Daisoujou's Study Log - šŸ¤·

One of these days Iā€™m going to put in the time to actually get into that series; it looks goodā€¦ but now Iā€™m going to want to do it in Japanese and it seems like a bit of a pain heh. You enjoying it?

I know what you mean for sure though, early on I was kinda thinking these NPCs all really want to tell me about the same couple things. I get it, things are very open and they want to compensate for someone just talking to a couple random people. Still, it doesnā€™t get brought up as much, but I think older Zelda games had more memorable NPCs as well?

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Iā€™m loving the series, though I have only played in English - I do want to get through it this century after all haha. Cold Steel is next on the list once Iā€™m done with Zelda and thereā€™s been so much foreshadowing for those games across the rest of the series that Iā€™m very interested in how things will play out

I did a bit of research and figured out that it is possible to change TotK to Japanese with the English physical copy so thatā€™s what Iā€™ve done and playing a bit of it like that seemed doable. Might actually encourage me to start using my Anki again (which just went to show the horrible amount of reviews on there to do). Iā€™ll get on top of that and start adding new stuff from playing Zelda I think

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Nice, good luck! Yeah I really donā€™t think reading it is too bad if you donā€™t mind the occasional lookups. When you hit little cutscenes that might be a bit of a test, though most havenā€™t been TOO hard in my experience.

ē˜“갗 (恗悇恆恍) is miasma; youā€™ll need to know that sometime and I had an unpleasant start when they hit you with cutscene conversations centered around that from the very start of the game haha. And get ready to see ęœ½ć”ć‚‹ (ćć”ć‚‹) applied to every weapon. I think this game finally got me to internalize that one.

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Just as a heads up, if you ever decide to read/watch stuff about TotK in English, ē˜“갗 is translated as gloom in the game. (At least if it is the word used for the red gunk.)

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Some more that I instantly realised would come up all the time: ꧍(悄悊) - spear, ꖧ(恊恮) - axe, ē„ (恻恓悉) - shrine

The cutscenes arenā€™t so bad I think - mainly because you can rewatch them at any time. The shrine ending text does give me a bit of grief because Iā€™m not able to read it and take it on board quickly enough before it fades to the next message, but ultimately thatā€™s pretty minor due to how many there are (and how skippable that text is)

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Yep! Those were all cases where having played Octopath 2 right before this set me up really well for vocab from this domain. So Iā€™m immediately seeing playing games pay off for other games.

Yeah I think shrine ending text took me a couple goes because the shrines use what I have to think is some slightly Ye Olde Japanese readings and the like, for effect.

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Oh I still plan to! ā€¦at some point c: I guess Iā€™m just in a Switch break period, it happens for me every now an again with consoles (well I only own Nintendo consoles), that I play the heck out of them for a while and then I donā€™t touch them for months or years, then the cycle repeats :joy: Iā€™m a PC player at heart. However I do plan to get it at some point though cause Splatoon is so fun, I know Iā€™ll be super hooked once I do. But Iā€™m also holding off right now until Iā€™m a bit more relaxed with money currently being somewhat of an issue. My tactic right now is going for cheapish games that I can potentially play for a long time, bonus points if they also allow changing language to Japanese so they can double as study as well; otherwise I tend to play the same stuff I know I have fun with (mostly FFXIV, Deep Rock Galactic or anything else from my Steam library). VNs have been really nice for this so far with the ones weā€™ve picked: quite affordable and lots of hours of both fun and study. I know Splatoon is for sure one game Iā€™d play for hundreds of hours but oof, that initial game price + nintendo online fee investment kills me atm ;-; . For just one game. I guess Steam sales are both a blessing and a curse.

But I do plan to get it! ā€¦eventually! ā€¦I promise! :eyes: just not sure when.

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Yeah very understandable! No worries. Itā€™s unfortunate how Nintendo games will just never, ever be sold cheaper. Theyā€™re still charging $60 for Splatoon 2 :roll_eyes: . I guess you can get the physical game a little cheaper sometimes, but itā€™s nothing great. And I hate consoles having online memberships; this is the only one Iā€™ve ever paid forā€¦ 20 per year for this one isnā€™t so bad, but considering the online experience is really poor and itā€™s all P2P, itā€™s obnoxious. Honestly we have a family plan that still has openings so if you reach that point and wanna just give me an email address, no need to give Nintendo more money. Iā€™ve got a few friends already using it too.

They got me with all their limited time events and whatnot though. Itā€™s both cool for the sake of having constant things to look forward to and a little annoying how the Splatoon devs will give you something for a weekend then take it away forever.

Iā€™m also usually a PC player so I feel you there. My problem is when I want to make exceptions, most of my friends are also stuck on PC haha. That, and the ones who have tried it are used to being really good at aiming with a mouse and have bounced hard off the motion controls cause it is a big initial curve.

Anyway hope money stuff gets a little less tight soon; itā€™s pretty tough for everyone these days :skull:

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Oh personally I loved the motion controls even if Iā€™m also very used to mouse, I thought it was quite precise and intuitive, liked it a lot. If anything I was grateful it wasnā€™t like completelyā€¦ analog stick type of controls tbh :smile: .

I appreciate that a lot, thatā€™s really nice of you. Wouldnā€™t it be an issue what with us being in different regions? I donā€™t really know how that works though, Iā€™m in Europe. Even then while I really appreciate the gesture, at that point as you say 20 eur a year is affordable and if I could get it too when I get Splatoon, it wouldnā€™t feel fair for me to take it if I know I can afford it and I just donā€™t want to, you know? :smile: But still, regardless, thanks a lot! Iā€™ll let you know when I finally get it so we can play some games :art: :gun: (no paint bucket smh).

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Oh yeah I love it, so much better. I canā€™t use stick controls in shooters. Itā€™s just a big learning curve for people who havenā€™t used it and I think motion controls in the average personā€™s mind still have a bad reputation despite the way they really are as close as you can get to mouse accuracy. Iā€™ve seen some really impressive stuff with the steam controller in Counter Strike and the like.

Oh yeah, wasnā€™t thinking about regions. That could probably be an issue. I just do my best to share it when I can cause my wife and I bought a family plan (gives you up to 8 people) because it was cheaper than even 2 separate normal accounts, and it has like 3 or so empty slots remaining that are totally just going unused.

Looking forward to it! :paintbrush:

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For my friends reading here who I mentioned this to in the past ā€“ I just wanted to share that my wifeā€™s immigration was approved! :partying_face: It seems recently theyā€™ve been processing these much quicker and skipping steps; we were done in about 6 months with a process we were told would take around 2 years, and we didnā€™t even have to interview. Very good, now we just wait for her permanent resident card to arrive. Thought about tacking on Japanese talk while Iā€™m here but I noticed how close we are to June 1st so I guess I should think a little about if I have much to say for the 2 year mark of my studying. Will be back soon :grin:

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(@MissDagger :eyes:)

Updated TotK thoughts, if anyone's interested

I donā€™t think Iā€™ll quite love the game to the extent that others do; I mean Iā€™ve had multiple people tell me itā€™s the best videogame theyā€™ve ever played, but the experience has gotten a little more positive over time. Some things that bothered me before no longer do as much ā€“ I have enough figured out with the sorting presets for getting the parts I want on weapons quickly enough, Iā€™ve reoriented my thinking enough that being able to ā€œbreakā€ traversal isnā€™t so bad because traversal just isnā€™t the challenge the way it was in BotW, etc. I still donā€™t make ambitious builds, but the game seems to work well enough for those of us who throw together basic functional devices and move on, little simple cars or hot air balloons. Itā€™s overall a pretty good system for allowing me to slap two things together and have a vehicle but having the depth of interactions for people to build bombers and mechs somehow. Trying to force it to do anything for me when I started was a mistake because you just need to collect some zonai gear first, but who can blame me for wanting to play with the toys? I do think the register and instant rebuild system is really important quality of life, and donā€™t like the way it could be missable for a really long time. Itā€™s the one thing I just looked up and went straight to when I was fed up with not being able to do it.

Over time itā€™s opened up quite a bit with the various sidequests, to help with the world not feeling as novel and new ā€“ as long as I can keep moving between these set up things to do, itā€™s staying fresh enough. I still think the underground and sky islands are barren and one note enough that I find them more of a detriment than a solid addition, but there as well Iā€™ve learned that Iā€™ll have more fun if I take them in small chunks, say, go underground when a map points me somewhere for a specific treasure, or just look for a quick sky island with a shrine.

Honestly the worst part for me right now is how easily you get (near) one shot ā€“ IIRC this was an issue in BotW, but itā€™s worse here than I remember it being there. Seems like every enemyā€™s damage value is either .5 hearts or all 10. I was reading James Stephanie Sterlingā€™s review and agreeing quite a bit that the game can just be a bit mean; you get jumped and instant killed or your rewards fall off a cliff or some tiny issue in the physics sends you hurtling somewhere terrible. All tolerable, but when things go wrong it elicits a few too many sighs.

Still, yeah, I kinda like it. I do think the enemy parts being valuable weapon attachments does so much to solve how combat was almost best to avoid in BotW. Very smart design. Caves are overall cool to explore. Thereā€™s a very nice resource loop taking you between various parts of the game that makes me not totally dislike the underground just because itā€™s cool to spend time preparing for journeys there, then go down and get some zonai upgrade materials, then use those upgrades to improve your ability to get back to exploring, etc. When you figure out how it wants you to act, it flows well from one thing to another. This is about the best outcome I was hoping for; I had to spend quite a bit of time figuring out exactly how the systems want you to work with them and then tailoring my approach to how I can fit that within what will entertain me ā€“ but itā€™s been mostly successful.

Iā€™m at the point where I just skim item descriptions to see what they actually do, but I think Iā€™d be there in English too, haha. The actual dialog has been pretty good for casual reading practice, and I need to do surprisingly few lookups. It has me very excited to move on to more games.

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Oh thatā€™s amazing! Iā€™m so happy for both of you :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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WOOOOOHOOOOO! Iā€™m so happy for you and your wife. What a big thing to have off your backs. So glad it went so fast. I canā€™t imagine having to wait 2 years, so happy you didnā€™t have to. :tada:

TotK

Iā€™m very much the same. I just throw together whatever is functional and quick.

I think I learned this lesson pretty well in BotW, that it is really important to go after the secondary objectives you get. Because new functions to the sheika slate was locked behind those.

So my first order of business after finishing the first temple was to complete the next go underground quest that unlocked from ā€¦ I canā€™t remember her name right now. Also because I wanted Robā€¦ (Rob something, dang, their names are slipping from me right now) to go to his lab so he could give me new things for the TotK slate (Iā€™m losing all their names right now, lol).

In that way, I got the autobuild feature right around when I started to feel like I really wanted one because Iā€™d built 3 or so wagons and wasnā€™t looking forward to building many more. Plus more and more zonai devices were appearing and I realized Iā€™d want some easy go to machines without needing to build them from scratch each time.

Agreed, after doing more sky islands and more underground, it gets a bit same same for sure. But I also find them a nice variety to do every so often. So like I do sky islands after I activate a tower, and so far Iā€™ve mostly gone underground when Iā€™ve had a bigger side quest there. But recently I got a new one and I just said nope (for now) because I had just spent an extended time down there.

So yeah I very much sprinkle sky and underground in as variety. Same with caves. If I had to pick. Iā€™d probably say I like caves the least, but that is because I early stumbled on a cave with really hard monsters that scared me silly, so now I donā€™t trust that that wonā€™t happen again. :sweat_smile:

(It is a cave that you might stumble on while traveling from Lookout Landing to the Rita village. To be a little more specific, but there are plenty of caves on that route, but if anyone has visited that cave, especially if they did as early as me, they would probably know which one Iā€™m talking about.)

I agree. After a while in BotW, I just realized Iā€™d be better off ignoring combat except if it was directly in the way of an obstacle. Iā€™m still engaging regularly with combat I donā€™t necessarily need to in TotK because I still find Iā€™m trying new things at times. Still trying to perfect my stealth and bow skill (this is my preferred method of combat, kill sentries from afar with head shots and go in and stealth stab all the enemies). But I also like that when my strategy fails in this game, I have so many more options for how to not just slash my through all the enemies. (Although I do that too.)


I wish I had more to say about my own play, but except for playing for like 1.5 yesterday, I havenā€™t played since Thursday. Was too busy this weekend, but I hope to make some cool progress with multiple things very soon :tm:

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TotK

Now that Iā€™m near the end of the game, I donā€™t mind seeing one or two things written about the game. (Some Youtube video thumbnails/titles already spoiled most of what I havenā€™t discovered yet.) I can actually read a post mentioning TokT without fear of spoilers.

Personally, I donā€™t mind that I was more than halfway through the game before discovering it.

I probably was at least 15ā€“20% of the way through before I received the paraglider.

I think thereā€™s a strong sense of accomplishment and progression to discover these things fairly randomly that I wouldnā€™t have if they were given up front (like the glider in BotW) or if I saw a video telling me how/where to get them.

I also initially avoided getting any armor reused from BotW until I reached the Goron area and needed heat protection. (I didnā€™t want to bother with elixirs.) And then that became my primary armor for other areas for a while since it was all I had until I reached the Rito village and got the warm outfit there.

I also didnā€™t get around to unlocking the great fairies until I had completed all four dungeonsā€¦

I mostly avoided combat until I completed enough shrines to have enough hearts to take more than one or two hits.

Considering the enemy scaling as one progresses, having the lower-level enemies be a little weaker wouldnā€™t hurt.

As opposed to me, who will spend 10 minutes coming up with an elaborate build to try to get from point A to point B only for it to fail miserably, sending Link plummeting into lava. (But in my defense, I didnā€™t yet know how to use devices from my inventory, so I had limited means.)

Josha, if I remember right.

Make life easier for yourself. Call him Goggles.

Some of those would have been nice for me to get before completing the fourth dungeonā€¦


Overall, I hope Nintendo returns to a more traditional Zelda next. Or at least give us another sprite-based 2D Zelda, like A Link to the Past and The Minish Cap. (I didnā€™t care for A Link Between Worlds so much, possibly partly because it didnā€™t use 2D sprites.)

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Thank you both, and to all the people reading and liking. :grin:

TotK

Yeah, the thing for me with that was that I ended up going after it before I had made enough progress in the game to open more of the questline. It does expect you to keep checking in ā€“ kinda wish that followup quest was given immediately because the other possibility is that someone doesnā€™t look back at Robbie and Joshua to see theyā€™ve updated.

Haha, most caves Iā€™ve gone to have been pretty easy; I wonder if I havenā€™t seen the one that scared you off yet. They arenā€™t all so bad!

Personally Iā€™m definitely addicted to bow stuns, but honestly Iā€™m at the point where Iā€™m getting increasingly lazy and now that I have some elemental weapons I keep shocking/freezing enemies to just bully them while they canā€™t move.

Anyway, hope you get more time to play soon!

In principle I totally agree! I just think that that in particular is a very significant power that crosses some threshold where I want to ensure I donā€™t get it TOO late. That could very much be because Iā€™m not as into the building as some people though. The paraglider thoughā€¦ that one I might argue needs to be automatic because Iā€™m pretty sure some shrines just donā€™t function without it? Itā€™s in a weird spot because I think the game is clearly built around it at times but it is technically missable.

Iā€™ve unlocked the fairies and got a good chunk of armor right now, 2 dungeons down (Rito and Zora). Maybe heading for the Gorons soon. I stumbled into the lost woods briefly and sure was lost in those woods, wondering where Iā€™ll get hints to work on that stuff. I do think scaling some early enemies down a bit would help ā€“ I know BotW worked similarly where it 's pretty punishing until the moment it just isnā€™t ever again, so itā€™s not the worst thing if they repeat that.

Hmm, I still havenā€™t gone there eitherā€¦ might be time to finally follow up on that soon after I finish aimlessly wandering between shrines and stuff in the northeast.

I know theyā€™ve said this is in some way the new formula for the series so I guess itā€™s unlikely, but I would very much like that as well. Iā€™ve played plenty of games with heavy inspiration from the series, especially indies taking from 2D Zelda, but itā€™s never quite the same as what Nintendo is able to do and while I can appreciate this new stuff, I miss it too. I never really gave Skyward Sword a serious playthrough so Iā€™m thinking I should do that sometime after thisā€¦

One addition: Too lazy to properly get the screenshot off my Switch (the process is a little annoying) but I was hyped that I managed to catch a falling star midair:

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TotK

I donā€™t know if the first shrine I visited on the ground could be accomplished without it, but I couldnā€™t!

Iā€™m still curious about how to get in (have spent maybe 20 mins trying various things, without having any in-game hints yet). But if anyone knows, donā€™t tell me!

That reminds me, a certain character who appears in the same town as Robbie and Josha I didnā€™t encounter until Iā€™d completed three or four dungeons.

Technically Iā€™d be fine with a ā€œZelda 1ā€ style 2D game with Minish Cap graphics and TotK quests/progression.

The main issue I had with A Link Between Worlds is that all the dungeons are designed to work as your first one, so maybe put some BotW/TotK style level scaling for enemies (which can easily work into any plot).

I did the same just the other day! I was swapping between paragliding and falling to keep close to it, then tried pressing A while paragliding and sure enough Link got it.

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Well, itā€™s been two years. Thereā€™s always that weird feeling with time where I could both think Iā€™ve been doing this most of my life, but at the same time, two whole years already? Last time I took that N2 practice test (barely passed!) to have some show of my abilities, but thereā€™s nothing too special this time. Briefly toyed with the idea of taking an N1, but that sounds dull and tiring tbh, and who knows if Iā€™d pass. Donā€™t need the pseudo validation right now. This yearā€™s been a bit rougher as I took an actual break for a couple months, but Iā€™m back at it, and that in itself is a success of a sort.

I guess above all else, I completed the transition to just using native media totally to learn this year. I quit WK at level 58 or something (lol), and now I just read and watch things exclusively. Still going without Anki so far ā€“ sometimes I find my memory for new things a little lacking and start wondering if it would help, but it sounds tiresome right now so Iā€™m not bothering. Still struggle with the language in a lot of ways, but Iā€™ve finally started just doing whatever with no regard for easy lookups, playing videogames like Octopath Traveler 2 and Tears of the Kingdom and looking up what I need to. Enough comfort to move in that direction and not have it grind playthroughs to a halt is real progress. And I donā€™t really think about reading difficulty ever anymore. Iā€™m sure I could be hit with all sorts of things too hard for me at some point, but itā€™s not a leading factor in choices like it used to have to be. Most grammar feels far more intuitive by now. Am I missing nuances? Who knows, I can read so much of it more naturally without having to stop to puzzle through bits, so itā€™s mainly just unknown vocab that is the enemy, as it will be forever.

Listening isā€¦ better? Iā€™m doing alright with random streams and youtube videos I think. Sometime soon I need to try movies and the like again, give myself a real test and see how usable I think my skills are right now. Still a long way to go in learning words, Iā€™m sure, but last year I found listening nearly insurmountable still so I think thatā€™s progress.

I ended up not bothering with that whole Lost Judgment playthrough cause I was stressed and struggling then, so thatā€™s a goal ā€œfailed,ā€ but itā€™s ok. I do want to give that another go soon. Iā€™m not going to set any specific things to do as a goal now, but I think I can increasingly turn the things Iā€™d already do to Japanese and get by, and feel less fatigued from time spent in the language, so Iā€™m hoping this year really snowballs from the point Iā€™m at. I seem to read 9-Nine- (my only current read with a reliable character count) at above 5000 characters per hour which is a bit of a speed increase, and doing a little over 10,000 per day with it is now the norm for me, when it used to be where Iā€™d stop on particularly ambitious days. Gotta get that speed up so the visual novel club can read exciting, long things :wink:

I feel like I somewhat was convinced to start this by being a little misled by how much work is still involved in ā€œjust look up words you donā€™t know.ā€ Like, this is sort of more difficult than I hoped it would be at 2 years? At the same time though, I think my progress is a lot better than average for 2 years (thanks loads of free time) and Iā€™m not really dissatisfied now that Iā€™m here. Itā€™s something you have to adjust to as you come to understand it better, I guess.

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:tada: :tada: :tada:

Congratulations on two years! Good job!

Iā€™ll admit Iā€™m a tiny bit envious where you are at or more like longing to be where you are at. But then youā€™re so much better at spending the time, so it is a function of your dedication and follow through. (Iā€™ve definitely been on this longer than two yearsā€¦) At the same time, I know Iā€™ll get there, so mostly Iā€™m happy for you.

So happy I stumbled into you last year when I got back to WK and the forums, and fell into the VN orbit. Youā€™ve added a really good club to the forum!

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Congrats on two years!! :tada:

Iā€™m so glad that youā€™re still going with Japanese, and that youā€™re still hanging around the forum. Itā€™s always nice to see what youā€™ve been reading/listening to, and Iā€™m happy to hear whenever you have good news happen in your outside-the-forum life, too! (So happy about your wifeā€™s immigration getting approved!)

I hope year three brings more good things for you, both in Japanese and otherwise.

Itā€™s funny, I feel like I was sort of in the opposite boat, haha, where I was so sure when I started that it would take much longer than two years for me to get as far as I have, which is still way behind where you are. I was buckling in for a very, very long journey, and yeah, the journey is still long, but it does get easier at a certain point, and I feel like Iā€™ve finally started to see that point.

Iā€™m sure that movies are much closer to being within reach for you than you might think!

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