Since the translation to English is very literal, a lot of things do not make sense and feels like it all may as well still be in Japanese, and the only course of action is to just pick the lowest stats to build up. This is as far as the extent of the simulation goes. The game starts in a beachside cafe where the lesson plan is chosen, which amounts to simply choosing a stat to focus on and then picking some subjects to small-talk with Hikari. Hikari has only one week left before her summer break will end and it is up to the player to tutor her on various subjects so she can pass some exams. Her entire bedroom is fully realized and is rife with minutia that forms her character and personality, like her fascination with sharks.ДЄ typical playthrough of Summer Lesson will last about an hour. The attention to detail isn't limited to Hikari, either. Sometimes Hikari likes to get really close, and while the effort to render her face is immaculate and flawless, she gets so close that she blocks out subtitles sometimes, which creates a really amusing and unintentionally awkward moment where users may reel back to read the dialogue, as poor Hikari just wants to get close. Once in a while, there is an example of clipping of various layers of 3D geometrics, but this is inevitable when dealing with such complex models and mo-cap. When the Unreal Engine's physics engine isn't making her tie flip out like it is possessed by the ghost of Janet Reno, things usually look quite natural, such as the sway of Hikari's skirt and bounce of her ponytail. While not particularly 'realistic,' Hikari has been rendered pretty much in a similar aesthetic as seen in Bandai Namco's Tekken not quite 'anime,' but also not fully realistic - a comfortable middle ground to give her character and to avoid the uncanny valley. The moment Hikari steps into her room it is clear that Bandai Namco did not spare any expense towards animation/mo-cap and attention to detail. When Summer Lesson begins, there is an impressive wow-factor. The enemy soldiers in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty have a much wider range of interactivity, and that was a title from 2001.

With technology available today, it is sad to see all possibilities for interacting with a game character be whittled down to just two or three vague options. Users will not actually be interacting with Hikari in any real meaningful way, unlike any of the Sims titles or the Princess Maker games, which have gotten the idea right since the early 90s. The short version of Summer Lesson: Miyamoto Hikari is that it is a seated VR experience where a scripted 3D animation plays out and vague choices are made to result in an outcome.

Summer lesson pc