Kotaku’s Impressions Of The New Shin Chan: My Summer time Trip

In 2000, a sport known as Boku no Natsuyasumi (“My Summer time Trip”) was launched on the PlayStation. Because the title suggests, it was about being a child on summer time trip, and its gradual tempo and cruisy setting made it one thing of a cult basic, although one which sadly by no means noticed an official English-language launch.

Over the a long time a lot of different video games had been launched within the sequence, on PlayStation 2, PSP and PS3, and each was largely the identical expertise, asking gamers to information a younger boy via the day doing stuff like fishing, accumulating bugs and going for a swim.

Primarily based round a calendar, one of the best ways I believe I can describe the video games to anybody who hasn’t performed them is to think about Persona 4’s every day schedule and idyllic rural setting, after which image a sport the place going round city speaking to individuals and doing idyllic sidequests was all you needed to do. No monsters, no combating, no RPG stuff.

Right here’s the intro of the second sport, launched on the PS2. Please get pleasure from how stunning the hand-drawn backgrounds are.

And right here’s the third sport, this time with very useful (and fan-made) English subtitles:

The newest sport within the sequence, Crayon Shin-chan: Ora to Hakase no Natsuyasumi, was launched in Japan final 12 months, however final month turned the primary one to ever get an official Western launch, dropping on PC, PS4 and Swap. That is, for essentially the most half, excellent news! It reveals somebody was paying consideration when Westerners stated we needed to play the video games, and on a structural degree at the very least, permits of us to lastly get to know one of the crucial chilled-out gaming experiences.

There’s a slight drawback, although. Whereas this sport—known as Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer time Trip The Infinite Seven-Day Journey in English—has the identical calendar-based design as its stablemates, and principally helps you to have interaction in the identical leisurely pursuits, the very fact a cartoon license has been slapped excessive of it robs it of a few of its attraction.

Positive, you’ll be able to nonetheless go fishing and catch bugs, and positive you’ll be able to nonetheless simply wander round having fun with the sounds of cicadas and operating water, however the entire tone of the sport feels barely off, from the character designs to the wackier storyline operating via occasions.

A giant a part of the attraction of the principle My Summer time Trip video games was that you just had been simply taking part in as a daily child, hanging out for a month doing common child stuff. There weren’t any mad professors, fancy devices, or dinosaurs to mess with. Right here, the presence of all this Crayon Shin-Chan stuff kinda drags the expertise away from what made the opposite video games so relatable. I needed to be on trip, not starring in a child’s cartoon sequence!

It’s not a unhealthy sport due to it; there’s nonetheless an exquisite sense of humour right here in the event you’re a Crayon Shin-Chan fan, and like I’ve stated, this performs a lot the identical as different My Summer time Trip titles. If the routine and setting are essentially the most interesting issues to you, then you definitely’ll seemingly discover little to complain about right here.

However I dunno, I really feel like a part of the attraction right here (for me at the very least) is how a lot we are able to all relate to a standard child having a standard summer, and that it might have been nice if we’d been capable of benefit from the earlier video games within the sequence first earlier than getting what’s basically this off-kilter spin-off. I can solely hope this one sells sufficient, or at the very least attracts sufficient consideration, to persuade somebody to launch a few of the older video games in English as properly.