My teacher kindly bought some titles for me when she was back in Japan.
here's what I think so far
(they're not for beginners-- you'll just get totally swamped by the kanji and unknown words. )
なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習 ＊＊＊＊
http://www.nowpro.co.jp/products/game/kanji/index.html
I like this.
It helps teach you how to write and read kanji.
"Helps" is important. I doubt this program alone would be enough. What it does do is reinforce what you're learning in a fun sort of way.
Input is by drawing on the screen, so you learn how to write as well as read. Stroke order seems important (although oddly direction isn't -- not so good design) The task is the usual one of replace kanji with kana or the kana with kanji in a short sentence. It allows many attempts. This is helpful in learning but in real life you'll have to get it correct first time really.
It's early days yet but I can see this really helping me reinforce my reading and writing.
It is designed for Japanese adults. Therefore you'll have to guess a bit to read instructions and find your way around or you get to have some early intense reading practice! (Thankfully all kanji in the manual have furigana.) I think you'd need to already know some kanji to start using it as well, otherwise I think you'd be a bit overwhelmed. Also lie about your age in the setup screens, otherwise it'll place you at far too high a level. My true age (not telling) places me at level 7 out of 9. My kanji reading age I've decided is 6 placing me at level 1!
The main shortcomings I can see are No English readings (of course) and I've yet to find a way to browse or look up the 1960 kanji. so I can only study those kanji the game presents to me.
I also got the following -->
DSお料理ナビ ＊＊＊
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/a4vj/index.html
A cook book!
I figured it'd have pictures and a set scope of vocabulary.
It also has speech synthesis and some limited speech recognition. (about 5 or 6 phrases for hands free cooking, OK is one of them! )
It's fun. Who knows I might even cook some things.
DS漢字そのまま楽引辞典 ＊＊＊
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/arjj/index.html
Worth it if you don't already have an electronic dictionary or you already have a NintendoDS. it's only 4000yen.
The kanji and kana writing recognition seems very good.
The Japanese to English is better than English to Japanese. As always these titles are for Japanese and therefore don't have furigana. It has nice English pronunciation guides and a TOIEC flash card set that might be useful for learning reading Japanese words. I've yet to find a custom list though.
シカクいアタマをマルくするDS漢字の章 ＊＊
http://iek.on.arena.ne.jp/shikakui/index.html
For Japanese elementary schoolchildren.
I thought it might be my level. The plus side is the kanji has furigana. And the kanji are the simpler ones.
The minuses are.
it also has maths. OK but not what I'm interested in.
The games are a bit simplistic in approach.
The kanji are low resolution.
It has the feel of being a flash card system when you use it.
The DS touch features aren't used much.
I'm not sure if it's a plus or minus but on the choose the correct kanji games you're working against a timer. I don't read that fast yet.
