A lot of good advice in this thread, and just wanted to add some of my own experience:
As someone whose primary Japanese interest came from wanting to play various Japan-only video games, I held off for a long time on playing the video games I wanted to because I wanted to ‘understand’ them properly before playing. Then I realised - while playing Animal Crossing in Japanese - two things:
No matter how much I study, there’s nuances and humour I will likely never fully ‘get’ - but that’s okay, because…
Video games are an extremely useful tool for learning - even putting all the unusual vocabulary aside, they’re just inherently fun enough to want to stay committed to without requiring the psyching up that usually comes with regular studying
While there’s definitely an threshold of basic/intermediate grammar and vocabulary to cross to make playing easier (I was studying for N3 when I made the switch), most of the reason I can play basic games in Japanese now is through vocabulary learned through playing other games in Japanese. I had been holding off on playing Mother 3 because the story is so important to why that game is considered so good, and there’s so much in there that I’m sure I won’t get. But conversely, that’s a great reason to play it and learn as I go. So my new year’s resolution is to finish that game by the end of the year come what may!
EDIT: Also wanted to add that I distinctly remember learning lots of vocabulary in my native English from playing Pokemon as a child - so many of the move/ability names were completely new words (“Fissure”, “Ominous Wind”, “Intimidate”, “Psych up”, “Spatial Rend” just off the top of my head). But that didn’t stop me enjoying the games in the slightest, and I never even considered the possibility I might not be fully “understanding” them. All this to say - don’t worry about full understanding, accept there will be times that you don’t know what’s going on, and above all make sure you’re enjoying the time since that will be the biggest motivator to continue.
Everyone has given good advice so far that I would +1.
I will just add that I recommend どうぶつの森(Animal Crossing) since I didn’t see it above.
It is mostly everyday Japanese, so a good way to build confidence in the stuff you need the most.
The characters all have different ways of speaking which might familiarize you with those different levels of speech you may encounter (albeit some are pretty cartoony). There is everything from keigo to really rough/rude casual speech.
The dialog doesn’t progress until you prompt it so there is no rush.
There aren’t many time sensitive things in the game, so you can move at a leisurely pace.
There’s lots of life and nature vocab which are pretty useful to know overall.
Even if you understand none of it, you can still carry on as you would so there is low chance of getting frustrated.
I think I started playing it around Wanikani level 20ish? and I never encountered any problems. (Though to be fair, I live in Japan and so my passive knowledge of Japanese is a lot higher than my reading in general/Wanikani level if that makes sense.) But I still think that someone of relatively low Wanikani level could play the game with little difficulty, though would get the most out of the dialog if their grammar was at least intermediate.
EDIT: I realize now that Animal Crossing is not at all like the games that you initially mentioned and so my comment is likely not helpful to you.
gameplay isnt the absolute best for ni no kuni (the battle mechanics combined turned-based and real-time fighting in a weird way), but my goodness the cutscenes are as gorgeous as a fully-voice-acted movie. 10/10 for listening/reading practice
Good point and thanks for mentioning it - I was mostly focused on language difficulty but I think game play is just as important to consider - and I think you’re right, when I’ve watched people playing Ni No Kuni the battle mechanics have seemed a little janky - but the “Ghibli movie as a video game” aesthetic has kept it on my radar for years.
I only just started and my approach is that is just another source I can pull from whenever I want to play it. I typically play them for at least 30 minutes, although sessions of 1-2 hours are pretty common for anything involved. Sometimes you get more dialogue, sometimes you have more gameplay, I find that variety pretty neat actually.
The only real “advantage” starting at a higher level is that you’re not gonna have to concern yourself much about kanji. I think new kanji definitely stand out, as they more rare, but the thing you’ll most likely look up is vocab. And this will probably be a constant for a while, until you’ve exhausted most of the game and then you can keep playing more leisurely or move on to a new little project (at least that’s what I call them).
I started the Trails of Cold Steel series (a replay) at level 30, and while it was very challenging, my reading comprehension increased at a rate much faster than it had been. The Trails games aren’t perfect for learning, because a large number of lines in the game aren’t voiced. I found that reading by itself helped set a framework for listening comprehension, however.
I just finished 五等分の花嫁：夏の思い出も五等分 at lv48: most of the time I was double checking my reading, shadowing voice actors (but they skipped most of 風太郎の台詞 ) to improve my pronunciation and looking up to jisho for unknown vocab, mostly conjunction, particles, adverbs (mostly fully hiragana which I never experienced).
I got some issue with some kanji, since they might even not be present on wanikani, but still I enjoyed every single line
I would start with games with almost no text, like platform games or shooters (shmups)
I beat nano assault ex in JP on 3DS and I could understand almost all kanji and vocab before starting a level. What I couldn’t understand was due to 3ds screen quality, I couldn’t differentiate each stroke
My next game will be the series [ぼくのなつやす] on psp, very casual it seems.
For the wider thread: Game Gengo released a tier ranking of his top 50 steam games for learning Japanese, it’s 1.5 hours long.
The tiers are based on how strongly he recommends each game as a Japanese learning resource.
Edit: oh no the tier ranking video has vanished =O maybe it was released too early by accident?
Edit: and the videos back.
This is a very impressive looking tool, I can’t believe I’ve never heard of it! I wonder if I could combine this with a video capture method to learn kanji from my PC-98s… (though I should probably test with an emulator first)
Heck lol, that Game Gengo list scares me… FFXIV is a challenge in English, lmao.
I’m only just getting into playing games in Japanese to be honest, the only one I managed to clear to date was the FF7:Remake when that came out (because I was motivated, lol).
SIince then I’ve mostly been intimidated by gaming in Japanese and have avoided it for the most part with the exception of Nier Replicant and Tokyo Mirage sessions (which I got poked to play by a friend recently) and so reluctantly started playing in Japanese and well… I guess I’ve just been intimidated for no reason, lol because I’m 20hrs in and the game is going fine. I can’t say I understand everything 100% but it’s maybe 80% ish? and some odd vocab/kanji I don’t know (yes, even at this WK level).
Just rolling with it now to be honest, I think after this I’ll pick another game to play in Japanese and I’ll just see how it goes. Maybe Tales of Arise… as I have that in my queue next to play anyway XD
Same, I feel that list was a bit hit or miss, he seemed to prioritise games he really enjoyed even if they weren’t great for learners (e.g. Nier Automata/Replicant, FFXIV).
I think it is a good video for seeing quick snippets of games and getting an idea of furigana/voice-acted/press-to-advance, rather than necessarily obeying the “must buy”.
That seems really impressive, I’ve watched a little of Game Gengo playing FF7:Remake and the language isn’t simple.
Oh? do you mean for must buy or highly recommended / in general?
I didn’t think he had videos for most of his must buys, but possible I’ve completely missed them.
His must buys were DQXI, P4G, P5S, Ni no kuni, Voice of cards, Detroit become human, FFXIV, and Nier Replicant/Automata.
I know he has a bunch of P4G and P5/P5R content, but I didn’t think he has videos for the others, maybe I just missed them.
He does have videos for some of his ‘highly recommended’ category.
I guess for his must buy category there are other Japanese video game youtubers who have videos on some of them (DQXI and Ni no kuni in particular).
They may not be full videos, but I remember seeing a lot of his recommendations on his N3/N4/N5 videos. They’re several hours long tho, so I can see why they don’t get too many views.
Ohhhh I thought you meant videos so someone could get help with a section, but for general grammar help absolutely.
I’ve seen his N5 grammar videos but I haven’t got around to the others yet, the N5 took me a very long time hahahaha
Haha, same. I think I watched them in 3 or 4 sessions. The N3 videos he’s taking a different tack and releasing them in short 20m or so segments with 3 or 4 items per segment.
if we are talking about broad coverage like cyberpunk 2077/ dragon quest 11 then I would say around level 35+. With that amount of kanji knowledge under your belt, you will reach close to 90%+ kanji comprehension which will make the translation process less annoying.
For vocabulary, you gonna need to add a separate app as a supplement. even lvl 60 wanikani only covers 4500 most common words. + it completely ignores all kana words.
apps like torii.srs or bussu teach you vocabulary words in context while being sorted by wanikani kanji levels.
overall imo wanikani lvl 35+ extra 3к words would give you a very solid foundation in order to start playing visual novels or jrpgs.
I was trying to take notes, I found some days I could only make 10 minutes, other days maybe 30, so it took me a while - sometimes with big breaks between.
I plan to do the others later on, but putting them off as they’re a bit painful
Honestly I mostly just YOLO’ed the FF7 Remake, I was able to kind of understand what was going on and I spent quite a lot of time reading what various weapon abilities do (which was necessary to complete the game as far as I can remember). Sometimes certain prompts would force me into choosing things really quickly without quite being able to completely read them.
This was around 2yrs ago now though, I think if I tackled it today, I’d understand a lot more. Especially towards the end of the game when they had a lot of ‘Shinra business speak’ sections, that was really, really hard for me back then.
My advice, (even though you didn’t ask for it, lol) would be to not worry too much if there’s something you don’t completely understand, just carry on, it’ll sort itself out in your mind eventually / when you encounter it elsewhere.
Nier Replicant was a challenge keeping the plot in my head! Tokyo Mirage sessions is a good challenge, lots of normal every day dialogue there with some Persona-esque madness thrown in.
