Japanese Import Games for Non-native speakers

[Z1MZUM]

Learning to speak and understand spoken Japanese is a thousand times easier than learning to read and write authentic Japanese script (i do not mean that romaji nonsense).

 

You can to a point pick up basic (often slang) spoken Japanese from video games, but this will get you nowhere in the real world, but for video gaming purposes it is enough for some people.

 

Oh I totally agree, Without help from my neighbors I'd be screwed. I guess things just came together with those 2 Saturn games in my youth and their help. That feeling of holy crap, I've just learned something was my experience kind of like Bart Simpson at the French Vineyard learning French. I learned enough to get through my interests .

[JapanimeGamer]

Really nice to hear that you have got Yakuza I and II... you can probably see them at 0% in my profile as I need to start those.

Edited September 1, 2016 by JapanimeGamer

[Z1MZUM]

^ In all honesty I've never seen a remake as beautiful as Kiwami. I started playing after a few nights on Zero just to try it out and couldn't put it down. I mean Zero is amazing in every sense of the word and late 80's Kiryu is a blast but the opening video with the name Yumi engraved in the ring switched me to Kiwami immediately. Now I'm %100 positive that your JP skills would blow me out of the water, really shouldn't hold back on this title. Damn it, now I want to finish Zero, but too many games!

[JapanimeGamer]

I would never assume more knowledge than anyone else, I can't recall a single moment when I considered my English 'better' than anyone else's... and so it is in Japanese. As long as we can all talk and for the most part understand each other and have fun that is all that counts.

 

Language should not be a barrier, it should be a bridge.

 

Are you a fan of Shenmue too?

 

I believe we are close (within the next 6 months) to hearing from SEGA about the re-masters of I and II, and I will probably faint when this happens lol.

Edited September 1, 2016 by JapanimeGamer

[Z1MZUM]

I would never assume more knowledge than anyone else, I can't recall a single moment when I considered my English 'better' than anyone else's... and so it is in Japanese. As long as we can all talk and for the most part understand each other and have fun that is all that counts.

 

Language should not be a barrier, it should be a bridge.

 

Are you a fan of Shenmue too?

 

I believe we are close (within the next 6 months) to hearing from SEGA about the re-masters of I and II, and I will probably faint when this happens lol.

 

Yes I love the Shenmue games, I still have the 1st release . It comes with a tech disc with a "Making of" doco which roughly translates to "Eyes Wide Open". It also has a blue envelope with anime cels though I've never been able to work out what they are from. The 2nd shenmue I have the Pal Eu release and the XB release, both are regular releases. I play both at least once a year and always find something new, or maybe forgot   And yeah I'd probably need an ambulance if these remakes come true. Kiwami wouldn't have been an easy remake so just maybe we'll see the shenmues.

 

Op, sorry to hijack but it's kinda relevant. Out of the 5 physical vita games I own 3 are Japanese and one of these is in English/Jp, it's silent hill book of memories. There may be Asia releases in English but I haven't really looked, I will now though.

[JapanimeGamer]

Out of the 5 physical vita games I own 3 are Japanese

 

That is quite bizarre.

 

I too own 5 physical Vita games and of those 3 are Japanese.

Edited September 2, 2016 by JapanimeGamer

[Z1MZUM]

That is Bizarre, but I will soon have more from Osaka. I have 1 day there in October though this time I can carry as much as I want. I don't know if anyone here has been to Hard Off or Book Off but it's the cheapest way to buy games in Japan. I'm sure I'll get a tonne of Vita games without language barrier fears and make sure to comment back on this thread as to which games have an English option.

[Ty4ed]

You could try some Japanese 2D fighting games like Dengeki Bunko fighting climax. These games have stories for each character which you could try reading but they are not essential to finishing or enjoying the game.

[Kuei-mu]

Hi guys, sorry for reactivating an old topic, Google found it for me ;).

Is there a chance to see if a game in PS Store has furigana in it? Are all A rated games have it? 

I'm learning Japanese, l'm around N4 level. I need new motivation to read more in Japanese.

[Theladozz]

1 hour ago, Kuei-mu said:

Hi guys, sorry for reactivating an old topic, Google found it for me ;).

Is there a chance to see if a game in PS Store has furigana in it? Are all A rated games have it? 

I'm learning Japanese, l'm around N4 level. I need new motivation to read more in Japanese.

I highly doubt it. You can probably count the amount of games that have furigana on one hand.

The motivation to read more is what? Trophies? The games themselves? If it's not important to be on PS you're much better off playing on PC. There you have a fairly good chance to be able to extract the scenario scripts from the game data (at least for visual novels) which you can open in a browser and use an extension like Rikaichamp for mouseover translating. Ofc this also applies if the game is on both PS & PC.

If it sounds like a hassle then you probably shouldn't bother because you will have to hit up the dictionary for every other word ?.