The Japanese series My Summer Vacation is now available in English, thanks to Crayon Shin-chan

The release of the captivating adventure game Shin chan: Me and the professor went on vacation on Nintendo Switch This week doesn’t seem to be a big occasion in the annals of gaming – low-budget licensed titles are rare. But like the recent Western debuts of Direct, Kowloon High School Chronicleor Moon, Shin-chanThe new release fills an important void in video game history.

Shin chan: Me and the professor went on vacation is the first full-length game in the My Summer Vacation series to release outside of Japan, where it is called Boku no Natsuyasumi. The hit series about a 9-year-old boy running around the Japanese countryside to make friends and catch bugs has never been released in English, and the series has been dormant since the fourth entry. on PSP in 2009. While Shin-chan While not bearing the moniker My Summer Vacation, it shares the same developer, director, setting, plot, gameplay rounds, fishing minigames, hand-drawn backgrounds, and compelling time-lapse mechanics of the series. . This is My summer vacation 5 in all but name and with a painted Shin-chan coat.

The Summer Vacation games are not just another made-in-Japan obscurity; they are one of the most moving examples of how the late ’90s turned to everyday life in Japanese game development. Globally, Shenmue, Muleand Harvest Moon are more famous examples of this trend in console gaming, but in Japan, the Summer Vacation series stands with them. With the release of the Shin-chan spiritual sequel, we will have a clearer picture of that creative moment.

Image: Millennium Kitchen / Sony Computer Entertainment

Image: Millennium Kitchen / Sony Computer Entertainment

Image: Millennium Kitchen / Sony Computer Entertainment

Image: Millennium Kitchen / Sony Computer Entertainment

Millennium Kitchen’s owner, Kaz Ayabe, based the Summer Vacation series on his own childhood in the rural countryside, the same font that inspired Yasuhiro Wada to create Harvest Moon, and most famously Satoshi Tajiri for creating Pokémon. The plot of every Summer Vacation is the same: A kid named Boku (“me” in Japanese) visits family in boonies, and fills the long days with swimming, hiking, and chatting with locals among the ancient buildings, dusty and picturesque rolling fields.

Ayabe has put a lot of effort into capturing the geography of rural Japan. “When I start making a game, I start by drawing a map,” Ayabe said in one Interview with Scroll. Each town in the game Summer Vacation consists of non-scrolling screens that, like a LucasArts-era adventure game, are joined together to form rambling streets. Time only moves in-game as Boku moves from screen to screen, and since time is limited, this creates a risk-reward dynamic unique to the series.

Boku has 31 days to live to the fullest before having to return home, which means collecting all the bugs, fish, trading cards and other junk the kids love before time runs out. The game does not impose any progress on the player; In theory, Boku could stay indoors for a whole month if he wanted to. When the game forces you to do everything, it acts like a parent: You can’t skip morning homework, you have to attend both breakfast and dinner, and you can’t stay up too long or your uncle you come and catch you. Basically, the aim is to relive the ideal childhood of 70s Japan, adventure without responsibility in the warm arms of a loving family, cool friends and unspoiled nature. .

Image: The Millennium / Neos . Kitchen

Ayabe has mention His love for influential filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu in the past, and something like Ozu, permeates the entire series. First, Boku’s family and friends are observant and not entirely cuddly, especially in the more adult-oriented first game. In that first film, Boku visits his aunt’s house in the mountainous Yamanashi prefecture, just outside Tokyo. The game’s tone is warm but there’s still darkness around: Your cousin Shirabe behaves coldly towards you, you occupy the room of your aunt’s dead son, and you hear rumors of a Spirit Wolf wandering in the forest. In a truly moving conclusion reminiscent of Totoro my neighborShirabe runs away from home the day before Boku sets off, and the two are reunited after a long search in a field of sunflowers.

Ozu is honored for “pillow shooting, ” The amount of time his camera would detach from the plot and settle on a landscape, just to admire it. My Summer Vacation has some of that sunflower field-like backdrop, which has no game-related purpose but allows the player to slow down and drink in the setting. While Boku itself and all other characters are 3D models, the rest of the game is pre-rendered, atmospheric, hand-drawn 2D backgrounds, made to be admired in its truest form. their.

After that first outing on the original Playstation, the series will move to different stunning locations with every game: the tropical Izu Peninsula in My summer vacation 2the open Hokkaido plains in 3and islands in the Setonai Sea in 4. The gameplay will stay the same, give or take a few minigames, though each release will expand with more characters, more locations, or more collectibles. In Japan, the series will sell over a million copies.

Photo: Millennium Kitchen / 5th Floor

Since the release of that fourth game, the series has ceased to exist. While Ayabe has gained some acclaim from his Nintendo 3DS game Attack of the sixth monster! A Tokyo Talecombine word game elements Summer break series with a great tokusatsu-inspired storyline, a short three-hour game is not enough to bring the series back to the fore.

Shin chan: Me and the professor went on vacation can turn the situation around. The game stars Shinnosuke “Shin” Nohara, the star of Pencil Shin-chan manga and anime, vacations at her mother’s friend’s house in a rural part of Kyushu, filling her days with butterfly chasing, growing vegetables, and fishing. The charm of Summer break series – aimless wandering, evocative setting, lovable characters – has been preserved in this ersatz sequel.

Other aspects have changed, perhaps to appeal to a larger audience. Now there’s a central plot, involving a mad scientist and time-traveling hijin, though you can still skip it if you so choose. And just to add a touch of magical realism, the time-traveling hijinks summon dinosaurs to roam the village, following Sixth Monster AttackThe design philosophy of giant monsters is really cool.

There is less emphasis on naturalism, but Shin-chan very accurate to its comic and cartoon source material. Unlike the serious Boku, Shinnosuke is a smart guy, and the game has all the usual jokes where Shin utters grotesque dialogue or clumsily flirts with older women. Appropriately, there’s a dedicated button for Shin to wave behind the camera.

Image: The Millennium / Neos . Kitchen

Millennium Kitchen, reflecting the brand’s interest in aesthetics, traded off the previous work’s Studio Ghibli-esque style for the flat, shaded look of Shin-chan anime. It’s remarkably accurate: The developers even made sure that Shin’s signature puffy cheeks always point to the left regardless of whether he’s looking from the front or the back, just like in the source material. . At its core, though, it’s still a familiar game that tries to create an explosion when a child is left unattended in the wilderness.

Given that Sony, who published the series in Japan, has shown little interest in promoting the product further and no positive fan translations of the game exist at this time, Shin chan: Me and the professor went on vacation is the best, perhaps only, upcoming opportunity for English speaking players to get my Summer Vacation experience.

Shin chan: Me and the professor went on vacation Available now on Nintendo Switch and coming soon PlayStation 4 and Windows computer via Steam.