Summer Lesson is the name of Namco Bandai’s upcoming PlayStation VR game exclusively for PlayStation 4, which allows you to live out your virtual girlfriend dreams with two high-school beauties who need lessons in Japanese, and you are their tutor! From the brains behind the Tekken series, comes a new experience in human interaction that only Virtual Reality could provide.
Check out this “It could only come from Japan…” tale in this amazing trailer for PlayStation VR’s “Summer Lesson”:
In “Summer Lesson”, you are transported to a gorgeous world, which looks photorealistic but is stylized just enough to give the world before you an incredible believability that’s both striking and eye-popping while looking gorgeous to the eyes.
Here’s the Summer Lesson image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size photos:
There are two environments shown in the demo for Summer Lesson (there will surely be more in the final game), a teenage girl’s pink-hued bedroom, and an island paradise with a cozy home & ocean backdrop.
That wow-factor is heightened once you are introduced to the game’s two different girls: A Japanese schoolgirl and a guitar-playing teenage American blonde who speaks in English (as opposed to Japanese).
Summer Lesson is similar to a romance-sim, that plays out right before your eyes, where character development & human interaction with the pretty girls in front of you is the focus. And you will be amazed at how real they seem. The girls are animated beautifully, they show emotion conveyed through expressive eyes and facial expressions that is far above anything we have seen in the VR space yet.
Check out how realistic the girls will look, talk, act, sit by you, ask you questions and interact with you in this Summer Lesson Singing trailer.
But beyond that, the girls interact with you in a way meant to build bonds between the player & the character. They look directly in your eyes, address you directly with quizzical expressions & playful reactions, sit, physically, right next to you, and even provide eye candy in suggestive ways, such as by bending, leaning or stretching a little “too close for comfort”.
As is obvious, romance between the player & the girls is hinted at, and is rumored to be where the story of the game will head beyond this demo, as the bond between you and her grows ever closer.
In the game, you interact with the girl’s by nodding yes or no (physically, while wearing the PlayStation VR headset) to answer questions, or interact with them by pointing (i.e., physically looking) at objects in the environment around you.
You will help tutor the American beauty in learning Japanese as she reads out of her textbook, listen to her sing songs to you on guitar, and will essentially hang out with them; as you get to know both girls better through conversation. Conversation, as you can tell by watching the trailers, is the main focus of the gameplay.
Those that have played Summer Lesson speak in stark terms about how the game truly makes you feel “in the same space” with the girls. Some people come away feeling like a creeper, while others come away feeling a true bond to these virtual dolls in a way that no movie or videogame or other form of media has ever been able to pull off before.
This game looks incredibly impressive.
And this is why it is so important to have Japanese developers making Virtual Reality projects. I cannot imagine a game like this coming from an American or Western developer. Romance sims are a staple of Japanese gaming (and have slowly but surely been gaining a bigger audience outside Japan, and more and more of them are getting Western releases these days); and when you think about the natural human responses to pretty girls… Well. A game like this just makes too much sense.
It will be interesting to see where this game goes. Right now, I absolutely love the idea; and I think the story will be quite fascinating as we see the characters develop a bond with the player… Will there be a kissing scene? That kind of thing is very interesting to think about in VR. It’s coming sooner or later, it will be interesting to see what kind of seeds are planting in a game like Summer Lesson, and where it leads in the future.
Are you excited about Summer Lesson? How do you think YOU will feel playing the game?