Yeah, I’ve wanted to play it for a while too! I would say that it’s easier than I thought it would be, I’d say at the point you are comfortable with N5 & N4 grammar, have a bit of reading stamina and are willing to look up lots of vocab then you’re probably good. Because of the style of the game, you really do need to try to read to a pretty full level of comprehension, BUT, this might be just because I’m still early in the game but so far it has been pretty forgiving when I’ve got things wrong. I think there’s pros and cons to that - certainly it means that I probably find it about as tiring to read as a fairly dense manga (I feel like it’s similar in difficulty to a shonen jump series), however I’ve found that when I’ve tried playing things that don’t NEED me to read the text that I just kind of skim over it, even if I made an effort to play it in Japanese. You can’t get away with that here which is good for my lazy brain haha!
I haven’t played it in English before, nope. I’ve also not been using a guide and hope that I can avoid doing so. As I’ve said, so far it’s been fairly forgiving and has allowed for ‘fixing’ wrong choices. That might change later, not sure!
I did play [in English] the original trilogy, Apollo, first Investigations, Dual Destinies and Layton crossover and right now I’m slowly playing through The Great Ace Attorney duology.
I also did play the very first case in Japanese and I also thought it was
Funnily enough, when I started the series many years ago, I read somewhere that is required “very advanced English” and I got scared I won’t manage. Well… it was an overstatement too. But I still think the language used in translation is harder than the Japanese equivalent. (I mean from the language learner perspective.)
The only reason I didn’t switch to playing in Japanese now for GAA is that I still want some part of my entertainment to require less brainpower. And I was a little afraid that GAA would use some old-fashioned vocab. And making the games queue too long resulted in me considering giving up the Japanese completely in the past, because a thought of waiting several years to play certain things was too unbearable. So I’m picking the games I’m gonna play in Japanese and the rest I’m playing in English. But I think Ace Attorney is a good “beginner” choice, I just had even better candidates for my Japanese list.
Don’t feel bad about using a guide, though. Later you’ll have so many evidence pieces and options, it can be really tricky to know which to choose, especially since sometimes the problem is with “game logic” - you know what you want to prove, but you aren’t sure how. And sometimes you just don’t have any idea what’s going on and that’s okay too.
Of course, maybe I’m just not smart enough and some people just don’t need a guide
(But GAA even included a “Story Mode” where a game just plays itself, so I guess it was a needed feature. )
…And I have a hard crush on Edgeworth (Reiji Mitsurugi).
yeah! GAA looks so good but that was my thinking too. Will see once I get through the others how I feel about it, might play it in English.
I definitely have this with anime. For a while I was only watching things no subs buuut it just meant that most of what I wanted to watch was too hard for me now so am being more chill. So far playing AA in Japanese has been adding to the fun but luckily it’s really easy to switch back and forth if it ends up getting in the way
Haha yeah, I expect this will be the case. I will see how far my childhood spent playing point and click adventure games gets me with the game logic but expect I will end up using a guide at some point if I get stuck. I also found a pretty nice let’s play on YouTube so consulting that is also an option.
I started reading a real book 5分で読める恐怖のラストの物語, but it seems to be pretty hard, thus I only read a few sentences. It’s a collection of short stories maybe the other stories are easier to read.
Does it say which age group it is geared towards? Those kinds of books often indicate the school year on the cover (一年生 for example). That might give you a hint what kind of difficulties to expect.
I can’t find anything on the cover but it has furigana I assume it’s probably for teenagers. I still do not know enough vocabulary to read a book without having to look up lots of words.
Day 71: August 10th
What did I read?: 君には届かない Vol 3
How much did I read?: 52 pages (2 chapters)
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 36 min
Omg bye, they’re so cute >< The way that Yamato is just sitting there looking at sleeping Kakeru when he’s supposed to be waking him up in the bonus 4-koma after Ch 13 is too much cute I was greatly amused by the whole playing video games and then panicking while trying to hide it from the teacher moment in the beginning of chapter 14. But I reaaaally hope poor sweet Yamato baby doesn’t get a cold, I don’t like the sound of that foreshadowing sneeze. They need to have their free day together D: Kakeru’s so close to starting The Talk D:
Day 72: August 11th
What did I read?: 君には届かない Vol 3
How much did I read?: 90 pages (3 chapters - finished the volume)
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 50 min
My heart Not gonna lie, I was about to smack a certain somebody for ruining everything But Yamato’s freaking notes in the little guidebook thing killed me, that was just about the sweetest thing and I’m so glad Kakeru recognized it too and ran after Yamato. Honestly, Hosaka is the unsung hero of this volume, he’s basically screaming “TALK TO EACH OTHER” at both of them lmao and I love him for it. Shoutout to Hosaka. Fujino can get the heck out of here But now what’s going to happen??? I have a bad feeling. Something is going to undo everything that was accomplished in this volume, I just know it -_-
乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…5 (86% → 100%), finished, more about my impressions in the extensive thread
I decided to drop Hanako. It was a hard decision, because I was already at half of the volume, but I got encouraged by @NicoleIsEnough dropping コーヒー and @sycamore post from some time ago:
I predicted that starting to play 逆転裁判(ace attorney) would halt my progress in everything else, and I was correct! I’m still having so much fun though. I have ended up needing to use a guide at some points, but have found one thats in Japanese and finding that okay so far. I have now finished the tutorial case and first proper episode,and am now in the second. I have come across the famous ミツルギ/Miles Edgeworth and…yeah, I can see why people like him. He’s been a bit of a jerk so far but he certainly has a certain flair!
Nice! Yeah, there’s sooooo many potential things to read that really no reason to push on with things you don’t enjoy. Hope you now get to fill that reading time with something you like more
Day 73: August 12th
What did I read?: 日本のお城
How much did I read?: 2 pages (1 castle)
How long did it take me?: 30 min
Ugh, what a stressful day Didn’t have a lot of motivation to read this evening, but this still counts lol. Today I learned that Inuyama Castle was privately owned until 2004 - my first thought was “how cool would it be to own a freaking castle.” Like oh yeah, my family just owns this castle. No big deal.
Drats, you’ve got me.
I’ve been thinking about this game every day since your original post.
I don’t quite understand why, I’d never reached to play this game in English, but now I am full of hype.
I watched some examples from the first case in Japanese.
Tonight I started going through the transcript to find common occurring unfamiliar Kanji words to make a mini Anki deck for myself.
Just bought the game and downloading it now…
Definitely this, sometimes in Mario I find myself just reaching to dismiss text before even trying to read it out of habit >.>
\o/
I think this will be my first attempt to consume material without furigana.
But at least looking at the first case it doesn’t seem ridiculous in terms of uncommon Kanji, seems to largely be lawyer / court terms.
Mildly related: Last night I ordered a (very cheap) Japanese copy of the first Prof. Layton game, I played it in English and loved it, will see how it in Japanese. It will at least have furigana, and in theory be familiar from when I played it in English (… before I then forgot it all presumably).
Realised today that yesterday was my planned last day, oh well, today can be a bonus reading day.
So, the total is 63 consecutive days of reading! Now thatsalotta Japanese.
I’m going to try to keep it up, maybe not every day but several days a week at least, as, as well as learning Japanese, it’s been fun learning about random topics (and places/people… horses ).
Perhaps I should start one of those study log things to keep track of everything I want done in a day…
Ooh, I loved those games as a kid! Though I’ve only played a few of them.
I would be interested in playing one of them in Japanese as well but I figured the riddle parts might be a bit tricky
I’d be interested in hearing what you think once you’ve played it!
& I’ve had my eye on ace attorney for a while as well. Good to hear that it’s apparently not super difficult.
)
Not gonna lie, I was about to smack a certain somebody for ruining everything 
But 
But now what’s going to happen??? I have a bad feeling. Something is going to 
Didn’t have a lot of motivation to read this evening, but this still counts lol. Today I learned that Inuyama Castle was privately owned until 2004 - my first thought was “how cool would it be to own a freaking castle.” Like oh yeah, my family just owns this castle. No big deal.
).
Good to hear that it’s apparently not super difficult.