Board / Card / PC Games as an additional learning tool?

[nyuubii]

Hello,

I am currently studying for this year's JLPT 2's reading comprehension through UNICOM's Preparatory Course Book, 新聞で学ぶ日本語, reading documents from work etc. Although I am still far away from my target level of reading proficiency, all these kinda dry methods are really starting to get uninteresting (probably because I've been doing it for quite sometime).

I would like to ask if there are kinda like a board / card games here in Japan (That are made in Japan) where there's a fair amount of text in it so it can also serve as a kanji memorization tool and probably a bit of comprehension. I would like to see if this method can break the monotony I've been having with my studies by making it more fun and still useful for my studies. For PC games, I am not really looking for RPG's like Y's or the 英雄伝説 series since they are WAY too much for a reading comprehension practice but am looking more of a simple game where repetition is a focus and there's also a fair bit amount of reading to do (Maybe like a card game also, but a PC version).

Thank You Very Much.

[Yudan Taiteki]

For PC games, I am not really looking for RPG's like Y's or the 英雄伝説 series since they are WAY too much for a reading comprehension practice

What do you mean by that? I found video games to be very helpful for reading comprehension when I was around the 2-kyuu level.

[Harisenbon]

The best way to prepare for the reading comprehension on 1 and 2 kyuu is to read novels or essays. No Manga, just lots and lots of books.
If you want to focus more on video games, use RPGs or novel-like games like gyakuten saiban.
Anything with less reading densitythan a novel is not going to prepare you for the comprhension section..

[nyuubii]

Hello again,

Thank you for the replies. It just seems that I am looking for something with less quantity of writings that's why I found RPG's quite daunting since when I'm going to look up for an unknown Kanji or even Kanjis that I know but don't know the combination, it can be quite tiresome. Not too mention that it takes a lot of time just to finish the game. So I'm looking for something not as a substitute to reading books / documents but rather something just to break the monotony of having to read books over and over. Again, thanks for the replies.

[becki_kanou]

If you have a DS, the Professor Layton series is quite good. There is a fun story and lots of puzzles, but the amount of reading is probably less than an RPG. Also, you can save anywhere, so you can play for as long or as short as you want. You'll learn some good math and geometry vocab as well.

[Yudan Taiteki]

The best way to prepare for the reading comprehension on 1 and 2 kyuu is to read novels or essays. No Manga, just lots and lots of books.
If you want to focus more on video games, use RPGs or novel-like games like gyakuten saiban.
Anything with less reading densitythan a novel is not going to prepare you for the comprhension section..

Yeah, RPGs is specifically what I played. Some of those have at least as much text, if not more, than an average light novel. (Also what I found helpful is that they read the text out loud in most modern RPGs -- reading text while someone is speaking is pretty good practice because it forces you to try to comprehend it at a normal speed. If you can't, though, the text usually stays on the screen until you press a button, so you can go over it again.)