“Demo Disk” – Summer In Mara (2020) [Switch]

Demo Disk is a series of first impressions posts for new releases and quick opinions.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Chibig’s Summer In Mara has cruised onto the shores of the Nintendo Switch. At first glance, there seems to be a lot to enjoy here. It’s a farming/village sim with adventure mechanics, Stardew crossed with Wind Waker sailing across the ocean blue, discovering new places, meeting new people, amassing the usual fortune all while basking in the lighthearted warmth of gorgeously animated cutscenes stuffed to the brim with childlike wonder.

But some of these promises fall flat.

Summer In Mara does what indies do well in taking a variety of inspirations and combining them into a neat little package, but it does so without the singularity of vision that makes indies special. At the same time, it insists upon some of the dangers that regularly dog games of its ilk, such as a lack of polish and a lack of direction. And it’s a shame because the meat here is very good, it’s just hard to get to it, sometimes. For instance, I thought the soundtrack composition was really enjoyable, fitting, and uplifting, except the music cuts in and out mid-song and there’s little consistency to how it’s mixed in the game.

The game gets off to a slow start, introducing us vaguely to Koa and her adoptive grandmother, Yaya Haku, settled on an island in the midst of a vast ocean. Koa yearns to grow up and explore, and gets the chance when her seemingly over-protective mother figure passes on without fanfare.

The basic tools and how to use them will be familiar to anyone acquainted with farming simulators, but how to get the game to reliably progress isn’t always clear. Even once Koa finally manages to end her cycle of foraging and napping, accommodated by a feisty in-game clock and an apathetic stamina bar, and sets sail, it still doesn’t seem as if the game has begun.

Or has it? Is this all there is?

Not exactly. The first island Koa sails to is inhabited by a host of friendly and not so friendly villagers, many of which have fetch quests to offer her. Now, fetch quests in and of themselves are amoral, let’s just get that out of the way. They’re not intrinsically bad or anything. You might even enjoy fetch quests here (all 300+ of them), but you might be interested to know (as I wish I’d known) that Summer In Mara is almost entirely about fetch quests. All of the sort of forward-facing features like sailing and farming and foraging are subservient to fetch questing.

If that’s not exactly a sell for you, Summer In Mara is bright and cheery, with an emphasis on exploration against explanation, featuring themes of growing up, and there are many customization options to help you get your farming sim, fetch quest, anime visuals fix in.

Just know that I am typically addicted to this sort of game. I’ve spent lifetimes in the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory series, Stardew Valley, Terraria, heck even FarmVille back when it was a thing that you aunt bugged you for coins with. I recently savored over 500 hours in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but Summer In Mara’s oceanic paradise, even despite its quasi-Polynesian traits which I thought I’d personally appreciate, didn’t quite cry land ho! for me. I ultimately found it a pretty and occasionally visually inspired but clunky and unappealing experience, what with things like a map that marked incorrect locations of NPCs. There will be a lot of islands I’ll never explore alongside Koa.

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.