Summer in Mara is an adventure simulation game that focuses on its beautiful tropical setting. Play as Koa, a strong-headed girl raised on the island of Mara, while crafting, completing quests and errands, and maintaining the island. Summer in Mara is developed by CHIBIG and is available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
When I first got into this game, I couldn’t help but notice it’s similarities to Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing, both of which are developed by Nintendo. Summer in Mara had a very similar open-world feel while focusing heavily on the environment and character designs. It also had similar gameplay feel, sharing cooking and heavy map exploration in common. While it did have some similar gameplay feel as Breath of the Wild, I felt that the gameplay was almost eerily similar to Animal Crossing New Horizons. Both take place in a tropical island setting, both heavily rely on crafting, grinding, and almost tedious errands and quests. While Animal Crossing New Horizons is more focused on building your own village, Summer in Mara is more focused on maintaining Mara and sending you back and forth between the islands.
Summer in Mara also doesn’t have a very good tutorial, if you can even call it that. It pretty much just introduces the fact that this is an errand-running game but doesn’t explain or acknowledge the menus or toolbars. It took me a good several minutes to figure out how to access my gardening hoe. It took me randomly hitting buttons until something happened for me to figure it out. The game mechanics themselves were fine once I figured them out on my own. Once I did figure it out, it wasn’t long that I realized that this game held one of Animal Crossing’s more negative traits, tediousness. Koa is sent on constant unfulfilling errands that send you back and forth between Mara and the other islands. It feels like this game was built as an endless side quest generator, which could be appealing to some, but I personally have a hard time enjoying games with heavy grinding and fetch errands.
While I was disappointed in the gameplay, the design and graphics of Summer in Mara are amazing. The settings are just beautiful and the character designs are cute and unique. I love Koa’s character – she’s spunky and headstrong and a great adventurer. I really enjoyed the music of this game too. It helped counteract the agitation I was getting from the constant side quests. I wish the beautiful environments and the calming music weren’t taken away from by the lack of story and motivation.
Overall, Summer in Mara is a beautiful game with great characters but the gameplay was definitely disappointing. There needs to be an actual tutorial explaining the controls and menus, and something more beyond endless errands. If you are someone who loves side quests and tries to avoid the main storyline as much as possible then this may be the game for you. The art and music are truly awesome but the gameplay isn’t for me.
6/10
Check Out the Summer in Mara Trailer:
Summer in Mara is available for bit.ly/3ftetQ7, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.
For more information, please visit: https://chibig.com/summer-in-mara/
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I'm a postgraduate Information and Library Studies student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. I'm originally from Texas and have a BFA in Creative Writing from SFASU. I grew up playing video games and now enjoy watching other people play as well. I love anything with a good story!
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