I bought the game two days ago and about about 3-4 hours, I'm already done with it. I don't regret the purchase, but at the same time, I can't say I recommend the game.

It does a lot of things really well: the music is fantastic, the sound of the ciccadas evoke summer perfectly, the scenery is beautiful. The dialog is really clever and really good at simultaneously feeling like they're things that a 4th grader would say, while being funny to adults who know better. For instance, a little girl says that she "gets her self-esteem through doing good deeds" and when a boy asks her what self-esteem is, she responds that it's the steam that inflates you when you do good things. I dunno. It's cute. The story also plays on this as the kids misinterpret things they read or what's going on generally. But we know better. Or we think we do...

Sadly, the whole "game" aspect to it is really basic and not very fun. You've got an "always on" map on the bottom screen showing you exactly where you need to go at all times, so there never is a need to explore by yourself. And the game requires you to play a simplistic card game against the other kids before you can progress through certain sections of the game. It's a rock/paper/scissor kind of thing, so there is a little strategy and a lot of luck to it.

And that basically covers the gameplay.

So yeah. I feel like this would have made a better movie than it is a game. Simultaneously, it makes me wish that we had gotten one of those "My Summer Vacation" games from this game's director over here. I'd play a more fleshed out version of what we got here.

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