Not really. I blasted right through it. Then again, I did get to about the halfway point previously in the English GC version, so some of the puzzles came to mind when I found them. Trial and error was king during a majority of the parts that I hadn't played through.
Since it has been a while, I can't remember how frequent katakana turns up. I know 'em all, so I assumed that helped me a tad as well.