While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
As summertime is wrapping up, quite a few of you are probably doing what you can to make the most of our remaining time with the summer heat. I certainly am in video game form. Boku no Natsuyasumi is a series that allows you to do just that; however, it goes a step further. It’s not just about spending a month on vacation, but rather a nostalgic dive into what summer vacations meant to us as kids. I’m sure many of us have memories of summers where we played outside with friends, read books, watched TV, or listened to the grumblings of Adults that you didn’t fully comprehend. These games all capture that and then some. I decided to play Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 since that received a relatively new fan translation and while I’m a little more than halfway through it, I’m having a great time. To further commit to the idea of this being a “nostalgic” experience, I am even playing this on original hardware through my CRT.
Everyday plays out like this: you wake up, do some morning exercises, eat breakfast, then explore. Eventually, you’ll have dinner then get to explore a little more and finally go to bed. Repeat this for a month and that’s the whole game. It’s simple yet the more you play it, the more you’ll unravel the various layers here. See, this is a game where you’ll get as much out of it as what you’re willing to put into it. If you ignore all the characters or ongoing story lines it will be a rather boring experience; however, there are a ton of secrets and story lines for you to uncover if you just poke around at the game enough. You’ll eventually figure out how you’re supposed to water the morning glories every morning, how to capture and raise the best bugs to beat your cousins’, ride the bike, give people massages, discover new areas, explore the depths of the ocean to look for treasure, or even console an old man coming to grips with his own mortality. One of the things that makes this experience captivating and even relatable is just how grounded it all is. All dialogue is voiced and feels natural, like these are just people having casual conversations. I don’t want to spoil much on this but some of the character arcs get surprisingly emotional in some spots, with many of them asking questions that your character may not comprehend but you the player might. I almost feel like these questions are moreso directed at the player than anyone in game. And it’s okay if you don’t have the answers to those questions. Your character certainly doesn’t and no one criticizes or penalizes him for it. But the game expects you to at least *think* about it for a second. I’d recommend people check this game out for that aspect alone.
To compliment the introspective nature of the story, you’ve got some absolutely stunning visuals. The majority of the backgrounds are pre-rendered and on a CRT, they really shine with all the details being noticeable and looking surprisingly realistic. Each screen is intentionally crafted to draw your attention and just get you to take it all in and create memories of them, memories you can cherish. Your character will record these memories in his diary at the end of each day, complete with an adorable drawing. Even if you don’t progress any story lines or accomplish anything on a particular day, your character will write “Nothing special happened today. But I still think it was a wonderful day.” Despite the day being “boring,” your character still appreciates that he was able to live that day. Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 is a game that wants you to find the beauty in monotony. And I think that’s neat. – Justin
Lately, I haven’t been doing much gaming for myself. I just finished two different reviews, one for STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar and the other, Illusion of Itehari. Having finished both of those, I honestly haven’t been sure what to get back into. I always seem to be unsure what to go back and play when I haven’t gotten a new game recently, or after I get burnt out on something. And thus, I’ve found myself continuing to play Grand Bazaar. This is the first of the now three STORY OF SEASONS Switch games I’ve reviewed, which I’ve actually wanted to keep playing after my review already went out. I’m currently still working on reaching that final goal to upgrade my bazaar from National Rank, to World Rank. I haven’t quite figured out yet how to rank up stalls. One of the goals is to make 2 million in sales, the other is to increase the rank on four stalls. I already managed to somehow rank up one stall before and now I’ve increased the rank on another one more recently. All I can think of is that I must’ve done it by buying all of the farm upgrades they sell, or currently available products, or something of that sort. It’s either that, or hitting certain relationship heart ranks with the characters who run them, upgrades the stalls. I’m almost at the goal of 2,000,000G in sales however. I should be able to hit that goal in only a couple more bazaar days.
Since my review has gone out, I did finally unlock the basement greenhouse. Well, I don’t know if you could call it a greenhouse, but it is a basement farm plot. Then there are different sun stones you can unlock and set, to pick the season of crops you grow in that area. Unfortunately, you only start with the spring stone and having figured out how to unlock the other three, I realized it’s going to take a lot of work. I think I’m now truly at what could be considered the post-game. I’ve unlocked the ability to get a lot of cool features which will make farming a breeze and let me keep playing in a more relaxed matter. But to do that, I have to grind a lot more to actually unlock the stuff. One season’s stone needs a lot of gold crops to unlock, another requires a ton of gemstones and one requires some special items from fishing. One of those fishing items I’ve only caught once and used for a relationship rank request and the other I’ve never caught. So at the moment, I’m still running around constantly trying to get all the stuff I need.
Other than Grand Bazaar, I’ve also gone back to Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition and played it a smidge. I don’t know yet if that’s what I’m going to fully throw myself into next though. I think I’m still feeling out my game options. Nothing has fully sucked me back in yet and I’m not sure which game will. I always hate not being sucked into a single game, because I end up constantly switching games and don’t get much done in any of them. For the time being, I’m stuck with my existing collection, mainly my ever growing partially played backlog full of games I haven’t finished. – Jenae
Unlike several other Rainfall folks, I’ve been late to get on the Trails train. It’s a series I’ve always meant to check out, but just never really found the time. With the recent drop of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter trial version, that’s finally been rectified. (Well, kind of. It’s still only a demo.)
First things first, I played the PlayStation 5 version with Japanese audio. The game looks gorgeous, with beautiful colors and lovely environments. The town feels lively and lived in, with tons of NPCs, some of whom even have some fun conversations with our main characters, Estelle and Joshua Bright. (I’m particularly fond of the lady who wants them to hook up, because I agree.) I never got lost, but I did feel slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of NPCs with unique dialogue. I know that’s a staple of the series so I wasn’t surprised by them, but trying to find everyone in just one city made it abundantly clear why these games have the reputation they have for both length and immersion. As for our main characters, Estelle is a bit too energetic for me, but I really love the way she plays off Joshua’s more subdued demeanor. I can see why she’s so highly regarded amongst fans, though – cute, feisty, and always ready for a challenge. Both her and Joshua are tropey, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
When it comes to combat, the game has two modes. Once you’ve engaged the enemy, you can freely run around the arena and attack using the circle and triangle buttons, dodge with the cross button, or use items. If you press the square button, the game swaps to turn-based combat, where you can cast specific spells you’ve equipped to your character or use certain techniques. Special techniques even require standing on an enemy’s rear or flank, which was a nice touch. Some enemies are impervious to physical damage or have high dodge rates, so using magic against them is your path to victory, making the turn-based sequences mandatory. Swapping between tactics alters the pacing of the fights, and I found it a bit of a slog when fighting normal monsters but engaging when it was against bosses. Turn-based combat is inherently slower than real-time, and it made exploring the dungeon feel a lot more tedious when I was forced to use magic against the stupid flying enemies. It’s not a bad system, and I got used to it pretty quickly, but I don’t know that I’m sold on it, either.
I really enjoyed playing the demo, and I can understand the appeal this series has had for so long. I think I’m coming at it too late to really get on the hype train, but I still want to check out the full game when it releases later this month. Who knows, maybe it’ll inspire me to dip my toes into the older games to see the story continue. – Leah
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
