Interesting how no one has mentioned the Zelda game for DS. It has furigana when you touch a word (except for certain cutscenes). Considering how many Japanese learners have DS, it's a good bet.

Also, the game is ridiculously easy so you don't have to struggle to get more JP stuff.

Whow, I just became aware that Baldur's Gate games have a 日本語版. The same goes for Diablo!!

Omg yesss. I've been playing Baldur's Gate II and it's awesome. I seriously almost cried with joy when it first loaded up. I AM A HUGE NERD. I'm still stuck in Irenicus' dungeon lol but I don't care. The voice acting unfortunately is still English but for such a text heavy game it doesn't matter, I just play my own music. It's also really kanji dense, I've seen 何処　儘　為に etc.

The only problem is I can't find it for sale anywhere, I had to download it off Share. It's sold out at Amazon and the only other copy I found was a ridiculous 20000 yen at yahoo auction which wouldn't ship here anyway.

I used most of this game for onyomi locations too so replaying it's going to be great.

I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for the PSP (or GBA for that matter). Games that have kanji WITH furigana is pretty much essential for the level I am at. A story driven game is obviously preferable and remotely realistic dialog would be a huge plus. Any chance anything like this exists?

Herbo Wrote:I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for the PSP (or GBA for that matter). Games that have kanji WITH furigana is pretty much essential for the level I am at. A story driven game is obviously preferable and remotely realistic dialog would be a huge plus. Any chance anything like this exists?

Do RTK first and then play games without furigana, it's almost impossible to fiund games with furigana outside of a few visual novels. One shouldn't use furigana if possible, it IS a detriment to learning. Personally I read shinchan manga and some of my books are without furigana and some are with and I've noticed very clearly that I automatically read the furigana when it's there, even if I know the kanji. It's like when you have english subs on an anime or something, you can't stop reading them unless you actively try not to.

I second the ゼルダの伝説ー夢幻の砂時計[zelda--phantom hourglass, 日本語版]

It's a fun little game, and -- best of all -- the kanji don't have furigana on top of them, they show the reading when you tap on them! It's pretty handy. You get practice reading without furigana, but it's extremely easy to see the readings for the kanji.

I played it in English, and I'm probably gonna do it in Japanese soon.

hknamida Wrote:I recently sold all my English-language games, and have started working on a Japanese collection. Some of my current favorites include:

ひぐらしのなく頃に祭カケラ遊び
A visual novel that is... more "novel" than "visual", but excellent for studying Japanese. One feature I really appreciate is that you can choose to repeat any part of the spoken dialogue. The story can best be described as horror/mystery; if you've seen the anime, you know what to expect.

Yeah, i've seen the anime. Creepy, but good. I probably should check out the games.

Tobberoth Wrote:[...] and I've noticed very clearly that I automatically read the furigana when it's there, even if I know the kanji.

Seconded. However, this seems to be less of a problem for me when the font is small enough.

Herbo Wrote:I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for the PSP (or GBA for that matter). Games that have kanji WITH furigana is pretty much essential for the level I am at. A story driven game is obviously preferable and remotely realistic dialog would be a huge plus. Any chance anything like this exists?

What genre of games do you like?

playadom Wrote:I second the ゼルダの伝説ー夢幻の砂時計[zelda--phantom hourglass, 日本語版]

It's a fun little game, and -- best of all -- the kanji don't have furigana on top of them, they show the reading when you tap on them! It's pretty handy. You get practice reading without furigana, but it's extremely easy to see the readings for the kanji.

I played it in English, and I'm probably gonna do it in Japanese soon.

Now that you mention it, it's very true. I have almost finished RTK actually but I dont know the readings for the majority of kanji so I thought it would be good practice.

Without having furigana though it is much more difficult for me to look up words and I may never learn to actually read what I am seeing, rather just understand it... I guess I should focus on my reading a bit before jumping into games.

And suffah, to answer your questions, I like adventure games mostly (for example Broken Sword) and RPG's that dont have too much of an emphisis on repetitive gameplay (like the same turn based battles over and over) but more on story.

I'm playing FF1 on GBA right now. I use this site for the game's transcript, making mining waaay easier :-)
http://ex-potion.com/ff1/sc1.html

You can get the same thing for the other Final Fantasies too on this website.

I just started playing Tales of Phantasia on PSP and its really great because it has the speech as well as the kanji so you can read at the same time as listen. Its really text intensive so there is a lot of pracitce in there. Im going to need a japanese version of the script though as I'm going to need to look a lot of stuff up. Anyone know where one can be found?

I think it's going to be easier to find a script first, and then buy that particular game. There aren't too many Japanese game scripts around, but you could look here:

http://ajatt.pseudosphere.net/viewforum....e4c5ea0af0

I had fun with Twelve〜戦国封神伝〜 for the PSP. As a bonus, 95% or so of all the text is voice acted and you can choose a male or female lead character. I'm not a fan of strategy RPGs as a rule, but this was an exception: not too many battles and lots of dialog.

Here's a sample from introductory narrative.

弁士 Wrote:「さて！
??今まさに時は戦国。
地は魔神封じの極東?大和?！
かつては東家と西家の東西合戦、
そして続く南北朝戦争を経たこの島国は、
今や戦国の時代となったのであります！
諸大名の中でも一つ飛び抜けているのが
この尾張家のマサナガ公！
しかしマサナが公には一つ問題がある！
実はこのマサナが公、大和制覇のため、
かつて世界を滅ぼしかけた魔神の力を
借りていたのであります！
大和守護の大精霊である帝様は、
魔神復活阻止のために
マサナが討伐の令を下しました?

On the top of games with furigana, although it isn't released until March next year, the next Dragon Quest game will have furigana by the looks of it.

http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/games/article...ws002.html

洞窟物語！！！ (Cave Story) This is an awesome freeware game and you can download it following this link: http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_1.php . I see this game as a mix between mario and zelda, or maybe megaman and zelda is more accurate. anyway, it's really entertaining. It's a platform-adventure game and you jump around shooting different enemies, and there's a lot of cool weapons with power-ups. And there's a nice amount of dialog too.

sremvik Wrote:洞窟物語！！！ (Cave Story) This is an awesome freeware game and you can download it following this link: http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_1.php . I see this game as a mix between mario and zelda, or maybe megaman and zelda is more accurate. anyway, it's really entertaining. It's a platform-adventure game and you jump around shooting different enemies, and there's a lot of cool weapons with power-ups. And there's a nice amount of dialog too.

Sounds cool but the link to the Japanese version doesn't seem to be working?

It worked for me (the download, I haven't tried playing it yet).

Actually, Cave Story is a Metroid style game, to be precise. Anyway, it's extremely good.

Although Zelda + Megaman is an amusingly decent way to describe Metroid.
Might have to give it a shot. Thanks for the heads up.

The link still won't work for me.. I've been having trouble with some sites and they always seem to be Japanese related. I can't access lang-8 without using a proxy and no geocities.co.jp sites will load for me, ever. Tried everything but no luck.. Really don't understand it.

i recommend まいにちいしょ you can download it free off the japanese PS3 store, just create a japanese account... it's one of the easiest games there is to read in japanese... Star Ocean on PSP has good japanese voice-acting and you can read it in kanji and everything at the same time...

Hashiriya Wrote:i recommend まいにちいしょ you can download it free off the japanese PS3 store

Because Mainichi Issho updates daily and seems to be a bit childish, I think it's a great source for practicing your Japanese daily. Sadly, I'm not quite at that level yet.

If you don't have a PS3, you can get it for the PSP now as well, under まいにちいっしょポータブル. There's some differences, but the main daily news seems to be the same as the PS3 version.

albion Wrote:If you don't have a PS3, you can get it for the PSP now as well, under まいにちいっしょポータブル. There's some differences, but the main daily news seems to be the same as the PS3 version.

I have a PSP, where do I get it did you say? On some website?