After thoroughly enjoying Himegashima Island, I wanted to experience more of that feel of a summer vacation in a rural community. So when Natsu no Sagashimono ~What We Found That Summer~ by pekoge-sutagio was announced, it grabbed my attention.
This review is based on the full version of Natsu no Sagashimono ~What We Found That Summer~, with the adult content patch.
Small Town Life
The story opens as Natsu, a young and rather feminine-looking man, arrives at his aunt Misaki’s house in the countryside. He’s rather shy, but quickly takes to his aunt. Due to this, when his family’s plans suddenly change, it’s decided that he should stay with her for the summer vacation.
This triggers a number of encounters with the locals. A young girl named Chitose who claims to be a magical girl starts living with them, he gets to know the daughters of the local carpenter, Koume and Kotohana, and Aoi the young owner of the local candy store acts like a (sometimes perverted) big sister. He plays around with some of the others too.
Early on, there are some hints that Natsu doesn’t have the happiest background and that some of the other characters have their own problems. It’s mostly set aside until later, with the opening focusing more on Natsu coming out of his shell, taking the chance to introduce everyone new in the cast, and overcoming comedic misunderstandings. People mistaking him for a girl and treating him as such happens multiple times, and it was particularly amusing to see Aoi getting rather confused about her feelings towards a ‘girl’.
All of the five heroines in Natsu no Sagashimono are charming in their own ways and I enjoyed getting to know them. While it is an adult title, most of the scenes in the 13-hour runtime were either more casual moments, such as learning how Aoi is into 18+ manga, how the typically quiet Kotohana can talk nonstop about books, or how Koume dreams of being an entomologist. It’s also quite nice that the heroines have relationships with each other, independent of Natsu, and there are occasional scenes from their point of view where they sometimes meet and discuss him or other things.
Drama and Plot
Most of the more serious moments come towards the end of the story. As you progress through a heroine’s events, some of the later ones typically introduce an issue, which is then explored in a very brief character route.
These all revolve in some way around the theme of family and can cover quite serious topics. It’s slightly jarring just how serious some of them get when compared to the mostly lighthearted tone throughout the rest of the game’s events.
Koume’s and Kotohana’s tie together nicely, which makes sense for the siblings. That said, it’s best experienced with Koume’s first, which is likely to happen naturally due to the unlock conditions, but isn’t guaranteed. I did feel like Koume’s was a lot more impactful, but Kotohana’s did include a rather adorable romance scene.
Aoi’s route feels like something that could stereotypically be relatable for many people in the initial Japanese audience, but perhaps less so for a Western audience. It was still an enjoyable read though.
Misaki and Chitose’s routes are the most serious by far and tie together. They’re locked behind the other routes, but are absolutely worth going through. They have both heart-rending and touching moments.
It does feel like some of these are too short to properly explore the topics, but they were all a nice enough way to finish off getting through the routes.
Learning About Lewdness
As is typical for a visual novel, there’s an ‘all characters are 18 or over’ disclaimer in Natsu no Sagashimono, but Natsu both looks and acts younger. He spends time playing ball with the boys and clinging to some of the older girls. Some of the relationships here do seem to fall into the Onee x Shota category too, with Misaki and Aoi doting on him as a younger boy.
Tying into that, Natsu is pretty innocent and doesn’t really understand sex. Luckily for him, there are 29 H-scenes for him to figure it out, along with heroines who have done a lot of reading on the topic or are willing to puzzle it out with him. It specifically plays into this in a few scenes.
Most of these scenes are fairly short, but in exchange, the ones attached to the heroine routes tend to have a few options to vary your actions, letting you vary speed and choose when it ends. There are also some optional ones that can be found by speaking to the heroine at certain times, finding them around the map, or exploring further in the postgame.
The scenes are animated with few frames of movement in a reasonably detailed pixel art style and are uncensored, though it is worth noting a shadow penis makes an appearance occasionally and the non-shadow version looks like a rod of flesh rather than anything detailed. The heroines’ bodies are more detailed.
There are a few scenes that go beyond vanilla, with urine drinking making an appearance twice as a notable one. These are the exception though, to the point that it surprised me to find something like that in this game.
Moving in Summer
Natsu no Sagashimono ~What We Found That Summer~ has fairly basic gameplay and it doesn’t always work as well as I thought it should.
Most of the time is spent moving between screens of the map by clicking an arrow. More of the map unlocks over time, which gives a minor sense of progression.
Each screen has objects to click that reveal a few lines of description, characters who sometimes appear with a little dialogue, and sometimes some insects that you can click on to collect for Koume. There are also a few places to collect fish for Aoi, which is a very simple minigame of waiting until the symbol comes up, and then clicking once to reel it in.
Heroine Events can be found on the screens, but other than a notice that there’s one to find, there’s generally nothing to lead to where they may be until you come across the symbol by going to the right screen. Usually, it’s fairly straightforward to find, but there are a handful of times when the event might not even have a symbol.
This isn’t particularly interesting and it can be tedious to keep clicking around until finding something. There are hints in-game for some of them, but sometimes they don’t seem to be correct or the full requirements. Unlocking and progressing through Misaki’s story doubles down on this, with tons of motes of light hidden around the map, some not appearing until others are collected. I found events not appearing in Chihiro’s route until a certain amount of time had passed either, which led to me skipping days.
Unlocking the heroine events for the first three heroines is mostly related to likeability though. It uses the common system of bribing them with relevant items, which they’ll give you some currency in exchange for, along with raising how much they like you. For Aoi and Koume this is the fish and bugs mentioned before, but Kotohana’s was somewhat tedious as it involved buying expensive gachapon items and very slowly increasing her gauge.
There are also mechanics about managing energy and ‘naughtiness’ to have enough to unlock events, but this quickly becomes a little irrelevant. At first, it was framed as only having 30 days so needing an element of time and energy management, but by day 15 and 5 hours in I had the first ending (it would’ve been faster if I’d focused on one heroine) and the time limit then no longer mattered. I did appreciate that it doesn’t make you replay in a New Game Plus type mechanic to see the other heroine’s events, but it does make the whole idea of a time limit feel redundant.
Pixels and Tunes
Natsu no Sagashimono uses pixel art well to create a rather nice-looking rural setting and great-looking characters. That said, there are some limitations. The expressions and poses are few in number, though they typically do well at getting across the emotions involved. The amount of detail conveyed isn’t always the highest either, which doesn’t help when Misaki and Aoi are both blue-eyed, blue-haired, and busty, with Kotohana not looking too far from that either. Still, it looks good.
Better are the more detailed parts of the pixel art, such as the occasional CGs for important story moments and adult scenes. There are some nice little touches too, like color-coded transitions for heroine events.
The music used is soft and appropriate for the feel of a slow life in the countryside, though it doesn’t overly stand out. There’s no voicing at all, which is a pity but makes sense for a budget title with an indie origin.
Verdict
Natsu no Sagashimono ~What We Found That Summer~ has fairly unengaging gameplay, but it does well at creating that feeling of summer in the countryside and getting to know the locals. The slice-of-life scenes are enjoyable and even if brief the more serious elements were welcome. It would’ve been nice to see improvements in some areas, but it feels fair considering the low price.
NATSU NO SAGASHIMONO ~WHAT WE FOUND THAT SUMMER~ IS RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for another 18+ cozy pixel-art game, you might want to check out Himegashima Island. We have also covered a wide variety of visual novels both original to English and localized from Japanese, 18+ and all-ages, which you can check out here.
Many thanks go to Kagura Games for a Steam review code for Natsu no Sagashimono ~What We Found That Summer~.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
