I woke up on the first day of my New Year's holiday last December feeling a little restless, so I clicked a few buttons online and 24 hours later a new Nintendo Switch showed up at my door. As I loaded it up for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the operating system could be set to Japanese. I'd be able to study some language while I was exploring the kingdom of Hyrule during one of Chicago's coldest winters in a while.

After the ストレス発散 (sutoresu hassan, stress relief) of the retail therapy wore off, I was left alone in my apartment with the realization that I'm awful at video games.

So I cheated ... in Japanese.