written 07/04/2022
Summer in Mara is an Adventure/Simulation game released by CHIBIG on June 16, 2020, for Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam. You play as Koa who was rescued from a shipwreck by an elderly Quido named Haku and raised on her island in the sea of Mara.
Rating: 3.9 out of 5
Price: Paid $9.49 out of MSRP $24.99
Recommended: Yes
One Word Description: Relaxing
- Pros: Decent graphics, good music, relaxed gameplay, farming, crafting, fishing, cooking, building, sailing not annoying, storyline, many side quests, easter eggs, quick jumps available
- Cons: Back forth fetch quests, no vehicle to make main town island easier to navigate, hunger and power meter, anticlimactic ending, buggy gameplay, some quests unclear, unsatisfactory ending
Game Review – The game starts off with young Koa running around the island and Yaya Haku being the stern but loving grandma. The tutorial turns out to be a flashback and all of the sudden, Koa is older, the island is in disrepair, and the only reminder that Haku existed is a little shrine decorated with shells near the mysterious stone gate. She’s been barely surviving on her own and continues to subsist off oranges, blackberries, and fish until one day a strange creature she names Napopo happens by. With sudden inspiration, Koa fixes the island, makes new tools, and eventually repairs the boat to explore Mara!
First stop is Qalis, the main city of Mara, which is the main island in the game. There Koa meets with many new characters and thus starts the game. Summer in Mara is a quest-centric game. Finishing tasks for the inhabitants of the sea unlocks new quests, items, tools, characters, and most importantly: the map. There is a good rhythm to the flow, offering many choices to the player. The time element governing night and day has no bearing upon things aside from shop times and forcing Koa to rest. The later it becomes, the faster the stamina depletes, and no amount food will fully sustain her until she either sleeps at her house, at the inn of Qalis, on the boat or in a sleeping bag/tent.
As a general rule, when new things are available to be built, build it! Oftentimes, the act of building on Koa’s island will unlock new recipes allowing the player a sigh of relief and the fun of decorating the island. Cut down, burn, replant trees as you like. The game imposes limits on number of trees, but building wells increases that amount. Collecting animals who then produce items when fed, encourages farming of crops. Initially, the one-time-use items and limited materials can be anxiety-inducing, but most items can be bought if you have enough money. However, the game is extremely generous with random free items so long as the player spends time sailing and speaking to mail crabs. Speaking of money, it’s easy to sell items for cash, AND the nice thing is that aside from a 99 item cap, there is no inventory limit.
The main story quest can be…frustrating. There’s a lot of back and forth and fetching this and that, and dealing with irritating, stubborn old people. While that is easily forgiven of side quests, main story quests are better off being more straight forward in my opinion. Thankfully, I spent so much time gathering items that most quests were quickly and easily dealt with. The story is mostly told through character dialogue, but sometimes there are animated sequences. Trying to protect Mara from enterprising aliens was surprisingly making me angry for the inhabitants, and I was excitedly looking forward to the big ending as the events were reaching a climax when–
–an error occurred, and I got back into the game only to have missed it all. It had thrown me directly into post-game conditions. I had to go digging around on YouTube for the cutscene only to find that I missed almost nothing. The animated scene was short, a little confusing, and not all that satisfying.
Hmm. I decided that I would actually finish the rest of the quests out and spent several more hours digging up chests (apparently, I never knew about the shovel the entire game!) and making money. I kept hitting more and more game bugs as it went on until I thought I hit the biggest bug of all: an unfinishable quest! However, as is turns out, it’s not a bug. You literally cannot finish all of the quests because according to the developers it symbolizes the idea that quests never end in Mara :). Buh. While I understand where they’re coming from, that doesn’t sit well with me… doesn’t give me closure. Ugh. I wish they’d come up with a different way.
So, basically, I quietly finished the game and…I guess…that’s it…?
Gripes
- Some things are unclear. Like some of the quests sent me to the search engines because I simply could not figure out where to get some things. I kind of wish they’d mentioned somewhere that building items on the island would help unlock new recipes. If they did, I definitely missed it as did many other players according to the forums.
- Running around on Qalis was hella annoying!!! It’s nice that the island is well laid out, but geez, running literally back and forth to opposite ends of the place over and over again was getting seriously tiring. Plus, I think the ZR button on my Switch is permanently affected by constant depression. I wish more developers allowed constant running toggles. Rune Factory 5 did a great job of that.
- A horse, or roller skates, or a bike would have helped tremendously on Qalis
- BUGS. GLITCHES. From random teleportation, to getting stuck on things, to menu limitations. Admittedly, it wasn’t game-breaking and only one significant glitch (though I think that might be Switch and not software?) that prevented me from seeing the end cutscene.
- It would have been nice to have more access to workshops/kitchen/tool making outside of the home island. The constant need to go back because I needed to make ONE item was irritating. Maybe make it a boat upgrade?
- There are 3 types of trees that need to be planted on higher elevation. That’s kind of cool to have that consideration, except that the only place on the island to grow the 3 fruits was so super tiny! Why!?
- I really wish there was more post-game content. Something like restoring the old Navy Academy would have been neat or establishing a new Navy altogether. Perhaps as a reward for completing all of the quests, it unlocks that! Or maybe completing the colossus. All in all, too short.
- Some of the islands seemed useless. Like the GIANT island in the north that became a wasteland because of the Elits and houses a giant bunny. Or the two map squares that are completely empty. Even the weird Halloween Island.
Overall, a cute game! A little buggy, but very solid. I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys fetch-quests, farming, cooking, crafting, fishing, diving, and sailing. It is extremely relaxing with no time limit (aside from parts of the main story that requires you to sail and therefore can’t quick jump), so you can explore, or craft, or build, or whatever at your leisure. The mechanics work well, the hunger and stamina meters are fair. There’s a collection element, and there aren’t too many limits on building. Developers crammed lots of little details into the game and got many things right! Very enjoyable and I will always have fond memories of it. The 4ish stars out of 5 are for annoying back and forth running, lack of satisfactory ending, and all the glitch-bugs I kept running into even if they’re not game-breaking.