Boku no Natsuyasumi 3

A Japanese gem
I bought Boku No Natsuyasumi 3 from the internet after becoming intrigued by the premise of playing a game where you simply run around, having fun. Not shooting people in the face, or scoring goals, or driving ridiculously fast cars. That’s all fun. Games where you control solitary ten year-old Japanese boys passing their time in the countryside during the summer holidays are understandably few and far between, because games are generally aimed at hormonal male teenagers who really want to show off how manly they are. But the Japanese love of slow, structured, well-explained and leisurely games provide little gems like Boku No Natsuyasumi 3, which are certainly more than kiddie fodder or the stuff of the holy grail for game publishers, the “casual gamer”.

Boku No Natsuyasumi 3 (My Summer Holidays) is basically as described above: you play as a young Japanese boy who goes to his uncle’s farm to pass the final month of the summer (which are the school holidays in Japan). As the game is set in 1975, there are no Playstations for little Boku to play on. He has to make his own fun, by talking to other children, catching butterflies, tobogganing down the green slopes of the farm, swimming, visiting shops, and finding random objects (such as bottle tops with flags printed inside them). The brilliance of the game is this rosy-coloured depiction of an idyllic summer holiday, which many children all over the world have experienced.

Graphically, the game may look unspectacular in screen shots, but on a HD TV the images take on the luminous quality of glimmering rustic oil paintings. You can just leave the images there on you TV as a kind of virtual paintings. The sound is subtle, with most of the game “soundtrack” coming from the countryside itself, and the occasional snippets of TV and radio that Boku hears.

The Japanese language is obviously a hindrance to Westerners enjoying the game, besides the obviously slow pace. However, catching bugs, letting chickens out of their pen or milking cows are activities anyone can enjoy, not just people who understand Japanese. Intelligent features like the ability to save in a different slot after each day, and neat touches like being able to redesign and change the shirts that Boku wears, make the game a treat that aims at an adult market willing to accept this wonderful little game on its own charmingly slow-paced terms.