Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid (PC)

Geoffrey Wright | April 16, 2025 | Mini Review | No Comments

Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid flew by me when it released several months back and sits as the latest in the mould of the Boku no Natsuyasumi games, the latest in a good while considering the last time was on PS3 & PSP. Natsu-Mon looks to take that formula and apply it to a fully open world design, does it manage to succeed? Lets take a quick look.

A circus troupe comes to Yomogi Town, a rural town in Japan situated between mountains and the ocean, and as the son of the circus ringmaster you have yet another new place to see before heading to the next. This time things are a little different as you will be spending the whole season in this little town, so you can finally enjoy a special summer filled with wholesome adventures!

With the summer days your own and the summer dairy to fill up, its really down to you how much of an adventure you’ll have. There’s plenty of investigations, jobs etc to find out more about the people and places of Yomogi town as you explore. You’re free to explore at your leisure and do things at your own pace with little in the way of restrictions, and the local residents are all to happy to give you something to do between adventures.

Going with a simpler visual design, you would be forgiven for not expecting much visually, but there’s plenty of charm to the designs. Things are still relatively detailed in a sense that landmarks etc are recognisable to aid exploration, and there’s plenty of unique little details to characters and areas too, but its not pushing any boundaries. Sure it could be more detailed even for a Switch port, but its colourful and styled in a way that thankfully doesn’t bore after a while.

Music is a little subdued, it’s there and is suitable to the game, but its not something you’ll hear often on your adventures. Voice acting is plentiful tho, there’s still the odd occasion there isn’t any, but there’s plenty of unique characters and interactions to make the most of it. Performance is understandably great. The visuals and a 60fps cap meant my system (R7 5800X3D/32GB/RTX 3090) had no issue running this locked with 2.2x DLDSR at 4K, should scale down nicely to steamdeck.

If you’ve played any of the Boku no Natsuyasumi games on previous PlayStation consoles then you will likely have an idea of how this direct descendant plays other, for everyone else it can simply be summed up as a childhood summer adventure – like the ones you may have had as kid. There’s a rural town ripe for exploring, with activities like bug hunting and fishing offering a further distraction. You pretty much just explore and get up to whatever shenanigans you can find each day, before returning home and filling out your summer dairy with the days adventures

Given all the activities you can get up to during the days, you’ll inevitably find some that you don’t take a shine to, and this can have an effect later in the game as you finish up those that do click with you. The pace played can also effect things, too quick or too relaxed may see you miss out on something, so while there isn’t really a restriction on things, you probably wanna pace appropriately if you want to see everything.

The latest in a long line of Boku no Natsuyasumi, the first to really get a western release, makes for an interesting proposition as summer approaches. There’s a well realised Japanese rural village brimming with exploration and discoveries for you to seek out as you head back to a simpler time of childhood summer. The game being as open as it is could be to its detriment tho, pacing etc is really down to the player, and its one of those that you really get back what you put into it. For me it captures that summer nostalgia almost perfectly, and while it may not be for everyone, makes a great way to unwind for anyone looking to take a break from things.