Sumire PC Review
Sumire is a colourful indie game from Japan that wants to tell a story, a rather touching story about a young girl, called Sumire, who is currently feeling unhappy about life and is dealing with life struggles. Sumire is having to handle a lot of things at once. She has experienced the loss of her grandmother, a person she truly adored and connected with. Sumire has also fallen out with her best friend and is feeling lonely and isolated. She is also living with just her Mum, as her Dad has moved out due to relationship issues, but has not called for some time, which has Sumire worried and frustrated. Sumire is also having to deal with her Mum’s depression, who has become apathetic with the world and does not seem to want to do anything.
These are quite challenging times for a girl so young, who begins the game hearing a whisper from her grandmother in her dream but does not know what she is trying to say. She wishes her grandmother was still around to give her tips about her current situation, as she does not know what to do and it is getting her down. But what if you could have a chance to speak to someone who has passed on? This seems too good to be true, but that is what is promised to her in the opening of the game by a new friend.
Sumire wakes up from the dream of her grandmother during the night and decides to speak to her grandmother’s photo that hangs in a mini altar inside the house. As she speaks out loudly, a window smashes, what appears to be from a seed that is now glowing on the floor. Curiosity overcomes Sumire, so she decides to plant it in a pot on a table. As Sumire nods off on the table, she wakes up a little later to see that a flower has appeared in front of her in the pot. The flower speaks to her and has a special request since the flower comes from another dimension and can only last one day in the human world. This request is that in exchange for Sumire to speak to her grandmother one final time, she has to show the flower a day in the life of a human, but it has to be a perfect day, and so Sumire makes a list with the flower of things she wants to accomplish, things to correct, elements to feel, so that she can move on. Of course, all this is so she can finally find out what her grandmother has been trying to tell her all this time in her dream. She grabs her backpack, a pen, and her trusty notebook and begins this day-long adventure with her new flower friend. Jack Bauer in 24 actions this is not, but the game tells a touching story with the day you spend with Sumire and her floating plant friend.
It should be stressed that Sumire is more focused on telling its story than being gamey. Sumire is a sort of visual novel, side-scrolling, adventure game that is streamlined in a way that is hard to become stuck. This is because the progression is linear. You move Sumire around her local town area by moving left or right, a bit of up and down to give that 3D movement on a plane, but really this movement is to get Sumire to the next point in the story and accomplishing the tasks set by her and the flower to do in the day.
These tasks include stuff like “Making a new friend”, “Telling Mom + Dad my feelings” and “Feel loved”. Most of the game is spent talking to people, with the occasional puzzle or mini-game thrown in. These are all rather simple games, such as rearranging words to make sense, fishing, a board game, and even a rather fun card game that one of the town folks has created. In between finishing up the checklist, Sumire will also have tiny requests from other “things”. I say things because Sumire can now talk to animals and some non-living objects, such as scarecrows and stone statues, as while the flower is around, these things have spiritual energy, following in the learnings of the Japanese religion, Shinto. There is a heavy emphasis on this throughout the game and its use of shrines. These tasks are all simple requests, often fetch quests, such as gaining a coat for a statue or a hat for a scarecrow. They often need to be performed before a certain time of the day. An example is that the scarecrow needs protection from the crows before lunchtime. Not doing this request will cause an outcome that one might not expect.
This is where Sumire shines. The game itself does nothing special when it comes to the actual playing, it’s simple and straightforward, but it is the options that are within its story that make the short 3 hour+ adventure memorable. The actions Sumire chooses are instantly saved, so there is no getting out of them. These choices change what happens within the game’s day, how people react, and also the ending depending on what has occurred. The visuals might look cute, bright, colourful, a wonderful pastel look, but within the story are some dark themes that come to light – bullying, murder, love, grief, friendship, all the challenges that one faces as they grow up in the world are here that a lot of people can relate to. These actions change Sumire’s karma, the darker you go, the harder it is to finish the list, but the reverse of that, the positive, means that Sumire will be able to hit that perfect day. All the choices have a consequence, and that is what makes the unfolding of Sumire’s day rather exciting, even if you do accidentally leave someone to wilt – that did not go down well with the townsfolk, whoops! I am already spoiling too much.
Sumire is a beautiful game, but it is not for everyone. That is okay, though, nothing has to be, just like Sumire’s adventure, things happen for a reason. People drift away or attract to things that they can gel with. If you are a person who enjoys a game that wants to tell you a personal story, one that might tug at your heart, make you suffer from the feels, you know, like the people who enjoy watching something like Grave of the Fireflies because it’s a wonderful piece of entertainment and not because it makes you teary-eyed, then Sumire is perfect for you. Just like a film, Sumire will not take a lot of your time, but the time it takes from you is respectfully used to deliver a touching narrative of one’s hardship growing up in a challenging world and what tackling them dead on can do to change one’s life, a story that many of us can no doubt relate to.
