Good evening, I hope your Wednesday is going great so far! Today's post will be my first ever video game review. Let us delve in to my experience and thoughts on Summer in Mara.
I originally discovered this game while it was in development via a Nintendo Direct back in March 2020. I was drawn in by the games artstyle and gameplay elements shown in the announcement trailer. I ended up not buying it for the Nintendo Switch but on Steam for no reason other than wanting to add to my Library.
Summer in Mara is a single player adventure game that takes place in a charming, tropical world. You play as Koa, a mischievous young girl, who is tasked with taking care of her grandmothers island and exploring everything Mara has to offer. As you progress through the games narrative, you learn more about your grandmother, the history of Mara as well as unlocking new islands to explore.
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| Visiting the market place in Qälis |
The gameplay features some farming elements such as growing crops and feeding animals. Island customisation, crafting, foraging, fishing, sailing, diving and questing (which are known as tasks) are some of the things you will find yourself doing in Mara. To progress within the game, you must complete various tasks given to you by each character which can consist of talking to this person, get me some food or this material.
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| Picture from my Steam Library, so close to all achievements! |
After putting in several hour to explore, complete the game and do some extra Steam achievements, I can safely say this game will not be everyone's cup of tea. If you are looking for a comfy farming sim, this isn't it. I personally enjoyed my playthrough as I like to unwind with lighthearted games in between multiplayer games and real life stresses but I was met with quite a few bugs and frustrations.
After completing a handful of tasks for the various characters in the game, things just start to feel like a game of fetch which isn't very appealing to all players. The farming and customisation of your island is also very limited which left the gameplay feeling rather empty like something is missing. The entire game revolves around completing tasks. You could speed up task completion time if crops or an island exclusive spawn item was required by sleeping to skip the day as often as needed. There were no punishments for skipping days, only rewards by growing your crops very fast. I felt I became rather guilty of this instead of spending extra time in a day to explore and collect other materials that may be useful later in the game.
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| Outside of Koa's house, lots of cotton ready to gather! |
Sailing is your means of travel between the different islands in Mara, I sadly forgot to take a screenshot while out on the ocean. As you progress, you can upgrade your boat to be able to venture further on the map. While it felt exciting at first, it is very quick to replace sailing with quick travel so long as you have some gold on hand. While sailing you are able to find some floating debris which you can sail through to collect crafting materials or small amount of gold. You can also come across some floating farm animals that can live on your island if you have build the correct building setup for them. In some parts of the ocean you can go diving to find sunken treasures or items to complete tasks. The controls to sink deeper felt a bit clumsy on the PC version and took a few dives to get comfortable.
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| The underwater scenery while diving was rather beautiful |
Considering the game is not in early access and is a full release, I was rather surprised to come across a couple of graphic glitches and bugs. The one thing that bothered me the most was loud sounds that did not reduce when lowering the volume options. These sounds would be when you are mining, hitting debris and sounds such as running water and animal noises. I also encountered an issue where the entire world was covered in shadows which required a restart to fix. There was also an issue where if you opened up a menu too quickly after zoning in or exiting your boat, it would remain glued to your screen, resulting in a restart to fix. While these where not massively game breaking issues they where very annoying to encounter as closing the game would result in a new day starting.
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| Not so vibrant when the shadow bug strikes |
As much as I would like to say that I loved this game and it was super fantastic, I just can't. While I did enjoy my time playing I did get frustrated a bit more often than I would have liked due to the loud sounds and the amount of fetching. The lack of gameplay outside of tasks felt rather disappointing and the story not being as engaging as it could have been. If the farming and island customisation where more focused and interactive than their current state, I would have found my time in Mara much more enjoyable and wholesome.
What do I rate Summer in Mara? 5/10
I hope you all enjoyed my review of Summer in Mara. This whole process is completely new to me and something I have wanted to try for such a long time With time and more experience I am certain my writing and post quality will improve.
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| One of the few little cute chickens that lives on my island |
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