Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid (NS) - Review

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Great games aren't that rare. If you know where to look and have a discerning eye, you can find many outstanding video games each and every year. What's truly rare is a game that touches you on a deep emotional level, that sticks with you long after you've closed the application or shelved the physical copy. Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid is one such game. Designed by Kaz Ayabe and inspired by the Boku no Natsuyasumi series, it has a remarkable way of triggering powerful feelings of happiness, sadness, regret, longing, and nostalgia. It sneaks up on you quietly and plants itself in your heart.

Set in rural Japan in August 1999, Natsu-Mon follows the adventures of fourth-grader Satoru, the child of circus owners. When his family's circus travels to the sleepy town of Yomogi, Satoru goes with it, destined to spend his summer vacation with the rocks, trees, waterways, animals, and people of the Japanese countryside. For 31 days he explores Yomogi and the surrounding lands, catching bugs, reeling in fish, digging up fossils, solving mysteries, making friends, and creating lifelong memories.

While Natsu-Mon has preset narrative bookends and a few fixed plot points here and there, it isn't really interested about telling you a story. It's much more interested in offering you the chance to tell your own. One of the many beautiful things about the game is its emergent storytelling — in which discoveries and conversations open up opportunities to meet new people, explore new areas, and leave your mark on the people and places of Yomogi and beyond.

Thanks to this process, Natsu-mon is one of the most immersive, moving games of the year. After only a few hours, you'll feel like a kid on summer break, taking part in the adventures and mistakes of childhood. You'll forge bonds of friendship, witness tearful goodbyes, and become a little older and wiser. This is the kind of video game experience that wraps its arms around you and refuses to let go. Indeed, never before in my gaming career have I wanted less to finish a game. I hoped my summer in Yomogi would last forever.

It will, eventually, come to a close, of course — but only after 30 hours have come and gone. Natsu-Mon might look like a casual, brisk adventure from the outside, but in reality it's packed with content. Disregarding the final day, which is cut short, each in-game day last approximately 45 minutes, making for a substantial time commitment overall. You can shorten or lengthen the duration of days in the options menu, if you're looking for a faster or more leisurely experience, but the default setting is really the best. It provides enough time to get stuff done but also a feeling of urgency.

Will you have time to do everything? Probably not. There are dozens of diverting activities and hundreds of items to collect. Throughout August you'll go on many different adventures; some will take hours, some days, some the entire month. Natsu-Mon benefits greatly from this assortment of quests of varying duration. Even as you work to build up enough stamina to climb the highest peak, catch all 200 insects, and fill in every last picture diary entry, you can cross shorter, easier tasks off your list. Donate that rare fish to the museum; trail that mysterious fellow up the mountain path; light the lanterns on the path to the shrine.

Or, just wander the open world at random with no set destination. There are so many nooks and crannies to explore, with very few guardrails in place to stop you. It's intoxicating.

Now, not every journey or task is exhilarating. Some quests ask you only to move from point A to point B, or simply to be at the right place at the right time. Even the more "athletic" challenges are fairly easy. You can catch bugs and fish with the press of a button. Natsu-Mon, in the end, is not a very demanding game. Still, even when the goals are relatively simple, they often move the needle in terms of atmosphere. You might encounter an unexplored part of town, or learn something new. For example: at one point, about half-way through the game, you'll accompany a young woman to a nearby town on a fact-finding mission. This is essentially an escort mission — all you're doing mechanically is walking alongside her and chatting at certain intervals — but the emotional payoff is incredible.

Speaking of mechanics, they're fairly good in Natsu-Mon, with a caveat: controlling Satoru can be a little loose and imprecise at times. Because he can climb virtually anything, he will sometimes cling to objects you didn't target, and his mid-air control is a little wonky. Over the course of 30 hours you'll mostly get used to it, though.

You'll probably never get used to the technical issues, however. Regrettably, Satoru's adventure struggles from noticeable and consistent performance dips. There's pop-in galore and the frame rate struggles constantly to maintain 30 FPS. This might be understandable if Natsu-Mon was pushing the technological envelope, but it's a humble game with basic — and occasionally unsightly — assets, lighting, and textures. Developers TOYBOX and Millennium Kitchen introduce some lovely character designs, expressive voice acting, and a bright, homey aesthetic to paper over some of these cracks, but it's not enough. If you're someone who thinks 60 FPS is the bare minimum, you are going to struggle mightily through this adventure.

If you can look past the technical and visual shortcomings, though, you're in for a treat. Natsu-Mon might not be the best game of the year, but it's destined to be one of the most memorable and affecting. Its emergent storytelling helps you feel like the author of your own adventure. Its seamless open world provides an exciting sense of discovery. And its many quests and quest-givers will keep you engaged for over two dozen hours. Best of all, its celebration of the innocence and potential of youth will make you feel like a kid again. 

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