When the story is this earnest, it feels churlish to berate it too harshly. Its heart is in the right place, and if anything, I wish there were more slice of life games out there like this. Plenty of games start off domestically, but they often leave it behind in favour of something more spectacular and fantastical. I want more games like The Kids We Were, that have the confidence to focus on the humdrum rhythms of everyday life, and that evoke the same kind of feelings as the films of Makoto Shinkai, Mamoru Hosoda and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and the novels of Shion Miura and Hiromi Kawakami (and if these games do actually exist, please tell me about them. I want to consume and absorb them into my consciousness as soon as possible). They may not end up feeling much like the games we're used to, but I'm glad they exist all the same.