Rating: 81/100

In the year 2000, a man named Kaz Ayabe and his team at the company Millennium Kitchen released an...interesting game for the PlayStation that was unlike anything that had come out before, called Boku no Natsuyasumi. The game was all about a little boy spending his summer in Japan's quiet countryside in the year 1975, and you could do things like explore, catch bugs, go fishing, hang out with family and friends, and so on. It wound up becoming quite popular, and Ayabe-san decided to try his hand at the concept again with Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, for the PlayStation 2. It would go on to outsell the first game and become quite popular in its own right, with two more sequels to follow. Having only just discovered the Boku no Natsuyasumi series thanks to Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid, I actually do want to check out more of Kaz Ayabe's portfolio, as I really enjoyed Natsu-Mon. But the BokuNatsu games have never been released in English, probably for a number of reasons I don't have the time to go into here. Luckily, a group of fans made their own fan translation of BokuNatsu 2, which they released last year, and I got to play it now that I've learned how to set up emulators on my computer. Yeah, I can see why people want the BokuNatsu games to be brought to America, because BokuNatsu 2 is a really cute, wholesome, charming game, even if I feel Natsu-Mon is better.

Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 follows a little boy named Boku (Yes, really), who is sent to live with his relatives, the Arase family, in the seaside town of Fumi for the summer because his mother is in the hospital to prepare for the birth of his new sibling. His uncle Genta and aunt Mitsuko run a popular seaside lodge alongside taking care of their sons, fifth grader Takeshi and first grader Shigeru. Life in the country is very different from the city, but there's always something new to discover, and Boku is more than happy to make the most of his summer vacation, doing all sorts of things like catching bugs, going fishing, watering the morning glories, and getting to know the townsfolk. Similar to both the first BokuNatsu game and Natsu-Mon, there isn't a real objective to pursue, and the game allows you the freedom to do whatever you see fit, although some events are locked behind specific dates, times, and events.

One thing BokuNatsu 2 carries over from the first game is the visual style, which is a juxtaposition of 3D character models against pre-rendered, hand-painted 2D backgrounds, which really give it a unique look. It helps that the backgrounds themselves are beautiful, looking like they came straight out of a Ghibli movie or an episode of Natsume's Book of Friends. The very cartoony, dot-eyed character designs were done by illustrator Mineko Ueda, who never worked on video games before, and her only claim to fame was designing mascot characters for a soap company. The character designs themselves are cute and work well against the backgrounds, but they tend to look proportionally off when they raise their arms in the air, which was present in both this and the first BokuNatsu game. But that's my only real complaint about them. The game itself never cuts corners when it comes to environmental details, such as the bug designs, characters leaving ripples when they run across puddles, or shadows when they're in dark areas like a cave or a part of the house that doesn't get as much sun. Ayabe and his team did an amazing job at truly making this game feel alive on that front.

Gameplay mainly consists of exploring, interacting with objects or people, and a new mechanic that the first game didn't have, swimming and diving. I admit, I had trouble with the controls at first, because BokuNatsu doesn't let you walk if you just press the D-pad or joy stick. You have to press the X button to move, and use the D-pad to change directions. As someone who never grew up playing games that had tank controls, which is the control scheme used in BokuNatsu, it took me a bit to get the hang of them. I actually found swimming to be rather hard to deal with, as the controls for that aren't all that smooth. It doesn't help that early on, you can't stay in the water too long or you'll run out of oxygen and pass out, and in order to increase your oxygen meter, you have to find these things called Jet Cider caps, which are basically soda bottle caps, and the majority of them are in the ocean. Granted, this was the first BokuNatsu game to implement swimming, so it's inevitable that the controls would be rather unwieldy, but if you know what you're doing, you should be fine. If there is one mechanic I really didn't like in this game, it's bug sumo. Like in the first BokuNatsu game, you can pit bugs against each other in fights, but here's the thing: The fights themselves are automatic, and you can't control the bugs' actions. I cheesed a lot of fights by catching a red beetle, but one of the most frustrating things about the bug fighting is that an area of town is only accessible by beating your cousins' strongest bugs, and the requirements for unlocking them, from what I can see, are...really annoying. I couldn't unlock this area in my first playthrough and still haven't. I can't seem to figure out the rules for unlocking it no matter how many walkthroughs I read. I'm so glad Natsu-Mon did away with this mechanic.

However, what BokuNatsu 2 lacks in gameplay polish, it more than manages to make up for with the strength of its characters and their writing. BokuNatsu 2, by and large, is a very quiet, down-to-earth game, and thus, it's lacking in any kind of melodrama. No dark secrets are hiding in the wings and there's no painful love triangles to get caught up in. There are no moments where the characters scream and cry as the music swells in an attempt to drain the audience of their tears. The characters are presented as normal, likeable people who have their own unique quirks, strengths, and weaknesses, but are good-hearted without leaning too hard into being saccharine, sentimental, or too perfect. The kids act like any kid that you'd see in the neighborhood, and Boku encounters plenty of eclectic people who have their own stories and colorful personalities. The characters by themselves are great in that their personalities can't simply be summed up in just one sentence, and their writing is careful to make sure they're as down to earth and relatable as humanly possible, behaving like normal people you'd see walking down the street. The only issue I have with two of the characters is that the whole reason for their conflict is just...ridiculous. I won't spoil it here, but the reason for them not talking to each other for almost a decade is just so overblown and unnecessarily exaggerated. Natsu-Mon had a similar thing involving two characters not talking to one another before reconciling, but their reason for doing so is much more down-to-earth. Thankfully, even that gets resolved if you put in the work to activate the events in question, and the characters involved are still decent people even with that. There are also some characters I wish had been expanded upon more, such as Yasuko's mother and Taniguchi, but that's about it.

Another thing BokuNatsu 2 uses very sparingly is its soundtrack. Music doesn't play a big role in setting BokuNatsu 2's atmosphere, and the only times music plays is when something important happens, like when you unlock a new area or if there's a significant event happening. Or if you're diving to the bottom of the ocean. Then again, BokuNatsu as a series has always made it a point to empathize the sounds of nature, like bugs screeching, trees rustling, or the sound of the waves, all of which really bring the setting to life in ways other games haven't done. The game's theme song (Used as both the opening and ending) is very nice and soothing, and I love the singer's voice. BokuNatsu as a whole prides itself on ambience and relaxation, with a lot of lingering shots of landscapes, buildings, and the backgrounds. Ayabe mentioned in regards to the first game that one of his inspirations for the game and its overall style was the works of Yasujiro Ozu, and having seen a few of Ozu's movies, that makes so much sense. BokuNatsu also succeeds in not cutting corners on its story or setting. Like the first BokuNatsu game, 2 is also set in 1975, complete with referencing various points in history such as World War II or the popularity of Ben Goto's The Prophecies of Nostradamus.

If I had discovered Boku no Natsuyasumi as a kid, I probably wouldn't have given it a second glance because it wasn't Pokemon or Kirby. But as a woman in my thirties whose tastes in games have expanded quite a lot, I wound up finding it thanks to having tried out Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid on a whim, and I'm really glad I gave Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 a chance. While I do feel Natsu-Mon is a better, more refined game, I really enjoyed BokuNatsu 2 for what it had to offer. It's a sweet, relaxing, wholesome game that does an amazing job at harkening back to a bygone time in Japan's history, and I would love for it and the rest of the BokuNatsu series to be officially ported to the States in some capacity. I mean, considering we're getting remasters and remakes of games like Another Code, the Lunar series, the Suikoden series, Atelier Marie, Famicom Detective Club, Legend of Heroes: Trails In The Sky, and so on, I think Boku no Natsuyasumi might have a shot at some success in the US since these days, more relaxing, down-to-earth games have become increasingly popular since the Stardew Valley and the onset of the pandemic. Seriously, just check out Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 if you have a PS2 emulator, because it's a cute game that deserves more love!

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