Games on pc for learning good japanese vocabulary

I was just wondering since I dont have a DS or Nintendo switch or any console for that matter, what are good games to play in japanese to improve vocabulary and such

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Visual novels with a text hooker and anki :slightly_smiling_face:

I recommend nekopara

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Visual Novels are great. If you aren’t into just reading games, I would suggest games aimed at younger audiences like Dragon Quest games or using games in your existing library and switching the language to Japanese (assuming you have games in Steam).

They aren’t out yet but there is Nihongo Quest N5, Shujinkou, and Koe (声) that you could add to your wishlist on Steam.

On youtube there is a youtuber called Game Gengo who teaches Japanese through video games so I highly recommend watching him.

Crystal Hunters isn’t a video game, but it’s a manga that teaches Japanese. They have the Japanese version and Natural Japanese (harder version). First volume is for free and the rest you could have to get through amazon kindle. Make sure to read the guide that goes along with the volume first on their website before reading the volume. Currently there are 6 books right now so that will give you vocabulary and grammar.

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I got a lot of enjoyment out of どうぶつの森、especially the upgraded gamecube version e+, but I already had a gamecube adapter and controllers to play it on PC.

If you already have games on steam, you could just try playing some games you already know a bit in japanese: I played a bit of stardew valley (weird font, but mostly fine), and disgaea (some voice acting, manual advance dialogue, but a lot of menu words so it can be kinda overwhelming)

Visual novels are also a great way to do this like Vanilla mentioned!
Here’s a guide for setting up a text hooker: Learning Japanese with VNs - TheMoeWay
although it’s kinda hit or miss on some games. Also the yomichan-anki integration they talk about here is no longer supported, so you would have to make cards manually if you want to use anki with them. (everything else should work fine, though, it’s a pain to set up but it’s so worth it)

I went through jpdb visual novels reverse sorted by difficulty to find some easy ones when i first started: Visual novel difficulty list – jpdb

Really enjoyed Tsuki no Hikari | vndb, and also played the first few chapters of Stargazer -Shoujo wa Hoshi no Yume o Miru- | vndb, but all the nekopara games are also on the lower difficulty end (if you are ok with some uh… “content”). They wont be “easy” if they are your first ever exposure to reading, but having textractor makes the burden of looking up words suuuuuuuper low.

But in general, visual novels and jrpgs tend to be the most text heavy games.

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