Koe (声): Part 1

Disclaimer: Pretty early on in game... I really like this game overall. If you follow youtuber game gengo and like his style/recommendayions - I think you will like this game. There is lots of listening practice, ability to see a log and replay sentences and toggle english rough translation on and off. I would describe it as an immersion experience. You don't have to understand all of it... You can pick up bits and pieces of words/meanings of sentences as you go. You could also go back and do translations yourself at any point. However, maybe it could have started with simpler language and more repetition of simple grammar patterns at the start. Your character is a foreign exchange student. So it could have made sense for the other characters to speak a little more slowly/easier sentences to start. In summary, a good game with lots and lots of content, listening practice, and learning from context in an immersive way. The battle system I believe is also designed to reinforce words and learn from context. I think the developer has done a good job :)

I like this game! I need to play it more though :(

Still really early in the game, initial impressions: As someone who is still struggling to understand native Japanese content, really enjoying all this quality of life options that let me play the game as an intermediate step towards Japanese VNs or manga chapters. I set it to have the Japanese dialog first in the textbox with no furigana so I can try reading the easiest sentences by myself. Then I turn on furigana to review the readings I couldn't recall (most of them) and lastly I reveal the english localization once I feel I gave my best attempt at taking in the meaning. If it gets too overwhelming I start tuning the time I spend on the Japanese version. If you're a complete beginner, I think you'll get a lot of mileage out of the item words (飛行機 as a first word might throw you off, it's the only 3 character word for a while, don't worry). My recommendation is to write them down in a piece of paper as best as you can manage with their reading and their meaning. You'll probably feel like you're being bombarded with a torrent of information, some brief notes can help with that. Consider commiting every kana to memory before starting the game and use Koe to review them. And first of all, don't panic if you can't remember 90% of what you were just taught, it's part of the process! If you still feel like Koe is too fast paced for you consider skimming through a grammar guide like Tae Kim's before playing so you can make the most of Koe. One thing I'm not sure about is the built-in dictionary. I find it a tad cumbersome to navigate and sort of barebones. A bit janky with mouse + keyboard and barelly usable with a controller (is Koe supposed to be a controller game? Steam warned me about needing one when I launched it). At the very least it would be handy if I could click on an entry and copy it to my clipboard so I could keep track of new words on my own. None of these are pressing issues.

I'm learning japanese and am around N4. I like it and think it's a good and funny experience & exercise. Hope it will also be released on Nintendo Switch...

maybe just not my type of game, maybe gameplay is no fun, maybe the learning aspect is way left behind. Maybe i had too high hopes for this game? Hope others will like this game more than i do.

It's a fun way to try learning some Japanese. Maybe it is not perfect but it is a lot better than the other games that supposedly teach you Japanese. I think it works best for someone who is also studying Japanese by themselves. So it is more of a supplement. If someone had absolutely zero Japanese knowledge I am not sure how much they would pick up.

Kickstarted this back in the day, but the interest I had in the subject matter didn't survive the 10 year wait. I will not likely put any more time into the game than I have so far, surface level appears to be a riff on persona with added language learning. Back when the first trailer was released for kick-starter it had not fully realized its visuals, the art is significantly different, but something about it just puts me off from the game. I can't put my finger on it. While I'd love to give the game a fair playthrough my interest faded and theres many more games in the genre (and my library) I still haven't played and may never either.