I have a few games started, actually! Mario & Luigi RPG, but also ドラクエ３２D-HD. The latter has ふりがな for dialogue, so it’s very good for learning kanji while also just being able to read as long as you know the words by sound. ファイナルファンタジー5も初まった, but I’m probably only gonna finish that one later. Before this, I finished Mother 1 – let me tell you, the Famicom version is the worst possible one to start with, especially for language learning.
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Oh that reminds me, I was watching a streamer play that once… I wonder if I can figure out who that was (or just find a new one).
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Splurged and bought Ace Attorney Apollo Justice trilogy on a whim because it was on sale.
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Recently, I got Cooking Mama on my 3DS. The first one and the second one. I’m not reading as much on those ones though. I finished BoxBoy but it will take me longer to finish the sequel.
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Just finished Puyo Puyo Box, the only (non-spinoff) game in the series that doesn’t have a translation patch. The story mode is a mini JRPG, Chronicle before Chronicle. Considerably simpler in terms of mechanics, you start with Puyo 1 rules and equipment lets you individually unlock each rule change introduced in Tsu (offset, double rotate, 2 piece preview, All Clear bonus). Beyond that, it’s just that your attack/defense goes up but so do theirs so it evens out. So you’re pretty much playing Tsu, but with some dungeon crawling instead of the usual VN-style cutscenes.
At my level I’m only skimming, picking out the parts I can understand and skipping over whatever I don’t. But I was able to follow along with a good chunk of it, enough to get the gist. Simple vocab, simple grammar, plenty of repetition. And since I’ve played every other game in the series, recognizing the running gags helps with context. Only catch is that the font makes some kanji hard to read, but that’s what OCR is for.
Definitely recommend this if you’re looking for something short and sweet that’s easy to get into. Good candidate for My First JRPG. The modern games are good too (except the crossovers those are terrible do not play them and do not @ me), those have full voice acting, but if you’re a fan of the series Box is notable for being untranslated.
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I picked up Fate/Stay Night again for a few hours, after realizing that the Prologue has actually less unique vocab than most novels I’d read… only to then realize that I’m already on the Saber Route (which has substantially more vocab than most novels I’d read) 
Anyway, it didn’t feel so bad - but there were some parts that are a bit tedious to read (either b/c info-dumping, or b/c I don’t care about Shirou being a slightly horny teenager), and a number of places I’ve skipped (I’ve already read this in English, and also read part in JP last year). Only up to Day 2 in-game. Not sure whether I’ll continue rn. and not sure whether I’ll actually continue right now - though it will be much more interesting when I get to the actual route part, b/c I really don’t remember Saber’s route very well at all.
Probably better if I don’t, cuz I’m kinda behind on books rn 
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I got a physical copy of the Simoun game, and am currently SRS’ing the 解説書 (instruction manual). Wonder if anyone else has done this sorta thing… I know modern games don’t generally come with them (sadly - I loved reading them as a kid, and hate in-game tutorial screens). It also came with 2 bonus manga!
Playing Memories Off (Home Thread for メモリーズオフ - Visual Novel Reading Club) - slightly into the first day. Not sure how I feel about it just yet. On the easier side, and I can usually read just ahead of the slow auto-speed. Looked up 22 words so far
Depending on if there’s anything really beneficial in the Simoun 解説書, I might play that a bit more… I’ve still been playing every now and then
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Did 1.5 hrs of Home Thread for メモリーズオフ - Visual Novel Reading Club earlier, and so far I’m really unimpressed. Hoping it’s just an “it starts off really slow” thing or something
So I decided to play a bit of 月姫 -A piece of blue glass moon- (2021 remake), and wow I’m impressed. The beginning of the game was pretty identical to the OG, but starting with Shiki’s commute to school, they’ve changed things up so that he meets Ciel on the train, and it feels very organic (in the OG you meet her during lunch - and there’s a kind of “something is weird/mysterious about this, but can’t place my finger on it” vibe, and she feels a bit more lax & goofier). The modern version of the scene was a bit fanservice-y, but it makes sense for the character/story, and the whole scene was well-written, so I’ll forgive it. That aside - the voice acting adds so much, and the backgrounds and models are really beautiful. I can still get the gyst of stuff, even being lazy about lookups - so I’m excited to play more!
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I just starting playing Transiruby in Japanese. Figured it wouldn’t have much dialogue, though it’s actually quite a bit more than expected. It’s fine though. So far the most interesting bit was just them using ひし形 to describe a square sign where the corners are top/bottom. Like I know it’s technically correct and that saying “square” when it’s turned like that would be confusing. But I realized I would never describe something as a rhombus in English, which got my wondering how I would describe that kind of sign in English. Maybe “diamond” would be best, which I guess is also a valid translation for ひし形. In English most people wouldn’t know what a rhombus is even though they would know what a diamond is. I wonder if the average Japanese person knows what a ひし形 is or if there’s a better layman word for it.
Also, it’s just this robot(?) girl and her talking cat-bot. This is what I’m playing for.
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