Hiragana Forbidden Speech Review

Some days ago, I saw a Facebook post about an RPG game called "Hiragana Forbidden Speech". The trailer looks promising and does showcase some interesting mechanics. So I decided to play it. But does it really hold up to my expectations?

This review is, at the same time, a retrospective. There will be a lot of suggestions from me as a player perspective. This ultimately results in spoiling the game a lot. In those cases, I'll put up a
Spoiler Peek-a-boo!
, so that you could read this blog as if it's just a review.

Foreword

As a former RMXP developer, I know how hard it is to put this game together when the engine is so limited. So, kudos to you, Lun-さま! And despite those limitations, the game itself is amazingly well put together! In this review, I will share my honest thoughts, some of which might be super hard to implement in RMXP. I just hope that for the next project, maybe with another engine, the developer can use these points and feedback to improve the next game.

My Background

Before playing the game, I'd had some experience with Japanese. My native language is Thai, but I normally use English online, so my English is somewhat good. I studied Japanese a bit in my final year of university and don't ever use it again for like 1–2 years. Then, I went to Japan and felt like a fool who just made people's lives γŸγ„γΈγ‚“ (difficult). So, I started to learn a bit (slowly but surely) on Duolingo.

So basically: こんにけは, γ‚γ‚ŠγŒγ¨γ†, すみません, γŸγ„γΈγ‚“γ§γ™γ­, and that's it.

As for my gameplay style, I love to know everything about the story and the plot, so I tend to walk around the map to make sure I cover everything. One downside is that I will get a random encounter quite frequently (I'll cover this in Gameplay and Learning Mechanics section). Luckily, you can adjust it with the Q and Z keys. I adjusted it to -1 or -2 in my gameplay. I don't take any notes, and I only try to rely on my memorization. So, I will do 2–3 encounters, be frustrated that I forgot new words and there are already newer words, go back to the words menu and memorize them, then use them in the following battle. My playthrough is about 15 hours.

Content and Target Audience

Story

The story is about かい (Kai), the protagonist, adventuring into the world to uncover Hiragana β€” the forbidden speech. You will get to talk with NPCs, explore places, fight off monsters, and learn words and grammar.

Despite the engine limitations and a small number of activities in this game, the game itself doesn't feel that repetitive (kudos to the game designer). And honestly, even though the story is quite linear and the "punch" is not that intense, most of the time you'll be focusing on the learning part. So, I think it's fair to say that it's acceptable and balanced.

Furthermore, I would love to see the continuation of the story:

Big Spoiler!
  • What will happen to Nestor? Is he planning to do anything further to achieve his "ideal" world?
  • How did people get back into their normal form? How does the "effect" wear off?
  • What about Bram? What will Ben, the angel, and he do together?

Scope

This game covers a lot of words and grammar that I think are especially useful for reading manga (even the game itself points out that you might find some of the expressions they taught you frequently in manga). So, will this game cover the whole N5? No. Reading manga? Maybe. Besides, the game didn't cover any Katakanas or Kanjis.

Cultural Aspects

I love that the game will tell you whether the expression is polite, casual, or rough. Even though the words taught in the game are pretty rough (like おまえ, γŠγ‚Œ) β€” but hey! I bet those are frequent in manga, right?

To help the player get to use more formal expressions, maybe a multiple-choice selection when speaking with NPCs would help. So they can know what language they should use, whether the listener is an elder, young, close, or stranger.

Target Audience

Definitely beginners with some or no knowledge of Japanese. Maybe you want to get some basic ideas, or at least understand Japanese expressions. Maybe you are a returning student like I am or have been memorizing phrases from a translator, manga, or guide book and want to learn the actual language. Or perhaps you didn't enjoy the old way of memorizing words. I definitely recommend this game.

Value for Money

I'm really glad the developer priced it at 200 THB (5.55 USD) and not 19.99 THB (720.38 THB). I personally think that it's a reasonable price to save up money to pay for the full version.

To put it in perspective, the average income per day for a person working in Bangkok is 278 THB (7.71 USD), one meal is about 60 THB (1.66 USD).

Gameplay and Learning Mechanics

Engagement

It's really engaging for me since my gameplay style is story-oriented. The learning materials are integrated and hidden relatively well in the story. And since if you learn more words in the game, more dialogues will be in Japanese, it's darn super effective for a person who wants to see every dialogue in Japanese.

Pacing, Variety, and Effectiveness

I kind of wanted to separate these topics when I was writing this article. But the more I write, the more these subjects become interrelated. So, let's see what happened.

Hiraganas and Words

The main mechanic of learning a new word is a random encounter. Basically, if you walk for a bit, the game will put you in a battle with a monster, which will quiz you. After that, if you gain enough XP, you will grant new kanas or words.

These random encounters, in my opinion, are great! Since it will force you to memorize words and their meanings (which you can also adjust to, as I said earlier), To make them more effective, here are some suggestions to improve them:

Big Spoiler!
  • Still show a previous incorrect word until that word come up again or the player answer another word wrong. So if the player answer the following words correctly, the incorrect word will be shown longer.
  • Show the mistakes after the battle, so the player can review those words.
  • (I know this is hard to implement but it's an idea) Use the "forgetting curve" to select the word showing in the battle. Currently, the game use "level" system where the more you answer that word correct it will rarely show up again (and vice versa). This is a good compromise to the engine but it's not perfect. The player can just remember the words for a short period and then forget them since now they are rarely shown up in battles.
  • Maybe the enemy won't attack you until you answer the first question, so that you can gather thoughts. My bad, I recently just know about the "warm up" mode. Big facepalm.
  • Hard mode: you must press Enter to submit the answer.

Of course that, in RPGs, you are going to have a long walk. In this game, you will get to hike a massive mountain, explore a spooky cave, sail through a vast ocean, and fight a gruesome desert. Gorgeous landscapes! However, there is one problem β€” a long walk map can get boring really fast.

I know that it's a good way to ensure that the player will have learned more words before the next main story point (also, there are a bunch of checkpoints to make sure you have learned sufficient words). Navigating them could be tiresome. So, I tried to come up with some solutions:

Big Spoiler!
  • Companions: We already got Lenore but for some reason she loves to be on her own. If the main story doesn't required her to do that (meaning that she doesn't have a real reason to "stay ahead" of the protagonist), then we could use her as a companion that could assist the player on their learning.
  • NPCs: In my opinion, the NPCs are quite shallow and doesn't do much. Maybe they can help us to learn more words or grammar points.
  • Side Quests: Maybe I can get side quests to learn more words without having to battling with shinreis or monsters. At the start of the story, there are many "fetch key unlock door" activities, maybe we can use that for this too.

Finally, a little thing: I feel that some words like γ„γγŒγ—γ„ and γŠγ‚‚γ—γ‚γ„ are often used. Maybe we can give them to the player earlier.

Grammars

Not only learning hiraganas and words is one of the strengths of this game. This game also includes a lot of grammar points for you to learn (40-ish if I recall correctly!).

The main problem with the grammar points is that this game doesn't actively encourage you to remember them. You kind of just learn what they are, and you're done. For this problem, I've come up with some solutions:

Big Spoiler!
  • Waiting for the grammar crystal/cave is quite unintuitive. So it would be better if it's directly in a menu.
  • The quiz lady is a good idea. But I think the dev might be able to spread the quizzes to other NPCs/quests too. Also, I think the player should be able to cancel the quiz at anytime, because when you answer incorrectly at the beginning of a 19-question quiz, it's γŸγ„γΈγ‚“ ひどい (awfully awful) .
  • Maybe a grammar checkpoints?

Another thing is that, the pacing for grammar is super rushed at the end of the story. Now, not only will you get bombarded with kanas and words, but also grammar with many details to cover. It would definitely be better to distribute it more evenly throughout the story.

On the bright side, those grammars do have a handful of examples, and you will be able to let the NPC explain them to you again without scolding you. This creates some sense of comfort zone for a learner like me who tends to not ask someone to explain things again, being afraid to get annoyed.

Overall, the learning curve for both words and grammar is, to me, okay. So, you would definitely survive even if you were absolutely new to Japanese.

Performance and Quality of Life

Most of the time the game runs buttery smooth. I've experienced some FPS drops when the game is loading sounds or assets. Most of the massive FPS drops I found are:

There are also some suggestions to improve the quality of life for the player:

Big Spoiler!
  • Sometimes I press the X key too fast, I wish I could go back to the previous dialogue.
  • The "secret" way sometimes isn't obvious enough. I know it suppose to be "secret" but if it's not obvious of how I can achieve it it's going to lead to frustration.
  • I wish the game menu will show how much the player has progressed (through out the story), where they are, and what do they have to do.
  • The overall music is properly selected. There are some instances where the music is very distracting in battle and I have difficulty focusing on answering the question.
  • I would love to have an option for auto fullscreen or not. I am more of a windowed person.
  • Some screen tones put quite a strain on the eyes.
  • Shift to run
  • Minimap

Overall

Hiragana Forbidden Speech is a valuable tool for beginners to learn hiragana and basic Japanese in a fun and engaging way. It does its intended job really well, and it's one of the most carefully crafted games that I've ever played. While some aspects could be improved, the learning materials, unique mechanics, and enjoyable story make it worth checking out.

So, if you are interested in learning Japanese, I can definitely say that this game is going to be worth your money and time. It's alright if you are still not sure; after all, this review is only a reflection of my opinion. You can download and try the demo yourself on this Steam page and decide if it fits you. I hope that, in the future, the developer will continue this series so that we can learn more about Japanese in this enjoyable way.

Thank you for reading!

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