Learn Japanese RPG: Hiragana Forbidden Speech

Allowed me to get into Japanese properly if you reading this forget the apps and textbooks this will do nothing but confuse you and quite honestly bore you to the point of giving up. THIS is the game that will get you past the N5 into actually having something to work with in the future studies. Its definitely worth every penny what you get from it is invaluable!

Pefect to start with japanese. It is teaching you hiragana pretty well and on top some basics words too. Fun way to learn hiragana <3

If you like the JRPG, it's a good way to start learning Japanese

10/10 I've been learning Japanese on and off for years. This game is by far the fastest method I've ever used to really truly and quickly pickup meanings of words and sentences. I'm so sad tho that it only teaches so much... I would love to see this game expand into something you could use to get to a native level if played enough. It's addicting and fun dialog keeps you interested, great explinations of everything. PLEASE DEVELOPERS - keep expanding the game to go to a native level. That would be amazing.

So far this game has been great! The way it makes you think fast somewhat with the "fights" seems to really help solidify your learning more... I think at least. Its slow to start but it wasnt kidding that it will increase the japanese depending on how fast you seem to pick it up... I really like it as someone that tends to prefer a fast pace that's more engaging. The story is not bad but overall the method of learning just seems to work so much better than I had anticipated! Worth every penny... And quite helpful for someone going to Japan soon too haha I feel I may play this one a few times to be sure but in 3 hours Ive got 20 hiragana and 24 words... not including some I already knew. Not bad at all as someone who couldnt read a single character only understood some roumaji prior!

While I have a few complaints, overall I enjoyed this game and despite having some existing Japanese knowledge was able to learn some things too. In particular, the gradual transition to more use of Japanese in the dialogue seemed very effective. The content is also pretty focused on the parts of the language that are commonly used in anime and manga which made it a more useful companion to other language learning resources. Resources focused on real-life usage are all well and good, but let's be real. If you're looking for a Japanese learning game on Steam, you're probably mostly interested in learning the language to better consume Japanese media. As an RPG, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The story and dialogue are interesting enough. Combat is effective as an educational tool, but not especially RPG-like. Your character does get stronger as the game progresses, but mostly by acquiring more hitpoints. More complicated words introduced later in the game do more damage, but you don't really have control over which words you use in combat. Still, it's fun enough that it didn't feel like the game dragged at the default encounter rate. My biggest complaint, is that it felt like new words were being added too quickly at times. I'd be struggling with a particular word (mostly because of unfamiliar kanji since I was playing in that mode) and still getting new word unlocks at the end of combat. I ended up running out of words that could be unlocked in combat well short of the end of the game as a result. There are some settings around learning rate that maybe would have helped here, but it wasn't really clear how they worked. I have some additional complaints with kanji mode, but since the game is called Hiragana Forbidden Speech and not Kanji Forbidden Speech it feels a little unfair to be too upset about them. Still, I'll note them here in case it helps anyone make a purchase decision. The biggest problem with it, is the game isn't really built to teach you kanji. Kanji mode replaces hiragana with kanji where appropriate and you can see the reading used when the word is first introduced (or in the vocab page), but that's largely the extent of it. This is fine as a way to practice reading kanji you already know, but I don't think it's enough for learning unfamiliar kanji. The other problem is that the way kanji are rendered in battle mode makes it difficult to make out all the strokes in more complex characters like 鍵 (key) or 鶏 (chicken) despite them being rendered at a fairly large size. This was especially annoying for the latter since I knew 鳥 (bird) and it being present as a radical in 鶏 is a hint that the character is bird related if you could actually make it out.

This game is a good companion to other Japanese study methods - I really appreciate the flexibility between multiple choice and typed responses - it's nice to seamlessly switch back and forth when playing on Steam Deck and then PC. Good game to learn kana and some vocab - with grammar lessons sprinkled in! Starting my 2nd playthrough on max Japanese mode now!

I just finished this and would definitely recommend it to others. Most other 'Learn Japanese' games that I've tried seem to go the route of 'see object - learn object's name in Japanese - move to next object'. It makes me feel like I am collecting dictionary entries rather than actually playing a game. This one does actually feel more like a game. You will still 'collect words', but in the context of an actual story that is playing out. I already know hiragana so set it up at the beginning to use Kanji instead. My lowest Japanese skill is in listening so it was great to get practice at hearing the dialogue and trying to understand it I also am mostly familiar with the polite forms of words and sentences and haven't had much exposure to more casual or rougher speech so getting this exposure was also good. As well as 'collecting words' via a battle system, there are also mini episodes of explanation on some topics so that you as a learner can get more insight into why sentences and words are constructed in the ways used within the game. I actually ended up taking some notes from the explanations as they were helpful to revisit at a later date for my own learning. I would absolutely recommend this game The demo is very generous (I think I got about 3 hours our of it) so there's also plenty to try to see if you'll also find it good before buying. The save game ports over from the demo so no need to replay anything and waste time. So to complete the game it's taken me around 18 hours. If the Developer ever reads these reviews then please know that I would absolutely be interested in a further game (or DLC!) that allowed further learning and the next ~250+ words!

this game is fantastic for learning japanese as a beginner, really makes the vocab, sentence structure and grammar stick better than anything else I've tried.

Great Learning Tool. Runs on Linux, too. Achievements would be nice to have and Trading Cards when the Sales threshold is met.