Boku no Natsuyasumi is a long-running Japanese series that features a strange and bad exception, has never been officially released in the West. It’s a shame! However, where publishers have failed us, fans step up and deliver the goods.
The series, best translated as My summer vacationbegan way back in 2000 on the PS1, and each game is about the same thing: a kid is away with his family on summer vacation, and you take control of him as he spends his days wandering the countryside, collecting bugs, and making friends .
While we (somehow) got one Shin-Chan-branded spin-off last year, no main game in the series has ever been officially released in English. And maybe never will, so it’s great that Hilltop-whose work we have featured here before-leads a team working on releasing an “English translation” patch for the second game in the series, Boku no Natsuyasumi 2.
Set in 1975, this one whisks you away to spend 31 days at your uncle and aunt’s B&B in a small town on the southern coast of Japan. It has one of the best covers in all of video games:
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Here is a trailer. Not for the game, it’s for the English patch, but I guess it’s also for the game:
Oh, nice! “Not much happened today. But it was a day I will never forget”. Can’t wait. In the meantime, you can check out – and support – Hilltop’s work here.
While we’re on the subject, the last Nintendo Direct had the reveal trailer for it Natsu-Mon: Summer Vacation in the 20th Centurya brand new game written and designed by Boku no Natsuyasumi series creator Kaz Ayabe, and developed by his studio Millennium Kitchen. No word on an English release for this, but with the interest in the series finally picking up over here for the past few years, there’s always hope!