If, like me, you miss the eternal summers of the analogue days then Summer Road, and its wacky, 90s inspired world, might be a perfect little break for you.
If you told me that there was an RPG all about three kids going on and adventure with boxing gloves, boomerangs and baseball bats then I’d dream up something like Earthbound/Mother, and that’s a pretty solid starting point for when it comes to getting your head around Summer Road’s wonderful world.
It’s all about three plucky kids who dedicate their Summer to helping their friend, a cloud called Mogmo, as they try to track down a passing UFO. As you might expect, it’s not as simple as following the skies, however, as busybody police officers, street punks and more will try o get in your way and stop you on your mission.
I explained the weapons earlier, and your gear is, as you might expect, nothing more elaborate than jackets and shorts, but each of them impart stats on your gang and can be swapped out, replaced and even upgraded while you’re on your journey. The upgrading, which can also be done to weapons, is done through feeding three items (including healing items, if you wish) to Mogmo, who will chew them up and impart stats, skills and other effects onto the items that it creates (based on the order you feed them). So, if you’ve got a boomerang that heals, or some neat shorts that make you stronger, you can load them in first to retain their type and coolest feature.
Interestingly, you can also do the same with skills, although the build that I played while at Gamescom didn’t really give me a chance to tinker with that as I played. And, at ten minutes a run I’m not too sure how much usage that’ll get, however, it’s clear that when it does come into play it’ll be game changing.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is how the combat plays out. It’s an auto-battler. Nowadays the mind automatically jumps to autochess or even the idle RPGs, however this plays much more like a classic RPG system but with character actions generated based on their equipment: If they have a ranged attack they’ll stay at range, if they have bonuses they’ll move based on that. It feels smart, and is incredibly fun to watch, however, just because combat is semi-automated doesn’t mean that you can kick right back. You can interrupt combat by setting specific targets, entering the inventory to heal or change equipment, or even hit a button to encourage your characters to split up – which is very useful if there’s a boss with an large area attack.
It all feels great, and better than that it feels bright and fun… full of joy even when you’re losing. I’m excited beyond belief to play the released version of Summer Road, and when I do, I feel like it’s going to be hard to peel me away – even if each run is only meant to be 10 minutes long.
Summer Road is currently in development for PC, it has no target release date at time of writing.
