This game touched my soul so deeply. I haven’t cried so much while playing a video game in years. I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed a game as much or connected as deeply to the characters and story as I did while playing this game.
So a bit of background. This is a cheap quick little indie game. It’s what I would call a story-driven game. In this game, you play a young girl whose family fell apart after her grandmother passed away. Her grandmother was kinda the backbone and glue of the whole family. After her grandmother’s passing, her father started working more hours and days further from home in a city far away. He almost never came home which left the girl’s mother feeling insecure and depressed. Slowly their relationship deteriorated, until one day, her father just stopped coming home altogether.
As if dealing with the changes in her family at home wasn’t hard enough, Sumire also is facing changes in her school life and friendships outside of home. Her best friend betrayed her. They’re in love with the same boy. Her best friend now runs with a new circle of friends who are mean girls. Sumire is from a very poor family and can’t afford nice clothes to fit in with the popular kids.
And to make everything worse, the boy she loves is moving away, and Sumire still hasn’t had a chance to tell him how she feels.
But maybe everything can change. What if you were given one perfect day? What would you do? Who would you spend your time with? Where would you go?
The game’s message is this… Every day is a chance for a perfect day… whether it’s the best day, or worst day, or just another average day – well that’s up to you… your actions, your perceptions, your feelings, your emotions… How you treat others, but also how you treat yourself… Each day when we wake up… we have the power to make a perfect day… until some day, when all of our days have run out.
For Sumire’s friend, the flower, he will only have one day… he’s not like a human. He can’t wake up and try again tomorrow… and ultimately… even us humans too… someday we will fade away like the sad flower…. Will we look back on all of our wonderful days? Or will we look back on a life full of wasted opportunities and missed chances? We only have one life to live… whether it’s one day…. or thousands of days… eventually time will run out and it will be too late.
I relate very strongly to the main character in so many ways. She is a person who lives her life with things unsaid and undone. She bottles up any of her emotions, good, or bad, out of fear. I lived over 30 years of my life that way, until I met my fiance who helped me to blossom into a better person. I still relate though to things I missed out on in my first 35+ish years of life. I was too scared to take risks. For Sumire she learns (if you want her to) to overcome her fears, to find self confidence, and courage, at a still young age.
But for some people, like myself – or Sumire’s mother in this game – they never learn – or learn much much later in life – if at all.
I couldn’t finish my list, my perfect day, in my first play through. I will do a second playthrough soon. I was missing just one item. I didn’t have enough coins in the end… I couldn’t make a phone call to tell my parents how I felt.
I also messed up helping the snake find love. I took the garden hose even though the garden hose did not want to be taken, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it right after that. PSA: don’t take the hose. LOL.
But back to my real life for a moment… My mother and I, we love each other, but we don’t always see eye to eye, and sometimes, like Sumire, I feel lonely. I want my mom to spend more time with me, to make more memories with me, to do more things as a family, but my mom is lost in shadows like Sumire’s mom. My mom is in a deep depression, like Sumire’s mom. My mom has had her heart broken many times, but still, she too wants to be loved, like Sumire’s mom. I relate to that a lot. I felt bad for the mom in the game, just as I feel bad for my mom in real life. Depression and mental illness…. My mom is just like Sumire’s mom, she lays in bed sleeping or feeling sad almost all day every day. Actually just a week ago (before even hearing about this game, let alone playing it) I did try to tell my mom how I felt, that I felt like she resented me or didn’t love me. Sort of like Sumire in the game, I do sometimes wonder if my mom was happier when she was younger before I was born. My mom was only 18 or 19 when she had me, and it was unplanned. The person she was with was not ready to be a father, and she left him for my sake. She also dropped out of police academy for my sake, thinking or being told by family that it was too dangerous because if something happened to her, what would happen to me. She married another man, maybe out of love, maybe for my sake, maybe both, and moved us all away across country for his job far away from family or friends. That marriage also ended in divorce like it seems the relationship in the game is going towards. Growing up, when I was really little, I can remember some happy times, but as a preteen, teen, and adult, my mother just slowly slipped into depression, and stopped trying. She withdrew from everyone and everything, and even though I tried, both in this game, and in my own life, to draw them out of their darkness, both my real life mom, and Sumire’s mom in this game (at least on my first play through) remain entrenched in the darkness of depression.
Another point in which I connect super strongly to this game is in how much I love my grandmother. My grandmother is my favorite person in the whole world. She would do anything for me, for my happiness. She loves me probably more than anyone in the whole world. I’m closer to her than even my own mother. Although my grandma is still alive, she’s almost 80 years old, and very sick, can barely get out of bed most days. We don’t have much time left. And some day when she is gone, I will miss her forever. I will never love anyone the way I love my grandma and I will never be loved by anyone like the way my grandma loves me.
So to see the special relationship and sadness and love between Sumire and her deceased grandma it touched my heart. I cried so much at the end of this game. And I’m crying again now just remembering it and thinking about my own grandma.
I was also bullied in school. I had only one friend most of my entire life. And we went to different schools. She was popular too, like Chie in this game, who used to be Sumire’s best friend. But they grew apart. I sometimes wonder if my best friend and I have grown apart, or if I have been a burden to her at all in her life. She is popular, pretty, and successful… and here I am, the “kid” without any friends, who “selfishly” wanted to spend every single weekend with my best friend (because we couldn’t see each other during the week). As we’ve grown, we’ve changed, but I actually just saw my best friend a few days ago for the first time in a long time (since before the pandemic). She was still her bubbley, hyper, happy go lucky self – in many ways. It took me back to the innocence of our youth and a happier simpler time. My real life best friend is going through a lot of really hard things in her heart right now. I think in a lot of ways, the best friend relationship in Sumire and Chie’s relationship reminded me of my childhood best friend too.
Sumire is basically living my life, breath for breath, beat for beat. It’s like someone wrote a story about my life. Maybe that’s because there’s a lot of people experiencing these things? These same things? Same fears? Same sadnesses? Same struggles?
In the game of Sumire, you can choose to be good or evil, or neutral. You can choice vengence or forgiveness. You can choose to help or ignore others. But you only have one day…. and how you spend your time, will change what happens in the game…. I tried to be the best, nicest person I could be – which is how I try to live my own real life every day. But I still made mistakes in my first playthrough – just as I’m sure I’ve made a few mistakes in my life too.
After you beat the game once, you can try again, for another day. In real life though, we must live with the consequences, good or bad, every day, from our actions. We can try to correct mistakes the next day, but some mistakes in real life, are not easy to recover from.
The game took me, maybe I dunno 10 hours at most to complete a playthrough. But that 10 hours touched me deeply in my soul.
The art work is simple but yet beautiful almost like a water color painting.
The music is absolutely beautiful – one of my favorite things about the game.
Replay value is high – there’s more than one way to live your life.
I HIGHLY recommend this game – especially for the low price – it’s awesome.
If you want an emotional story-driven game – this is the one to buy.
Overview:
Overall Score: 61/70 87% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls
Geeky: 3/5 – Simple and short and sweet – I think though for the price of just $9.99 the game has enough polish and pizazz and the story really truly sparkles. Make no mistakes though, it is a casual game. There are puzzles and mysteries, but no combat. And in the end, no right or wrong way to play.
Sweetie: 5/5 – I cried so much – also it’s adorable – and also beautiful
Gameplay: 7/10 – You have choices – choices matter – sometimes it’s not always clear which choice is right or wrong – save your money – you will need it at the end of the game – that was my one mistake – I have to play the whole thing again now lol. Which is a little frustrating. But it’ll be worth it to see if there’s another special scene if I complete my list.
Story: 10/10 – I cried – it touched my heart and my soul. It’s so relatable. I loved it.
Characters: 10/10 – There’s not many characters in this game – but they’re relatable too. Help them fix their problems – or not – it’s up to you.
Graphics: 7/10 The graphics are quite simple, but also unique and beautiful. It’s like a water color painting. I like it.
Music: 10/10 – one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard on Nintendo Switch so far.
Replay Value: 9/10 – Decisions matter – different outcomes are affected by your decisions. There is one decision in the game that’s not really a decision, and I felt like I was forced to make it. Most decisions are pretty obvious which is good karma or bad – but not always. I made a few mistakes but still finished with mostly good karma.