Hiragana Battle is an interesting proposition, since it tries to facilitate the learning of hiragana through the repetition of battles typical of JRPGs. The exercise works, although one can regret a too rigid division: the hiraganas being traditionally separated by consonant group, some are absent from the rotation when one progresses in the game, to the point where those in n-, m- or h- can go out of memory. The addition of vocabulary is a pretty good idea, but it lacks application, so there is no requirement to learn them until the last dungeon. Mechanically, the title is a JRPG boiled down to its major platitudes, but you don't necessarily want more from such a game. The characters have the classic traits of the genre, even if you have to appreciate the fact that the main character is a reasonable and assertive woman, flanked by her two less valiant or intelligent male friends. Beyond the assets that are clearly recognisable as those of RPG Maker, the title commits a few faults of pacing and level-design: the fights can be quite long with the animations and the enemy pools are fixed, which prevents a real diversity of learning. Nevertheless, Hiragana Battle is clearly a welcome addition for those who are put off by the dry learning that usually takes place for Japanese alphabets, especially as the vocabulary snippets provide a bit of freshness.

It's hard to say if this game is effective at teaching the hiragana characters, as I already knew them going into this (I've used the Japanese course in Duolingo). But I will say this game actually teaches and encourages you to write the characters, and in the correct stroke order, which is something I never learned to do, so I had a notebook out and actually practiced writing stuff. For that alone, this game deserves credit.

The way this game made me feel honestly made me nostalgic about PC edutainment games of the past, despite being a completely different genre of game. Stuff like Reader Rabbit or whatever games the PCs in elementary school computer class had, specifically in how there's a lot more learning than actual fun. This is an educational tool first and an JRPG later, so there's not going to be any kind of engaging combat or character building, it's all very basic in order to focus on teaching.

The way battling works is that the characters fight "hiragana warriors" that are just hiragana characters that the player must correctly identify in order to attack. The party members technically have their own unique spells and classes, but none of it really matters, all it is is just attacking and occasional healing. Weirdly enough, early on I struggled with some of the battles, as enemies could take half a character's health in just one hit. This led to me grinding in THIS game of all games. But eventually you do hit a point where damage is negligible and money for healing items is constantly abundant. What I'm saying is you don't come to this game for the gameplay, but I wish there was just a little more going on. Like, I feel like they could have made this more fun somehow, make fighting the enemies still involve hiragana knowledge but do something more, interactive. I don't know, I don't have any great ideas, but I feel like there's some wasted opportunity here, then again I might just be asking for a different game entirely.

This game is very earnest in its goal to help the player learn Japanese, and the story is light and goofy in a way that adds to that earnestness, and I appreciate it. Again, feels very much like the classic edutainment games does when it comes to story. There isn't much to look at in terms of graphics, but I will say the music caught me off guard in how competent it is. I wouldn't say there's anything that really stands out, but I found myself enjoying it often.

Overall, I'm torn because this game wasn't that fun to play, but also I, someone who knows the hiragana characters, am not the target audience. Still, I think someone learning Japanese could get something out of this, I just wonder if you couldn't also get it out of, say, a textbook, or a learning app, or an online resource of some kind, things that might actually be free.

Out of all my attempts to blindly jump in and try to learn Japanese this has to be the best one yet, but it isn't perfect and I feel that once a letter is introduced and has its dungeon it gets discarded until near the end of the game, meaning a lot of lessons aren't reinforced.

Also the RPG aspect can get tough even if you fight most battles, I feel the enemies should do less damage. I do like when the game mixes things up with things like the alternate dimensions and everything in the finale but I wish it did things like that more. Also enemy placement vs selecting them on the menu isn't the most natural thing.

The story is who cares but I don't think the game particularly cares about it either since its focus is on teaching ひらがな which I certainly know a lot more now than I did going into the game, so in my eyes it's accomplished what it sets out to do!

But I want to keep going