I guess Zippy bot is sleeping. Last month of the year, so what will you play on december. There are probably not much new games comming out this month, but some of us have probably some free time to play a bit more.
Finished ReFantazio and really enjoyed it. All the character arcs were interesting and it was nice to have a persona style game with some adults in the party.
For next, I decided I wanted to brush up on my Japanese so I’m replaying Trails from Zero. It’s been over a decade since I used it and it is slow going, but the tools available these days compared to when I was learning make things a lot easier.
Nice, any tips of Japanese learning? I have only just started it. And by just I mean, learning it for “days”, not even “weeks”.
It will be overwhelming, but just keep plugging away at it. Formal education is the best way to ensure steady progress for most. Walk before you run.
For me, the two most challenging things are kanji and verb endings/compounds. For kanji, there are general guidelines on how to read them like if they’re in a two kanji word, it’s usually the Chinese reading, but sometimes they just stuck kanji onto a word that already existed in Japanese and it doesn’t match any of the guidelines. So just remember to give yourself extra kindness with learning them.
For verb endings, a ton of information is provided in the last few sounds/characters. Tense, ability, passive voice, formality, giving/receiving, etc. Pay extra attention to learning to listen for it and parse it.
There are general guidelines for proficiency in kanji, vocab, and grammar for five levels, N5 being the lowest. Aim for that first. It will give you a reasonable goal. There are also lists of kanji by school year for Japanese natives that can act as a guideline for what to start with.
For kanji lookup, I use an android app called kanjilookup because it is extremely forgiving on stroke order when it comes to recognition. When I learned, you had to figure out the part of the kanji that was the special part, then find that part in the 5 inch thick dictionary by how many additional strokes there are in the kanji. With the app, you can just write it. Your phone is probably your best tool. Get a good dictionary. Learn Japanese input. Another app that I’d recommend once you’ve learned a bit in Todaii easy Japanese. It provides a bunch of things including news articles where the pronunciation, definition, and level are a click away and there are comprehension questions at the end. It also has some mock exams.
頑張って!
Thanks for a detailed answer. Going to checkout kanjilookup.
I started learning Spanish more than a decade ago, and I remember the kind of resources we used to have back then. Had to get audio CDs and books and match those with each other.
Had plans of learning dozens of languages, but life got in a way, wanted to get back into it, but for some reason couldn’t get the motivation to pick up Spanish again, so starting with Japanese, hopefully, if I can stick with long enough, will get back to that too.
I learning it for 2 years…well i’m in my 3 year. I have just on tip: doesn’t matter how, don’t give up. I’m switching constantly between high, i get a bit progress and low i never be able to have proper knowledge.
Yeah, that’s important. Had issue with that before, long time ago, but trying to be regular now.
I finished Metaphor ReFantasio. Well that’s what i would say if you give me 2-3 more days. I could write a lot about it, but i just guess that i beat the final boss soon, maybe the game surprises me. I should write more about it in a few days. At the moment i have time.And what’s next? Maybe 13 Sentinals, not sure yet. Or Persona 5 Tactica. I have a lot free time in december, i will program something that helps me doing certain posts in this community. But more about it later this month.
I just finished Metaphor as well. I enjoyed it! I’m unsure what I want to play next, I’ve considered persona 3 or 5, but down with other options. Sadly, I won’t have the free time like I did in November, back to the grind after having a month or so off for parental leave.
If you do something nice, remember your friends from other communities too. 😀
Last month was filled with almost-great games. I’ve finished Eiyuden Chronicles and Code Vein. Code Vein itself was fine, although having only played higher budget soulslikes, it does rank last within the subgenre. Eiyuden Chronicles however suffered from bad balancing, slow loading times and crashes. Despite playing on hard with all bonus challanges, the only nerve wrecking part was entering a loading screen after multiple hours without a save point - sometimes the game just freezes. That all aside, I did enjoy the game and would recommend it if they fix these issues in the future.
This month, I’ve got quite a few gems lined up: Octopath 2, SMT V Vengence, P4 Golden and Metaphor. However, I just started Witcher 3 and will be playing some Pokemon Conquest - which ended up becoming a christmas tradition with my partner. So I don’t know if I’ll get to any of these games.
As a side note, I had bots blocked and didn’t even know these threads existed. I guess I should allow them.
I finished Persona 4 Golden last week. It was so much fun and I liked it better than P3R. I’m really going to miss the cast.
For December, I might play either Persona 3 Portable (Kotone route) or Persona 5 Royal. Maybe I’ll play P4AU or P4D first though.
Wow, too much Persona. I really liked P4G, but after such a long game, I generally want to play something completely different.
Games rarely click with me. When they do, I think they’re truly something special. Honestly, I don’t know what else to play other than Persona right now. It’s kind of my obsession lately lol
Hehe, no worries. We all have different taste and different way to play. As long as you are enjoying it, that’s all that matters.
I like Persona 5 more than P3R as well, even the base version. For P3R, and the portable version won’t fix that, has just such a boring dugeon and doesn’t introduce chars in an interresting way.
I really like how all the party members in P4G are also social links, unlike in P3R where only the girls are your social links. I don’t mind the dungeon so much in P3R but the themed dungeons in P4G were nice.
I’m excited to play P5R but I don’t know if I’m ready to play the last main Persona game (as of now).
Totally been thinking over the past few months of trying to find a cheap enough copy of FFX (the only Final Fantasy game I’ve played) and getting back into it. Don’t have my original save from about 6 years ago on PS2 since I lost the memory card, but I definitely wanna get back into it some day because of how far in I was.
I think it’s one absolutely worth pursuing, especially if you’ve yet to play the story to the end. Steam version is on deep discount right now if you have a PC or Deck.
Damn. Didn’t know there was a PC version. Definitely gonna have to look into it. I don’t know how far in I got, but I might.just have to jump back in on PC just to see the ending.
Zippy bot woke up 10 hours late 😀
Started Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout last month (or was it month before that?). Haven’t finished anything though. Hopefully will finish it this month! If I finish it soon enough, want to play the XC3: Future Redeemed DLC, so that these is some gap between that and XC: X when it releases.
Persona 5
Lot of not-JRPG time again for me last month. However, I did start playing Ys IX: Monstrum Nox again, and I think I’m finally at a point where I’m into it. Really struggled with this one, which is super unusual for me. I’m a fan of the series, and I usually tear right through these games even when I’m not liking them super much.
Only other plan for December is more Atelier Escha & Logy. Now that is definitely a series where I usually have to dip in a few times before I get rolling.
I got a Steam Deck, so I’ve been playing a bit more now. I’m currently going back and forth between Final Fantasy II and going back to finally finish playing Umineko, so semi-JRPG for now, but mostly VN. I’m looking to gradually play through the mainline Final Fantasy games up until at least Final Fantasy IX, possibly Final Fantasy X. X was the game that actually made me take a decade long break from gaming entirely because I was so disappointed with it, so I want to give it another shot. I think part of the disappointment was that I loved IX and just wanted more of that, and that I originally traded my copy of Xenogears for a friend’s copy of X in middle school, so hopefully with the passage of time I can enjoy it. Prior to the PSX games, I’ve only ever completed the original, so there should be lots of fun to be had.
Eventually, I’ll copy over the files from my desktop that I need to be able to run the Grandia HD Remaster on it as well. That was one of my favorite games growing up, so I’m really looking forward to replaying it. Since it looks like Grandia II is playable with some tweaks as well, I guess I’ll have to get that eventually. I would be really excited if they ever went and re-released the rest of the games in the series, as I never got around to playing any past the second.