Monsters of Kanji

Review updated after about 10 hours played: Monsters of Kanji is a classic-style, old-fashioned RPG. You explore a world, level up, learn skills, find companions and battle monsters in turn-based combat. As for the Japanese language, think of the 1,900 words as completely optional collectibles - some of which are sneakily hidden in secret areas. You can ignore them and still enjoy the game in full, but if you *do* decide to look at every signboard to unlock a new word, you'll gradually fill up the "Ancient Archive" which will reward you with cosmetic changes to your hero and his allies. For the studious, you can use this archive as a language-review center if you so wish. I've not actually played a retro RPG before, and I'm really surprised by just how huge this game is. It just keeps opening up and my logbook is full of quests I've barely started on. So there's a lot of value here. Ultimately, Monsters of Kanji is an enjoyable adventure with a sprinkling of language-learning. Expect to make friends, battle enemies, discover secrets, run out of health syringes, and wish you had more chips, batteries and peanuts.

Right off the bat I have to disclose that I'm very biased towards this game since it was by my brother and I followed its development every step of the way, but even if I wasn't I would still recommend this in a heartbeat if you're looking for something to fill the SNES-style JRPG niche. It's got everything you'd expect of a 90s JRPG, including snazzy music, great dungeon layouts and a shift towards the weird in the third act. The only difference is that instead of traversing the overworld freely, you can only walk down specific paths, with dungeons and towns being marked as dots that show up once you discover the corresponding location. This still allows for tons of secrets and that wonderful feeling of discovering hidden little caves and secret rooms filled with loot. This is a genuinely charming and heartfelt game, made with nothing but love and passion over the course of around 2 years. If you're at all interested in this type of game, I highly recommend it!

This game is pretty difficult. Not gameplay-wise, so much as Kanji related. I've been studying some basic Kanji from textbooks and apps, but this one throws you in with no hand-holding whatsoever. How it stands as an a game without the Kanji learning is still beyond me as I can only remember a few dozen symbols a day. I haven't gotten that far story-wise but if you're looking to supplement your Kanji studies and review them without the boring writing of symbols over and over, I highly recommend this game. If anyone is using Heisig's methods of Kanji learning, this is the perfect supplementary to it. There's a lot of intuition involved but you'll be able to make your own mnemonics and stories based on how the symbols are presented with the monsters you need to fight. Again, I highly recommend this game as a supplementary to traditional learning material.

Monsters of Kanji is a classic (J)RPG in which you follow a storyline, explore the world and fight a lot. As I'm not much of a writer, I'm adding some pros and cons based on my personal game experience. +++ Good story! + Likeable characters + Original monster design + Good balancing (I played normal mode) + Optional content for explorers + I personally like the art style (monsters > maps) + Music + Cutscenes (kind of manga-like sequences) + Good reading exercise for Japanese learners :) - Some long ways to go (ancient archive, going back to the market, ...) - Pacing is rather slow, thus the gameplay experience sometimes becoming a bit repetitive - Short dialogs, sometimes cut a bit abrupt All in all, I really enjoyed the game and can definitely recommend it if you like classic (J)RPG gameplay and storytelling.

I have really enjoyed my time playing Monsters of Kanji. Don´t expect this game to teach all about Japanese, but it can be used as a tool to review some of the basic grammar and vocabulary (1900 words). The story itself is good and you can see the love the creator put into making this game. Not a AAA game, but i would recommend it to anyone who enjoys an rpg game or indie games.