Spike Chunsoft recently announced that the Japan only title, Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid is heading to English speaking territories on the Switch and Steam on August 6, 2024. This is great news as it brings this spiritual successor of sorts to the storied Japanese franchise, Boku no Natsu Yasumi, or My Summer Vacation, to the West. Despite the pedigree of developer Millennium Kitchen, is this a game worth looking at, or should it just be left the digital storefront? Let’s get into it.
Background
Natsu-Mon has come to life through developers Millennium Kitchen and TOYBOX, while publishing duties are handled by Spike Chunsoft. The game originally came out in Japan on July 28, 2023 on the Switch both physically and digitally. It was limited to Japanese language options only. It’s a follow-up of sorts to to another Millennium Kitchen project, Crayon Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation - The Endless Seven-Day Journey (you can read more about that here). That game was essentially a take on the classic PlayStation exclusive series, Boku no Natsu Yasumi, or My Summer Vacation with some additional flair from anime character Shin-chan.
The Boku no Natsu Yasumi series proved extremely popular upon its release on the PlayStation in 2000, spawning a number of sequels and garnering attention from Japan-loving gamers in the West. Natsu-Mon is a return to form of sorts, not relying on an established IP which gives the devs quite a bit more freedom with the story and any licensing issues that might arise for international releases.
Gameplay & Story
Before getting into things properly, I do want to note, my experience is based on the free demo that was released on the Japanese Switch eShop in the summer of 2023. I’ll have some more info on that a bit later so you can try out the game for yourself. All in all, the lengthy demo is great and gives a fantastic look at the game.
Natsu-Mon puts players in control of ten year old Satoru. His family runs a traveling circus and are visiting a small town over the summer. While the grown ups are getting things ready for showtime, Satoru has ample time to explore the town, meet different people, hunt for insects, do his summer homework and more.
Gameplay features an open world style of gameplay that allows players to visit most places in town. Controls are simple as Satoru can be controlled with the joystick, A is used as an action button, B for a dash, X for jump, Minus for a map, ZL for an Adventure Memo and L for a diary. The first few are easy enough to understand, but the latter are hubs of information for Satoru’s summer vacation. The Diary keeps track of items that are found as well as people you run into. The Adventure Memo is a hub of sorts that shows a variety of missions that Satoru is tasked with for that day, such as meet X number of people, collect a certain number of insects and more. Overall, the gameplay feels responsive and fluid. The addition of things like the map, Diary and Adventure Memo can help bring some focus to the game, but these can also be ignored.
A day-night system is also implemented into Natsu-Mon. Starting off in the morning, you will see this change in real time. Not only that, but you can participate in various activities based on the time of day. Being a kid, Satoru will have to go home for dinner, but after that, players are free to take him on adventures until 10:00 p.m. when he’ll have to be back at home to go to bed and wind up the day.
Visuals, Audio & Performance
Natsu-Mon sports bright visuals with a unique cartoon-like art style. Character models are varied and animate nicely, shops and houses are believable and vegetation around town looks great. Of course, as is an issue with many Switch games, the level of details feels somewhat low resolution on Nintendo’s console. That’s not to say that things look bad by any stretch of the imagination. The art aesthetic overcomes this and brings a great looking experience to the platform.
Of course, in the Japanese version, the game is full of spoken and written Japanese. The English release of the game will still feature Japanese voice and signage, however dialogue and menus will, of course, be translated into English. This is great as it opens up the feel of Japanese summers to more people and still retains what makes the game feel Japanese. On top of this, the rustic sounds of the Japanese countryside are on full display. This includes the infamous cicadas, bustling small town life and more. Natsu-Mon is pretty faithful to the general idea of Japanese countryside living.
Try Out the Japanese Demo
As or right now, when I’m making this, there is no English demo for the game. BUT, you can try out the game via a demo from the Japanese Switch eShop. If you have a Japanese My Nintendo Account linked to your Switch, you have a few options. You can access the My Nintendo online store via web browser via this link and download the demo. The demo is the second option which reads “Taiken-ban Download” or Download Demo. From there, the demo will download directly to your system.
From the Switch eShop, you’ll have to search for the game, which is simple enough. You can even search for the game using the English keyboard. Once you enter "NatsuMon" into the search, three entries will appear. One is for the upcoming DLC, one is for the game and DLC bundle and another for the base game. Choose the base game and proceed. Once there, there is an option for purchasing the game (top) and another for downloading the demo (bottom). Choose the bottom option to initiate the download.
Conclusion
Is Nastu-Mon something you should pick up when it comes out in English? From what I’ve played of the Japanese demo, I would lean towards a maybe. It really depends on what you’re looking for in a game. Like previously released My Summer Vacation titles before it, Natsu-Mon is a very laid back, no-pressure kind of game. If you’re in the mood for a look at what slow life is like in small-town Japan during the summer, Natsu-Mon is worth taking a look at. At the very least, check out the Japanese demo to see if you like the controls (and/or pray that the English version also gets free demo).
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