Is there a true way to play this game?
I had this thought while running around, trying to get everything done that I wanted to do today. Time moves so quickly between screens, you almost have to wonder, is it intentionally designed so that you can’t do everything you want to on Normal time mode? Who is the Quick time mode for? Are the designers aware of the irony that the Slow mode is likely the one used by players who are working harder to get the “best” ending?
Why does the game compel you to do so many things, knowing you have so little time to do them?

The game lets you know the deal from the jump: you have 31 days to have an unforgettable summer vacation. You have a diary that needs an entry every day. You have a counter on the menu telling you how much yen you have and how many of the 25 bottle caps you’ve collected. You have a book with your insect collecting kit that has room for 101 entries. There’s an untold number of fish to catch. Of bugs to wrestle. Character interactions. You can give massages. You can guess what you’re having for dinner. You can tan.
The pro Bokunatsu 2 player pays attention to paths. They need to know the quickest way from point A to point B to maximize their time. How many screens will I need to cross? How much time do I have left? Is it faster to take the south path around or the east path through? Can I afford to check this area for an event knowing it could cost me 3 screens’ worth of time if it leads to nothing? What do you do?

It’s an interesting push-pull. The game is enticing you with so much, dangling these options in front of you, teasingly. Players want to see as much of the game as they can, hoping they come out of their playthrough with an experience they can remember fondly. Don’t you want to make the most out of your vacation, kid?
Assuming that Normal time is the mode that the developers see as the intended experience, Boku (and the players, by extension) need to make decisions about what they can and can’t do in a given day. It’s made deliberately tight, not by much but just enough, to force you to choose, knowing you can’t realistically do everything you want to do. You have to learn the game’s pace. You, like Boku, start to learn your way around.
And it’s clever how the game progresses. The further into the month you get, the more areas get unlocked, which means you have to travel more and more, severely reducing what you can do in a given day. Time is the only resource in the game and they gradually make it more challenging to progress. There is no way you’ll be able to do everything without putting in an absurd amount of work that feels antithetical to what this game is about.
A part of me wonders if the developers do this intentionally to teach you to let go of perfection. Or if they put in more to entice you to keep playing, to get a better ending. My gut’s telling me the former, and that it encourages you to replay it, not in the hopes of getting the “best” ending, but in seeing as much of its different parts as you can. Maybe you want to do a Quick run and just fish? Or maybe you want a Slow run to do a couple of more things to round out your last playthrough? They account for players who try to do everything, but for now, I don’t believe the “best” ending is the true one.
The game wants you to have a memorable experience playing it, and is trying to tell you that you can, even on days where… nothing really interesting happens.


