With Pokemon Sword and Shield trickling off of store shelves and into player hands, I expect more than a few of us will play it in Japanese, even if alongside English.
If you have any questions on understanding Japanese in the game, here’s a place you can ask.
*** If posting screenshots, please consider using “Hide details” if it’s a spoiler for later in the game or late-game Pokemon. If the dialogue contains spoilers, “blur spoiler” is your friend. ***
So, how are you planning to play Pokemon Sword/Shield? Here’s a sample of each option (non-spoiler):
If you have a Switch, you can’t go wrong with a modern day Pokemon game. They’re hand-holdy enough that even if you get a bit lost on what’s being said, you can still easily find your way to the next objective.
Due to cost to go all in (Switch + game), I wouldn’t recommend it for just one game (regardless of the title). But if you like playing video games, have considered a Switch, and have a few games in mind you know you would absolutely play (whether in Japanese or another language), it’s worth consideration.
From what I hear, playing through the main story clocks in at under 30 hours (some way under 20 hours). Add a language semi-barrier, and of course that’ll balloon up quite a bit. Overall, the length should be fairly typical for a mainline Pokemon game.
No furigana There’s an option for kanji or no kanji, but no furigana.
I just noticed, in this scene, the kanji version uses 食材 and the hiragana version uses たべもの. It looks like the hiragana version uses simpler words. I considered playing mostly in kanji, just to see what I can read, but I may reconsider.
You can switch between kanji and furigana in the options.
I’m picking up both (they’ll be delivered by the time I get off work) and plan on playing through Shield in Japanese, and Sword in English. Since I know I’m going to be spending time playing them anyway, I figured I may as well throw it in Japanese so I can get some practice out of it as well. Gonna play through in Japanese first, but I’m not going to stop to look up every single word I don’t know (same as when I read books in Japanese), but I am going to try not to skip too much dialogue.
Unfortunately I won’t have much time to play this weekend, so I probably won’t come back to this thread until next week to avoid any spoilers.
I would guess that the younger audience is more likely to opt for hiragana so they decided to make the language a bit simpler? First I’ve heard of script changes like this too.
as a die hard pokemon fan, i’m sorely disappointed in this installment so i wouldnt recommend picking up a switch JUST for Pokemon. Only get a switch if there are other games you intend to play.
I’m going to play Sword first and in English just because Pokemon has always been …English to me, I guess? Since I’ve grown up with it and all. So I know all Pokemon and characters by their English names, not their Japanese ones, and I really don’t care too much to learn the Japanese names (I do know a few though).
I’ll probably play Shield in Japanese after I’m done with Sword though. Maybe hiragana, maybe kanji, we’ll see.
At least Metroid Fusion is the same, the script overall is simpler if you choose the non-kanji version.
Although, they do label the options as “for children (hiragana)” and “for adults (with kanji)”, so it doesn’t necessarily imply that kanji/no kanji is the only difference.
Played for about an hour and a half. Interesting to see some “difficult” kanji in there, like 柵 (Kanken level 2, not a WaniKani kanji). But to be fair, any kid would have encountered this at places like zoos, on signs telling you not to climb fences and whatnot.
It’s fine so far. As indicated above, I’m not a huge Pokemon fan or anything. It’s kind of what I expected. We’ll see how it goes as the options for which Pokemon to use increase.
Yeah, that’s why I asked, haha.
I haven’t really played since white and that’s just a passing memory, same with platinum, so I’m not really up to date with that.
There’s more than one game I’d like to play. But since my reading is still poor I think I may wait. I still haven’t gotten to play Sun and Moon, maybe I’ll start there for language practice now that my kanji’s improving.
The whole spaces-between-words thing takes some getting used to. You see that and you think everything will be easy content, but then there are words like 肝心. And then 出会う is written in hiragana. I guess maybe it’s a “balance” thing. If the sentence already has a lot of kanji, they might opt for hiragana in even simple words. Maybe.
I like that I’m still learning some new expressions and words though.
I noticed this as well. There’s a lot of not-kanji in the kanji mode. I do appreciate the spacing, although I’m at a reading level where it’s not needed. I feel like I’m able to read and understand a little faster because I’m not being mentally taxed by (unconscious) parsing.
There’s an option for kanji or no kanji, but no furigana.
