General Game Info (Availability, Price): [8]

In Gunma’s ambition you play as Gunma.. Gunma is a prefecture in Japan, relatively close to Tokyo but much more… rural. And the objective of the game is to make every other prefecture in  Japan… Gunma.

How do we achieve this ambition you might ask? By collecting a currency, called G… what does the G stand for? I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t gold… it’s.. It’s Gunma.

Gunma is available on the eShop for Nintendo switch right now, but also available on mobile devices and 3DS, it’s a relatively cheap investment, only a couple of £ or $s, or a few hundred yen.

The basic gameplay is simply controlling the shape of Gunma, you must collect various falling objects to earn money. These falling objects are actually local specialty foods and products　名物 from Gunma. After collecting the currency you can use it to buy upgrades (to make collecting money quicker and easier) - and you can also buy ‘ガチャ’ prizes of various towns, cities and other prefectures - the total population of this area will be added to the total needed to absorb another prefecture and make it also Gunma… this sounds very complicated I’m sure, and maybe it is..

Japanese Level [4]

The whole game is written in a more non-standard font, which can make reading even simple words perhaps more different than the nice clear Japanese fonts we are all used to, but it’s not too bad.

There is some Kanji in the game but, it’s mostly written in hiragana and katakana. There is no dialogue in the game, so naturally no voice acting, perhaps aside from *GUNMA GUNMA*

Instructions are relatively short and menus are very limited. The bulk of the games Japanese comes from reading the different town and city names (which is very difficult unless you have lived in Gunma for maybe 20 years), reading the other prefecture names - which is far more useful! As you can also see where abouts in Japan each prefecture is located along with the rough population size. And finally the encyclopedia - this has information about all the towns and cities in Gunma, along with what type of tree and species of birds you can find there, and all the famous local produce of Gunma, and then in time the produce of other prefectures that you take over. These small bits and pieces of information can be informative at times and sometimes just strange at others. But this is about the extent of the Japanese language featured. 

Story Progression [5]

The story is the bare bones of barebones, as explained at the start of the game, you are Gunma and you want to make all of Japan, and perhaps more, all Gunma. There is no language barrier towards progression and the aim of the game is basically to complete your take-over as quickly as possible by choosing the best upgrades and getting lucky with your gatcha draws (drawing a major prefecture for example has a population big enough to complete smaller prefectures in one go).

(Gaming to Learning) Ratio [3]

The gaming to learning ratio is hard to describe in Gunma’s Ambition because,

1. There isn’t really much gaming and

2. The amount of learning is very limited.

To make things worse, the game itself is very distracting, when you’re trying to study the encyclopedia entries - making it not ideal. However, the game actually just kind of plays itself if left alone (you accumulate points whether you move or not, it’s just the former is probably a bit quicker) - so you can just leave the game’s left side of the screen alone while you concentrate on reading the Japanese content over on the right. So in this regard it’s not too bad.

Fun Factor [3]

When assessing the fun factor I can obviously only speak for myself but, I, shamefully, enjoyed it… not a lot but it was a fun hour or so I spent one evening playing. Once you have some of the bigger prefectures under your control you can take over japan pretty fast… it feels kind of powerful. It’s very repetitive and definitely not worth multiple playthroughs. I enjoyed learning about the prefectures positioning and populations the most, along with a few unusual local specialities. The gameplay is simple but addictive. I think people learning Japanese would enjoy this game much more than those who are not, however.

Verdict

So this is a very strange game that has been around for a while but still relatively new to the switch. It feels like a polished flash game. There is some Japanese content here, but not much. There is some fun to be had here, but not much. It has however made me want to visit Gunma, so the tourism board will be happy. But for the low price tag and short time investment, to answer the question “can you learn japanese with gunma’s ambition?’ I would have to answer…

yes. But barely.

PROS +

All prefecture names and locations

Lots of facts about local culture

Cheap price

CONS -

Boring and repetitive

Hard to read font

Limited content

Level:

Beginner +

Efficiency:

[4]

Unfortunately I never had the time to make this into a video, but I wanted to post it here as I still think the information is useful!