Thanks so much for spelling it out for me! I do want to have a deeper look at these games sometime.
Honestly recently I’ve gotten so interested in tracing the development of series just to see how things change over time as its own curiosity that I’ve been really liking trying to take even these anthology type series and the like in order where I can, so knowing Survive is particularly stand alone as its own thing helps me. I never really paid any attention to Digimon before, but I’m certainly not opposed to seeing some cute little creatures.
Ahh, if you want to play the subseries in order then watch for their Japanese names! e.g. the games known in English as Digimon World Dawn & Dusk are actually Digimon Story games (and were called Digimon Story Sunburst & Moonlight in Japanese), so actually belong to the Story subseries and not the World subseries.
Personal Opinion: This is my favourite pmd game, the Pokémon sprites are so cute and the story is very interesting. It’s pretty easy to get the hang of if you’re new to it, and there’s plenty of conversation to be had to practice reading. I’ve never played in Japanese so I don’t know quite what that’s like but going off pmd DX there’s quite a lot of adventuring words but you don’t really need the text to figure out what to do since there’s visual indicators for quests.
Paper Mario is the first game in the Paper Mario series. Paper Mario is set in the Mushroom Kingdom as the protagonist Mario tries to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, who has imprisoned the seven “Star Spirits”, lifted her castle into the sky and has defeated Mario after stealing the Star Rod from Star Haven and making himself invincible. The player controls Mario and a number of partners to solve puzzles in the game’s overworld and defeat enemies in a turn-based battle system.
Availability: N64, Wii Virtual Console, Wii U Virtual Console, Nintendo Switch (Requires online subscription) Time to Beat: 23 hours
Personal Opinion: I’ve heard good things about the paper mario series but never played one before. As far as I know there’s text elements, and being a mario game I’d imagine the language shouldn’t be too hard.
Pros
Fun paper style
Allegedly an easy RPG
Cons
Likely would need a switch or emulator if you don’t have the other consoles
Oh man I’ve been wanting to play this generation of Mystery Dungeon again since I played Explorers of Time as a kid. I’m hoping to go looking for a Japanese copy of Sky (or time/darkness) when I go to Japan next month
I’ve never played a Mystery Dungeon game! I am definitely curious, though have to admit my inclination to start earlier I mentioned might kick in.
Paper Mario is great and I’d be happy for you all to experience it if you end up playing it, but I did a replay a few years back (in Japanese!) and probably won’t personally join that one.
Dive into the parallel story to UNDERTALE! Fight or spare your way through action-packed battles as you explore a mysterious world alongside an endearing cast of new and familiar characters.
Availability: PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5. It does not have high system requirements so most PCs can run it. Works perfectly in Proton for anyone who uses Linux (such as Steam Deck users).
Time to Beat: Depends on how many chapters we do. For the club I would probably suggest chapter 1, in which case about 3 - 6 hours probably
Personal Opinion: I’ve played Deltarune in both Japanese and English, and both are well worth experiencing imo. I think I may enjoy it even more than I enjoyed Undertale overall. This might be an oddball recommendation because it is not originally a Japanese game, but this localisation is strong enough in my opinion that it’s interesting to experience anyway.
Pros
Fantastic story and characters
Music slaps (The World Revolving, my beloved)
Great Japanese localisation that manages to preserve the game’s humour
Quite short (if we only do chapter one)
Potential for spinoff club following the later chapters
Chapter 1 is free! The game has a generous free demo, that includes the entirety of Chapters 1 and 2 with no restrictions.
Not too much kanji
Cons
Some characters have insanely difficult dialogue (Rouxls Kaard)
Not complete (chapters 1-4 are available but there are more chapters yet to come, they will be free updates to the game).
Not originally Japanese (personally don’t think this matters too much, but worth being upfront about)
Puns (it doesn’t rely too much on puns thankfully)
Not too much kanji
Auto-advancing text in intro sequence (not much outside of that, and when it does come up outside of that intro it isn’t important)
For older games like gen 1 pokemon, do you need a Japanese Gameboy as well as the Japanese cartridge in order to play? Or can you play a Japanese cartridge in an American Gameboy? Apologies if that’s a silly question - the only Japanese games I’ve tried playing so far are on the Switch, and I’ve never attempted to use an emulator before…
They’re not region locked, so you can pop a JP cartridge in a Gameboy from anywhere. That said, if you’re not already a collector of old games I’d look into emulating on your phone or another device. It’s probably a lot simpler than you might guess.
Well, I’m a collector of old Gameboy games…but they’re all American copies. I have all of the old Gameboys too. (I’m not sure if my original gameboy still works. I know the Color, Advance, DS, and 3DS do, though).
Journey as the adorable toon link across the islands of the ocean, a direct sequel to wind waker but in a new land! Work with the best pirate you’ve ever seen to rescue Zelda from a ghost ship, and discovered the secrets of a magical temple!
Availability: Nintendo DS, Wii U virtual console Time to Beat: 17 hours
Personal Opinion: This is one of my favourite Zelda games (after majora’s mask) and is very nostalgic to me. I’ve played through it several times so hopefully should be able to answer any questions if people are new to it. I considered nominating a different Zelda but thought I might as well nominate one I think is fun, and there’d be offshoot potential.
Pros
THE BEST PART! It has kanji, but when you tap on a word it shows the furigana in a pop up box
Toon link and everyone else is very cute!
Traveling the ocean does not take as much time as it does in wind waker
Fairly straightforward, you’re told directly which island you need to go to next
Offshoot potential
Linebeck
Cons
Limited availability but ds emulators are pretty easy to set up
There is a specific puzzle that requires a specific thing only a DS can do, but apparently there is a simple workaround if you’re using an emulator but I haven’t tested it out (hopefully true)
There’s a few other puzzles that requires blowing into the mic, so if you’re using an emulator it’ll need to be one that has a mic hotkey (simulates blowing into the mic)
I have several memories of my older brother setting the destination and then just leaving to go get food, and he made me watch the screen and yell for him if the cyclone guy showed up.
I want to say the ocean being a huge place to sail through is important to the whole vibe of Wind Waker and complaints about the time are overstated, but then again I haven’t played it in probably 10 years or more so I’ll reserve judgment for a replay. I liked it back then anyway.
Anyway I never got to Phantom Hourglass or a lot of the more spinoff-y side Zeldas so that’s neat. I’m also probably willing to take this as a nudge to get started on Deltarune if we end up doing that.
True true it does give grand ocean adventure vibes. I played it for the first time a couple months back and I’ll just say I’m glad fast travel became an option eventually cause there was a point I was ready to be done and if I had to sail the whole way to get all those triforce shards and maps I’d be crying lolol (still enjoyed it tho)
it does give grand ocean adventure vibes. I played it for the first time a couple months back and I’ll just say I’m glad fast travel became an option eventually cause there was a point I was ready to be done and if I had to sail the whole way to get all those triforce shards and maps I’d be crying lolol (still enjoyed it tho)