I haven’t read the manga so I can’t speak to it’s quality. But if they are a fan of the JRPG genre at all I think playing would be better. If you only read the manga you would be missing out on all the voice acting and music!
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Ok, sure the source is always better, but my question is more “does the manga stand on its own, and can it be enjoyed by someone unfamiliar with the source material?”
Fwiw, I’ve heard people say the exact same things about watching the Fate anime. That said, manga often has the least to offer as a medium, where adaptations are concerned (Tsukihime being the only exception I can think of).
A compelling argument! I’m so used to it being the other way around!
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My response still stands; the story is extremely compressed, and I personally don’t think it would flow well enough to want to recommend. If you’re not bothered by fast-moving stories, then by all means. I just can’t say with any degree of objectiveness if the story ends up feeling choppy (“how did they get there? Who’s that?”) due to my own experiences with the game, so I err on the side of not recommending.
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Thx for clarifying!! That’s good to know then. I’ll hold off till I maybe play the game someday (or perhaps I should just watch a playthrough
That reminds me I still need to finish watch the Trails in the Sky playthrough… Tho if/when there’s a switch adaptation, I’ll totally play it (I have on PC but bc it’s in Japanese, I can’t patch the voice acting from the later version, ironically)
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Video games are always the first thing I end up dropping when the going gets rough… But! I did find and start watching this playthrough of Buddy Mission Bond to refresh my memory and wanted to leave the link here for anyone interested in checking the game out: バディミッション BOND (影。/かげまる on Youtube)
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I technically have farming simulator 22, PC building simulator and 911 operator and for some reason I never considered trying them in japanese 
Will update 
Edit with unrelated update; after going through my games I technically have both simulators and more “simulator like” games than I remembered lol
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I just recently found out that the original SFC version of アンジェリーク was added to the switch online service! I’ve wanted to play this for a long time, so I’m taking it as a sign and decided to boot it up! It’s considered one of, if not the, foundational games to the otome genre.
I’m not too far in yet; myself and another girl, Rosalia, have been summoned by the queen of the universe to participate in a trial: one of us will become her successor.
(Hilariously, in addition to providing 女王陛下 our name, she also wanted to know our star sign and blood type. :P)
Pictured, me.
We must develop a brand new world, and whoever is the most successful wins. We’ll be assisted along the way by 9 守護聖, each of whom reigns over an element:
Look at all these men. And that kanji.
(The guys all do have portrait art; I didn’t think to screenshot it at first, but I’ll have to do so later.)
I stopped right before (presumably) an explanation of how this world development business is going to go down, as well as a formal introduction to all the boys. So far I’m kind of getting Actraiser vibes, but that’s probably just because there are so few “world-builder” type games. (Actraiser is excellent, by the way; recommended, either the original or remake.)
Hopefully I keep momentum to keep posting here about it. 
I’ve been pretty bad at consistently playing stuff since my JP reading skills really improved in the last few years. At least I can leverage them here. Let me know if you guys enjoy these kinds of gameplay updates.
There’s been nothing particularly difficult language-wise so far, though that’s ignoring the resolution of most of the kanji given. There’s been one or two made-up words so far (守護聖 being the most obvious), so I’m curious how many more there’ll be.
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Oh. I recently came across this game: https://youtu.be/LbVsYcYaL4k?t=679&si=8mJyyoL_Dk_Qfs6L
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Timely!
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More of these please 
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Imm happy to read about game updates but be aware you may be feeding my game backlog as well 
I’ve just bought a stack of new games on Switch and PS5 supposed to be good for Japanese study (due to voice overs, replayable logs or furigana).
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Half the fun of games is playing them, half the fun is sharing them with others! I have another update I need to type up; just been sleepy in the evenings and been putting it off.
What’d you get?
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PS4/ PS5
NieR Replicant
NieR Automata
Shin Chan - me and the professor on Summer Vacation (Boku no Natsuyasumi series)
13 Sentinels
Octopath Traveller
Octopath Traveller 2
Switch
Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral town
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Terra Alia: The Language discovery RPG
Steam
Shashingo
Yuke and the book of Yokai
Learn Japanese RPG: Hiragana the hidden speech
There were others that were recommended but I already had those 
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Ugh, I don’t have a lot (any?) of those, but I also have my own stack of Japanese games I got a year and a half ago in Japan that I haven’t started 
I watched a bit of a playthrough of one of the Shin-chan games a while back and it looked like fun. Your updates are pushing me further towards getting a copy of my own so you’re also guilty of piling up my backlog
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Ah, I love this game. Only ever played the original in English, but I hope you enjoy it!
Oh, haven’t heard of this one; the title sounds interesting, at least.
Edit: Oh, it looks really cute! I’ll have to pick it up if I see it on sale for switch.
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Nice selection. And it looks like you’re busy for the next few years with that many Japanese RPGs 
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That reminds me, I need to get back to 嘘から始まる恋の夏… Haven’t gotten too far into it yet, but it’s pretty interesting
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Patrick’s Parabox has been my favorite game.
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I mostly okay games in English. But I do have 13 Sentinels in Japanese that I plan to play in the future. I saw a vocabulary list for the game somewhere on the Internet that I want to learn before, though. I believe it has some technical/sci-fi vocab that I probably wouldn’t recognize.
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My game backlog is a lot longer than this, I have a list of games on each console that are in Japanese just hy changing the console language. The only actual Japanese game I have is Yokai watch on switch and 7th Dragon ds rom on the r4 card.
Maybe I should list all my games with Japanese text and voice for each console
Guilty
It’s been fun, language wise it’s very accessible and simple enough but I think that’s because Shin Chan is like 5 years old. Some of his antics are fun, stupid but fun.
Apparently the NieR games are a spin off of the Drag-on Dragoon series (Drakenguard series in English) although they took a complete break away from them but there are apparently nods to Drakengard in some of the NeiR games. Always been on my list but these are my first.
As bad as it sounds, some of these will wait weeks or months to be played I have a bad habit of buying games and not playing them for a while. Trying to get better at that though. I still haven’t played some of the games I bought years ago on older consoles
Yeah, I don’t know much about it but was told there’s a mix of different area types so the vocab will reflect that. Apparently the Samurai era part is particularly difficult language wise.
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