A cute little VR game, fully translated and region free
First things first: The game text fully translated into english (with japanese voiceovers) and it does work on a Europe account. It also includes all the DLC and extra events for Hikari. No extra purchases needed.
Now, onto the game itself: Having played Focus on You, a game focusing on innocent and cute moments, things that seem sorely lacking in a VR market plagued by zombie killing and horror experience games (as great as those may be), I was curious to see how Summer Lesson, a more known game but unreleased in the west, would fare, and I was pleasanlty surprised.
As a private tutor, you have a week to help Hikari pass her exams. Every day, you prepare your lessons in advance, planning which subjects you will focus on (literature, exercises in logic... etc) and which will be the topic of conversation during the study break. Depending on her mood that day, and the topics you chose, her stats will either increase or decrease (intelligence, motivation...).
The better you make your picks, the more she will make out of the lesson, and the happier she'll be. If the lesson goes perfectly, she might invite you to eat some cake, or you guys might go for some fresh air to the nearby shrine. In the end, she will get better or worse grades depending on your tutoring.
Of course, you can't have her reach her full capacity on the first play. Her stats reset every playthrough, but your skills in teaching certain subjects and topics are kept from one game to the next. If you ever played Princess Maker II, this is kind of the same, but instead of trying to make the main character the best princess she can be, you are trying to make her be the best possible student.
Hikari is a girl of her age, at first she doesn't really want to study as much as talk about her hobbies and friends. You will develop this "big brother" kind of fondness towards her, and it does feel nice to have her improve over time.
The girl has zero sense of personal space though, so whenever she gets way too enthusiastic after a lesson, she, for instance, might insist on sharing a pair of earbuds with you so that you can listen to her favourite song, and she gets pretty close without realizing, but the game never dwelves into fanservicy or lecherous ways. Unless you are about her age, she's so young and energetic that these moments tend to be tender and innocent.
The graphics look crisp and detailed, and the lighting makes the envoronments feel very realistic. Hikari herself is very well animated and some of her reactions are pretty hilarious.
I really liked playing this game. So much so that I got some PSN cards from PlayAsia to buy in the other two episodes with the two other girls, to she how different of a student they are.