Haunting atmosphere
Graphics: 9/10
From the time when you first load up the game till you put the game down, the graphics will wow you at every turn. I have read a few comments on some sites which draw parallels to Ghibli visuals. IMO however the game looks and feels more like a Makoto Shinkai movie (Place promised in our early days, 5 cm per second etc) than any ghibli movie.. The visuals are sharp, beautiful to look at and brimming with a lot of details.. 3D is also well done with the game making good use of perspective.. I deducted one point because the character models werent very detailed compared to the rest of the world
Sound: 10/10
The game shines in the audio department. Beautiful music permeates every scene. With this is some inspired sound effects.. from the announcer in the train station to the cicadas screaming away in the background, the audio does a good job of conveying the atmosphere. The speech is all in japanese with english sub-titles and for this game this is perfect.
Story: 8/10
Really not much here. Will not say much to prevent spoilers but the story is basically a day in the life of a kid in a Japanese rural area... there are no twists in the story, its presented in a straight forward way which is good for this type of game.
Gameplay: 6/10
For the most part, the gameplay is quite straight-forward. There is never any doubt on where you need to go. Gameplay basically involves you roaming from one location to another collecting some glims on the ground performing mini-tasks for the villagers. Tasks range from fetch quests to simple talking.. Also there is a mini-game using cards... nothing ground breaking and to the point..
As for the length of the game, I took about 8 hours to finish the game.. you can finish the game in about 4-5 hrs if you skip some of the tasks..
Overall:
(9+10+8+6)/4 = 8.5
The game is never confused with what it sets out to do.. this isnt a game with ground-breaking gameplay nor does it set out to tell a complex story.. it sets out to create an atmospheric journey into the life of a kid in 1960s rural japan and it does an admirable job of that.. For 9$ I cant really ask for much more..