So to Speak

🔹 EXPECTATIONS: a edutainment game. 🔹 REALITY: something between a game and educational material, but not fully one nor the other. 🔶 So to speak is a learning language (Japanese) game by means of pairing bits of information: you see a sign with a picture of a mug but don't know what it means; drag the picture over the kanjis (or vice versa) and you found out how to write "coffee shop". It also works over speech. In-game conversations are fully voiced and represented in romaji to work with. What the game never asks is to give answers or make sentences ourselves, so it feels like learning half way: only reading and listening. 🔸 The game has 16 chapters covering basic and day-to-day topics like directions, colours, family, weather, etc., but I bet you're reading this to know if it's more of a game (and is it fun?) or an educational tool (and will I learn?). 🔸 As a game, it's rather basic: you look for and match bits of information and that's it, sometimes feeling more like a detective game. There's no more added to the gameplay loop. No objectives, no secrets or other to keep you exploring the scenes, other than your own interest in learning more. 🔸 And you will learn, something(s) at least, guaranteed, by pure repetition. Learning how to say things in other languages is always fun, but it gets tiring when you have to match "wa" or "iru" for the 100th time. I wish there was an option to pin overly used expressions. 🔸 There is a "dictionary" that acts like a database to search for words you already found, whether you comprehend them or not, but there is no grammar nor lexicon side content that develops topics further, or explanations on sentence structure, which I would have absolutely loved. 🔸 Aside from that, the game is represented in a pixel art that I wished it had been more stylised, and has some chill music that accompany the scenes nicely without being distracting. 🔸 So to speak is a game and an educational app, but not the best it could've been at any. It is for people who don't know Japanese already, or just a few words, and find the language enticing. If that's you, you'll have a great time, but it won't turn you anywhere near fluent. POSITIVES: 🙂+ 😄+ 😍+ the girl that says "elevator" NEGATIVES: 🙁- no grammar/lexicon side content 😠- no shortcut/pin for recurrent expressions 😡- [quote]For more puzzle game reviews, news and everything puzzle-related, follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25928931-Puzzle-Lovers/]Puzzle Lovers[/url] and check out our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/puzzlelovers]Steam group[/url].[/quote]

It's a very useful and neat little game. You can feel the love of the dev that was poured into making it. I have fun learning and playing through it, but would not recommend it for total beginners, since some things should be known to understand the lections better. Also banger soundtrack.

Это головоломка с японскими словами. Я сейчас, в качестве хобби, изучаю японский язык. Эта игра как минимум для тех, кто уже владеет небольшим словарным запасом, и знает некоторые правила языка. Да, можно попробовать поиграть и без ознакомления с языком, однако вам будет очень трудно. Поверьте, я сам прошёл через это. Уровни решал методом перебора. Начиная с 3-ей главы идут полноценные предложения, и без понимания строения с языка там тяжело. Авторы молодцы. Они попытались сделать игру, обучающую японскому языку. Именно попытались, т.к. повторюсь, но у игры есть порог вхождения. Также геймплея тут нет. Всё сводится к зачищению локации и нахождении перевода всех слов. Каждое новое слово попадает в словарик, и его можно будет быстро найти, что круто. Однако у словарика есть серьёзный, по моему мнению, недостаток. В игре туда будут попадать символы из катаганы и хираганы, что утяжелит взаимодействие с ним. Также с появлением символов станет тяжелее собирать слова, ведь непонятно что от тебя требуется: найти уже изученное слово или же собрать его из найденных символов японской азбуки. В Steam это первая игра, которую я смог найти, позволяющая ознакомиться с японским языком. Вторая же Wagotabi (13 августа 2025 вышла в Steam). За то что разработчики создали её - им большое спасибо.

So to Speak is a language learning game that is uniquely immersive and fun to play. Puzzling out the meanings of Japanese words based on context clues is very satisfying, but a lack of reinforcement for a good deal of the game's vocabulary means that it should not be considered a replacement for a well-sequenced textbook and/or spaced repetition flash cards. That said, playing So to Speak is a heck of a lot more fun than using Anki (I say this as a longtime Anki user), and you could easily replay the game multiple times to make up for the lack of reinforcement in the campaign. As a game, the campaign is well-designed: puzzles are challenging but never difficult, and the cute Stardew Valley-esque art communicates concepts clearly. Towards the end, I did come across a handful of odd, "sticky" puzzles, and I felt I had to resort to guessing a few more times than I would have liked. The campaign should probably take most people 15 to 20 hours to complete. As a learning tool, I'm not 100% sure I love the sequencing of the linguistic content, and having to repeatedly solve sentences for "iru", "aru", and "desu" is tedious, but if you buy this game as a fun, relaxing supplement to your Japanese studies and you don't expect it to be anything other than an enjoyable alternative to flashcards, I think it's more than worth the price. Worth mentioning that the game does have some rough edges here and there. UI elements were occasionally buggy or didn't always function as expected. In terms of user experience, some greater consideration could be given to accessibility and different user preferences for playing with mouse or keyboard. I wrote about issues I experienced in [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/1779030/discussions/0/600785448933305847/]this post here[/url], but none of them are deal-breakers. The lack of cloud saving is the only clear negative, and could be a consideration for someone who is going to be playing on multiple PCs. Overall, So to Speak is a fun and relaxing educational game, and if you are looking for an entertaining supplement to your beginning Japanese studies, it is well worth the money at full price. It creates an impressive sense of immersion a lot like how it is living in a foreign country where you don't know the language. Compared with similar educational games like the Learn Japanese to Survive! series, it is more substantial content-wise and feels like it would be better for actually learning Japanese. [hr][/hr] One last thing: I would highly recommend playing the game without romaji. Personally, I think that romaji should be off by default. I know some people get overwhelmed by hiragana and katakana in the beginning of their Japanese studies, but take some time to learn them (and do some introductory studies if you haven't)---I think you'll get more out of the game and be glad you did it!

I've waited a long time for this to come out, and I'd say it was worth it. Educational games aren't made nearly as much as they used to be, but this one is a good one. Going to need more time to put aside and get through the harder lessons as I really love how the UI is set up.

I really recommend this game. It's a Japanese language learning game, with pixel art and a straightforward mechanic -- drag and drop. I finished the game in 4 days. I only had trouble with a handful of interesting words, for example めん. I know what the word means but I couldn't just type it in. These slow downs gave me a chance to re-evaluate my understanding of the necessary words and topics. It works well in Linux. Replayability is pretty good because you probably aren't going to learn everything the first time around. Overall solid.

Nihongo wa manabu

This is a great resource for Japanese language learners. I am at a beginner/intermediate level and it helped me strengthen my skills. It shows you Japanese conversations with full context and makes it engaging by gamifying the process of translating them. The art is nice and the music is relaxing.

It's a little tricky to get the hang of at first, but I really enjoy this game. It's challenging and gets a little bit harder as you progress.

This game is something you can just casually play. Some of the words are hard to find, but because of the way you use them it makes it easy to remember certain kanji and words. Things like kawa, yama, iriguchi, deguchi, and stuff like that, you'll have those down ready to go.