小説とゲーム日本語難易度一覧

About the categories

Dialogue (style) - Most games are written predominantly in one style or another. Each style has a different scope of vocabulary used.
Dialogue (amount) - The amount of writing in the body of text of the main part of each game.
Kanji - The overall frequency and difficulty of each game's kanji.
Grammar and Vocabulary - The overall difficulty of each game's grammar and vocabulary.
Variance - The range within which all other categories vary throughout each game. In other words low variance means that the text will have a relatively normal rate and difficulty of kanji, a core group of words, a focus on certain subject matter, and little to no overlap into other styles of writing. High variance means the scope of the game's subject matter and writing style are probably very wide, thus higher amounts of exotic vocabulary need to be learned.

Dialogue types

Cute - Often aimed at younger people. These types of games are typified by funny character accents, made up nonsense words, light subject matter, puns, and other types of humor. They aren't actually that easy for non-natives to fully understand.

Anime/Manga - Most modern games seem to be written in this style. It's the widest category, as there's usually at least one ancient demon who talks like an ancient demon, one hot-headed brash youth, one tough but sexually non-threatening middle-aged woman who uses 俺, one megalomaniacal businessman who accidentally dooms everyone, one knight who was transported through time or something who probably uses a really weird unconventional weapon like a chainsaw that shoots fire, and some kind of magical android girl whose soul contains an incredible sealed power.

Medieval - This type of writing is usually difficult as it contains lots of obscure terms of both the native Japanese type and Sino-Chinese kanji compound type that are virtually unused outside of the medium itself. Also often includes formal, honorific, or ancient usages of grammar.

Technical - Sci-fi media will sometimes delve into technical writing, but where it's truly prevalent is in games with complicated explanations of gameplay. It's essentially the type of writing found in Japanese textbooks. Become familiar with advanced alternative particles/expressions such as the にｘｘ types (において, によって) and break out your kanji searching program.

Slang - Modern slang and colloquialisms.

None - These games end up sounding dry. Lacking personality, they're the closest thing to College Japanese 101 and thus the easiest to understand.

Variance

Variance is probably the most important measurement of difficulty. As more words are used by more and more colorful characters to describe wider amounts of subject matter, new vocabulary needs to be learned, thus there is less repetition and reinforcement of older vocabulary that has not yet been mastered.

ゲーム一覧

Game	System	Dialogue (style)	Dialogue (amount)	Kanji	Grammar and Vocabulary	Variance	Overall
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga	GBA	Cute	Average	Easy	Easy	Little	Very easy
Rune Factory	DS	None	Average	Average	Easy	Little	Very easy
Monster Rancher	DS	None	Much	Average	Easy	Average	Easy
Guardian Legend	NES	None	Very easy	Very few	Average	Little	Easy
Pokemon - Any (Platinum)	Various	Cute	Much	No kanji	Average	Average	Easy
DQ Rocket Slime	DS	Cute	Average	Easy	Average	Average	Easy
Tokkyuu Tenshi 特急天使	PC	Cute	Little	Hard	Easy	Little	Easy
Zelda Phantom Hourglass	DS	Medieval	Much	Furigana	Hard	Average	Medium
Fire Emblem	NES	Medieval	Much	No kanji	Hard	Little	Medium
Advance Wars	GBA	Anime/manga	Average	Easy	Average	Average	Medium
Der Langrisser	SNES	Medieval	Average	Average	Hard	Average	Medium
Ys 3	SNES	Medieval	Average	Average	Hard	Average	Medium
Crescent Pale Mist	PC	Medieval	Little	Very hard	Hard	Little	Medium
Chantelise	PC	Anime/manga	Much	Very hard	Average	Average	Medium
Astro Boy	GBA	Anime/manga	Much	Furigana	Hard	High	Medium
Moon Remix	PSX	Medieval	Much	Hard	Hard	High	Medium
Fire Emblem Rekka no Ken	GBA	Medieval	Very much	Hard	Very hard	Average	Hard
YS: Oath in Felghana	PC	Medieval	Much	Very hard	Very hard	Average	Hard
Lethal Application	PC	Technical	Average	Very hard	Hard	High	Hard
Castlevania: Ecclesia	DS	Medieval	Average	Very hard	Very hard	Average	Hard
Ouendan	DS	Anime/manga	Little	Very hard	Very hard	Very high	Hard
Fire Emblem Fuuin no Tsurugi	DS	Medieval	Very much	Much	Very hard	High	Hard
Super Robot Wars Taisen Z	PS2	Anime/manga	Very much	Very hard	Hard	Highest	Very hard
Langrisser 4	PSX	Medieval	Much	Very hard	Extremely hard	Average	Very hard
Namco X Capcom	PSX	Various	Much	Very hard	Very hard	Highest	Very hard
Persona 4	PS2	Slang	Very much	Very hard	Extremely hard	Very high	Very hard

小説一覧

Book	Dialogue (style)	Book type	Kanji	Grammar and Vocabulary	Variance	Overall
走れメロス	Pre-war	Short story	Hardest	Hardest	Average	Very hard