Shujinkou Review – A Masterclass JRPG That Also Teaches You Japanese

Games are no strangers to being used as a medium to teach people things. The edutainment subgenre, blending entertainment and education, has been around since the earliest days. Learning a language is a tricky beast. I myself have been fumbling through trying to teach myself Japanese for an embarrassingly long period of time. Progress is slow, but progress is progress when I have so much work on. Shujinkou is a JRPG and Dungeon Crawler that also aims to teach players Japanese. This couldn’t be a match made in heaven, surely?

The Story of Shujinkou

Shujinkou stars the titular trio of Shu, Jin, and Kou as they work together to take down Shingen, the ruler of Genya, who has become drunk with power and ambition. But that’s a rather misleading description, as simple as it is, because you’ll need about 40 hours of playtime to reach that point. So let’s go back a bit for some context.

Shu is a young retired samurai at the surprisingly tender age of 24. He lives at his family home in the blossoming village of Himamura with his younger sister. But everything is thrown into disarray when a monster breaks in and manages to kill a villager. Distraught that he was unable to save them despite being the self-appointed guardian, he and his close friends Toushirou and Shirouto embark on a quest to find out where these monsters are coming from and how they can be stopped.

Gameplay Mechanics and Dungeon Crawling

Diving into the first dungeon puts you in the classic view of a first-person dungeon crawler. You’ve got a map that fills itself out, all sorts of monsters to fight, and treasures to find. Battles are done in your classic turn-based combat fashion, with some really tasty UI. As the trio explores, they find what are called Kanakae orbs. These are powerful orbs imbued with letters and elements, allowing for the casting of elemental magic. Equip them to your allies to give them up to five different elements to cast and to take advantage of elemental weaknesses. But there’s a bit more to it than that.

These letters are Japanese kana. You’ll notice that enemies have their names hidden, and by striking an enemy with a kana that corresponds to their name, you’ll hit their ontological weakness. This can actually turn preparation into a fun little game as you compile sets of Kanakae to correspond to as many enemies as possible. And like older Persona games where everyone can swap their Persona as a turn action, here you can use a turn action to swap a character’s orb set to maximise your damage. Striking weaknesses, both elemental and ontological, charges a meter that a character can consume to use powerful skills that damage or support allies, in addition to spells and skills that cost MR (an MP equivalent) to cast.

Influences and References

If you weren’t certain about the influence from various Atlus games like Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, and Etrian Odyssey, the fact this game also has demon negotiation for good measure should make it undeniable. But also, at that point, you didn’t do that much digging because it’s clear in interviews…. And it’s not just that. We’ve got a script and game that loves all sorts of details, from extremely easy-to-miss Drakengard references to dungeon monsters that are closer to Mary Skelter than Etrian Odyssey, showing a wide focus, plus jokes about video game translation (I lost it during the Advent Children translation gag).

Seamless Transitions and World-Building

The way that towns and dungeons transition into visual novel narrative segments feels nigh seamless, and each area is jam-packed with stuff. Towns are laid out in a sort of 2D side-scrolling fashion, with avenues to move up or down, almost like changing lanes. They’re filled with people to talk to and sidequests to take on. I was excited to get to new places because they’re filled with interesting people, plot details, and music.

One detail that is a real treat is the shopkeepers. It’s normal practice for an RPG to have item descriptions, sometimes with flavor text, but this title goes the extra step and offers flavor text directly from the merchants themselves. It goes a long way to fleshing out these minor cast members and making regular preparations more enjoyable. This is especially evident with the blacksmith, Shu’s brother, who will mention him often.

Characters and Development

There are a lot of fleshed-out side characters with tons of dialogue, many of whom also have their own pseudo-romance sidequest arcs with Shu. Everyone loves this boy. While they aren’t playable, and I would have liked more playable units, the total party size of three makes it rather justifiable. In addition, each character has a ton of relevant assets: special renders for when they level up, unique skills, character themes, portraits, and dungeon interactions. Then you look at the developer credits, and there’s one programmer—who is also the director and a writer.

Music and Atmosphere

I got blown away at so many points in this game. Sure, at first, it was a nifty dungeon crawler with a fun Japanese teaching gimmick, but it continued to up the stakes. I was concerned that the first battle theme would be the fight theme for a good chunk of the game, regardless of the cool boss themes, only to be hit by a new battle theme for the second dungeon, and then the third, and the fourth…. These songs throughout are phenomenal, and there’s even a jukebox in the vein of The World Ends With You, where you can play your favorite themes on a loop from the menu. Be sure to break out that ‘Genya Kaikou (night)’ theme when studying—it’s a really good one.

Learning Japanese Through Gameplay

The dungeon crawling is very challenging, and while you can play on an easy mode to experience the fantastic story and characters fast, the incremental pacing of this genre really works well with the vastness of what the game is also teaching.

There are strategic gameplay reasons to equip kana from both katakana and hiragana in the early game—two of the three Japanese alphabets (that’s before they add Kanji later). There is an incredibly in-depth options menu, allowing you to have menu/UI options display themselves in furigana, kanji, or English, which can be freely toggled so you can translate certain terms. There are signboards that explain various grammar points, phrases, and terms in very easy-to-understand ways. An early one that stuck out to me was one explaining how yo, ka, and ne change a sentence’s tone and meaning.

I spent a good portion of this game with an app called Renshuu in hand, writing down various phrases to help me gain additional understanding and context without switching back entirely to English (sidenote, really good learning app). This was useful because the game starts throwing Japanese minigames at you, and the most fun ones really do benefit from extra understanding. There are two fishing minigames—have fun. They all have a bunch of unique assets, too; this game is crazy full of stuff.

The Depth of Shujinkou

The level of integration this game has with its Japanese teaching content, script, and world makes it feel shockingly normal. It’s an incredible JRPG that also just happens to be an extremely enjoyable learning tool. If you don’t like the idea of learning a language as you play, you can turn these aspects off, but I really do feel like this diminishes the experience.

But the biggest prank this game pulls is how long the game stays so dense. I was ready for the game to end about 50 hours in—we were building up to the final boss. I was thinking about complaining that Kou had been introduced too late into the game. I fight the climactic foe in a multi-stage boss fight, with a two-part track that pushes my skill compositions to their limit, and after several attempts, emerge victorious. I wait for the credits to roll, and they don’t. The game just keeps going. And then I get a Steam achievement stating, ‘Congrats, you’ve completed part 1.’ Turns out, I was only halfway through the game. It never feels light.

Minor Criticisms

Frustratingly, I didn’t find ailments all that helpful. There are a few boss fights—especially during Shu’s duels or with that damned frog—where I would have loved to take advantage of them, but I found bosses were either immune or the hit rates were too low to matter. Compared to how often Etrian Odyssey or SMT would allow me to exploit poison, stun, and seals, it feels like a misstep that bosses are so hard to hit with these things. A similar issue occurs with demon negotiation, which simply doesn’t generate enough resources to feel useful. These are minor qualms in the grand scheme of things, given many other games don’t use them either.

Final Thoughts on Shujinkou

Shujinkou is a phenomenal game, easily making its way to the ranks of my favorite JRPGs. It has interesting characters, an in-depth and strategic combat system, and a learning gimmick that is flawlessly integrated.
They want to make two more of these, and while the game ends in an open enough manner for it, it’s still conclusive enough to feel complete. I wish Rice Games the best of luck with their endeavors—also because I want to play so much more of this.