Simplicity can be deceiving
Sumire
Gametomo
Available on PC, Nintendo Switch
Sumire, a game about a lonely little girl in a small Japanese town who promises to show a talking flower a beautiful day, seemed childishly unpromising. But I'd misjudged it. It's undoubtedly a kid-friendly game, but it's not childish.
The feelings it touches on suggest the sort of wisdom an adult might look to pass on to a child to prepare for a world that is beautiful as well as disappointing.
It opens with a gentle paradox, a dream that hints at fulfilment and longing. Sumire envisions sheltering in her grandmother's arms beneath a wisteria tree. In the dream, she watches the happy scene as if she were an observer.
Reaching out a hand as if to physically grab the moment in front of her, she wakes and is unsettled by the thought that her recently dead grandmother was trying to communicate something important to her that she was unable to understand.
In her house, she stops by the portrait of her grandmother that hangs near the front door.
Addressing her grandmother's spirit, Sumire speaks of her mother's depression over her father's absence from their lives and asks for help.
Help comes in the form of a talking flower. It asks her to show it a beautiful day since it will only live until sunset, suggesting that by granting its request it might be possible for Sumire to see her grandmother again. The floating flower will accompany her throughout her journey.
Over the length of day, Sumire will come to assist people and critters — a letter carrier who hasn't spoken with his daughter for 20 years, a lovelorn snake and others. She'll also be forced to confront her former best friend, who dropped her to hang out with more popular girls, and to spend time in a house most of the townspeople shun because of a grisly murder that took place there.
Sumire is a simple game that mostly involves walking to different places, speaking to various individuals and delivering items from one to another. The game is punctuated with a few minigames: a fantasy card game, a board game and another one that turns around one of the major plot points of the story, all enlivened by a soft-coloured, storybook esthetic.
The idea of eternal return wends through the story. Sumire is reminded of patterns of life that snare people, young and old, and prevent them from being able to communicate with each other.
She comes to realize that everyone, including herself and her fondly remembered grandmother, has a shadow side that causes problems for those nearest to them. Themes of broken communication, missed opportunities and unrealized wishes are planted throughout her “special day.”
Parents with children on the cusp of adolescence may wish to consider Sumire.
Yes, it's fairly sentimental insofar as it dwells on how feelings colour the world, but it's not insensible to the gaps that feelings alone can't fill.