Japanese Gaming Thread

[Belerith]

Imo P4 much more lighthearted in atmosphere, though it does of course get dark from time to time. Definitely more ‘kids out to solve a mystery’ kind of vibes than the solemn, organized world saver thing P3 had going. The golden remake has even more feel-good shenanigans than the original - definitely recommend you just get P4G if you haven’t played either yet, since you get a ton of added content without losing anything. (Unless you’re averse to ‘filler’ scenes that don’t add directly to the main quest. )

@WeebPotato

However, I am not super keen on Reload, because some social interactions were changed.

Huh, I hadn’t heard about that… I do try not too spoiler myself. Having played both P3Fes and P3P, are we talking about a similar degree of change as what the FemC got?

[WeebPotato]

@Belerith

Definitely more ‘kids out to solve a mystery’ kind of vibes than the solemn, organized world saver thing P3 had going.

Yeah, P3P feels quite organized, especially when it comes to the whole Tartaros exploration. Interestingly, the in-game guides and help texts seem a little intrusive to me and take away from just plain old-school immersion when one had to figure things out themselves.

@Belerith

definitely recommend you just get P4G if you haven’t played either yet

I got it when buying P3P for the Switch .

@Belerith

Huh, I hadn’t heard about that… I do try not too spoiler myself. Having played both P3Fes and P3P, are we talking about a similar degree of change as what the FemC got?

I haven’t played as the female MC in P3P, actually. But the changes in Reload seem like someone might’ve deemed some of the dialogues and interactions too sensitive? That would be my take seeing what kind of things were changed.

[M4tthi4s91]

Yeah, I know that the language is not “that bad”, but the sheer volume of text is just too much for me right now.

[M4tthi4s91]

Thanks Maya, I can totally relate (I didn’t even bother looking anything up).

[Remun]

GAME: なつものがたり -ステージ型なぞ解きストーリー
PLATFORM: Android - Playstore
PRICE: Free
GENRE: visual novel
LEVEL: N4+ or N3+
REVIEW:

This game is a little bit on the shorter length.
But it has logs, really cute drawings and very calming soundtrack. And easy to understand sentences. Could easily finish the game in a day. I love it.

[NeonRabies]

I think the remastered version of Final Fantasy VIII on Steam has a Japanese language option but I can confirm that the regular non-remastered version does not have that option.

[simboubou]

I hope the next Zelda game will have japanese text easily available. Looking forward to it.

[ShakeYourRump]

I recently played through Let’s Go Pikachu in English. I enjoyed it so much, that I picked up a Japanese Let’s Go Eevee bundle with the Pokeball Plus.

I’m playing it in kana mode. I tried kanji mode, but I only understand maybe half of the kanji, and kanji are far more difficult to look up in a dictionary than kana. It is much easier to read kanji mode when I actually know the kanji, through! Kana mode isn’t bad. I do have some instances when I look up a word only to realize that I already know the word, and would have recognized it immediately if written in kanji.

It’s slow going, but I don’t mind. It’s fun to work my way through it in Japanese and to see the differences in dialogue and such. I have a notebook that I write down words I suspect I will see often.

Note to anyone interested in playing Pokemon games in Japanese. All Switch Pokemon games are identical regardless of region. You simply select the language when you begin the game. You don’t even need to set your system language to Japanese.

[Akashelia]

@ShakeYourRump

Note to anyone interested in playing Pokemon games in Japanese. All Switch Pokemon games are identical regardless of region. You simply select the language when you begin the game. You don’t even need to set your system language to Japanese.

Yeah that’s awesome, took me a while to figure it out actually I kept trying to start the game I had saved with the console in Japanese and thought it wasn’t possible. Turns out that once you start a game in a language for a user, you can’t switch to another language. (but you can make a new user and a new game for that user)

[Saimin]

Time to revive the thread!
Just finished Chrono Trigger in ~37 hours, original Japanese SNES / Super Famicom version.

Overall I enjoyed it, and added 120 new words to my vocabulary cards (Anki).
There was just one occasional minor issue, some lines for some reason don’t use kanji where they should/would be used, which makes it actually harder to read sometimes when you would know the kanji.

(does anyone know what the ぬうめ in イタズラ好きのヌウめ means?)
But this doesn’t happen that often, there are a lot of kanji in the game.

edit: just found a better example in the other gaming thread:

@simias

この先準備中さ。

(earlier that thread focused a lot on non-Japanese gaming, which is why I like this thread, but blimey, I’m skimming the last 2000 posts or so there, and I’ve missed a lot of great Japanese gaming discussion. If I had known there was a Trails in the Sky book club…)

It’s also good practice for pixelated fonts, haha. Sometimes there isn’t enough space/pixels for the kanji, so a 目 element gets shortened to 日.

This is now the 6th game I’ve completed in Japanese, and I start to feel my reading speed pick up and the frequency of having to look up words go down, which is very rewarding. (I failed N2 narrowly, passed N3, looking to repeat N2 this year - my reading speed was too slow)

Games I completed in Japanese, in chronological order:
Grandia 2; 302 new words
Final Fantasy 7; 299 new words
Final Fantasy 7 remake (dual subs JP + EN); 5 new words (enjoyed both versions of FF7)
Tokimeki Memorial; 25 new words
Persona 4; 582 new words
Chrono Trigger; 120 new words

(I’ve started but not completed a couple others, like Boku no Natsuyasumi, Xenoblade and Ys 8. Couple hundred more words.)

I guess I should play more games with real world settings like Persona. Though I also learn a lot from others, it’s not all fantasy/shounen talk.

For the next game, I’m thinking about Persona 5 Royal, Ace Attorney, 428 Shibuya Scramble, Final Fantasy 6, Etrian Odyssey, or Xenogears (and I should finish Ys 8). I was just a bit disappointed with the combat and overarching story in Persona 3 and 4. But the highschool and social stuff is great.

[TobiasW]

I’m positively surprised I can almost read that whole screenshot completely.

@Saimin

(does anyone know what the ぬうめ in イタズラ好きのヌウめ means?)

I assume ヌウ is a name.

I also didn’t know what the め was, but as so often, ChatGPT could point me to what it thinks it means (“め = A derogatory or teasing suffix that expresses contempt, scorn, or familiarity (similar to “you little…!” in English)”), and then I can use that knowledge to find a proper source: 「め」 is a suffix of contempt when attached to a noun or another person’s name.

[Saimin]

Ah, I had the vague intuition that it was a derogatory thing from the contexts I encountered it, makes sense, thanks!
And yes, Nuu is the name of a character I forgot to remember, haha.

Anyone else playing or have played anything in Japanese?
(I’ve now realized the other gaming thread is also now about playing in Japanese mostly, almost finished reading up on posts)

[simias]

Yeah め is a derogatory suffix, we discussed it in a different RPG thread:

@RebBlue

@simias

What I don’t get is that he says 耳年増め. What is this め doing here?

I found this article, which (summarising) says the め particle means the speaker is annoyed at the person whose name precedes it.

@Saimin

Anyone else playing or have played anything in Japanese?

I did start it but have decided to not finish it yet, mainly because of the aforementioned kanji limitations. I’ve been playing PlayStation JRPGs in the meantime which, owing to the more advanced hardware, usually don’t have this issue or only to a much lesser extent.

[wiersm]

@Saimin

Anyone else playing or have played anything in Japanese?

I played Triangle Strategy in Japanese for a while, but I put that on hold to play other games. I really liked it, though, and it’s really convenient that you can just switch the language in the settings on the title screen. I also played a fair bit of Super Robot Wars T in Japanese, but that’s also on hold because I decided to play SRW V first (which I only own in English).

[Saimin]

Yeah, good games. Triangle Strategy is also on my list.
But I’m kinda thinking about joining the Trails in the Sky book club, I’ve wanted to get into that series for a long time. I’ve just got almost the whole first game to catch up to, haha. But should be doable. And I can still post in each week’s thread, maybe even get some help and continue some discussions.

[wiersm]

Yeah, I’ve never tried Trails. Too much of a commitment

[Saimin]

True, it’s huge. But you could just stop at the original trilogy, or after the following Cold Steel quadrilogy. But I like huge

[RebBlue]

(join us)