Blue Protocol! It’s been the kick in the ass I’ve needed to finally give language learning an earnest shake since it’s JP-only for now. And I have zero intention of trying Amazon’s neutered global release next year since I’m sure they’ll “”“localize”“” the lolis among other things.
If you ever want JP learning tips, I got a whole path to learning the language from a reading perspective mapped out.
If you’ve already written it up → it’s no extra trouble for you, I’d skim it.
From what I’ve seen between resources so far, it feels like the ultimate truth is that the hours put in matter a whole lot more than the minutia of how they’re spent (within reason of course). So I’m not sweating things too much beyond having the discipline to put in the time each day.
*inhales*
Start at katakana and hiragana.
This for katakana:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
Then this for hiragana:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
Using those two, you’ll memorize both in about 2-3 days each. just make sure to take hour breaks between sets and review previous sets before moving on to the next set.
At this point, you will be "おはようございます"ing with the best of them, and will overflow with joy when you realize you can read “チキン ディナー”.
Then the path splits
If you are more interested in reading japanese, you’ll wanna go for kanji next. That path splits again.
if you just want to read the meaning of kanji and don’t care for the pronunciation or listening to the language, you can take this huge shortcut by reading remembering the kanji https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824835921 what’s really cool about this book is they offer the first chapter for free, https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2012/12/RK-1-6th-edition-sample.pdf 294 kanji for $0! Just don’t bother learning the stroke order. We got these cool new fangled things called keyboards and they type the kanji for you!
If you want to fully learn kanji, go do https://www.wanikani.com/ The journey is long and difficult, but wanikani is your best bet for learning Kanji. An alternative resource is kanjidamage: start here: http://www.kanjidamage.com/kanji_facts and move on page by page through the dictionary: http://www.kanjidamage.com/kanji/1-one-line-radical-一 That will do you for kanji, but at some point you’l want to learn other japanese words. Try https://bunpro.jp/ which is like wanikani for grammar.
If you want to learn spoken and conversational Japanese, you are going to want to get a textbook and teach yourself like as if you paid to have a class on it, but much much cheaper. I’ve bought GENKI https://www.amazon.com/GENKI-Integrated-Elementary-Japanese-English/dp/4789014401 and Minna no Nihongo https://www.amazon.com/Nihongo-Beginner-2Books-Textbook-Vocabulary/dp/B07B2N2XSR for Minna, you need the Red book AND the Yellow book, or you will be lost.
Actually, you will be lost anyway. I really recommend GENKI of the two since minna drops you in the deep end in a bad way, and GENKI feels more like one of those classes where they teach you “good morning” as the very first thing you learn. For both the kanji and the GENKI, YOU NEED to learn your katakana and hiragana. Those two are REQUIRED for EVERYTHING. [/rant]
If that’s an open offer I’ve been wanting to learn Japanese myself and would love a bit of input on getting started
*inhales*
Start at katakana and hiragana.
This for katakana:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
Then this for hiragana:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
Using those two, you’ll memorize both in about 2-3 days each. just make sure to take hour breaks between sets and review previous sets before moving on to the next set.
At this point, you will be "おはようございます"ing with the best of them, and will overflow with joy when you realize you can read “チキン ディナー”.
Then the path splits
If you are more interested in reading japanese, you’ll wanna go for kanji next. That path splits again.
if you just want to read the meaning of kanji and don’t care for the pronunciation or listening to the language, you can take this huge shortcut by reading remembering the kanji https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824835921 what’s really cool about this book is they offer the first chapter for free, https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2012/12/RK-1-6th-edition-sample.pdf 294 kanji for $0! Just don’t bother learning the stroke order. We got these cool new fangled things called keyboards and they type the kanji for you!
If you want to fully learn kanji, go do https://www.wanikani.com/ The journey is long and difficult, but wanikani is your best bet for learning Kanji. An alternative resource is kanjidamage: start here: http://www.kanjidamage.com/kanji_facts and move on page by page through the dictionary: http://www.kanjidamage.com/kanji/1-one-line-radical-一 That will do you for kanji, but at some point you’l want to learn other japanese words. Try https://bunpro.jp/ which is like wanikani for grammar.
If you want to learn spoken and conversational Japanese, you are going to want to get a textbook and teach yourself like as if you paid to have a class on it, but much much cheaper. I’ve bought GENKI https://www.amazon.com/GENKI-Integrated-Elementary-Japanese-English/dp/4789014401 and Minna no Nihongo https://www.amazon.com/Nihongo-Beginner-2Books-Textbook-Vocabulary/dp/B07B2N2XSR for Minna, you need the Red book AND the Yellow book, or you will be lost.
Actually, you will be lost anyway. I really recommend GENKI of the two since minna drops you in the deep end in a bad way, and GENKI feels more like one of those classes where they teach you “good morning” as the very first thing you learn. For both the kanji and the GENKI, YOU NEED to learn your katakana and hiragana. Those two are REQUIRED for EVERYTHING. [/rant]
Currently modding Morrowind on the OpenMW engine, and getting it ready for a new playthrough :3
I swear there will be mods released of that game in the 22nd century even.
Oh neat! What sort of features does OpenMW add?
It adds a bunch of different stuff that the original engine was lacking, like Distant Terrain, the ability to use textures with actual bump maps, native support for macOS and Linux, and better physics/smarter AI. Since it is made from scratch, it also lacks virtually all of the bugs that the original morrowind engine had. There’s alot of other features too, but the list is too exhaustive to go over in a single post.
I don’t game much, but a game I’ve absolutely been enjoying when I feel like playing is “Plateup!”. It’s like Overcooked, but if overcooked was a fun game, a roguelike and had a bunch of cool mods!
Occasionally, I also work on my Minecraft modding project, which I’ve been on and off working on for a few years now. To try and bring the game back to a time where I enjoyed it, adding features I’d like to see and removing ones I didn’t like added.
PlateUp! was the hotness among my friends for like a month, and then it poofed as quickly as it appeared.
The cultural zeitgeist really baffles me at times, but I will say it did seem quite fun.
I am someone who does not get tired of things easily, I hook onto it and it becomes one of the few things I play for years, it’s very difficult to get me into other things. I’ll play pretty much anything, mainly because games are just a way for me to do something while talking with friends, the game isn’t important. But very few games are actually fun for me.
I’ll play pretty much anything, mainly because games are just a way for me to do something while talking with friends, the game isn’t important.
Similar here but maybe from the other direction. I like to be a Discord cheerleader to whatever my friends are playing, unless it’s certain multiplayer games that we all play.
And with that one sentence, I’ve probably made clear my actual commitment to FOSS, lol.
Ya, there’s a few cool beta rollback mods out there. I’ll link you the one I like to use once I can get back to my computer in 8 hours.
I like the rollback mods, however the experience I’m trying to recreate with the mod I’m programming is the feel of a modded game back in the day. Not just returning to Alpha minecraft, but returning to Modded Alpha Minecraft. So far, I think i’m doing an okay job. Been modding on 1.6.4, since the way modding works got completely changed after that, and I have no interest learning everything over again, especially when I’m removing most of the new features as is.
Alpha modding. Brings back memories of Runecraft and Minecraft MMO (or was it MMO Minecraft?)
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My computer is busted, so my attention has been split between playing SNES Harvest Moon and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
A whole bunch, really. I usually play a few matches of splatoon 3 a day, I recently picked legends arceus back up again on my main console instead of the lite, I’m in the middle of another playthrough of pokemon white 2 since my favorite YouTube is also playing it, and I’m still going through xenoblade 3.
Mainly Blue Archive. I want to play Blue Protocol but foreign players are being actively banned. I don’t want to play a game where I can get banned at anytime so I’m going to skip it if the situation doesn’t change even though I’ve been looking forward to this game for several years.
I’d been playing Pokemon X, but took a break when Citra started crashing every 30 seconds or so. I’ve completely changed out that computer now. I should try again, because that game is super cute and uplifting.
Gen 6 pokemon always gives me mixed feelings, because I had a ton of fun with it back in the day, and it got me into the competitive scene, but with the benefit of hindsight, it’s where the death spiral into modern pokemon started.
Haha this is probably a controversial opinion, but I enjoyed Pokemon Sword (it was the first one I played… well, kinda: had X for a very short time but didn’t get to play it). Although, the wild areas in Sword weren’t the best.
I couldn’t get into Arceus because it was basically all wild area. I know it sounds dumb, but I liked the same old story and formula. It was fun to go around and battle all the trainers and enjoy their banter or praise.
Once I finish X I plan on playing some even older ones.
I got into pokemon at the start of Gen 5 when I was in elementary school, and basically immediately went back and played platinum and heart gold. I’ve played them all since, and with a combination of hindsight and cynicism, I more or less got in at the peak, and have watched it coast downhill since.
My issue with pokemon sword is that it just felt insubstantial, for lack of a better word. Hop was, in some parts quite literally, a reused hau from Gen 7, the complete dead metagame of dynamaxing along with the removal of Megas and z moves, the dex cuts, the wild areas somehow managed to emphasize how small the game was, it really just ended up being a perfect storm of mediocrity to me. The new pokemon were cool as always, and I actually really loved crown tundra, but it was the first time I found myself just mashing through to get to the end of the game, and that’s when it really all hit me.
I’m still really enjoying arceus because it has just the right amount of mundane box checking to be a sort of half-focused relaxing game for me, and they absolutely nailed the atmosphere.
Because I’m just built different, I replayed Gen 6 in the time after this interaction (Y, specifically), I would solidly rank it as my 4th favorite generation, behind 5, 4, and 7, in that order. And that’s nothing against Gen 6, there’s just a lot of really strong pokemon games.
To sort of clarify my thoughts, Gen 6 is where I feel pokemon first started a sort of “two steps forward, one step back” sort of improvement, which is really why I have such mixed feelings about it.
Oh wow, you started and beat Y already? Impressive! I’m such a filthy casual. 🙇
My desires to self insert in those cutscenes with Shauna are, admittedly, a large source of bias for me in favor of X. I haven’t yet played 7th or 5th gen, though… they’re queued up as my next plays, then I’ll hit 3rd, 2nd, and 1st Gen (an actual older Gen 1, not Let’s Go, as I burned out playing Go… now that I think about it. maybe that’s why I dislike Arceus).
Oh wow, you started and beat Y already? Impressive! I’m such a filthy casual. 🙇
In the least condescending way, everything Gen 6 and after is basically just easy mode compared to the past games, especially since I wasn’t doing any sort of a challenge run.
Also, I wasn’t going for side content since I’ve seen it all multiple times, and the main story is only like 6-7 hours if you already know what you’re doing.
Add onto that the fact that I’m currently in online college, which gives me tons of free time, and the fact I caught a 2 week ban from league of legends, playing through Y was a fun side thing when I wasn’t doing something else.
My desires to self insert in those cutscenes with Shauna are, admittedly, a large source of bias for me in favor of X
The Gen 6 characters are really fun, no contest there
- Falcon BMS. Alternating between dropping bombs on North Koreans and fighting Chinese Su-27s.
- EraToho TheWorld. Just married Koishi and she is already pregananant😳😳😳
Nice! Which flavor of TW? Pedy? Pops (NAS)? Anon? Note that I will completely judge you based on which one you chose.
lmao I’m playing the official Japanese release https://gitgud.io/era-games/eratohoTW/-/tree/game/japanese-UTF-8?ref_type=heads
I’m thinking about playing it in English for a breath of fresh air though. Going to read up about the few names you just dropped lol.
Literally reading that as you posted it. Oh boy I’ve been missing out so much content.
Holy shit we can finally lock doors now
Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld and other colony sims take up most of my game time nowadays. Eratoho TW & K when horney. DS Pokemon Games for nostalgia. & Minecraft for when playing with buds.
I’m currently playing Chamber of Secrets
Nice I remember playing the third movie’s game to death on the Gamecube.
Are you emulating it?
Yep. And I just found the 1080p button if that’s what you’re going to ask.
Not at all x3 Glad you found it tho! I hope you enjoy your time :D
Just finished the main story of Cassette Beasts, a comfy tactical monster taming RPG that doesn’t infantilize you or try to be Pokemon (or make a big point about not being Pokemon). It’s easily one of the best games I’ve played this year. Now that I’ve beaten it though i might try to beat the last few slugcats in rainworld or tackle terraria again.
Final fantasy XI, splatoon, apex legends, New Star Crickey for iPhone, god hand, Shadowrun for sega genesis, Derek Smart’s Desktop Commander, europa universalis 4, tekken 4, splatoon 4, Smash Bros 4, final fantasy 4 teen, GTA4 for PS4 but 4 the most part final fantasy xi because it’s fun as hell (not really, I would dare say it’s boring as shit)
Honkai Star Rail, Deep Rock Galactic, Space Engineers. Lots of space themed games, and even more in my recent history of the past few months. Non-space wise, I have Minecraft of course, and Rogue Legacy 2.
I’m currently giving the demo for Lakeburg Legacies a try. It sort of reminds me of the Crusader Kings series, only with less war and history and more matchmaking and random events.
