Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid review

Our VerdictWhile light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon’s comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

Our Verdict

While light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon’s comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

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Many of Japan’s biggest games have been open world-ized, but I wouldn’t have expected the next to be—checks notes—summer vacation adventures. Sony’s Boku no Natsuyasumi (“My Summer Holiday”) series was a life sim trailblazer in the early 2000s, and now there’s Natsu-Mon: an enjoyable adventure giving a seldom-known subgenre new life. As a longtime devotee of the Sony games, I welcome the change rather than demand purity. It still isn’t getting old strolling through a virtual sunflower field, even if I’ve done it enough times to be a seed farmer.

Need to knowWhat is it?A charming open-world adventure set in a remote Japanese town during summer 1999Release dateAugust 6, 2024Expect to pay$39.99/£39.99DeveloperToybox/Millennium KitchenPublisherSpike ChunsoftReviewed onThreadripper 3960X, RTX 3060 Ti, 64GB RAM; Steam DeckMultiplayerNoSteam DeckNot VerifiedLink:Steam

Need to know

What is it?A charming open-world adventure set in a remote Japanese town during summer 1999Release dateAugust 6, 2024Expect to pay$39.99/£39.99DeveloperToybox/Millennium KitchenPublisherSpike ChunsoftReviewed onThreadripper 3960X, RTX 3060 Ti, 64GB RAM; Steam DeckMultiplayerNoSteam DeckNot VerifiedLink:Steam

Natsu-Mon is the latest spiritual follow-up from Natsuyasumi creator Kaz Ayabe, who’s been returning to spearhead new version for other publishers—you may recall 2022’sShin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation—but unlike the Sony games, they finally get English localizations. Natsu-Mon was originally released on Nintendo Switch last year, and besides now being in a language we can understand, also has an adequately powered-up PC port.

Out of breath in the wild

Image1of5(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Image1of5

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

On Switch people wasted no time comparing Natsu-Mon to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel. But it’s not a full-on clone, it just borrows a few good ideas: an upgradable stamina (“stickers”) meter for staying active longer; a cape to glide across longer distances; and Satoru’s ability to grab and climb nearly any vertical surface.

But gee, that stamina meter is a powerful vice. I’m secure in being the kind of open world player who usually tries to get superpowered as early as possible, but I’ve played the Natsuyasumi games for a long time and love them for their art and story direction—they’re about consciously soaking in life’s tiny pleasure. So when the action-gamer part of my brain takes over in Natsu-Mon and I just want to get more stamina stickers to climb the Yomogi lighthouse, it feels like I’m avoiding the more pleasant bits I could be slowing down to enjoy. There are side activities like fishing and fossil collecting, and a regular supply of quests (“adventures”) that keeps you busy uncovering more story and learning about characters. To be sure it’s arelativeslowing down: Natsu-Mon has the look of a cozy life sim, but I was always running around even if it wasn’t aimless, making the experience feel more like a cross between Zelda and A Short Hike.

The expanded 3D freedom comes at a slight cost to the scenery. I mentioned that the Natsuyasumi games were known for painted backgrounds with cartoony-looking characters set against the beautiful realistic scenes, but here the whole world is on the cartoony side. While the characters are nicely stylized with flat colors, parts of the map have mushy-looking terrain that unfortunately doesn’t cohere much better from afar.

But it’s not all iffy: I appreciate lower-poly art and found some genuinely nice fields, hillsides and vistas that appropriately feel like something out of a storybook. And with Natsu-Mon’s 20-year pedigree and nostalgic underpinnings, you might as well pretend it’s a PlayStation 2 game—in the best way, of course.

A breezy time

You do get a full range of screen resolution options, yet no true ultrawide support. Sort of a bummer, but all things considered, it’s fine for a chill all-ages adventure that’s not trying to astound you to begin with.

Image1of5(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Image1of5

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

(Image credit: Spike Chunsoft)

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

The main reason Natsu-Mon is on PC a year later is Broadcast Over Sunset, a new simultaneously-released DLC pack that adds the distant Sunset Island for Satoru to explore. It’s a textbook DLC map: a little over a third of the main one in size, with new creatures to collect and a couple of new characters and mysteries that come with it. Again, I enjoy running around this game’s world, and getting a new area wrapped in a dusting of story works for me, but Sunset Island doesn’t look that much different from the rest of the game, and it feels bolted-on rather than a more unique adventure. Considering that finishing the main story gives you a New Game+ mode keeping everything you accomplished, it’s best to save Broadcast Over Sunset for later.

That said, the DLC does provide more of what makes Natsu-Mon enjoyable: the little thrills of exploring somewhere new with nary a care. The open-worlding of the Natsuyasumi formula is exciting after all these years, though it has to leave some things behind: we don’t get the perfectly composed idyllic scenes of its predecessors, and it doesn’t feel quiteasspecial as them when I spend most of the time dashing around the map. But Natsu-Mon’s strengths are in its modest size, nice setpieces and plenty of quirky characters. Who knows, maybe this could be a harbinger of smaller open world games that are more like a vacation than a job. In the meantime, I have a lighthouse to climb.

The Verdict77Read our review policyNatsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer KidWhile light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon’s comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

The Verdict

77Read our review policyNatsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer KidWhile light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon’s comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

77Read our review policy

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer KidWhile light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon’s comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid

While light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon’s comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

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Our Verdict#

Out of breath in the wild#

A breezy time#

Our Verdict

Out of breath in the wild

A breezy time