SpartaN

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Opus I Statistics - What are the odds of getting a legendary foil?

According to a Kotaku article I've read , as of December 2017, there have been 3.5 million packs sold from Opus I. If we break that down, then we have a rough estimate of how many cards there are from the set. This does not include starter decks, because I do not have information on how many of those there are. Except foils. More on that later. Based on the fact that 3.5 million packs have been sold, we can predict how many of each card there is on the fact that there are twelve cards in each pack: 7 commons, 3 rares, 1 hero/legendary (80% chance hero, 20% chance legendary), and 1 foil. This means there have been approximately 42 million cards opened since it's release into western markets. There should be: 24.5 million commons 10.5 million rares 2.8 million heroes 700 thousand legendaries 3.5 million foils If we take this further, we know that there are 186 unique cards in Opus I, 216 including cards found only in starter decks. Because I don't have the figu...

Re-purposing the Site

After a period of soul searching I've decided that doing Japanese with video games in not what I want to do with my time. Initially, I was excited about the idea and had some fun coming up with ideas and working on future videos. Unfortunately, it makes learning one of my favorite languages feel like a chore. Japanese no longer had my interest the way it had originally, and that is why I will no longer be attempting to learn Japanese with games. If it comes up naturally, or is somehow related to what I'm talking about, I will still talk about the meaning of certain terms and all. The time it takes to organize an explanation about a language I have not yet mastered (if I could ever master a language, not sure I've mastered English lol), I could dedicate to another hobby of mine. One that is easier to describe and that won't make blogging feel like a drag. It has nothing to do with the amount of views I was getting - of course nobody is reading a new blog with only f...

Post Schedule (update)

My internet has been spotty the last couple days due to weather. That's why there hasn't been any posts. Also, I plan to post biweekly from now on (meaning twice each week). That doesn't mean I won't post more often sometimes, but as a rule I will post about every three days. This is so I have more time to put toward my writing, and working on my property which is essentially falling apart. More importantly, it will give me time to make quality posts. I don't want to just have posts that say literally "this is how you write letter A". The advantage of being a small blogger is that I can change the schedule and methods with which I do things and it won't have as negative of an effect. And let's be honest, this is the time to improve. While I've just started is the perfect time to adjust as needed to find that perfect balance between my private life and the internet.

How to write a basic sentence in Japanese - Part 1

Let's say you just want to say "I am". How would you do that? What are the benefits of using a series like Zelda to learn another language? Chances are you have played at least one game from the franchise in the past. If you try learning with a new game, one you've never played in English, you will probably spend most of your time stuck on names. Being able to distinguish what the names belong to (a person, location, thing, etc.) can get confusing especially in longer sentences. By playing a familiar game, you won't have that problem and you can use that time productively learning new words, learning new phrases, and save yourself the frustration. は　 (wa) は designates the topic of a sentence. Even though it's the 'ha' syllable, it's pronounced 'wa' when used as a particle. The first word everyone learns is ' konnichi wa '. A lot of people misspell it as こんにちわ, but it's actually こんにちは, using the 'wa' topic indica...

Is it difficult to read in-game dialogue?

Anyone who has ever played a video game has noticed that one almost never, even in children's games, finds only basic "subject - verb - object" sentences. The same is true of Japanese video games. If you were hoping that a game for children would be easy to read, you'd be wrong. Sure, it's easy for a Japanese child. Every day we become dumber while they grow stronger. After all, they are smarter than us. Or are they? Let's consider the fact that they grew up speaking the language. It's no surprise then that they would understand more difficult sentences than most foreign adults with diplomas who have only been studying the language for a few months. For them N64 games are easy to read. However, there is one area they still struggle with. That area is kanji. Like us, children in Japan also don't know most of the twelve hundred letters taught in primary and secondary schools. If you've been following my Learning Japanese with Zelda videos, you n...

Where to find the full Japanese script for Ocarina of Time

If you do use The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as a form of immersion into Japanese, you might occasionally pretty much constantly find new letters or words you are unfamiliar with. In a European language, you can simply search the word as it appears on the screen. But what about Japanese words? How do you find the specific kanji you don't know? You can't just search the word, because you'd have to know it's pronunciation already in order to do that. It's not like they all come with furigana after all. Despite these difficulties, there is a way, but first I should inform anyone interested in learning new letters to look into 'how to search a Japanese dictionary' with radicals (the components of kanji that stem from other basic kanji). Nonetheless, I have found a link to the entire in-game transcript here: zeldalegends.net I've linked the transcript on my Resources page, along with other useful links for those looking to learn str...