I didn’t play the remake because of the name changes. I still have my Gamecube copy and the PS2 special edition, so will probably go back to those next time nostalgia bites.

That’s good to hear at least! I’ve heard mixed things from different people, but it just doesn’t strike me as something I want to invest three hours into. I’m glad you enjoyed it though!

I was thinking this as well. Action adventure films like it were what got me into filmmaking, yet even I have less than no desire to see it. It’s actually pretty incredible how badly they missed the mark; the trailer just needed open up with Harrison Ford in costume saying something like “why is it always snakes?” followed immediately by the theme blasting up over an action montage. Instead, they chose to show a group of old men talking seriously in a bar, while some utterly stock sounding music underscores it. What were they thinking?

I actually forgot about paper forms, but true! Depending on how much time you have, you could probably get away with using a dictionary, but having a few common characters or radicals memorised would probably be better.

I once created a character around rhyming. It was right when they announced centaurs; I decided that the only logical course of action was to make one who only talked in rhyme, so every time he said something, he would immediately follow it with another sentance that rhymed with the first. He was called Hentaur the Centaur. The DM banned me from the game.

I think it’s important for handwriting, but how often do you actually handwrite anything these days? You can read or type just fine without it.

This isn’t an easy answer, since it really depends on how you learn. On one hand, it’s free and useful for learning bite sized lessons on the go. It also doesn’t use romaji and tries to get you on kana very early on. On the other… well… There are a lot of grammatical issues you’ll encounter or bad habbits that you’ll learn. When I used it, I was having to check the chat logs on pretty much every question to make sure it was accurate. There’s also context that it misses out on, like when to use 「は」vs 「が」and other subtle differences. You will not learn the reason for any gramma. You will not effectively learn keigo, figures of speech, or really any practical Japanese skills. All in all, there are some benefits from using Duo, but it should never ever be your only tool. If you’re a total beginner, I’d recommend pimsleur or a similar audio program. Once you’ve learned some basics, you can move on to traditional gramma books, alongside media emmersion (reading, writing, and listening to things in Japanese are indispensable). And with all of this in mind, I think I’d have to give Duo a 3/10. I hope that helps and sorry that this turned into a novel!

I always loved the amount of time Tolkien spends describing cute guys. Like, he’s very equal opportunities when someone’s pretty.

I’m not OP, but I feel like I want to add on to this if that’s alright. I think it’s often easy to get into this mindset when a trend seems to overtake a lot of the industry. For instance, personally I’ve noticed a common game that seems to get churned out a lot in recent years: it’s open world, but has nothing in it and is given light RPG elements that don’t really add anything. That doesn’t mean every game is like that, of course, but I think it can be easy to fixate on what we’re tired of seeing. Eventually, someone will come up with a new trend, and the empty open world games will fade out, and the cycle will continue as it always has. It’s also interesting to point out that humans tend to remember the past more fondly, so it’s easy to remember old gems and ignore the flops. Anyway, thanks for entertaining my ramble.