Kabuto Park captures the fleeting joy of summer vacation

《Kabuto Park》捕捉了暑假转瞬即逝的快乐

There are a lot of games that remind me of summer — hot days in the backseat with a copy of Dragon Warrior III, cooling off in the basement while grinding Gran Turismo races — but there aren’t a lot of games that are actually about summer. That’s part of what makes Kabuto Park so charming. It’s a game that manages to not only capture the fleeting moments of a childhood summer, but also cram a Pokémon-style adventure into a game that lasts only a few hours.

有很多游戏会让我回想起夏天——比如在汽车后座玩着《勇者斗恶龙 III》的炎炎夏日，或是躲在地下室里苦练《GT赛车》的清凉时光——但真正以“夏天”为主题的游戏却并不多。这正是《Kabuto Park》如此迷人的原因之一。这款游戏不仅成功捕捉到了童年暑假转瞬即逝的瞬间，还将一场“宝可梦”式的冒险浓缩进了仅需几小时即可通关的流程中。

Kabuto Park actually launched last year on PC, but it’s available now on both Xbox and the Switch, the latter being probably the ideal platform for it. It takes place over the course of a single month, and you play as Hana, a young girl who is working her way up the competitive ladder of the beetle battling championships while on a summer vacation. You do this in traditional fashion: by collecting bugs, raising them to be strong, and pitting them against other collectors.

《Kabuto Park》实际上去年已在 PC 上发布，但现在也已登陆 Xbox 和 Switch 平台，后者或许是体验该游戏的最佳平台。游戏的时间跨度为一个暑假月，你将扮演小女孩 Hana，在暑假期间努力攀登甲虫对战锦标赛的竞技阶梯。你的游戏方式很传统：收集昆虫，将它们培养强大，并让它们与其他收集者进行对战。

But Kabuto Park streamlines this process quite a bit. There are only four main screens in the game. One is a map, which you use to venture to a handful of locations to catch bugs. As you progress, you’ll earn money you can use to buy better boots, which lets you explore new areas like a swamp. Capturing bugs involves swinging a net at just the right moment, which is something that gets more challenging as you come across more rare and powerful critters. There’s also a shop where you can buy things like honey to slow down bugs, making them easier to catch, and a collection screen where you can organize your bugs, feed them candy to level them up, and eventually unlock a terrarium to house them.

但《Kabuto Park》对这一过程进行了相当程度的简化。游戏中只有四个主要界面。一个是地图，你可以利用它前往不同的地点捕捉昆虫。随着进度推进，你将赚取金钱购买更好的靴子，从而探索沼泽等新区域。捕捉昆虫需要你在恰当的时机挥动捕虫网，随着你遇到更稀有、更强大的生物，这一过程也会变得更具挑战性。此外还有一个商店，你可以购买蜂蜜等道具来减缓昆虫速度，使其更容易捕捉；还有一个收集界面，你可以在这里整理昆虫、喂它们吃糖果来升级，并最终解锁饲养箱来安置它们。

Most of the action takes place in battles. Like in Pokémon, you build a team — in this case, each squad is made up of three bugs, all with distinct stats like strength and defense — and pit them against another player. The actual battles play out a lot like a sumo match, as the goal is to push the opposing team outside of the ring (which, adorably, is a tambourine). The bugs will do the pushing automatically, but you can turn the tide of battle by playing cards that do things like temporarily raise stats or give a quick, decisive kick to knock the opposing bugs across the ring. It’s relatively simple, at least by the standards of modern Pokémon, but there’s still a decent amount of strategy to building your team and playing cards at the right moment. Some of the matches can be very intense, particularly if the teams are evenly matched.

大部分动作发生在战斗中。和《宝可梦》一样，你需要组建一支队伍——在这里，每支队伍由三只昆虫组成，它们各自拥有力量和防御等不同属性——并让它们与其他玩家对战。实际的战斗过程很像相扑比赛，目标是将对方队伍推到圆环（可爱的是，圆环其实是一个铃鼓）之外。昆虫会自动进行推挤，但你可以通过打出卡牌来扭转战局，例如暂时提升属性，或者给予对方致命一击，将其踢出圆环。以现代《宝可梦》的标准来看，这相对简单，但在组建队伍和把握时机打出卡牌方面，依然有着相当不错的策略性。有些比赛会非常激烈，尤其是当双方实力旗鼓相当时。

With each battle, time moves forward a day, and so you progress both through the competitive ladder and the August calendar simultaneously. I managed to beat the game in around three hours and was particularly impressed by how Kabuto Park managed to capture the satisfying arc of an epic RPG in such a compact package. Its brief nature also fits perfectly with the game’s theme; like your best childhood summer moments, Kabuto Park is short-lived and leaves you wishing for more.

每进行一场战斗，时间就会向前推进一天，因此你在攀登竞技阶梯的同时，也在同步推进八月的日历。我大约用了三个小时通关了游戏，并对《Kabuto Park》如何在如此紧凑的体量中捕捉到史诗级 RPG 的满足感印象深刻。这种简短的特性也与游戏主题完美契合；就像你童年最美好的夏日时光一样，《Kabuto Park》转瞬即逝，让人意犹未尽。

There are a lot of things I love about Kabuto Park: the adorable storybook art that feels like a warm afternoon, the charming and often hilarious dialogue, the whining cicadas that provide the summer soundtrack. But what I love most is that there are just so few games like this. Outside of the works of Millenium Kitchen, most of which are only available in Japanese, there’s not much else that captures that very particular feeling of childhood freedom. And now that the game is on the Switch, you can experience Kabuto Park’s vision of summer in the actual outdoors.

我喜欢《Kabuto Park》的很多地方：如绘本般可爱、充满午后暖意的画风，迷人且时常令人捧腹的对话，以及作为夏日背景音的蝉鸣。但我最喜欢的是，像这样的游戏实在太少了。除了 Millenium Kitchen 的作品（其中大多数仅有日语版）之外，几乎没有其他游戏能捕捉到那种独特的童年自由感。现在游戏已经登陆 Switch，你可以在真实的户外环境中体验《Kabuto Park》所描绘的夏天。