Welcome back to the year…of the Super Famicom.
I saw this tweet so decided to use my real Japanese. First the game mentioned in that tweet wasn’t in my romset that I could find. But it is a Nintendo Power (not the magazine) game so it is a bit tricker to find a rom of it.
So instead I tried the RPG where you play a kid in kindergarten Gokinjo Boukentai. Which the boxart always stands out behind the glass cases. I am particularly wary of any Japanese developed Video Game about playing a young child because you cannot trust Japanese Game Devs.
The first thing that happens is your mother slaps you awake and says “If you want to wake up by yourself just remember your mother’s hand.” Which well, cool child abuse to start your game.
The kiddo is starting their last year of preschool. The overworld music is particularly Earthboundy. You have a Cat that follows you around but also does Cat thing like rub its back on the ground or disappear for minutes at a time. During the week you do Dating Sim style stat raising then on Sundays (The one day off until like 1997 when they made Saturdays also a day off from school) you play a little RPG in town. I first had to do a mission for a Spirit only I could see to rescue his pedant from some angels in a cave. The Spirit who calls itself a God and is your save point also said to not tell your parents about him.
The next mission was help a classmate being bullied by a rich kid. This was tough because you really have to wander around the overworld and have no guidance where they are or where the shops to buy equipment with your allowance are. After you rescue them I had to go to their house which was another ordeal of just entering every house in town hoping it was the one.
Your mom is just focused on her word-processor, your brother has a soccer match, and your Dad is absent on Sundays. Typical neglectful Japanese family stuff.
The whole game is in Hiragana which might be easy the font is hard to focus on so I kept having to read stuff twice. All the dialog is stuff me with a small child hears every day. The adults are weird and gross looking. At the end of every mission your mom shows up to drag you home. The battle system is Dragon Quest except there is an extra step where you see your stats before selecting attack and I could not figure out why.
I’m not sure I’ll go back to it. None of it particularly grabbed me and again the whole time I am waiting for it to get creepy.
Maybe next time I’ll actually play Ihatatov Monogatari and been forced to confront actual literature.