Hi there! I'm a bit new to Famicom collecting and don't really know any kanji, so I was just wondering if there were any import-friendly RPGs, especially tactics games / SRPGs. I wouldn't have even thought of this being a possibility normally, but I've been an import Saturn collector for a while and those games have tons of English in them, hell Biohazard (JP Resident Evil) is 100% in English!
I'd also be interested in other suggestions as the only FC game I own right now is Getsu Famuden (which is awesome), and I'm currently trying to hunt down a copy of Akumajou Special - Boku Dracula-Kun (the whole reason I got into Famicom games).
Thanks!
Famicom wars I believe just has manning menus so you just need to memorize each action. It's the granddaddy of the advanced.wars games.
I believe 80sfreak actually has Dracula for the famicom disk system in his sales thread.
Thanks for the reply.
I've been looking at Famicom Wars and it looks really nice, same with the Fire Emblem games.
And I just bought a copy of Akumajou Special from manuel. (Update)
The only one I can think of is Hydlide Special, but that one's just rubbish. :(
Cue AVGN reference: "Hyyydlide... yuck"
I really like Just Breed. It's cheap, it has a custom sound chip with nice music and artwork drawn by the 3x3 eyes mangaka. Like the Fire Emblem games it's not very import-friendly though but not many RPGs or SimRPGs are. I think both Fire Emblem games and Just Breed has fan translations though. Famicom Wars is easy to play since it doesn't have much story but it's a pure strategy/warsim with no RPG features (but it's still great).
If you like dungeon crawler type of RPGs you have the Wizardry I, II and III that has both Japanese and English script. It's still made for Japanese people though so you might have to navigate through some Japanese menus sometimes I think.
For normal RPGs we have the Dragon Quest series (I-IV), Final Fantasy series (I-III) and Mother. I recommend them all if you can find a way to play them and understand them (they are all quite text heavy).
However most non-RPGs/Adventures for Famicom doesn't really require any Japanese knowledge at all.
Does Dragon Slayer IV have Japanese text in it? I think the passwords used were in Japanese but nothing else was.
Thanks for the replies! I'm not interested in translations, as I'm looking for physical copies to start a collection, but I'll keep them in mind if I learn some kanji. So far I think Famicom Wars seems like the best choice for a cheap game that I'll be able to figure out.
You know, life would be simpler for import collectors if they had a game genie like device capable of applying translations to games instead of cheats.
I'm not offering it yet, but I have been thinking about doing a service of putting fan translated roms onto Fami games, especially RPGs. So far, I've done Dragon Quest 4 (using US Dragon Warrior 4,) Mother (Earthbound Zero rom,) and Kid Dracula.
Quote from: GohanX on August 12, 2012, 06:05:30 pm
I'm not offering it yet, but I have been thinking about doing a service of putting fan translated roms onto Fami games, especially RPGs. So far, I've done Dragon Quest 4 (using US Dragon Warrior 4,) Mother (Earthbound Zero rom,) and Kid Dracula.
That's a really cool idea and I'm sure lots of people would be interested! If you ever do, let me know, I'd love to get a copy of Kid Dracula and DQ4!
Cool! Just Breed is MMC5 though if that matters.
But if DQ4 is just DW4 then you can just get DW4 and a 72-60 adapter, no need to make a Famicom repro of it. On the other hand DW III and DW IV has quite good translations (better than DW I and II anyway) and I understand the coolness of having a Famicom cart of it.
And hack3rcmv if you ever learn more Japanese, Famicom RPGs are perfect because they don't contain so much text as modern games does. The only problem is that kanji is almost never used because of the low resolution. Just Breed has a very nice and big font with kanji though.
Quote from: P on August 13, 2012, 02:29:35 am
Cool! Just Breed is MMC5 though if that matters.
But if DQ4 is just DW4 then you can just get DW4 and a 72-60 adapter, no need to make a Famicom repro of it. On the other hand DW III and DW IV has quite good translations (better than DW I and II anyway) and I understand the coolness of having a Famicom cart of it.
And hack3rcmv if you ever learn more Japanese, Famicom RPGs are perfect because they don't contain so much text as modern games does. The only problem is that kanji is almost never used because of the low resolution. Just Breed has a very nice and big font with kanji though.
I figured that it would be simple, it should serve as a nice introduction to the language I would think. Thanks for the additional info as well, I'll probably hunt down a copy of Just Breed now :3
You have bad news? Well then spit it out or it won't be of any use.
Quote from: 80sFREAK on August 13, 2012, 03:00:51 am
Anything else MMC5 based?
Among the games mentioned? No I don't think so. Lagrange Point and Madara also have custom soundchips I think.
Quote from: hack3rcmv on August 13, 2012, 02:48:22 am
I figured that it would be simple, it should serve as a nice introduction to the language I would think. Thanks for the additional info as well, I'll probably hunt down a copy of Just Breed now :3
I'm not sure if it's good at an introductionary level. It's just that since the text is less it takes less time to play the game even if you have to lookup every word. You need to know some Japanese grammar or you'll not understand any sentences. But if you know some kanji and can look them up you can at least look up all words in the menus in for example Famicom Wars and write it down on a note. A good tip is to learn proper stroke order from start then it will be much easier to lookup kanji you've never seen before even if you don't know the radicals. It will also be easier to read what you write later on. Learning radicals is also important IMHO.
Quote from: P on August 13, 2012, 03:27:10 am
You have bad news? Well then spit it out or it won't be of any use.
Quote from: 80sFREAK on August 13, 2012, 03:00:51 am
Anything else MMC5 based?
Among the games mentioned? No I don't think so. Lagrange Point and Madara also have custom soundchips I think.
Quote from: hack3rcmv on August 13, 2012, 02:48:22 am
I figured that it would be simple, it should serve as a nice introduction to the language I would think. Thanks for the additional info as well, I'll probably hunt down a copy of Just Breed now :3
I'm not sure if it's good at an introductionary level. It's just that since the text is less it takes less time to play the game even if you have to lookup every word. You need to know some Japanese grammar or you'll not understand any sentences. But if you know some kanji and can look them up you can at least look up all words in the menus in for example Famicom Wars and write it down on a note. A good tip is to learn proper stroke order from start then it will be much easier to lookup kanji you've never seen before even if you don't know the radicals. It will also be easier to read what you write later on. Learning radicals is also important IMHO.
Thanks for the advice. I took Mandarin for two years, is the stroke order the same?
Oh wow two years of Mandarin then you shouldn't have much trouble learning kanji! Yeah the stroke order is pretty much the same but there are some small exceptions here and there. For example 右 and 有 have a special stroke order in Japanese. Both have the upper vertical line drawn before the upper horizontal line while in Chinese they are drawn like you expect them to (左 however is drawn like normal in Japanese too). I also noticed that sometimes some kanji have one more or less strokes then it has in (traditional) Chinese. So there are some small differences but it probably won't be a problem when you are reading.
What you can do if you can't find a kanji with radical lookup or by drawing lookup on an electronic dictionary is to look it up in a Chinese online dictionary and then copy & paste it to a Japanese online dictionary like jisho.org, it usually works.
Edit: You can start by learning hiragana and katakana if you don't know them already, it should be a breeze for you. It can be learned in your free time in two weeks or so if you spend a few minutes on for example http://www.realkana.com/ every day.
Quote from: P on August 13, 2012, 02:36:16 pm
Oh wow two years of Mandarin then you shouldn't have much trouble learning kanji! Yeah the stroke order is pretty much the same but there are some small exceptions here and there. For example 右 and 有 have a special stroke order in Japanese. Both have the upper vertical line drawn before the upper horizontal line while in Chinese they are drawn like you expect them to (左 however is drawn like normal in Japanese too). I also noticed that sometimes some kanji have one more or less strokes then it has in (traditional) Chinese. So there are some small differences but it probably won't be a problem when you are reading.
What you can do if you can't find a kanji with radical lookup or by drawing lookup on an electronic dictionary is to look it up in a Chinese online dictionary and then copy & paste it to a Japanese online dictionary like jisho.org, it usually works.
Edit: You can start by learning hiragana and katakana if you don't know them already, it should be a breeze for you. It can be learned in your free time in two weeks or so if you spend a few minutes on for example http://www.realkana.com/ every day.
Awesome, so the stroke order is very similar, that will be a lot of help. The website you linked to is great, I would have never found that, thanks! I already have ten hiragana characters memorized after about 5 minutes! :)
Good job! :) Continue to do that every day and you'll recognize all of them very soon. Then you can start reading Japanese words you encounter here and there just for practising reading. Famicom games have lots of kana you can practice on even if you don't understand anything. Heck you can even look up words in menus and such when you can read them (full sentences is another question though). As soon as you have learned kana you should avoid romaji at all cost. For example avoid dictionaries with romaji (romaji-input on computers are perfectly OK though, it's even used by the Japanese). It's slow in the beginning but you will be thankful you did later on. I know someone who always wrote down glossary and even full texts in romaji even after several years of study and he had some real trouble reading kana, especially katakana. It can be compared to always using pinyin when reading and writing Chinese.
You could also try practicing to write kana on a paper (stroke order can easily be found online). The stroke order rules are the same as for kanji and I think the only exception is も (mo). It has the vertical line drawn first.