Syd’s journey to find her brother honestly feels more like a journey to find herself. And with the help of her two friends Max and Quei-Li, A Summer with the Shiba Inu was a journey I found myself wanting to go through multiple times.
A Summer with the Shiba Inu is a lovely little game that offers real catharsis. It draws you in with cute characters and holds you with its rather fascinating story. Whilst it does drag occasionally, it is well worth making your way through. There’s a clear level of love and dedication felt throughout Shiba Inu, from the phone interface, to the backgrounds, to the 70000 words it advertises on its page. If you watch the trailer for this and it interests you, it’s hard to go wrong with a purchase.
A Summer with the Shibu Inu will intrigue you with its various endings and cute character models, but its visual offerings and replay value are extremely limited overall. If you enjoy choose-your-own-adventure games, love dogs, and have a few hours to kill, this is worth playing, but prepare to be bewildered by the stranger, more ambiguous endings.