Hi everyone, I want to get to the level where I can play videogames in Japanese since I think it will be a productive way for me to be practicing while not studying. I’m a Nintendo fan so I mostly play their games. They are of course designed to be kid friendly so I would think that the Kanji level isn’t very advanced, so it might be a good starting point. Does anyone know what Kanji level they are at?
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Due to graphical constraints, most Famicom/NES games didn’t use kanji at all.
Depends entirely what game it is and what demographic it’s aimed at. Even games like Mario will have a good amount of kanji in them although they will feature rubigana for words elementary kids wouldn’t be expected to read.
Off the top of my head, games where there isn’t much dialogue but the menus are in Japanese, like Wave Race and Mario Tennis for the N64
3DS games (Specifically the 3DS and specifically published by Nintendo) are good too. Everything will have furigana and the grammar isn’t usually too difficult. You’ll encounter plenty of new vocab though, but the furigana can help you look up unknown words.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/112ac1j/easier_games_than_dragon_quest_xi_in_japanese_to/j8j0idm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) is another post i made of the games I played in level of difficulty when I started learning japanese…pretty much after learning kana…the first 3 are on switch
To answer your question….typical nintendo games have a low amount of kanji…and when they do have kanji they also have furigana (kana on top of kanji)….
Also unlike other post Ive seen here, i have to say depending on the game you choose, you can get walls of dialogue…like pokemon or paper mario origami king…but if you follow that list or a similar sequence you should be fine 😁
Varies by game really. Some good starter games in my opinion are Tomodachi Collection, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, and Pokémon S&V. Furigana is pretty present on any games for switch and 3ds. However, try to wait on the more weighty games for teens like Fire Emblem.
Try some SNES games, but beware the Japanese isn’t the best rendered to read (pixelated and all).
Personally, PSP or DS/3DS games have better fonts to read and even voice on some games to help you learn words. That’s how I go about it at least
Different games have different levels of dialogue.
E.g. Persona 5 is probably harder then Link’s Awakening
There are games with no kanji at all as well, and that’s how I started, though IDK if that’s the best way or not. I did Final Fantasy (NES) which has no kanji.
I’d say after you do something equivalent to Genki II, just jump in with games. Nothing stopping you.
Possibly another route is to read game scripts which have been put online. Then you can use a popup dictionary, so no matter what level of kanji you are at, it’s no problem.
Kanji level depends on the game and even games that are for kids may have some characters that are hard for people who have just started learning. However, since the audience is not expected to be very literate, there are furigana everywhere.