. It's story is so genuinely touching and you really feel connected to each and every person we explore and the island itself.

The puzzles are fantastic and full of fun Easter eggs along the way, cutting through cans and bins and lunch boxes and ship in bottles to find treasured items long lost. I genuinely don't understand how some of the objects are made! And the like memory kaleidoscopes??!? The level of detail in each environment is staggering and you will be drawn to go into every single object to check for secrets.
The sound design is gorgeously done and hearing every object being peeled away is so satisfying.

I cried a bunch during this game, but I'm pretty sure they were all happy tears. This game beautifully and gracefully explores the concept of death, the afterlife and what we leave behind in just the kindest most sweet way.

ALSO THE SOUNDTRACK IS GREATTT

SIDENOTE: I have lived near the general area where the game is set and holidayed there all my life and it's been a real nostalgia trip looking back into how these communities work having since moved to the city, its lovely c: feels like home