Oh I love this game. It so perfectly captures the feeling of being a kid on a summer vacation that feels endless and magical and then all too short, and I would have loved this even if the immaculate vibes were all it had to offer. But no, Boku no Natsayasumi 2 ALSO has gorgeous 2D backgrounds and great character writing!

The story plays out through short scenes Boku has with the other people in town throughout the month, and they're all very charming. While Boku is having his idyllic, carefree summer vacation, the adults are dealing with the kind of grown-up problems you can't really grasp as a kid—you know something's going on and it seems like it's a big deal but it doesn't make sense. In the various vignettes, they allude to their grief, family conflicts, loss; Boku lends an ear, tries to understand. A lot of these conversations end with him walking away scratching his head in confusion. It all feels like the kind of off-handed comment you hear as a kid that you look back on as an adult and think, "oh wait, that was kind of dark!"

Not to say this game is super serious by any means. You can easily skip the conversations and have a pretty good time just taking in the atmosphere and catching bugs, but I appreciated the time the game spends fleshing out the supporting cast and giving them stories that I cared about. I also appreciated the little sleeping cats strewn about. Did not appreciate the tank controls 😞👎🏻🚫 he is a little boy NOT a large armored vehicle, you are being ridiculous

Looking past that (honestly I got used to the tank controls as I played, still mad about it though), this is a wonderful game that I loved playing. Boku no Natsayasumi 2 feels like stepping into a memory. Thank you to fan translator Hilltop for bringing this game to a whole new audience and helping me to discover a new favorite :)

"Human beings are made out of meat. We get mentally ill when that meat is defective."

So many things I want to criticize here, most of which are issues with the whole series; they're full of dull and tedious sections, they can be so so corny, and the reveals are (mostly) ridiculous. Despite all of that, I still find myself drawn to these characters and honestly excited to see how things play out, even if it's batshit. Maybe especially if it's batshit? Anyway, this one isn't as good as the previous chapter (which I thought was one of the best overall), but it answers a lot of questions and takes the plot in a few new directions leading into the finale.

The quote at the top is my favorite line from this whole fucking series. I don't know how much of these games are meant to be taken deadly seriously but either way it's the funniest thing I've read recently. I want to send it to my psychiatrist

I was interested in playing this after hearing that it was better than expected and a really early example of a dating sim. The one thing that stood out to me was how the women you can date felt closer to actual characters with lives that don't exclusively revolve around a) being utterly obsessed with the protagonist or b) being porny archetypes. That's not to say those things aren't ever an issue, or that it doesn't sometimes fall into gross tropes, but at the very least I found the writing funny and more interesting than I expected it to be. Cool as a piece of gaming history (sort of?) but not really my thing.

I replayed this for some reason after almost 9 years and got the bad ending :( the idea of playing the game through again to get the good ending was too unbearable so I guess this one is abandoned. It's charming at times and the non-westernized translation is way better and less awkward than the one I remember, but it's just not that fun to play and the writing isn't good enough to make up for it. Also maybe it's less fun without the horrible America-set translation that talked about hamburgers all the time