Created On: Wed Apr 27 2022
General Game Info (Availability, Price) [4]
Hello and welcome to can you learn Japanese with クレヨンしんちゃん 『オラと博士の夏休み』 ～おわらない七日間の旅 which I will hereby refer to as Shinchan's Summer Vacation since the Japanese title is way too long!
This game came out in 2021, in the summer funnily enough… it is a Nintendo Switch exclusive, it still sells for a near release price of over $50 and as of now it hasn’t been localised nor released worldwide. Meaning you’ll have to buy it from the Japanese Switch eShop using a prepaid card in Japanese yen… Making the accessibility and price very unappealing. Which is a shame as the game itself looks great visually and it provides a truly unique Japanese experience.
Based on the Crayon Shinchan, manga, and subsequently anime and movies. We play as Shinosuke, a 5 year old boy from Saitama prefecture 埼玉県 Japan, who goes on holiday with his family to the Japanese countryside. The basic gameplay is somewhat similar to animal crossing in that you can explore the town, catch insects and fish, talk to the townsfolk and complete objectives. However, the game follows a set story with pretty linear progression.
Japanese Level [9]
The Japanese level in Shinchan's Summer Vacation is difficult to explain. It uses pretty approachable words since the game is primarily aimed at children. And thus it also has furigana on all kanji. In addition to voice acting for a large amount of dialogue and narration (but sadly not all). When the narrator does speak she generally speaks slowly and clearly, which is fantastic for learning. The difficulty mostly comes from Shinchan himself who speaks with strange mannerisms, sometimes complete nonsense and intentionally making mistakes with words to create a sort of word play type of jokes, which are funny sometimes if you understand them, and others not particularly funny even if you do understand it - it can be a little annoying.
A lot of characters will say the same things every (in game) day so you can definitely get used to many phrases through repetition. Generally the whole game needs you to press A to advance the text so you can really take your time to read, research and understand what people are saying. You also have a log of fish and insects with information about all of them. And at the end of each day you can recap what you achieved that day furthering the repetition.
Story Progression [8]
The story progression is pretty much tied to the in-game days, there are people you need to speak to to trigger events, but in general these are pretty obvious and you will be led to certain places by NPCs. Sometimes it isn’t specifically clear what you need to do, but since the town is pretty small just go and speak to everyone! After each of these story triggers are activated, you can pretty much spend the rest of the day exploring, catching things and trying to make progress on any of the other objectives. Which can make for a nice balance.
My biggest issue was some days there wasn’t a whole lot of story progression early on and the initial explorable area was quite small so I started to get a bit bored. But as the story progresses and more areas open up with more to do, this becomes less of a problem. But the game never gets too big tbh, so be prepared to get very familiar with this small town!
Towards the start of the game I found the story progression each day to be really slow, some days it’s just speaking to someone for a couple of minutes then it’s free time for the rest of the day. I got a bit bored at times, but I found out after that you can change the speed of passing time in the menu under settings and its 時間の進む速さ (which means literally the speed of time progression) which will let you select slow, standard, or fast. Setting this to fast can help you unlock a bit more of the town quicker!
(Gaming to Learning) Ratio [8]
I would argue that Shinchan's summer vacation has a pretty balanced gaming to learning ratio. You need to read or listen to what people are saying to follow the story and know what to do. But you have the free time each day to just take it easy, do some exploring and enjoy the sights and sounds of Japanese summer. As mentioned before there is a lot of repetition which can be good for reinforcement of language, but it can get too boring and with no easy way to skip some sequences it can waste some time that could be spent on something new! But overall I like the balance and think it's a good mix of reading, listening and gameplay!
Fun Factor [5]
Is this a fun game or not? This has been the hardest section for me to analyse. When I first started the game I absolutely loved it. I loved speaking to everyone, taking in the beautiful unique artwork, I loved that each day was just long enough to speak to the characters and plant some crops on the farm. But after a few days, I got tired of catching the same bugs and fish, I got tired of hearing the same dialogue again and again, I got tired of seeing the same 12 screens. So I took a break. When I went back to the game a couple of months later I could enjoy it again.
So I think had I found the menu setting to make time go faster earlier, I might have stuck with the game from start to finish and had a more fun time overall! In terms of gameplay, there’s not much challenge in standard gameplay, some of the triggers to advance the story can be light puzzles such as “go to these places, in a specific order” but nothing too difficult. There is a game within the game. Similar to pokemon in that it’s a rock paper scissors style battle game with dinosaurs. There might be some strategy to this, and you can collect lots of trading cards for extra bonuses. It’s kind of a shallow experience, but a good chance to interact with some other characters or take a break from chatting with people.
Verdict
So after playing and discussing this game, there’re lots of positives and negatives of using it as a language learning tool. But let’s answer the question can you learn Japanese with クレヨンしんちゃん 『オラと博士の夏休み』 ～おわらない七日間の旅?
Yes you can.
And not only is it possible. I think it’s actually a pretty good choice. It’s a little hard to get hold of due to the price and being a Japanese Nintendo Switch exclusive. But almost everything else is a huge positive. Lots of voice acting, furigana over all kanji, press A to advance dialogue, mostly day to day 日常 vocabulary 単語 in context - and overall it’s just a really chilled out game.
So if you want that Japanese summer time experience and to practice some Japanese at your own pace, I think it’s a great choice. If however you don’t have a Switch or think the price is a bit steep (which it is) I recommend searching Youtube for a 実況プレイ of the game (which is Japanese for a Lets Play video!) which would provide even more listening practice! But of course you’re not the one playing!
Anyway let me know what you think of Shinchan's summer vacation!