Summer in Mara is a third-person adventure game following the life of a young girl named Koa. A brief, almost comic-book style introduction begins the game to show that Koa was on a fishing trip with her father before a storm separated them.
Koa was saved by the local villagers and has been raised by her ‘grandmother’ Haku, whom she begins learning her trade from at maintaining the quality of the crops and wildlife on the Island. Haku is a strict teacher and there is a fairly substantial tutorial to get through before the player can fully experience the game.
What a Wonderful World
When the player finally does get to explore the world, there’s a lot to look at. It’s also a very pretty game. The islands and towns that are available to explore are full of vibrant colours and sunny, happy tones. Everything works together to create a sense of peace.
There’s no need to rush through anything, it’s just all about being at peace and making friends and keeping the islands healthy. There is only a faint whiff of an overarching story that does mean that the game can sometimes feel a little pointless though; there’s not much substance to anything that the players do.
The easiest way to think of Summer in Mara is sort of like a mixture between The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Harvest Moon. But unfortunately, nowhere near as engaging as either of them. Essentially, the goal is to gather materials and use them to manufacture bigger and better things.
This can be anything from cutting down trees, to building animal pens and improving Koa’s boat. Improving Koa’s boat opens up a world of exploration, with many islands waiting to be explored. Doing so will see you discover new friends, allowing you to form alliances to help each other by completing quests and trading materials.
Relaxing in Mara
It’s a very positive game that is relaxing to just sink into after a stressful day. There’s no way to die in the game, no combat or any puzzles that you can fail, it’s just a simple experience that sometimes people need. Yet that’s just the thing, it’s often too simple. Majority of the time it’s simply a game of fetch quests.
There isn’t enough variation to keep it engaging, meaning it can become tiresome very quickly. In some ways, it’s actually quite educational, learning about materials and growing crops in a similar vein Minecraft. Yet for most players, it won’t hold their attention for too long.
Forever in Mara
The biggest problem with Summer in Mara is that its just too much of a slog to get stuff done. Koa becomes tired every few minutes of gameplay which immediately sends you straight to sleep no matter what you’re doing. You also have to keep eating which can become annoying as it’s quite frequent, when you just want to concentrate on the many quests at hand. It completely disrupts the flow of gameplay.
What makes it worse is how the game complicates quests needlessly. Too many times, the quests require you to make frequent back and forth trips for the sake of a single mission as you have to keep gathering then returning materials, just to return again to build what you could have done in the beginning. It’s understandable to sometimes do things step by step but it drags the quests out to just feel so laborious that it makes you feel as tired as Koa.
The game is also incredibly buggy. Too many times, the game struggled to keep up with the boat journeys, with Koa travelling into a white void where nothing had yet loaded. The frame rate also took frequent dips whenever I was on any island that wasn’t the home island.
It’s not game breaking by any means, but it definitely pulls the player out of the experience somewhat. The cities aren’t overly busy or populated, so it seems strange that the game struggles to perform in these islands and hopefully they get fixed in an update later on.
In Good Company
The saviours of the islands are the saviours of the game. The characters are really fun, with some humorous dialogue and interesting tales of the islands coming from the vast array of associates that Koa meets.
The islands don’t have much to do on them except for looking pretty but at least the inhabitants are actually interesting to talk to. Without that, Summer In Mara would be a real struggle.
If you need a game that is mindless and simple then this game fits the bill. It won’t stress you out or fill you with dread but it won’t exactly capture your imagination either. Koa is adorable and the characters are fun but there’s just no substance to all the fetch quests. Unfortunately, it is inspired by some great games but doesn’t do them justice, looking pretty just isn’t enough.
Summer in Mara is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows. Switch review code provided by publisher.