Natsu Mon 20th Century Summer Kid Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · August 23, 2024

Natsu Mon 20th Century Summer Kid Review, A circus troupe comes to Yomogi Town, a rural town in Japan situated between mountains and the ocean. As the son of the circus ringmaster, enjoy a special summer filled with adventures! All of Yomogi Town and the nature surrounding it are an open world where you can enjoy summer to its fullest. Immerse yourself in nostalgic scenery filled with towering clouds, beautiful sunsets, and the sound of cicadas. Summer days are always filled with activities like fishing at the river or catching rare bugs in a field. Help the circus succeed and interact with the townspeople if you’d like. Enjoy a night at the summer festival, dancing and watching fireworks. There’s even a train so you can visit a neighboring town.

Natsu Mon 20th Century Summer Kid Review Pros:

Beautiful graphics.
3.3GB download size.
30 save slots.
Controller settings – three layouts, Invert axis, sensitivity sliders, and motion controls support.
Set the speed of messages/interactions and the passage of time.
Japanese voice with English subtitles.
Awesome opening credits sequence, and makes it feel like a film starting.
In-game cutscenes and character interactions.
All interactions auto-scroll/advance.
Multiple choice encounters.
Your diary is important and an icon will come up when there is something worth adding to it. When writing your diary a picture is populated and you get to choose the contents of your entry and add a stamp.
Adventure gameplay.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play along with a menu housing all the tutorials you have seen.
You have a 3D isometric map to mark and see it populate as you explore. The map does look really good.
A full 3D game world and you have 360-degree camera control in the world but the camera is fixed indoors.
You can collect bugs with or without your net, a circle appears over them if you have never caught that bug before.
When you catch a bug you see it in your bug box, you get told the size of the bug, name, in-game date, time of day, and how many you have and then you can choose to keep it or release it.
There is 200 bugs to catch and you have a tally showing after each new bug is caught.
A very relaxed game atmosphere.
Find coins and trinkets lying around.
The animation for finding bugs and checking your net is quick and painless.
You can just get in a swing and get treated to a relaxed cutscene of you swinging with the world moving around you.
Save and load when you want.
The adventure notebook is a list of all your quests and tasks.
Unlock new stamps and stickers by fi fishing tasks and missions.
You can play how you want and go where you want.
Bus stops are used like a fast travel system. You use bus tickets or money to ride them and can only go to stops you have discovered.
The map fills in as you explore.
An accessible game with easy-to-learn controls, lenient bugs, and fish catching.
The more stickers you have the higher you can climb and the faster you can run.
It’s a game more aimed at kids but adults will enjoy the chilled approach to it.
You have an album to document your collections of bugs and fish caught.
Day and night cycle and if you stay out too late, a family member comes and finds you.
The game is played in 3rd person.
Stunning vistas and locations.
The stickers are basically used as a stamina bar.
Staying up til 10 pm means you sleep in the next day and miss out on exercises.
Over time you can change your clothing and footwear.
Fishing can be down on the side of any water, you set the rig and bait and just press a button to reel fish in.
You can see the shape, size, and outline of fish in the water.

Natsu Mon 20th Century Summer Kid Review Cons:

You cannot remap the controls.
Japanese is the only voice language in the game.
Having the sequence of a drawing being done after every activity or bug caught is not that great, the novelty wears off.
It’s really hard to judge distance when trying to catch bugs.
The performance of the game even docked is not solid, a lot of slowdown and juddering.
Early on you don’t get bombarded with a lot of menus and systems to remember.
At times you can see bugs in buildings but have no way to reach them.
Kind of loses its charm when you are asked a question and you have to answer or can answer with all the possibilities.
The game uses the clock for time of day, going to bed, etc but you can never actually see the time until you get the clock.
The indoor camera angles can have hard cuts which makes moving around a real pain.
You have to interact with bus stops to register them.
Nighttime has restrictions like how far you can go, it’s not clear what is acceptable until you hit the invisible wall.
The fishing is very basic.