It's very much playable, except unless u know how to read fluent japanese (hiragana/katakana) u haven't a hope of getting anywhere without finding a walkthrough on the net
what i find clever is although the game uses kanji characters, it utilises the touch screen so that u can click on the kanji and it'll display a little bubble (similar to the ALT function on ur computer) with the corresponding hiragana characters
been waiting for this game for a long time...*sighs* probably won't be able to buy it until next year though

oh wells