Summer Story

Visual Novel Review
Last week, Square Enix announced the release of Summer Story, an iOS game aimed at teaching Japanese people English using a visual novel-style game. Skeptical and intrigued, I downloaded the game and tried it out.

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You play as an anonymous student at an international college (yes, college!) in Japan. Three girls are taking classes there: a demure English girl, an energetic Australian girl, and a tsundere American girl. Each one has her own linear story line.

First off, let's establish a few things: each girl is voiced by an actual native of her country, who can actually voice act. No broken English here, and each actress hits the appropriate emotional notes.

A sample of the Australian girl, in Listen mode:

http://www.otakunovideo.net/mp3s/Summer_Story-Australian.mp3

A sample of the English girl, in Speak mode (so you'll hear me speaking):

http://www.otakunovideo.net/mp3s/Summer_Story-English.mp3

A sample of the American girl, in Speak mode (again, you'll hear me speaking):

http://www.otakunovideo.net/mp3s/Summer_Story-American.mp3

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Gameplay is divided into two modes: Listen and Speak.

In Listen mode, you choose one girl's story line to follow. She then speaks a sentence in English (both written in English on the screen and spoken by the actress). You get a menu of three possible answers, and must choose the one that's an appropriate response to her question.

So, if she says "I've been thinking of visiting a traditional place in Japan," your choices might be "How are you today?", "No, it's around the corner," or "How about a shrine?"

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The tricky bit is the selection of possible answers: each one is chosen from another conversation with the same girl. So each one will be right at some point in the game. I actually chose a few wrong answers, because the ones I chose dealt with a slightly different tense or mode of action than the correct answer. It's surprisingly subtle, and should teach Japanese people some solid English.

Every wrong answer removes one of the five hearts at the top of the screen (which re-fill at the end of every chapter). Lose all five hearts, and she becomes so thoroughly confused that the game ends and you must restart her story line.

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In Speak mode, by contrast, all three girls are available to you, but you can have only two conversations per day, and there are only 40 days in the semester. Since each girl has 30 conversations, you can only complete one girl's story per run. I'm unclear on whether you're supposed to balance your time with each girl in this mode.

Either way, there are no choices in Speak mode; instead, you're given the correct response as English text, and you must speak it into the microphone. If you pronounced the English properly, you continue; if not, the girl loses a heart and you must retry the response. Particularly clear English earns you an extra-bright screen flash.

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Each girl does actually have a complete story, and each girl has a secret that you uncover over the course of the game. None are particularly Earth-shattering, though I was touched by the American girl's experiences. The game is also absolutely G-rated.

The menus are all in English; the only confusing bit for me was an initial conversation with the player's Japanese guidance counsellor, which is entirely in Japanese. I'm assuming she explains how to divide your time between girls in Speak mode.

Unfortunately, the gallery of special images remained empty no matter how much I played and no matter how many special images I unlocked while playing in Listen mode. Perhaps you have to get through Speak mode?

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing Summer Story. It's a well-built game, with beautiful art and a solid story, and you can get through a girl's story in well under an hour.

http://www.otakunovideo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_0011-300x225.png

Man, that's moe.