Yes, we actually DO need this, THANK you.

My apologies for the delay here; I was indisposed with a personal matter.

The numbers: I've done five files, bringing the totals to 44 files done and 51 files left. It's actually more like seven files done, but there are a couple I can't count, because there are things in-game I have to go back and check before they're complete. A slower month, but considering the number of days I was unavailable, and the longer length of the files, I think my pace of progress is still on track.

Checking in briefly—and early! (I'm going to be unavailable for a stretch of days here.) I'm saddened to report that entertainment this month was more or less a complete bust, save for a couple endeavors that are continuing into July and can be reported on then. So! In lieu of a proper Stuff I Liked post, I'm going to list a few properties that remind me of the summer season.

I played two chapters (out of seven) of Mystic Ark: Maboroshi Gekijou (Theatre of illusions) before a bug (anti-piracy measure?) bricked my game. It's nominally a follow-up to The 7th Saga and Mystic Ark, but rather than a swords-&-sorcery RPG, you're playing through a series of fairy tales: helping some Germanic brownies outwit a malevolent canine monster in their primeval forest, or a fairy explore a haunted house. You're playing a child, your adventures narrated storybook-style, and (as I understand from the artbook) you look back on your experience from adulthood once it ends. Ideal for the season of childhood vacations and reverie, particularly given the summery foundation of the seaside starting town and the bucolic first-stage forest with its memorably odd echoing theme.

I've never played Super Mario Sunshine myself. I watched Giant Bomb's "Steal My Sunshine" series. It seems a consummately summer game, though, with its island setting and bright colors and water jet pack and - well, it's in the name! I skipped the Switch rerelease - the game's jet pack locomotion seems to want the Gamecube's trigger controls. Maybe someday.

The aural tone and instrumentation of the most memorable tracks for me from Enya's A Day Without Rain - not the once-ubiquitous "Only Time," but "Flora's Secret," "Silver Inches," "One by One," "Wild Child" - conjure up fairies and the floral bounty of springtime; only "Lazy Days" is the fullness of summer. For me, though, the album is strongly identified with a memory of driving around on a sunny summer day in Montana with my mother running errands in town. Its strong theming helps: most tracks are pure, undimmed childlike sun, shining with a brightness that really does bring to mind a day without rain.

I don't get on with Chrono Cross. Without getting into derails, I find the game, and story in particular, an unholy mess. I cannot fault, though, its colorful, sun-blessed island visuals. In the words of one message board post: "The start of the game captures the feeling of standing on a rock in the warmth of summer."

If you liked Firewatch, you might want to give Fire Season a go: it details a summer's worth of activity in the author's wildfire lookout tower in the New Mexico wilderness. I can't wholeheartedly recommend the book; particularly in the early going, the author's self-conscious attempts to pen a classic of the name-recognition of Muir or Kerouac and portray his experience as Deeply Significant get in the way of telling his story. He does, eventually, get over himself to tell that story, though, and the life of a fire lookout does have an intriguing, alone-with-nature loneliness to it. I used to read the book almost every summer; it's one of those pieces of media to which I keep returning, despite its flaws.