Hiragana Hero

Hiragana Hero is a cute, fully voice-acted indie game that helps beginners learn the 46 hiragana characters required to write/read Japanese. The gameplay is good, and the progression system is interesting enough for more experienced learners to enjoy it, but I think the main audience will be those completely new to Japanese. The good: -The thing I was most worried about was how smooth and intuitive the hiragana selection system would be. It could've easily felt overwhelming or clunky, but the explanation of the vowel rows/consonant columns was clear and the selection system works great. The addition of the sound combination cards was unexpected but welcome. -Every line of dialogue is voiced, and the voice acting is pretty impressive. The developer went out of their way to find talented VAs, and it shows. The BGM is actually even more impressive imo, featuring poppy tracks sung by a female Japanese vocalist that add an important level of atmosphere to the experience. -Small point, but inclusion of the dev's children could've come off as cringe, but it's actually incredibly charming. -I love a good roguelike. Powering up your character and collecting letter combination cards all add to the experience. -The story is simple and feels like it came out of an isekai anime - nothing groundbreaking but it's fun. This is a mixed bag as honestly I'm thankful that it doesn't dwell too much there and focuses more on the fun characters and getting the most bang for your buck in terms of effectively cramming those hiragana into your noggin. -Last but not least, if you don't know anything about the Japanese writing system, you will definitely learn about the Japanese writing system playing this game. Period. Not just the characters, but how the sounds are organized, different Japanese words, etc. Hiragana Hero does what it set out to do, and it does it very well. Room for improvement: -While each hiragana is introduced with a smooth animation showing how to write the character, I feel like putting more emphasis on how each hiragana is written, particularly the stroke order, could’ve added an extra layer of depth. I'm imagining some interactive stroke-order mini game or something included that would've added gameplay and a bit of educational value. Would love to see that in Katakana Hero! Conclusion: All things told, Hiragana Hero is a great little title worth the price of admission for those on the first steps in the long journey towards Japanese fluency. It's charming and the roguelike gameplay feels solid, definitely good enough to keep your interest beyond whatever motivation you have to learn hiragana. I never felt the pangs of, "yeah I'm learning, but man I wish this was an actual game and not just edutainment" that a lot of educational games fall prey to.