Nice one. You'll smash it if you keep going at that rate.
Thanks. Congrats on getting N1 too. I also got a 2DS XL in JP region for Japanese titles. I recommend Shin Megami Tensei IV as nearly all the kanjis have 表記 (I think this is the right word - hiraganas are shown right above kanji). It is pretty good for learning the language while playing. The game is good too!
Agreed with Jintor. I skipped both N5 and N4 and went straight to N3.
One of the reasons I started learning Japanese is for games! Maybe getting a second-hand one (if you can find one)? 2DS (not XL) are relatively cheap. If not, you can still go for homebrew which be fairly easy.
There's a lot of time until December, so I don't see why you shouldn't go for it. Worst case scenario, you'll have learned a bunch of new stuff which will be useful :D
My understanding is that there used to be distinct pronunciations between between things like ou/oo and ii/ie, but they've been lost over time, and the writing has been standardized to favour writing it one way over the other. So it's not pronounced differently, and it's just written differently as some historical quirk. A little like the は particle being written differently than how it's pronounced.
