Tanuki: Pon's Summer Review

Denkiworks released Tanuki: Pon's Summer on November 10, according to AUTOMATON, putting an open-world postal delivery adventure starring a tanuki on a BMX bike onto Switch, Switch 2, PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series X|S and PC (Steam). The game supports 15 languages, including Japanese and English, AUTOMATON reported. IGN described it as a homage to summer in rural Japan from the Kyoto-based studio, and Push Square's headline called it "This Might Be the Best Game You Didn't Know Was Out on PS5."

The game was first announced in 2023 under the working title Project Tanuki and had originally targeted a 2025 release window before being delayed near the end of last year, AUTOMATON reported, so the developers could polish its systems and expand its scope. Players take the role of Pon, an anthropomorphic tanuki who spends a summer working for the postal office of a Japanese town on a small island, earning money to repair the local shrine before the village's tanuki festival at the end of the month. IGN described the premise: Pon let the shrine's grounds crumble while he ate chips and played video games, and tanuki gods bully him into fixing it before the festival.

Core play centers on riding a bicycle around the island and delivering packages each day. IGN said the island is not big but is dense with several distinct, lively parts of town, and that the game is open-world in the sense that deliveries can be made in any order while the storyline is linear. Each day begins with Pon collecting mail from the post office and stacking it in a basket through a Tetris-like minigame. Some packages are simple dropoffs, while others come with activities or storylines attached to island residents, including rival sushi and yakitori chefs, a photographer and a tough guy with a soft spot. IGN said the story focuses more on the relationships between islanders and the community they make than on Pon himself, and that Pon's work helps reunite an estranged father and daughter who are both artisan makers.

BMX tricks are optional rather than required for the main quest, according to AUTOMATON, which cited Famitsu. The developers boast of 101 BMX challenges. IGN said Pon bunny hops over small cliffs, grinds down handrails and pulls off tricks over gaps, with tricks performed through directional stick movements and button inputs while in the air. Stringing them together for combos is trickier, and points typically do not mean anything. Optional challenges dotted around the island test skill, and residents occasionally ask Pon to perform tricks under a time limit to reach a certain number of points.

There are also numerous minigames, including fishing, baseball, making sushi and playing the drums, AUTOMATON listed. IGN counted skewering meat and vegetables for yakitori, stacking sushi to order, sanding logs, serving shaved ice and foamy beer, checking out customers at a convenience store, playing drums for a local musician and hitting home runs at the local baseball field. IGN's criticism was that some minigames lingered too long or felt dull next to riding the bike, breaking the momentum of tricking across town, though most do not repeat.

Money earned from the postal job and helping residents can be spent restoring and customizing the shrine, AUTOMATON reported. Decorations such as torii gates and stone lanterns can be arranged freely within the shrine grounds. IGN said the decorating is entirely optional and felt extraneous, with no real parameters to guide it, but noted that players who enjoyed decorating Animal Crossing: New Horizons islands may be drawn to it. IGN also said the shrine opens up gradually, revealing empty swaths of land to decorate, and that Pon can collect decor and furniture from quests or purchase items from kitsune.