PumpkinSpice
Banned
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Let's play JRPGs in Japanese without learning Japanese: cause it's still fun
- Thread starter PumpkinSpice
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Moor-Angol
Banned
at least learn hiragana, so when you see words like つづく or もどる 2,3,4 times you get used and don't need translation
especially old rpg's use a large amount of hiragana
hiragana are 45 symbols in the same way katakana are
especially old rpg's use a large amount of hiragana
hiragana are 45 symbols in the same way katakana are
When playing untranslated JRPGs, I've honestly just been relying on my innate knowledge of systems within other games (along with trial and error) and that somehow works out for me, not saying it will for everyone but I do that (I played PSO2 for months without realizing there was a translation patch).
Lavitz Slambert
Banned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZUSJWZCqI4
2:05-3:10 perfectly sums up this thread.
I wouldn't play any game, let alone a JRPG, if I couldn't read anything in the game. Your ability to know about any higher gameplay mechanics is stunted, not just your ability to understand the story.
2:05-3:10 perfectly sums up this thread.
I wouldn't play any game, let alone a JRPG, if I couldn't read anything in the game. Your ability to know about any higher gameplay mechanics is stunted, not just your ability to understand the story.
Muffdraul
Member
I started doing this when the JP version of Tobal #1 was released with the FFVII demo. I justified buying it because it was a fighting game that required no reading and came with a free demo. I had all kinds of fun playing the demo, so I figured screw it, might as well play the JP version of FFVII too, fuck waiting for the English version like a year later! I couldn't even finish the first disc, but I had no regrets, and that was when I started importing JRPGs. I basically considered them to be really long, really expensive demos. By the time FFX and Xenosaga came out, I'd taught myself enough Japanese to be able to follow the story and know almost everything about how to play.
Fuck the people saying it isn't fun as if they can speak for the rest of us. Jealous hatey turdbags. I had so much fun playing JRPGs before I could understand Japanese, I practically shit myself.
Fuck the people saying it isn't fun as if they can speak for the rest of us. Jealous hatey turdbags. I had so much fun playing JRPGs before I could understand Japanese, I practically shit myself.
Been there, done that.
I can say that you don't need a playthrough and only knowledge of hiragana/katakana for stuffs like :
Final Fantasy games,
SRPG in general (from Bahamut Lagoon to Fire Emblem),
Saga games in general (Romancing Saga 1 is one of the absolute best game I've ever played that way, talk about a sense of discovery).
Basically I'd say if it's on SNES and isn't Dragon Quest VI you can make do without a walkthrough.
Some stuffs like Far East of Eden and Dragon Quest are way too obtuse to be done that way though, don't even try it's futile.
Oh yeah and Seiken Densetsu III is actually way more fun on an actual system, warts and all, can't cheat with savestate that way.
I can say that you don't need a playthrough and only knowledge of hiragana/katakana for stuffs like :
Final Fantasy games,
SRPG in general (from Bahamut Lagoon to Fire Emblem),
Saga games in general (Romancing Saga 1 is one of the absolute best game I've ever played that way, talk about a sense of discovery).
Basically I'd say if it's on SNES and isn't Dragon Quest VI you can make do without a walkthrough.
Some stuffs like Far East of Eden and Dragon Quest are way too obtuse to be done that way though, don't even try it's futile.
Oh yeah and Seiken Densetsu III is actually way more fun on an actual system, warts and all, can't cheat with savestate that way.
ATXAlchemy
Member
You don't need to learn anything beforehand. There's a trial and error. And there's also the fact that you can recognize characters to remember them. My peers just basically count the characters (3 = no, 2 = yes).
Sure, there's also things that you might end up doing that makes the game hard for you, but there's also guides out there.
I was playing Super Robot Wars 15 or so years ago, before I learned any Japanese at all.
The seishin ひらめき? The only thing I knew about it was that it makes a flash* on a robot's face icon and it makes me dodge enemy attacks. I was even calling it "Evil Intentions" as the flash would usually be on the eyes of the icon.
*or Newtype flash; didn't know about it since I only knew about Wing Gundam back then.
I knew which mecha was which just by looking at their names and I didn't know how to read hiragana or katakana back then. You can recognize these characters just like you can recognize the "Nazi" symbol, or the "Peace" symbol.
I fucking enjoyed it back then, I do more now that I know Japanese (though I spend more time now reading the scenario).
The thing is people shout "KANJIIIIIII" even before they try. It's a good thing babies don't shout "OMFG Roman/Latin Alphabet!!! Fucking moonrunes!" when they see them.
Yup! I've done this a few times myself only knowing hiragana and katakana.
Tales of Graces F, Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, Tales of Xillia, and a few others.
All of these examples ended up translated anyway, but I still enjoyed the games in Japanese. Might import some Vita games if they don't get localized by next summer.
Tales of Graces F, Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, Tales of Xillia, and a few others.
All of these examples ended up translated anyway, but I still enjoyed the games in Japanese. Might import some Vita games if they don't get localized by next summer.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
This has never been fun, and it never will be.
Bad idea, OP. Bad idea.
Bad idea, OP. Bad idea.
threelights
Member
Currently playing .Hack//Link on the PSP without the fan translation.
Man, when you can't understand the dialogue that game becomes literally just running through the same exact place over and over again for about 50 times (or more).
I'm also not really good at the battle system because all I know how to do is juggling into Cross Rengeki.
If anyone knows how to get new abilities in that game feel free to teach me =X
Anyway, the game is fun enough, but it really depends on all the dialogue to be good...
Man, when you can't understand the dialogue that game becomes literally just running through the same exact place over and over again for about 50 times (or more).
I'm also not really good at the battle system because all I know how to do is juggling into Cross Rengeki.
If anyone knows how to get new abilities in that game feel free to teach me =X
Anyway, the game is fun enough, but it really depends on all the dialogue to be good...
Astral/H3X
Member
The number one game to play in Japanese without knowing Japanese is secretly La Mulana.
Because even in English it won't make a lick of sense anyway.
Actually it's really fun discovering a game that way, deciphering only partially the environment around you.
Kinda like being a explorer dumped in a world where you only know how to pronounce the basic characters and only get the meaning through context and progress that way.
If there was a game about this sort of things I don't think it would be that unpopular.
Basically La Mulana but even more obscure.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
I played through a few Saturn games back in the day with minimal Japanese knowledge and had fun with them. Played through Grandia in its entirety (this was before the PS1 version got localized), most of Soul Hackers, and I think I played through all of Lunar:EB Saturn (had the advantage of having played the SCD version in English though).
I haven't played any Japanese imports for a while, but last time I did, it was much easier than before because although my Japanese knowledge is still not very good, I've learned a fair bit of Chinese so I'm often able to guess the gist of the Japanese just by looking at the kanji and using the Chinese definitions. It's not always accurate, but it often is.
ATXAlchemy
Member
I'm sure there are lots of people playing Super Robot Wars (not talking about the english OG ones). I doubt they would have kept buying games in the series if they didn't have fun.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I did with with Tales of Rebirth way back in 2006.
I hated not understanding shit.
So then I learned Japanese. lol
I hated not understanding shit.
So then I learned Japanese. lol
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Just don't play Trails in the Sky in Japanese. I've been learning the language for 10 years now and its one of the only Japanese games I've played that still give me a headache (SRW does too but to a lesser extent). Just an overwhelming amount of text to take in.
I do recommend learning Hiragana and a bit of Katakana though. Even if you don't necessarily understand what the actual word means, it's a good way of learning, especially if you play games like Pokemon or Dragon Quest with their use of Furigana.
The way I see it, if you don't understand Japanese, then you may as well try and learn a little bit while playing Japanese games. Will only make your life easier.
I do recommend learning Hiragana and a bit of Katakana though. Even if you don't necessarily understand what the actual word means, it's a good way of learning, especially if you play games like Pokemon or Dragon Quest with their use of Furigana.
The way I see it, if you don't understand Japanese, then you may as well try and learn a little bit while playing Japanese games. Will only make your life easier.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
I thought about putting "thread of stupid ideas" in the title but I actually have totally enjoyed the games I've played this way so far. It probably depends a lot on the game; DQ7 3DS was especially easy this way for me since I've played the original inside out and the remake has pictures for items.
If you're playing through a JRPG in Japanese and you can't understand anything, you aren't enjoying the work as the creator intended.
I guess that's OK, but it's kind of the same thing as say, juggling with audio CDs, or eating a painting. That's a bit hyperbolic, but the point is that you're enjoying the work for reasons other than it was made for.
Hiragana and Katakana are relatively simple to learn. Grammar and Kanji are difficult. Idiomatic expressions are difficult. Jokes and pop culture references are impossible unless you're soaking yourself in Japanese culture. Many works are made specifically for Japanese consumers, so allusions to common sense things will not make sense unless you're really, really into Japanese stuff.
If the core gameplay is fun, and you can understand enough of the fundamental mechanics and stats to make interesting tactical choices, than at least you have that. If you don't care about the story, that's fair; many stories in JRPGs suck. But if you can't understand the gameplay, I think there are better uses of your time.
Edit:
Fuck La Mulana
I guess that's OK, but it's kind of the same thing as say, juggling with audio CDs, or eating a painting. That's a bit hyperbolic, but the point is that you're enjoying the work for reasons other than it was made for.
Hiragana and Katakana are relatively simple to learn. Grammar and Kanji are difficult. Idiomatic expressions are difficult. Jokes and pop culture references are impossible unless you're soaking yourself in Japanese culture. Many works are made specifically for Japanese consumers, so allusions to common sense things will not make sense unless you're really, really into Japanese stuff.
If the core gameplay is fun, and you can understand enough of the fundamental mechanics and stats to make interesting tactical choices, than at least you have that. If you don't care about the story, that's fair; many stories in JRPGs suck. But if you can't understand the gameplay, I think there are better uses of your time.
Edit:
Fuck La Mulana
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
I first played it in Chinese and I agree. There's a ton of text in the game and even with some knowledge of the language, it was really slow going. I wouldn't recommend playing Trails in any language that you don't have native fluency in.
But like with Grandia? Yeah, there were some rough patches where it was unclear how to proceed (especially the beginning where you have to search the town for random items) but at the time, the graphics & music were amazing, the combat was phenomenal, and the main story beats weren't too hard to follow even without understanding the dialogue. Not much point in doing it now that there's a version in English (Saturn version is superior, but not enough to make it worth playing in a foreign language), but at the time, I enjoyed it.
I think Japanese RPGs are sufficiently obtuse to make the OP's suggestion unreasonable. Games like Dragon Quest have jobs and skills that require some understanding of the text. Forward progress can also depend on parsing instructions or clues that NPCs give you. None of which is to say that you cannot play a game in a language that isn't your own, only that it's a pretty tough ask considering the written Japanese language has zero commonality with English.
Somewhat offtopic (but in line with the above):
Some years ago I accidentally bought a French-language version of a Link to the Past. Despite being pretty text-heavy it wasn't too difficult to decipher and play through it.
Somewhat offtopic (but in line with the above):
Some years ago I accidentally bought a French-language version of a Link to the Past. Despite being pretty text-heavy it wasn't too difficult to decipher and play through it.
I've done it with a few games before:
Soma Bringer: This one wasn't too bad once you had everything figured out. The plot's nothing special anyways, but it plays pretty easily enough, so you can figure out what's going on with the battle system easily.
Phantasy Star 0: I'm still kinda amazed I got through this one. Basically went into this one blind and figured out how a lot of stuff worked through trial-and-error. After a while, I just kinda knew what everything did even I didn't totally know what it was exactly.
Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut: This one was half-and-half; I had actually was using a Translation Wiki on this one since I kinda wanted to follow along with the story and all. Was an awesome game though.
Soma Bringer: This one wasn't too bad once you had everything figured out. The plot's nothing special anyways, but it plays pretty easily enough, so you can figure out what's going on with the battle system easily.
Phantasy Star 0: I'm still kinda amazed I got through this one. Basically went into this one blind and figured out how a lot of stuff worked through trial-and-error. After a while, I just kinda knew what everything did even I didn't totally know what it was exactly.
Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut: This one was half-and-half; I had actually was using a Translation Wiki on this one since I kinda wanted to follow along with the story and all. Was an awesome game though.
Well, fruit juice is 果汁, literally fruit nectar.
But ジュース is a pretty common word in Japan.
Even for Mikan, which is the traditional mandarin orange, you generally see ミカンジュース.
When I looked up ミカン汁 I got a random artist so...
The lucky thing about romantic languages is that there are lots of cognates, so it's a little easier to parse. Although there are tons of false positives. But at least you can read the letters!
Also earlier Zeldas are pretty light on text. LttP is great.
Precisely. Unlike Japanese, if all else fails you can always enter the characters into Google Translate and get some approximation of what is written.
I actually feel the dialogue in Trails/Kiseki is pretty reasonable. With a few exceptions (made-up or complex terms, a few characters with somewhat flowery dialogue) most of the text seemed like standard stuff. 
That aside, most games that have kids or teenagers as a part of the target demographic are usually a little easier to get through. They tend to make it easy for words to be looked up in a dictionary, or simply avoid particularly complex dialogue or words altogether when they can. They also put in pictures and stuff nowadays as the OP showed. Knowing a reasonable collection of word, not just Katakana, would also help a lot. Even if you can't necessarily put things together into a sentence, taking advantage of your natural ability to pick out words you know to make a safer prediction of what is being said doesn't really hurt. Doing that alone can make say, Dragon Quest, much easier.
I do think playing a Japanese game can be more enjoyable if you try to learn some words, grammar, cultural references, etc. as you play though, instead of trying to ignore it all and kinda fudge your way through. The other alternative of taking up the somewhat nebulous task of learning the language then playing games also doesn't really come across as effective imo. But that's more of my personal experience as someone who enjoys learning this kind of stuff with and without games, and you need a decent foundation to work with before you can effectively do that.
That aside, most games that have kids or teenagers as a part of the target demographic are usually a little easier to get through. They tend to make it easy for words to be looked up in a dictionary, or simply avoid particularly complex dialogue or words altogether when they can. They also put in pictures and stuff nowadays as the OP showed. Knowing a reasonable collection of word, not just Katakana, would also help a lot. Even if you can't necessarily put things together into a sentence, taking advantage of your natural ability to pick out words you know to make a safer prediction of what is being said doesn't really hurt. Doing that alone can make say, Dragon Quest, much easier.
I do think playing a Japanese game can be more enjoyable if you try to learn some words, grammar, cultural references, etc. as you play though, instead of trying to ignore it all and kinda fudge your way through. The other alternative of taking up the somewhat nebulous task of learning the language then playing games also doesn't really come across as effective imo. But that's more of my personal experience as someone who enjoys learning this kind of stuff with and without games, and you need a decent foundation to work with before you can effectively do that.
Sanasanasan
Member
Wow, I basically did the exact same thing, used the basic tokugis for the entire game because I didn't even know ougis existed until my second run. Decided to step up my Japanese afterwards, though I'm still not all that great even after all this time.
I recently played through Shining Force Feather with only a guide for the menus. I basically had to take an educated guess what was going on in the story(TLDR: Anime happened), but the battle system was so fun I didn't care. I mean seriously, check out these battle animations!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuL_Wre5CNs
Thinking about this game makes me happy I didn't care about SEGA not localizing it, and then sad that Flight Plan closed (Though I guess there's still Summon night 5).
Thinking about this game makes me happy I didn't care about SEGA not localizing it, and then sad that Flight Plan closed (Though I guess there's still Summon night 5).
NoKisum
Member
I actually attempted this not too long ago with SRT Endless Frontier Exceed, since I loved the first one so much, but Bandai Namco wanted to be dicks and not bring the second. But once I recruited Xiaomu, I got lost and felt it was overall cumbersome to keep a guide around, considering I was reading the guide more than playing the game at that point.
ThreePiMatt
Member
I got a Japanese copy of Chrono Trigger sitting around here which would probably be pretty easy for me. For one, I've been learning Japanese for the past year and a half, and two, I've played through Chrono Trigger so many times I don't need to read any of the text.
I was probably gonna pick up a few more games when I go to Japan in October, so I'll have to grab something I don't know quite as well.
I was probably gonna pick up a few more games when I go to Japan in October, so I'll have to grab something I don't know quite as well.
Sakura
Member
I can understand people playing fighters or hack and slash or whatever in Japanese without being able to understand it, but RPGs? Never understood that one.
Like yea the story in the average RPG isn't that great, but... neither is the gameplay. So I don't think it's particularly worth it if you can't understand it.
Like yea the story in the average RPG isn't that great, but... neither is the gameplay. So I don't think it's particularly worth it if you can't understand it.
cj_iwakura
Member
I finished Soul Hackers(with the help of an LP) and The Silver Case(with a tiny FAQ) in Japanese.
Got somewhat far in SMT Devil Summoner(1), but boy is it frustrating.
Got somewhat far in SMT Devil Summoner(1), but boy is it frustrating.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I don't mind playing something like a musou or fighter in Japanese. But an RPG? That just sounds terrible to me. I'm glad someone is enjoying it, but I can't see myself ever doing that.
Yeah pretty much what Sakura said. Most JRPGs don't actually have gameplay pure enough to keep me interested just for the sake of the gameplay...I can't think of many.
I already did this twice in my life with Bomberman Wars (saturn srpg) and .hack//Link (psp arpg)!
Why not use it? Aside from the bugginess anyway.
You only get 2 skills per form. They upgrade as ya rank up but the animations are the same and should both be on the skill trigger by default. Like other games in the series there are scrolls you can find/buy which do different spells. They have orange icons in your item menu.
There's also tons of callbacks, fanservice, lil details to spot!
Yup. I'll basically miss out on everything except the combat.
Coffee Dog
Banned
yeah, uh, if they put a story in the game that is anywhere above barebones, I'm going to assume they want me to read it.