The beauty of Japanese script is the basis for Mojib Ribbon and, indeed, the simplicity of calligraphy itself gives the game a vividly unique style. Much like Vib Ribbon’s jagged, eclectic, yet stylishly simple look, Mojib Ribbon’s takes a passive and calm, yet recognisably unique approach. Mojibri, the game’s main star, is a simple ink drawn sprite who, much like Vibri before him, devolves or evolves according to how well you’re doing. Later in the game he’s joined by a female friend by the name of Mojiko and a huge robot called Osobetan. Interestingly enough, as the game switches between characters, so it becomes obvious that each of these characters also has their own style of writing. For Mojiko, her characters are more rounded, with curly flicks at the end of each stroke. Osobetan’s style comes across as strict, square characters with little imagination. He is, after all, a robot. Perhaps only a cursory nod towards calligraphy, but it’s a quirky little addition that brings a smile to the face.

Regardless of the aesthetic changes though, beneath it all Mojib Ribbon, like Vib Ribbon before it, is a rhythm action game. Levels consists of a number of sentences, and each sentence loops round in a ring until the player successfully completes it, and progresses to the next. Compared to Vib Ribbon’s combinations of looks, spikes, ditches and jumps, Mojib Ribbon is surprisingly simple. The gameplay really only consists of the right analogue stick, the down direction to start writing and up direction to progress to the next sentence. Mojibri dances around a loop of clouds, and as he does symbols will appear signifying the start of a word. With good timing (and in the case of later stages, insanely dextrous thumbs), a quick flick up then down, and Mojibri will successfully start writing out that word. Let go at the right time to finish, or else it ends with a big ink blot.

This may sound simplistic but, though it is admittedly a touch basic, it’s still a lot of fun. Wrong timing, or inaccurate movements of the stick, and the result will be faint characters, or big black smudges, or Mojibri tripping up on what he’s doing resulting in you having to repeat the current loop again. The animation is pleasant, and the characters reading out what they’re writing gives the impression of them singing along to the music. Exactly what they’re writing and reading is of course, completely lost on a non-Japanese speaker, and part of the trouble of Mojib Ribbon is, of course, the language issue.

Because while Vib Ribbon relied plainly on the size of the player’s CD collection, in a sense Mojib Ribbon relies on the player’s ability to read, write and comprehend Japanese. Soon into the game, the ability to modify parts of the story becomes available, and so you can pretty much write or change what you wish. While this doesn’t sound amazing, the winning factor is that you can use Romanji – our normal, English alphabet (which uses ‘Roman’ characters) . Using this, you can write anything you like, from short poems to page-long epics, and then play them out in game. What’s more, the game supports the use of USB keyboards, so if you have one you can handily avoid the painful character-input screen. Yet while the writing is a nice addition, the main purpose of this is so that you can send e-mails to friends and such, who can then essentially ‘play’ the letters back in their game. Unless you have a Japanese friend with the game, and an online account, arguably the most intriguing aspect of the game is also the one that we can’t use.

Playing the game is an enjoyable experience. Despite not understanding a word on screen, players can still get a feel for the game by simply playing and listening to the seemingly random story. The songs are pleasant, and the overall system of gameplay, despite its simplicity, is charming and in a sense relevant to the context – the characters are, essentially, writing with ink quills. The only frustrating aspect can be when you miss a word and have to wait for it to repeat itself next time the sentence loops around. It’s nothing much, and compared to other rhythm action games like Gitaroo Man and Cool Cool Toon, it is alarmingly simple. And it’s also very, very easy – the game can be picked up in minutes, and after a short time practicing, you can take on almost anything the game can throw at you. In fact, the same things that were said about Vib Ribbon – “simple yet charming” follow through to Mojib Ribbon. The likely excuse is, of course, that Mojib Ribbon isn’t necessarily designed for supremely skilled players, but instead so that it can be enjoyed by anyone, whatever the context, and the in-game story is simply an extension on the overall purpose of the game.

Of course, the songs in Mojib Ribbon are all part of the fun too, and thankfully don’t require God-like linguistic skills. They’re context sensitive, so the beats will change tempo and the tunes will modify depending on which character you’re playing as, or how far into the level you are. Accompanying the music are crazy background animations, little more than stick figures and children’s drawings, featuring random shapes and objects flying around. They are in fact, relevant to the storyline, and can help to decipher what’s going on. Then something crazy comes along, seeing things like giraffes just suddenly flying off the screen, and you’re reminded of that typical Japanese eccentricity.

However, to really appreciate the game is to understand the storyline, and here lies the rudimentary problem with Mojib Ribbon (for importers, at least) – it’s all in Japanese. If you have little to no knowledge of Japanese, then the only fun you’re going to have out of the game is in the simple gameplay which is fun for a while but, ultimately you’re going to want to know exactly why Mojibri came from a puddle of ink, or why his face – presumably as an in joke – says ‘txt’ on it. An English language version would, of course, remove the artistic nature of Japanese script, and so it is debatable whether or not such a version could, or should, be released at all.

Mojib Ribbon is a very lovely game. It has startlingly beautiful looks, and is soothing, simple and enjoyable to play. If you’re interested in things like Japanese history, or calligraphy, then there’s a vested interest here and it might be worth a look in. However, as much as it hurts to say it, Mojib Ribbon isn’t a ground breaking game: it’s not brilliant or incredibly fun, and it doesn’t last for ever; it simply does what it sets out to do, and does it well, with a result that’s interesting, enjoyable and relaxing. Whether or not a game merits purchase on this alone, however, is for you to decide.