Have you ever watched one of those classic scenes in games or films where your protagonists is pitted either against a villainous foe, or sometimes even one of their own allies, and is forced to roll the dice in a tense game of russian roulette? Ever wanted to do it yourself? Probably not I’d wager, but now you can anyway from the safety of your own home. Buckshot Roulette has recently been a bit of a craze thanks to a conglomarate of Youtubers and Streamers. If you’ve not given it a go yourself yet it’s well worth jumping on the bandwagon and blasting away your friends in some multiplayer mayhem. Alternatively try your wits at the mysterious Dealer and see if you can take home the cash. One thing is for sure, you better be paying attention…
Platforms and Languages
Currently, at the time of writing this review, Buckshot Roulette is a PC exclusive. It fits perfectly into the quirky PC party game genre so this is hardly surprising, however, there are rumours on the grape vine that a console release is on the way. On Steam you can pick up Buckshot for less than £3 ($4) so there isn’t really an excuse not to get it, for the amusement in either Japanese or English!
The language options are pretty broad, with 17 languages in total including Japanese, Korean and chinese. This can be changed quite easily in the options menu on the main menu. As there is no pause menu in games you can’t change the language options elsewhere unfortunately.
Glossary
Usability
While russian roulette is a game of chance for the most part, Buckshot Roulette throws a few new features into the mix to make this slightly more interesting and much more up to skill than chance (not 100% but comparatively so). The addition of new items and feature also opens up the requirement for new rules, ergo some homework to do in order to know what everything does. I’ll start off by saying the Buckshot is not a very extensive game when it comes to language, in fact, the glossary about includes almost every single kanji word you can find in the single player mode, hence the 4 pages for such a small game!
The Dealer is essentially the only vocal character. The Dealer isn’t a voiced character either (although I would love to hear what that would sound like) meaning everything is going to be text based. The Dealer will talk you through the first steps of the game, in total amounting to about 10 lines of full dialogue. Unfortunately his speech boxes aren’t click-to-progress, meaning if you can’t read fast enough you’re kinda out of luck and he’ll skip right past you. Luckily you can just re-enter the room and the dialogue will start from scratch. The majority of his lines will relate to the type of shells you’ll be loading into the shared shotgun in the centre of the table, the order they’ll be loaded in and the tension of the game as it draws to its inevitable finale.
The most regular source of readable content you’ll come across are the aforementioned items, and even then, these descriptions are a line or two at absolute best. In single player you have the advantage of unlimited time (Most would consider it stalling if it were the real thing…) meaning you can read to your hearts content. The multiplayer mode technically has the same luxury however I wouldn’t recommend keeping your friends waiting while you practice your kanji! Talking of the multiplayer, you will find that there a couple of new items not seen in the main story and also that some descriptions also change ever so slightly to allow for occasions where you can choose your intended target.
Outside of the main gameplay the menus are also unsurprisingly brief. The only menu with a decent bulk of text is the multiplayer match set up menu, which features selections of items, round settings and other rule adjustments. Again these headings and options are no longer than a few words. I would actually pitch the challenge of finding a sentence longer than 2 lines. All in all this sounds like a bad ride for anyone wanting to learn but don’t let this disuade you. There are still benefits to this.
The first thing I got from playing Buckshot in Japanese was the unique language. I’ve played a good selection of shooters but it’s very rare you talk about live and blank rounds or the order of loading your gun. There were only maybe 8 words I’d never heard before but these are possible 8 words I may not have seen for a long time (Granted I may not commit them to memory to easily but it’s nice to have seent hem at least). In particular the words 実弾 and 空砲, as well as their kanji (砲 shows up a lot in games like Nioh and I always forget it!) will stick with me, and for that I’m grateful.
I’d also say it’s possible for beginners to pick this game up and learn every word, replaying to test themselves and revise. I played this game with a couple of my students and before long they were reading their items out loud on the call and counting the live rounds in Japanese without even thinking about it. This sort of game encourages you to fall into your comfort zone and relax into a state of genuinely enjoying the game, all the while in your target language. The only downside I did notice while playing this is that very often while reading descriptions and making content for this review I’d get back to the gameplay and this “S**t, how many rounds were there again!?”.
And on to the final round… This game was a blast (Ha!) and I’ll likely continue to play it with friends even though I’ve probably milked it dry already. Again, I can’t reiterate enough how short this game is on the whole but it had an oddly positive impact on this little ol’ language journey. Perhaps the brevity of it made it as non-intrusive as possible. Sometimes simplicity is best. As such, get to shooting, just make sure it’s in Japanese!
Challenges and Methods
The item options are sparingly endless…
As stated, the items are about the only thing that you’ll be reading on a regular basis. The descriptions and item names are simple but they’re also short enough that you can read them each time you use them to strengthen you recollection. By the time you’ve survived 3 rounds you’ll likely have every word used commited to memory.
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