Usual June Preview

We recently had chance to join an online presentation for Usual June, Finji’s upcoming action/narrative adventure. On the back of Gamescom, they were keen to show off the game and discuss a little more about it ahead of its October launch. There is also a public demo on Steam at the moment which we have played through, and this small slice combined with the presentation has ensured Usual June is firmly on our playlist before the end of the year.

The titular June leads a coming of age sort of tale, where she’s trying to find her place and way in life. After discovering that ghosts and the supernatural are real alongside an alternate plane of existence, she goes on a journey with her friends to figure it all out. 

Along the way, we’ll chat, we’ll fight, and we’ll make choices that won’t change the final outcome, but rather will add our own flavour to the story. Lead writer David Pinckney is taking on his first game experience alongside Finji, and is looking to craft a tale that sticks with players as something different to the usual game-adjacent fare. 

One of the key elements to this story telling is the vocaloid system. There’s no direct voice work in the game, with the characters communicating with us via speech bubbles. But the vocaloid system uses real actors (lead director Adam Saltsman was very clear that this is not an AI model in use) who recorded various grunts and noises to accompany the text. Think a more coherent sounding Sims and you’ll be on the right track. Text can be automatically assigned tone and intonation from each character’s pool of vocals, and can change depending on the context. Put simply, a question will sound like a question even without words, and the same goes for all manner of emotions and contexts across the script. We were initially skeptical that it would make much of a difference compared to most games that use a similar sounding system, but the reportedly three years that designer Adam Hoyes paid off as we can clearly ‘hear’ each character as we read their lines. 

Combat has been inspired by the likes of the Souls titles, but also more niche fare such as Platinum Games’ Transformers and Vanquish. June will occasionally enter combat arenas, and fighting enemies takes on various forms. 

We might need to use our light and heavy attacks to defeat small foes, but also utilise her dodge to get around attacks. One attack highlighted in the demo to us was designed to be hard to get around, so dodging through it is the best way to attack it. Finji explained that while Souls might be an inspiration, they want this to be a more accessible experience. Combat isn’t easy, but we’re granted more leeway for things like dodge timing, on top of bonuses such as slowdown if we manage a perfectly timed parry.

In the Steam demo, this is shown off in the few encounters we come across quite nicely. Each emphasises one element of June’s arsenal, though this is also within the first 30 minutes of the game proper, so expect the challenge to ramp up as we progress. 

Usual June also keeps screen clutter to a minimum. Enemies have no health bar, instead showing their life status by changing colour as we damage them, and things like the perfect dodge are shown by doing, no on screen prompt or splash screen. It keeps the focus on the action, and works well in this limited slice.

Add in other flairs from FROMSoft like teasing later locations by having them visible in the distance as we progress, as well as slower, interstitial levels meant to break up the pace a little, and Usual June is shaping up to offer more than it appears on the surface. The small demo was fun, and we’re hoping it expands well enough to support a full release come October.

This game was a hands off preview via Discord. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.