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| Title | Shujinkou |
| Developer | Rice Games Inc. |
| Publisher | Rice Games Inc. |
| Release Date | Feb. 13, 2025: Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 Oct. 2, 2025: Switch |
| Genre | RPG, Adventure, Education |
| Platform | Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch |
| Age Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | |
Over the past couple years, I’ve been slowly relearning the Japanese I forgot after graduating college. It’s been fun, and a bit frustrating, but also rewarding. When I was offered to review Shujinkou, an RPG that also incorporates Japanese language learning into its basic gameplay loop and world building, I jumped at the chance. Would it actually be helpful as a language tool? And more importantly, would it be a fun game to play? Let’s find out.
After a falling out with his daimyo, Shingen, our hero Shu opts to retire as commander of the army and returns to his hometown of Himamura, where he lives a quiet life with his younger sister, Momoko, and older brother, Daisuke. Those peaceful days are shattered when a villager is suddenly killed by an Oni from the nearby forest. In a bid to protect his village from other Akuma, Shu and his childhood friends, Shirouto and Toushirou, venture into the forest, where they discover an otherworldly presence changing the forest animals into demons with a hunger for human flesh. Intent on finding the source of the Akuma, as well as understand why humans are beginning to lose their language abilities, Shu and company venture forth through the land of Genya, where they meet a colorful cast of characters to aid them in their quest. These include fellow heroes Jin, an anthropomorphic fox that cannot recall his past but has a knack for philosophy and magic; and Kou, a warrior princess from another land who came to Genya to find and defeat Shingen in an attempt to stop the Akuma invasion.
There’s a lot of really interesting world building going on in Shujinkou right from the outset. Genya is, for all intents and purposes, fantasy Japan following the warring states period, with customs and language to match. Anyone with any passing familiarity with Japan will feel at home here. The game throws common terms and phrases at you, all of which are logged in the game’s lexicon for easy review — this is, after all, also a game that teaches Japanese. Depending on the learning level you’ve chosen, the vocabulary thrown at you increases, which I thought was a nice touch. Some of the characters you meet also reference the wider world beyond Genya’s waters, as well as the past military conflicts Shu, himself, took part in when he was still an active samurai. I appreciate a game that’s confident enough in its story and world to start in media res. The Akuma invasion may be new, but the underlying conflicts the characters face while traveling through the country are not and help sell Shujinkou’s world as being vibrant and lived in.
The characters help sell that world, as well. Shu is a pretty straight-laced, straightforward hero type, who always means well and is pure of heart. He showed promise as a samurai from a very young age, and was recruited into Shingen’s army while still a teenager. He was so good with a sword, he ended up as commander of the army, a role he eventually abandoned to return home. Momoko is energetic and radiates positivity while also yearning to be a samurai like her big brother. Daisuke is a quiet and dependable blacksmith who still charges you for his services, despite being family. Toushirou and Shirouto are your main companions for about half the game. As childhood friends of Shu, they have a camaraderie that’s palpable, and their dialogue reflects their longstanding friendship. Toushirou is brash and hot-headed and a little on the stupid side, putting him squarely in the quintessential tough guy warrior role. Shirouto is an academic who would rather read books than fight, so of course he’s a mage type. I wouldn’t say Shujinkou treads new ground with character archetypes, but they’re solidly written and have a ton of personality between them, which makes them endearing. There is no voice acting, so the writing really needs to sell the characters, and I think it knocked it out of the park in that respect.
After about 20 hours or so, you finally meet Jin, the second actual hero of the story. As noted above, he’s a fox with a penchant for painting and loves to read books and eat sushi. He joins Shu in a bid to discover where he came from and why he’s unlike other Akuma the team has encountered before. I love him. Rounding out the crew is Kou, a stoic and no-nonsense woman from another country who really does not jive with the party and comes along to further a mutual goal, rather than having any particular ties to Shu and company.
Rather than a fully-realized 3D world, towns are point and click style affairs filled with NPCs, side quests and minigames, while dungeons are first-person grid-based mazes. Combat is turn-based and is where a significant chunk of the language learning comes in. Characters can use Strike, Arawasu (magic), Koushou (talk), Item, Defend, and Nigeru (run away). Scattered throughout dungeons, Shu and company will discover Kanban with helpful explanations on the Japanese alphabet, flora, fauna, and even grammar. (These are also the only point in the game where you hear voices, because they provide pronunciation guidance.) You can also find kanakae orbs corresponding to both hiragana and katakana. Each kanakae aligns with a specific element – fire, water, wood, metal, earth, light and dark – for which different characters have higher affinity. You can assign up to five kanakae to each character, and can either change them at will while walking around or use up a turn in battle to pick a kanakae set. Strategizing which kanakae are equipped and designing synergistic kanakae sets is paramount to actually winning battles.
To explain, all enemies will appear as ??? when first encountered. Because Shujinkou is designed to teach Japanese, players have to use kanakae orbs to uncover enemy names using their basic syllables. When using Strike, pressing the left trigger brings up the kanakae menu. Let’s say you’re fighting a horse, or uma. You would use the “う” and “ま” orbs to uncover its name and deal ontological damage. At the same time, the “う” orb aligns with wood and “ま” with fire, and since uma are weak to fire, the “ま” orb would deal extra elemental damage. Discovering both ontological and elemental weaknesses are key to defeating enemies, several of which can kill your party really fast if you’re not careful. You also want to take into account character affinity, because using an orb that matches their element will boost their damage output.
Once you’ve found enough kanakae orbs, you can unlock Arawasu abilities and the skill tree. Arawasu have a wide range of both offensive and defensive uses, as well as some field effects such as increased gathering attempts or healing when you walk. Since combat is turn-based, having an assortment of status effect abilities can sway the tide of battle by either increasing your turn speed or lowering the enemy’s, and offensive elemental spells lean into the game’s elemental weakness system. I also really like the way the skill tree incorporates yet more language learning, since every skill you can unlock is based on verbs (ie: 守る, “to protect;” 癒す, “to heal;” or かなを学ぶ, “to find [lit: learn] kana”).
Rounding out your combat kit, Koushou lets you talk with Akuma, who will ask three questions. Your language learning settings determine the types of questions, which range from quizzes on Japanese words to Genyan lore. Successfully answering can net you items or money, and will end the battle. Using Nigeru similarly tests your understanding of Japanese or monster lore, with correct answers allowing you to escape and wrong answers returning you to the fight.
Dungeons also have a day/night cycle – dawn, day, night and dusk. Every step taken advances both time and the likelihood of encountering a random enemy. There are several enemies in the game that will only spawn at specific times of day and you will typically get into one fight per time of day. Certain NPCs are also only available at specific times of day. Once you’ve recruited Jin, he will periodically test your writing skills while wandering in dungeons. This is easier in handheld mode than docked since you can write the characters with your finger rather than the analogue stick, but the scoring is pretty lenient so long as you follow stroke order.
Read on for more about sidequests, minigames, music and more ->
