Adventure

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One of the most novel modes is the Afrika Viewer. Here you can set the game up to automatically cycle through various stationary cameras set up throughout the landscape in a dynamic video presentation. You can choose the time of day and the location you'd like to see and leave it running like a screensaver on your PS3. Use it as relaxing ambient background noise or just a way to relax for a few minutes when you are sick of trying to get the perfect shot. You can view it with the in game music turned on or off and can even choose which music track (or all) you'd like to hear.

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As a Japanese PS3 game Afrika stands in stark contrast to the closest western equivalent; hunting games. I happen to live in a rural, snowy area where deer populations will starve to death during the winter if they are too large. Hunting them responsibly is a welcome alternative that benefits the remaining deer as well as the hunters. To be honest, there are people living here who can benefit from some extra food in the winter. It also helps us stay connected to the land and to our food.

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The scoring system in Afrika encourages you to get a good close shot from a nice angle. It's never forgiving, but you can always progress with anything other than an F ranking. Yet I found myself on many occasions going back to retake a photo, not because I couldn't progress, but because I wasn't satisfied with a C or B rating. It's truly satisfying when you finally get that perfect shot, not just because you get an A ranking, but because the photo itself is genuinely beautiful and required some effort to take.

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Speaking of photorealism, this PS3 game is beautiful. You only need to glance at a few screenshots of Afrika to see that a lot of work was put into giving you the ability to actually take nice looking photos. You start your day as the light of dawn has yet given way to the bright sunlight of morning and your day ends as the last rays of the setting sun fade away. Care was taken to reproduce the passage of time which is important in this game. The long shadows cast by the afternoon sun create a much different mood than the bright overhead sun of midday.

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The opportunities for replay in Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 are many. My first play-through got me most of the way along the bug catching activity of the game. However, I did not progress very far at all with bottle cap collecting or bug sumo, and I completely overlooked the opportunities to help out in Megumi's glass shop. There are 5 different endings and while they are not worth an entire play-through in and of themselves, they make a fun goal for a play-through that includes other aspects of the game.

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The game itself took me around 12hrs to beat and I thoroughly enjoyed my first play-through. Be warned that like many sandbox games that give you freedom to do as you choose, you run the risk of becoming bored if you do not set goals for yourself. The game compensates by being a bit more structured that the typical sandbox game.

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Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 is at it's root an adventure game. It's not the tedious puzzle-solving style adventure game that has you finding items and combining them together to progress to the next section. Rather, Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 is a true adventure game in the sense that you are discovering the world that the creators made for you and seeking out adventure within that world. There is no stat management or progression trees or leveling up of any kind. The enjoyment comes from discovering what is available for you to do, and discovering what those things have to offer.

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Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 for the PS3 captures a great deal of childhood nostalgia in it's portrayal of childhood discovery, but it further recreates that experience of discovery for a non-Japanese gamer in the present. People say that the best introduction to another culture is to stay with a host family so you can experience first-hand what daily life is like. Nothing could be closer to having the opportunity to home stay in Japan in video game form than Boku no Natsuyasumi 3.

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What do you remember the most fondly about your childhood? Perhaps it's that trip to the beach where your grandmother taught you to swim and you discovered those beautiful seashells. Maybe it's that family reunion where you played all day with your cousins and canoed around the lake. Perhaps it's simply all the people who mentored you and introduced you to the world around you. Regardless, the wonder of being a child is the newness of everything and the excitement of it's discovery. Now pretend that this feeling has been made into a video game and you have Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 on the PS3.