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[Firestorm ZERO]

Just remember that 消す is erase/delete. My co-worker deleted his Monster Hunter save not knowing that and lost all of his progress.

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

I played both Ni no Kuni DS and Phantasy Star Portable 2: infinity this way.
It takes a longer amount of time to play, what with the menu deciphering, but it's doable. I only knew katakana and hiragana and like 2 Kanji but with the ever-faithful Google Translate by my side I had a great time with both.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Tell me this is not the Dragon Quest MMO we will never play because we are not in Japan.

No, that's Dragon Quest Heroes. Comes out in the US later this year.

 

[Mendrox]

Played through

Kingdom Hearts 2
Final Fantasy 12
Final Fantasy 13 (god damn it)
Dragon Quest Heroes
Jump Victory Vs.
Tales of Zestiria
...more

in japanese. KH2 and FF12 when I was quiet a bit younger (14? 15? when they released, and I am 24 now). I can only recommend to use a walkthrough and to watch animes. If you watch animes in japanese since a few years (in my case 12 years) you will understand bits and bits of the story by just listening. Never had a problem with these games (except for a bit of trial and error here and there).

 

[djtiesto]

When I first got into importing, I beat FF2, 3, 5, SD3, Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean 1 with limited Japanese knowledge. Nowadays I'll wait for a fan translation or actual release, though. Due to too many great RPGs already translated into English that I have to play.

The big series which have limited fan translations that I really want to play are Tengai Makyou and Langrisser.

 

[elhav]

Bad idea, even assuming you are playing the game without giving two shits about the story. Not knowing which option to choose, which character to talk to, how to read stats, item descriptions, or even simple directions will probably turn it into a nightmare. Yeah, and looking at Google translate every 5 seconds does not sound fun in the slightest.

If you want to play games in Japanese, you gonna have to study the language.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Imiwa for iPhone. Best Japanese language resource I have.

 

[staticneuron]

1. Stop caring about the story
This might seem odd to some, but for me the story in most games, even in JRPGs, is boring, unimportant, and borderline useless. The sooner you embrace that, the sooner you can just enjoy games for, you know, the game part.

Lol, That is like saying that people should watch movies and not care about story, pacing or sound quality. Cause the most import of "movies" are the moving pictures. Just enjoy that.

Movies and games are mediums. They are mediums that excel at doing more than one thing. Therefore it makes no sense to ridicule people who appreciate a medium for striving to provide on as many fronts as it can instead of just focusing on one aspect.

But like pointed out before me..

Bad idea, even assuming you are playing the game without giving two shits about the story. Not knowing which option to choose, which character to talk to, how to read stats, item descriptions, or even simple directions will probably turn it into a nightmare. Yeah, and looking at Google translate every 5 seconds does not sound fun in the slightest.

If you want to play games in Japanese, you gonna have to study the language.

I made the horrible mistake of trying this out on a game.... Yakuza Kenzan! I could have probably sat there and tried to figure it out with my limited japanese and learning books but I have no time for that and probably should have tried it when I was in high school or something. I actually had a friend teach himself Japanese by playing an imported version of pokemon.

 

[May16]

Currently playing .Hack//Link on the PSP without the fan translation.
Uh oh...

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).

Yeah that sounds about like //Link to me.

I'm also not really good at the battle system because all I know how to do is juggling into Cross Rengeki.

IIRC there isn't anything except that. It's been years since I played it, though.

The story was the only decent thing about it, to me. =/

 

[KHlover]

It's possible but it's not fun at all. I played through Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix in Japanese (this was long before we got the HD Collection) and while I managed to get by with my previous knowledge of the game and an excellent translation guide made by someone on gamefaq my experience became infinitely more enjoyable when the first translation patch hit.

 

[Arcblast]

I honestly don't see much point in play any RPGs without knowing the language. Well for me at least anyway, since in general the gameplay in RPGs are at best only serviceable so without knowing the story and the dialogues it's hard to keep playing without getting bored.

 

[Spukc]

thanks OP i am going to give it a try
it will feel like a new experience ,

thanks man !

be warned i will ask for help haha

 

[AtomskEater]

I basically did this when I played one of the Danball Senki games. I was learning Japanese at the time but didn't have a good enough grasp on grammar, vocab etc to really understand much of what was going on, even though I stopped to look stuff up often. Still had a grand ol' time.

 

[Aeana]

I basically did this when I played one of the Danball Senki games. I was learning Japanese at the time but didn't have a good enough grasp on grammar, vocab etc to really understand much of what was going on, even though I stopped to look stuff up often. Still had a grand ol' time.

Lesson 1: ダンボール (danbooru) means cardboard; danball is not a word. (._. )

 

[nan0]

Lesson 1: ダンボール (danbooru) means cardboard; danball is not a word. (._. )

As resident JRPG expert, can you recommend some that are easy enough to read/understand for beginners?

 

[Yohane]

I used to play tons of english translated JRPG without knowing english as a kid.

I can attest, it was fun.

 

[Android18a]

I've totally done this.

I beat Pokemon Yellow and Pearl, Final Fantasy 13, Zelda: TWW (close enough to an RPG right?) and Disgaea 3 in Japanese.

Sometimes it's fun to go in blind. I actually found FF13 and Wind Waker were MORE fun when I didn't understand the language. Wind Waker in particular, since it felt a lot less hand-holdy and I actually had to work out where to go and how to solve quests on visual clues.