The Quintessential Quintuplets: Memories of a Quintessential Summer PS4 Review. Games starring the Nakano sisters have finally arrived in English with the first of the two being The Quintessential Quintuplets: Memories of a Quintessential Summer.
In this instalment, male protagonist Futaro and his little sister Raiha get invited to the Nakano family’s private island for a summer getaway. The offer is a gesture of gratitude since Futaro is not only the Nakano sisters’ classmate but also their private tutor. But then, shortly after they arrive, a severe storm prevents anyone from going in and out of the island. Until help can reach them, they must do their best to survive on their own with limited communication with the outside world and resources on hand.
While that setup sounds like it could lead to a scary or thrilling tale of survival, this is no Jurassic Park or Lord of the Flies. What you get here is a more lighthearted romp in the form of a visual novel with management and dating sim elements. It’s not a bad thing and is perfectly in line with the quintuplets brand, though it feels like a missed opportunity to tell a more creative, intriguing survival adventure story.
The Quintessential Quintuplets: Memories of a Quintessential Summer PS4 Review
A Visual Novel That’s Both Management Sim And Dating Sim
Memories of a Quintessential Summer is basically divided into three parts. First off is a prologue with no player choice that sets up the situation Futaro and the Nakano sisters find themselves in. This section felt a little drawn out but establishes various elements including a brief explanation of the gameplay and how the rest of the game plays out.
After that, you get into the meatier part of the game where you are finally given some agency in how the story plays out. This is where the most interactivity and gameplay occurs within the game. Additionally, this middle section is where you directly steer where the story goes once you reach the in-game day limit.
You, as Futaro, manage all the girls’ schedules by delegating what tasks they’ll do during each part of a day. A quintuplet can have the day off or have leisure time. You can assign scavenging duty, where the girl has to gather a type of resource needed for their survival, such as water, vegetables, meat, and so on. Lastly, the academically diligent Futaro also sees the situation as a chance to get more studying in, so you can assign a Nakano sister to study a specific school subject.
That’s right – this visual novel becomes a bit of a management simulator of sorts. There are lots of numbered and metered stats you’re presented with. At first glance, it can feel a little overwhelming and potentially not lead to a fun time. Once you get into several in-game day cycles though, you find out it’s not terribly hard. It’s honestly probably too easy – if it was a little more challenging, this part of the gameplay would likely prove more rewarding.
As for the stats you’re managing, that includes how many resources are left, the mood of each girl, how well a girl is scoring in each school subject, and how good each one is at cooking and searching for resources. One of the goals you have is to have all the girls be doing well-enough in every school subject by the end of the in-game day limit.
And then there is an intimacy meter for each girl that is an indication of how affectionately close she feels to Futaro. Therein lies the other goal: for one of the Nakano girls to get paired up with Futaro for the ending portion of the game. You build up this intimacy meter through dialogue choices as well as choosing the girl for cooking duty or to tutor one-on-one. After the middle portion’s in-game days run out, you’ll start playing through a certain path the game’s final portion. You end up with one of many endings depending on what path you got and the choices you make during it.
A Story That Feels Inessential
The most disappointing part about how the story ultimately plays out in is that, for better and for worse, it fits too nicely into the middle of the established plot line. The story, especially the endings, end up feeling pretty inconsequential as they don’t do anything to change what is canon in the anime and manga.
As such, Memories of a Quintessential Summer ended up feeling inessential, like I just played through filler, albeit one that has some fun and cute moments. For fans like me, there is enjoyment to be had seeing Futaro interact more with your favorite Nakano girl and more rom-com hijinks. There were scenes I found myself laughing and others that set my heart beating doki-doki a bit. The game certainly captures most of the spirit of the series well if anything else.
The experience was also helped by the overwhelming majority of the game being fully voice acted (in Japanese) including the Nakano girls and Futaro’s little sister Raiha. Our main protagonist Futaro only has voice acting in the prologue portion and then audibly silent for the rest of the game. Perhaps this was to make him feel more like a player insert character, but it still felt odd when he started the game being voiced.
Rough Quality Control On The English Version
The other major downside I had with the game was the quality control on the English localization. During my many hours with the game, I came across various typos and grammatical errors throughout. Some of these were pretty glaring and enough to take you out of the moment. However, the worst offender was having the wrong character’s name being written in the dialogue text. It’s rough having all these written errors for this type of game where most of what you are doing is reading text.
Generally, how much enjoyment you get out of The Quintessential Quintuplets: Memories of a Quintessential Summer will come down to how much you already love the franchise. Do you love it enough to play for hours through an easy management sim visual novel feaqturing a filler story with some rough quality control? I enjoyed some moments certainly, but cannot recommend this to anyone that isn’t already a quints fan.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.
The Quintessential Quintuplets: Memories of a Quintessential Summer is now available for PS4.