Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation -The Endless Seven-Day Journey- (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.1.0 Update

Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation – The Endless Seven-Day Journey is a 2021 adventure game developed by Neos, Millennium Kitchen, and Star Factory, and designed and written by Kaz Ayabe. Based on the manga and anime series Crayon Shin-chan, the game has been described as a spiritual successor to the video game series Boku no Natsuyasumi (‘My Summer Vacation’), directed by Ayabe and developed by Millennium Kitchen. Like Boku, no Natsuyasumi, Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation follows the player character as he spends his summer vacation in an open-ended environment with few set gameplay goals or obligations.

Planning for Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation began in 2018 when Neos producer Akira Nagashima conceived of a game concept combining elements from Crayon Shin-chan and Boku no Natsuyasumi and formally approached Ayabe about developing the project in 2019. Much of the development team for Ayabe’s previous title, 2013’s Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale returned to develop Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation. The graphic style of the game is distinguished by its juxtaposition of the two-dimensional and deformed designs of the Crayon Shin-chan characters with detailed, hand-drawn backgrounds.

Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation was released in Japan for the Nintendo Switch on July 15, 2021, and worldwide for Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows in August 2022. The game received generally favorable reviews from critics who, while broadly assessing the title as less strong than entries in the Boku no Natsuyasumi series, praised Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation for its visual style, atmosphere, and adaptation of the Crayon Shin-chan source material.

GAMEPLAY AND PLOT

Like other entries in the Crayon Shin-chan series, Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation follows the comedic and often surreal adventures of five-year-old Shinnosuke Nohara (the titular “Shin-chan”) and his family: father Hiroshi, mother Misae, younger sister Himawari, and the family dog Shiro. When Hiroshi goes on a week-long business trip to Kyushu, the rest of the family travels with him to vacation at the home of Misae’s childhood friend in rural “Asso”, Kumamoto.

Upon arriving at Kumamoto Station, the family is approached by Dr. Akuno, a mad scientist who gives Shinnosuke a camera that produces illustrations rather than photographs. Shortly after the Nohara family arrives in Asso, Akuno reappears with a dinosaur he claims to have extracted from the past using time travel. When Shinnosuke witnesses Akuno summoning a dinosaur at his laboratory, Akuno puts Shinnosuke in a time loop that endlessly repeats the seven days of his vacation.

The gameplay of Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation is similar to that of Boku no Natsuyasumi (lit. ‘My Summer Vacation’), a video game series previously developed by Millennium Kitchen and directed by Kaz Ayabe. In both games, the player controls a young boy – Boku in Boku no Natsuyasumi, Shinnosuke in Me, and the Professor on Summer Vacation – in an open-ended environment as he goes on summer vacation. Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation differs both in its inclusion of characters from the Crayon Shin-chan series and in its inclusion of surreal elements such as dinosaurs, contrasting the more realistic Boku no Natsuyasumi.

While the gameplay of Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation is loosely framed by Shinnosuke’s quest to fill his vacation journal with pictures and search for interesting stories to print in the local newspaper, the players are generally free to spend their time as they see fit, with few set goals or obligations. The open-ended, laid-back nature of the gameplay was designed to appeal to a wide audience, from child-aged Shin-chan fans to adult fans of Boku no Natsuyasumi.

The game includes an achievement system based on activities such as catching insects, fishing, growing vegetables, and running errands for the townspeople. Time passes from day to night, with certain activities and events exclusive to specific times of the day.