Slime Forest Adventure

What would happen if a lot of companies started making games with mixed English Japanese tones? Well, a lot of us hardcore gamers would incedentally begin learning Japanese. So why not? Well, yeah, it'd be like edutainment of the worst kind, but when I really get down and think about it, Japanese is a hell of a lot more useful than Spanish. So why not learn Japanese... while you play a game?

That's the theory of Slime Forest Adventure, a pet project by Darrell Johnson. Essentially, he decided to make a game that plays a lot like Dragon Warrior, but mixes in Kana learning. Hell yeah! All those hours I unfruitfully practiced Katakana to no avail are over. Right?

Right, but wrong. Slime Forest Adventure is always being worked on, but it's nowhere close to done. Playing it at any moment will tell you that. Simply put, the game needs work- and lots of it.



Let me dive into the system that matters first: The battle. The innovative battle system works very simply: A Katakana character displays. Type the corresponding letters in Romanji and you do an attack. Occasionally, a whole word in Katakana will appear above your head, and you have to frantically enter that in and hit ENTER to use magic.

Unfortunately, it doesnt work as easily as it seems. It runs on a time-based system somewhat like Chrono Trigger, so any studying you could do is wasted on this time crunch. As well, the game starts you off on some annoyingly similar characters- Shi, Tsu, no, so, n, and the like. Because of this, this will turn of TONS of potential students, because the characters are introduced so similarly that studying them is difficult. How the hell am I supposed to tell the difference between Shi and Tsu when I havent even been introduced to them? (Hint: Shi's right stroke is minimally longer than Tsu's. That's IT.).



As well, the game just likes to proverbially rape you with enemies. You will never win a fight. Ever. Because the game just runs so freaking FAST (Preventing you from study, mainly), enemies will run in faster than you can kill them off. One enemy against you will quickly turn to 30 enemies as you frantically try to type in the Japanese Katakana version of "Technology". Not fun.

The graphics in this game are horrific, but I can understand why. The point of this game is to learn, not to be given a virtual blowjob with graphics. It reminds me a lot of old Dragon Warrior games, which is fine, but still annoying. Hardcore players take note- you could theoretically edit every single graphic in the game because they're all available in a game folder, but... whatever.



There really is no story to this game. It really doesnt need it. It throws you in quickly and expects you to defend yourself well with Katakana, even though you're trying to learn it by using this program. Kinda a catch-22. I found the easiest thing was to stick a Katakana guide on my second monitor and use it as a reference, but I never could fast enough.



Overall, this game is a genius idea, and I can't wait to see it completed. The game IS available for download on www.lrnj.com, and I seriously recommend Japanese students download it for a laugh or two, because there's no way in hell this speed makes it easy to learn. Still, an interesting concept, and if they fix it up a little bit, this will be the next big thing on the internet. I can't wait.

3 star(s) out of 5

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