Tanuki: Pon's Summer Review: Plenty of Charm, Not Much Depth

What it is

Tanuki: Pon's Summer is the debut game from Denkiworks, a Kyoto studio whose founders previously worked on Cursed to Golf, published by Critical Reflex. It launched on 10 November 2026 on Steam, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and it is on Game Pass for PC and console from day one.

You play Pon, a lazy tanuki and guardian of a run-down shrine, who takes a job at the island post office to pay for repairs before the Great Tanuki Festival. You have one summer month to do it.

How it plays

Every day is a round of deliveries across a small open-world island, and you make them on a BMX. Parcels come in awkward shapes that have to be packed so they all fit, then it is ramps, rails and wheelies to the next address. More than 100 BMX challenges are scattered around the map, and the thirty-day calendar does not stop you wandering off between jobs.

Around that sits a pile of mini-games: sushi making, baseball, sumo wrestling, fishing, bug catching and more. Earnings go into rebuilding and decorating the shrine, with a couple of hundred items to place.

The highs

The island is the star. It is a bright, affectionate postcard of small-town Japan, Pon is expressive without saying a word, and the soundtrack mixes traditional instruments with a bit of rock. Putting a BMX under a delivery game is a smart idea, because the dullest part of the genre, getting from A to B, becomes the part you look forward to. At roughly ten hours for the story it also knows when to stop, which is rarer than it should be in cosy games.

The lows

Strip the bike away and the deliveries are fetch quests, with days that send you back and forth over the same roads even after fast travel unlocks. Critics have noted a sag in the middle stretch, and it is easy to see why. The trick system is limited and landing is less dependable than a game built around a bike should allow. The mini-games are pleasant but thin, and you cannot easily replay them. Shrine decorating is there if you want it and ignorable if you do not.

One technical note: pre-release reviews on Xbox reported frequent hard crashes, which a pre-launch patch is said to have fixed. Save manually anyway.

Price and who it is for

It costs 19.99 euros. Buy it on Switch and you get the Switch 2 version at no extra charge, and the other way round. With Game Pass you can simply try it tonight, and that is the best way in.

A note on method: this verdict is built on the game's documented launch content and launch-week press reviews.

Verdict

A genuinely lovely place to spend a few evenings, and a good pick for younger players or anyone burned out on loud games. Just do not expect depth from the bike, the mini-games or the shrine. Charm carries it, and charm is enough for a seven.

Score: 7/10

Image: Motokoka / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shigaraki_ware(Tanuki),_Awashima_jinja_shrine.jpg