I just beat 「マリオ&ルイジRPG3!!!」fully in Japanese! Not only was this the first game I’ve beaten in Japanese, but it was also the first game I’ve played without any furigana. I definitely couldn’t have done that without the help of WaniKani!
For a bit of background, I’ve been learning Japanese for about a year and a half now. And earlier this year I started dabbling in some reading, starting with some「どうぶつの森」. I also played some「トモダチコレクション」and a bit of「ドラゴンクエスト」. In August, I found out that the Mario and Luigi games have pretty easy Japanese. That made me really want to play one in Japanese as I was already extremely familiar with these games, and had been wanting to replay Bowser’s Inside Story anyway. So I immediately started playing.
After beating it, I can confidently say that this game is great for N4-N3 level learners. Especially if you’ve been using WaniKani. I would say I found about 1 new word for every 3 or so minutes of reading. So it was extremely manageable for the level I was at. Highly recommend it if you want to start reading without furigana. (Just make sure you play the DS version bc the 3DS remake does have furigana) Only issue I ran into while reading was the few characters who used a ton of katakana. Whenever they they were talking my reading speed went down by about 50% lol.
Overall, I think it went very well and I was surprised at how much I could understand without any furigana! (Thank you WaniKani) If anyone has any game recommendations around this level of Japanese, let me know! I’m always looking for more content around my level.
That’s awesome, congrats! Funnily enough Paper Mario was the first game I played in Japanese so that’s similar. I’ve had a great time learning Japanese from games; I’m sure you’ll be able to build a big list of finished ones from here.
Some of us on the forums are starting to play the whole Final Fantasy series together if that sort of thing appeals to you; we’re just on 1 and taking it slowly right now so it’s aimed at those early in learning still. Starting Xenogears next month as well, though that’ll probably be a little tougher. I’m in a club playing Trails in the Sky as well here, though we’re on the second game and, again, a step up in difficulty.
As for other recommendations, did you ever play Ghost Trick? I had a great time with that in Japanese and I think the reading level wasn’t very hard as I recall. Ace Attorney could serve you well too while being more heavily reading focused if you’re into that.
Oh nice, I’ve been meaning to play through the Final Fantasy series, so I might join in! And thanks for the recommendations! I have played Ghost Trick and the Ace Attorney series in English and loved them, so some second playthroughs in Japanese would be really fun!
