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Reviewing Shashingo: Learn Japanese with Photography || Chatsu Shorts
66 Plays2 months ago
In this episode of Chatsu Shorts, Satsu take to the streets of a fictional Japanese city to snap pictures and learn some Japanese! But how good is this game for vocabulary building? Is it a useful language learning tool? And can you pet the dog in the window?! All this and more in this episode of Chatsu Shorts"
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this game to review.
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Transcript
The host's language learning journey
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Believe it or not, I am a huge fan of language learning. That's not to say my journey into the world of linguistics has been all positive however, as I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming about directions to the bibliotheque from my days in French class in the Spam Magnifique indeed. But after university, I find my calling with languages such as Mandarin and Spanish
00:00:40
Speaker
encountering many wonderful people and opportunities because of it. But I don't have to tell you how difficult language learning is. Depending on which one you choose, you could be wrestling from grammar and verbs to pronunciation and
Challenges and motivations for learning Japanese
00:00:53
Speaker
tones. But one such language that I had an on and off relationship with is Japanese, due to both my interest in anime and my studies in Shintoism and University. It is a wonderful language,
00:01:05
Speaker
but unfortunately has its fair share of pitfalls for English speakers such as myself. From three character sheets to contained with to its contentious grammar, I doubt you'll find many Japanese language students disagreeing with this assessment. That being said, during my language learning journey, I sought various avenues of teaching myself, which of course led me towards how my hobbies such as gaming could help. And while I did find a few such as influent and tera alia,
00:01:33
Speaker
I found myself growing tired of them, even the infamous Duolingo outstayed its welcome, but recently an indie title dropped for both the Nintendo Switch and PC, which piqued my curiosity. That being Shishingo, wearing Japanese with photography. But could this game save me from my studying woes? How effective would it be in helping me understand Japanese?
00:01:54
Speaker
In what makes it so unique, for transparency sake, I received a free copy of this game from the developer Autumn Pioneer, so a huge shout out to them for that. Without any further ado, let's get into the review.
Discovering Shishingo: A Japanese learning game
00:02:07
Speaker
As the title suggests, the core gameplay loop revolves around the player taking photos of various items within the confines of a Japanese street in order to collect various vocabulary words.
00:02:18
Speaker
In doing so, you can customise your photos with filters and borders, as well as accumulate a bank of useful words for everyday life. This is further reinforced by the use of memory and quiz games, which challenge the player to run around and snap pictures of the work the game is reminding you of. As for the aesthetic itself, it's a really nice looking game between the
00:02:40
Speaker
ambient noises in the background and soothing music, to the cute visuals. It really encourages you to explore the area, to gather more words and pocket them as flashcards that you can use to study later. Personally, I love this kind of visual learning. Also, it may seem insignificant but I also love the addition of a day and night cycle as well as a change in weather, which opens up a few opportunities to gather vocabulary.
00:03:06
Speaker
And if that's not enough, you can even pet the dog. Sorry, I should say Inu. And what are the shots? So that's a solid 10 out of 10 for me. Unfortunately, while this game's initial impressions are nothing short of fantastic, there are a few problems that I have from a technical perspective. Others have raised this critique as well, but
00:03:25
Speaker
the area does feel rather empty, with the exception of cars, a cat and a dog populating the city streets. In addition, the area itself feels rather limited when you realise that you cannot enter the shops or buildings, but I also understand that this would be a lot harder to implement given that this is the work of a solo developer.
00:03:45
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Another issue, and perhaps a rather personal one I have, was the lack of an option for the player to choose a combination of both the Japanese characters with the romanised ones to help with pronunciation, while there is an option to switch to Romaji from the Japanese scripts.
00:04:01
Speaker
It would have been nice to have it side by side without having to constantly switch out in the pause menu. While the game gives a thorough hoorigana and katakanagai to work from and is great from an immersion standpoint, I sometimes found it difficult to remember how to say the words and as a first time learner, it can be
Evaluating Shishingo's educational value
00:04:20
Speaker
daunting.
00:04:20
Speaker
It almost reminded me of my time learning Mandarin where, if it were not for the opinion, I would be totally lost. But that's a whole other can of linguistic worms right there. That being said, I wouldn't hold that as something to mark the game down on. Overall, while I don't think the game is a thorough learning tool that'll get you fluent in 5 minutes, it never really pretends to be.
00:04:41
Speaker
This is a fun educational game that will help you boost your vocabulary, as well as give Japanese learners a chance to brush up on their knowledge of its characters. I must admit, from my time playing the game, I found it extremely engaging. This is a bright and vibrant game that encourages players to learn more about Japanese, furthermore. I'm pleasantly surprised that this also includes a brief but very useful explanation of the basics in grammar, as well as the inclusion of example conversations.
00:05:11
Speaker
While I'm not sure how much this game can offer to advanced learners, this is a great starting point for those wishing to study Japanese, and Autumn Pioneer should be proud of what they've made here. So if you're curious about learning more Japanese, then definitely pick this up when you get the chance.
Engagement and community feedback
00:05:28
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It's a short experience, but for what it presents,
00:05:31
Speaker
it's well worth checking out. Are you learning another language? What are your thoughts on this game? Leave a comment below and let us know. But if you would like to listen to more of our episodes then you can check us out at our website, Chatsunami.com, as well as all good podcast apps. But as always, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated.