When you get down to it, a lot of people would probably quite like to be a racoon that can ride a BMX bike, but what about being a BMX-riding racoon that’s also in consistent employment? That’s the dream Tanuki Pon’s Summer sells you, giving you control of a furry little chap and his bicycle as he attempts to deliver everyone’s mail, while pulling off a sick trick or two. It’s cute, cuddly and quite silly, and it’s undoubtedly utterly charming too.
Pon, your tanuki hero, is lazing about on a bench at the start of the game, and it’s only the voice of the narrator – or is it his conscience? – that gets him moving, nabbing his BMX and setting off down the road. You find a bunch of the different elements that you’re going to experience down this country path, from Torii Gates that act as waypoints or finishing lines, obstacles to bunny hop over, and, most excitingly, different places to pull off tricks.
There is, in fact, a handy skate park thrown into your journey back to civilisation, and here you find that your raccoon is a furry little Dave Mirra, chucking out a tail flip or Superman with ease. Just like your favourite gaming extreme sports heroes, you can chain these moves together for higher scores, though you do, of course, have to nail the landing. It’s possible to chuck yourself off your bike, and you’ll have to run over and grab it if that happens. Which it undoubtedly will.
Pon has to spend the summer earning money in order to decorate and repair the local Tanuki Shrine, which sits at the centre of the island, all leading up to the Matsuri Festival which happens every 50 years. Pon doesn’t necessarily seem like the ideal candidate – he’d much rather spend his time sleeping or grinding rails – but he sets to work, nonetheless, becoming the island’s delivery boy, working for the Post Office to raise the cash.
Our hands-on covered Pon’s first week on the job, working his way through the first town, which presumably means that there’s multiple towns that will need your delivery services.
The first step is to pick up the packages. This is a game in itself, as the packages arrive in all sorts of different shapes, and you have to fit them neatly into your bag, packing the Tetris-like shapes together in the most sensible way.
Once you’ve stacked the packages into the basket on your bike, it’s off to work, but this isn’t really the kind of behaviour you’d expect from a FedEx employee. While you have to ride around finding the recipients, there’s a stack of Letter Quests to work your way through, from collecting all the TANUKI letters, to backflipping over the statue in the centre of town. I’d quite like to see our local Amazon delivery guys spicing things up by pulling off BMX tricks, but they’d probably break all the air fryers in the process, so best to leave it to the raccoons.
Tanuki Pon’s Summer is cute. It has an adorable aesthetic, with a colourful Japanese countryside setting, and chunky architecture that really brings the island to life. I love the characters here though, from the podgy Pon, with his cute walk and oversized Post Office hat, to the exceedingly loud Bunta and kind Fumi, the workers at the Post Office, and Tetsuo, the former sumo wrestler who longs for the old days.
Tetsuo convinces you to train in sumo, and that opens up another diversion, becoming the first tanuki to fight in sumo. Here, you stomp to charge up your stamina for the fight, use hand slaps to push the opponent back quickly, dodging at the right time to keep up your momentum, and big belly smashes to force them out of the ring. It’s another great little aside, that keeps you guessing as to where Tanuki Pon’s Summer might take you.
You get an insight into the recipient’s interests and mindset, chatting with them while dropping off their package, or being drawn into an unexpected activity, and it gives Pon’s world a grounding and reality that you probably shouldn’t get from one with a tanuki on a bicycle. It’s all thoroughly charming, and I can see why Microsoft chose to highlight it in their upcoming indie schedule. Breezing about the town, performing tricks while racing between different deliveries just feels like a lot of fun.
At the moment, the only downside is your compass becoming immediately filled with package notifications, and there’s currently no way to pop down a pin or marker on the map to help you stay focused on that particular one.
Tanuki Pon’s Summer is a cute and charming indie adventure, where deliveries, diversions and BMX tricks lie around every corner. We can’t wait to see more when it reaches final release for PC, Switch, and the Xbox family of consoles later this year.