I’ve been slowly understanding parts of the lyrics to エアーマンが倒せない. Just at the start of the song they use this sentence:
気が付いたら同じ面ばかりプレイそしていつも同じ場所で死ぬ
I don’t usually read the English subtitles, but it’s translated to “I’ve noticed that when I play, around the same spot, that I always die at the same spot.” I’m sure this is a good translation, but I can’t fully understand the words and grammatical structure in Japanese.
I’ll start with the parts I do understand:
そしていつも同じ場所で死ぬ “And I always die at the same place”
気が付いた “I realized”
I think I’ve heard that たら is a conditional and I haven’t fully learned it so I’ve cut the ら off of the above phrase.
The first thing I don’t understand is this sequence of nothing but nouns:
同じ面ばかりプレイ
My interpretation is “play of nothing but the same [videogame] stage”. Play isn’t a verb here, so that’s part of the confusion. I also don’t fully understand all the uses of ばかり so I might be misinterpreting.
The たら I mentioned above is also confusing. It seems to say “If I realized, then…”
Then there’s そして. My understanding is that そして is an “and” that connects two phrases that work together well, such as “It’s cold and it’s windy” as opposed to ones that don’t go together such as “It’s cold but it’s pretty.” In this song, そして seems to mean “therefore” rather than “and”, is this interpretation correct?
My literal interpretation of the phrase with my current lack of knowledge would be:
“If I realized then just the same stage play and I always die at the same place.”
I personally dislike using song lyrics to learn Japanese, because they don’t have to follow any rules, since… they’re song lyrics. But to each their own.
同じ面ばかりプレイ is indeed “play nothing but the same level” or something to that effect, and obviously there’s an implied する to go along with play. But in lyrics or headlines or signs, you don’t have to use verbs if people understand what the verb would be.
Basic translation:
気が付いたら同じ面ばかりプレイ
When I came to realize it,* I’ve been playing nothing but the same level.
*This is really clunky in English but it’s closer to the natural Japanese meaning
そしていつも同じ場所で死ぬ
And I always die at the same place.
Your questions:
気が付いたら -
気が付く means to realize/to notice/to become aware of
たら has more than one meaning depending on context, and it means ‘when’ here, not ‘if’. When たらis used with 気が付くit very often means ‘when.’
They come together to mean something along the lines of “when I came to realize” - it’s like the moment you noticed something.
同じ面ばかりプレイ -
同じ面 does mean same level/stage in this context
ばかり is another word that takes on a number of meanings depending on context. Here it’s ‘nothing but’ or ‘constantly’. It’s possible to infer this from context here because it’s preceded by “same stage”, indicating repetition. In other contexts it can mean “just” (like something has just begun - 始まったばかり), or ‘approximately’ (like having approximately some amount of something - １０００円ばかり持っている)
プレイ is actually being used as a verb here - play isn’t being used as ‘a play’ but ‘to play’, describing the action of playing a stage, which would be written プレイしてる - but it’s typical for Japanese to abbreviate when the meaning is obvious and so they removed the unnecessary してる. They also likely chose to abbreviate because it fits in with the song better.
そして -
You’re right that it’s similar to a ‘therefore’ in this context. It’s like starting a sentence with ‘And’ in English.
You have そしていつも同じ場所で死ぬ right so I’m not going to break it down.
Hope this helps. Please let me know if I can clarify anything.