These numbers always seem so random to me. Like where do they even come from. That depends so much on so many factors. Some people would probably be very surprised by the amount of context a familiar game creates. Just think of how many ingridients and objects for example an average rpg have.
And you recognise those by their looks and you know what they are called. Suddenly you start getting a tooltip for everything you’re looking at. It’s like putting sticky notes on everything around you. Hell, if I could play morrowind in japanese and I would look at a small sword called tanto in the english version, take a guess what I would see in the tooltip. That game is helping me learn japanese without even me playing it in japanese. 
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As far as I remember, the games were originally in German and the Polish versions of Gothic 1 and 2 I played as a kid had some leftover untranslated content (parts of the manual, rare weapons, base dialogue options for no-name NPCs, in-game location and enemy names, etc.)
I used to be a part of the Oblivion and Skyrim modding community a long long time ago and I think there is a Japanese version of Oblivion, because the Japanese community was extremely prolific. Same for Skyrim, right?
I’d be interested in joining a game club as well, honestly . I still haven’t touched the Japanese versions of Pokemon and would be super eager to try.
I’ve been toying with the idea of making a Discord channel for streaming games and going through the dialogue, but in my experience it’s very difficult to find regular participants and a suitable time for everyone.
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Skyrim remaster has a japanese version in steam. I tried it, but the cart ride took me 3+ hours when I didn’t know kanji. 
I was also bad at writing kanji pronunciation at that time. General knowledge like adding “u” to make a long “o” etc. So the fun/productivity ratio was too low. There is a japanese version of oblivion on xbox360 so making a pc version shouldn’t require translation work. Just patching in the existing language pack. I’ll get to it when time comes.
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I would argue that you should keep going. I remember when I was at this point with French, and it didn’t get better from more textbook or SRS study, it got better from more practice.
I tried looking for streamers on twitch for watching other people playing games in other languages and explaining stuff when I don’t feel like putting in the effort myself, but twitch doesn’t even have a “foreign languages” category. Guess most people don’t find it as fun as spamming kkonas, kappas and peepos in chat.
In games that allow it, I found it more fun to keep two save-games. First, I would play for a while with spoken Japanese and English subtitles. Then I would load the other save-game and play the same section with spoken Japanese and Japanese subtitles. That way, I already knew what they were saying, so it was easier to learn without looking up as many words. It becomes “comprehensible input”, which is one of the better ways to learn.
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I’ve done something similar. Because I didn’t want to bother with the settings, which sometimes required you to quit the game to change the language, I ran two instances of the game and when I ran into difficulties with the Japanese version, I quickly played through the English version and looked up the translation.
I can empathize with resenting the characters talking. I was playing Hollow Knight in Japanese and after about 5 hours I switched over to English. I could basically understand everything, but it was just slowing me down and making me want to play less and that’s the point where it’s not worth it.
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I think this itself is already cool! Some games like God Eater 3 have Japanese audio and one doesn’t really have to read the subtitles (granted, everything else is in English so not much learning). With Final Fantasy X I really struggled, because I had to change my entire Switch UI to Japanese. All of the JP files, including audio were there, but the Final Fantasy X/X-2 remaster offered no in-game option to switch languages 
.
Then again if one’s really committed, t’s probably best to switch everything to Japanese (like I did with my phone), struggle a couple of days and then just get used to it .
You can know and recognise the Kanji, know some vocab from here (WK) and some other sources, but trust me, you will be looking things up, whether it’s Kanji not taught here on WK or vocab.
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The more you know! Though it’s a shame there’s no other option D:
Maybe you should try a game you would like but has less text? I’m currently playing Story of Seasons in Japanese. It does take me a lot longer than if I was playing in English but I’m enjoying it quite a bit.
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I’ve been playing Pokemon Shield. I don’t understand much but I’m improving. Besides, the story never mattered to me in those games so I’m still having fun.
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Certainly, but as I said before. It was possible for me to play a game in japanese even knowing virtually nothing, but looking up kanji was not fun. Even now it would be waaay easier because of knowing some kanji and also having more general knowledge about kanji readings and how to use the dictionary more effectively. With any other language that uses an alphabet I was able do dive right in with just a little grammar knowledge and a dictionary at my side. It feels to me like level 60 is far beyond the so to say necessary minimum. I expect level 30+ to be enough, but I’ll know for sure when I try.
This is why I strongly recommend anyone at level 10 or above start parallel Anki/Kamesame decks of vocabulary and kanji that they’re ready for but aren’t in WaniKani. That’s what I’ve been doing. I still wouldn’t call myself fluent, but compared to a year ago, I have to look up words and kanji a looooooooot less often. Like probably 60–70% less often.
Actually I kinda disagree. Both as a newbie and now, I find reading the whole time (vn) or for long extended chunks (rpgs) a lot more enjoyable. Playing other games, I used to just get really annoyed at Japanese popping up and making me read when I’m in the middle of playing MegaMan. It would feel like a taxing interruption of what I was doing.
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I nearly forgot: one piece of advice I have if you plan to play video games in Japanese: Google the name of your game plus 攻略 (the Japanese word for “walkthrough”). I usually load up a walkthrough and throw it into Google Translate or DeepL. That way, if I bungle the translation, I can still at least advance the story.
That’s fair. Around the time I started WaniKani, I was playing Narikiri Dungeon X. I ended up going the distance and beating it. I used a cheat code to unlock everything, and I keep toying with the idea of translating it all and posting it on GameFAQs. Someday.
Of course, a lot depends on the game too. About 14 years ago, I was playing Persona 1 untranslated, but that game is a total slog and my Japanese sucked, so I didn’t get very far. If I had it to do over again, I’d stop the minute the game stops being fun.
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Also, particularly if it’s an old game, [name of game] + 説明書 for the instructions.
There isn’t always a scan of the manual but usually there’s a transcript or other informative site.
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I usually play games I know super-well in English before I try them in Japanese. I spend the first hour or so translating everything, then I either skip most of the text, or switch it back to English for a while to relax. It’s easy to change the setting if you have a Switch.
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