Hi everyone! What’s the next activity on the schedule? Schedule? Screw that! There is none, we’re on HOLIDAY! I just don’t feel like doing anything. So far we’ve already wet ourselves, gone skateboarding and sniffed some petrol. It’s time for a break. In this article, I’m going to introduce you to the game outside the games, in the game system. Go Vacation features 4 different resorts to roam around in: Marine, City, Mountain, and Snow, all with their own style and appropriately themed activities. The resorts are how you find each mini-game – walk around and you’ll see icons above peoples heads, inviting you to activities. However, there’s much more here than a simple hub for the games: the resorts are vast and contain many nice views and secrets.

Your character controls like any standard third person adventure game: simple analog stick movements to walk around and B to jump. It’s not exactly Mario levels of interaction, but movement is smooth and polished and the animation is consistent. Running is pretty slow however, and if you tried to run around an entire resort on foot it would take forever, so thankfully there’s different forms of transport lying around. If there’s water, you can bet there’s either a kayak or jet-ski nearby. On land, there’s either a motor vehicle, skateboard, or snowboard to speed things up, or even a horse. The game does well to make the transport always accessible; you can teleport to key areas of the map (Xenoblade style) and pick any vehicle you want from a quick menu. Namco has made sure there will be NO discomfort on this vacation!