Helpful Japanese Phrases for Playing Games?

[SirCandle]

Hey, I'm about to get a Famicom and a handful of games for it and it occurred to me that it might be helpful to have a small list of Japanese phrases so that I can navigate the menus and not be stuck on a single screen for an hour.

So if you have anything for navigating menus, working the options, or even general stuff like "Game over" and "Continue," it'd all be very much appreciated!

[UglyJoe]

Bメンヲ　セットシテクダサイ

"Please set side B".  The infamous message at the Zelda FDS title screen that trips up a lot of people

[Retrospectives]

Ask anything. I'm a native Japanese speaker so I can translate anything you want. Due to technical limitations the Famicom doesn't show Kanji (Chinese characters), but rather Kana...Normal platformers, sports, adventure and such games are pretty self explanatory while RPG is a no-go if you are not sufficient enough in the language.

I think that you will have no problems with getting started and getting stuck by a screen for hours isn't really that much of a chance since it's such a primitive system by it's technical rights, but here is a small list that is likely to occur in almost every game. Enjoy:

はい - Yes
いいえ - No
スタート - Start
ゲームオーバー Game over
コンティニュー - Continue
フォワード - Forward
ひだり- Left　
みぎ - Right

By the way, shouldn't this topic be moved to another forum? It's not "Other Gaming" 

[SirCandle]

Thanks for the translations!
But yeah, odds are it should be in something else. I just joined the site so I still have no clue how shit works. How would I move it into another thing? And more importantly, what category would it fit in?

[P]

Well unless you want to strictly talk about Famicom games I think Other Gaming is fine.

One thing that will be very useful to you is to learn kana if you don't know it already. Many thinks it's seems a daunting task at first but with some effort it's actually quite a trivial thing to learn, not too much worse than the western alphabet, and it's definitely easier than memorizing hundreds of words by their pattern only. Many people that don't know Japanese here can still at least read kana. Some games write everything in katakana and some games write everything in hiragana, as long as you can read both this will not be a problem.

Here are some more common words in menus in kanji and kana, if you can read both hiragana and katakana you should be able to spot them anywhere:
セーブ - Save
ロード - Load
パスワード - Password
続き　（つづき） - Continue
終了　（しゅりょう） - End
簡単　（かんたん） - Easy
難しい　（むずかしい） - Hard
メニュー - Menu
オプション - Option
選択　（せんたく） - Choice
設定　（せってい） - Setting
決定　（けってい） - Decision (as used to accept a command in a menu)
キャンセル - Cancel
ファイル - File
コピー - Copy
消す　（けす） - Erase
移動　（いどう） - Move
攻撃　（こうげき） - Attack
待機　（たいき） - Wait (for orders)
アイテム - Item
その他　（そのた） - Other, misc

Many of these written in katakana are just English loanwords, if you know English and can read katakana you will be able to understand many many more words. Also certain kanji might be good to be able to recognize, for example 消 is used in many words related to erasing, so if you see it in a word in a menu, it may be quite safe to assume that it means delete.

[zmaster18]

Every FDS loading screen says "omachi kudasai" which means "please wait".

[famifan]

So if you have anything for navigating menus, working the options, or even general stuff like "Game over" and "Continue," it'd all be very much appreciated!

Still remembering the hard times when i was playing Japanese Pokemon Gold on GBC. Without comprehensive walk-thru guide in English it was impossible for me to beat the game. Memorizing the menus/options is not a big deal though, since these are almost static and you can always construct hand-written cheatsheet out of them.

For the games which heavily rely on the textual dialogs, most of the time you'll be constantly asking yourself the same question like "where the heck do i go and what do i do next?". Thus, totally ruining smooth game experience. Trust me, you do not want this to happen. So please consider any possible way to play the translated version.

[UglyJoe]

So please consider any possible way to play the translated version.

In many cases, when a FC RPG gets a translation patch, someone ends up writing an English walkthrough for it.  I've been able to play a few RPGs in Japanese just by using the guides.  Since, as you say, the menus are static, so it's just a bit of memorization (although knowing kana really helps).  The guides can help you figure out where to go next and all that.  You do miss out on the stories, but Famicom games honestly don't have a lot of that, anyway.

But if there's no walkthrough then, yeah, avoid.

[SirCandle]

Thanks for the tip. But yeah, 90% of the games I want to get for the Famicom aren't text based, I just thought knowing some phrases would be helpful.
Plus, the games that I'd need text for were given a translation patch on the Retron 5, so I'd just use that.

[That Guy from Faxanadu]

I'm a beginner on the Japanese language and this topic is of good help for me. I kind of know how to read katakana & hiragana, the post above  with common game lingo in kanji is just what I've been looking for!

I believe the best way of learning kanji is recognising actual words, not individual symbols. Can I get some more common words? Is there any kanji in words like up, down, forward, back, door, stairs, chest?

[P]

Yes kanji is best learned together with words where they are used in. There are so many kanji that never comes alone that just memorizing the kanji alone, doesn't help with those kanji.

OK here are some more words they may or may not be useful in RPGs and Adventure games:
上　（うえ） - up
下　（した） - down
左　（ひだり） - left
右　（みぎ） - right
北　（きた） - north
南　（みなみ） - south
西　（にし） - west
東　（ひがし） - east
前　（まえ） - front
後　（うしろ） - back
横　（よこ） - side
ドア - door
開く　（あく・ひらく） - open
閉める　（しめる） - close
使う　（つかう） - use
逃げる　（にげる） - run away, escape
会心の一撃　（かいしんのいちげき） - a satisfactory blow (the "critical hit" term in Dragon Quest games)
装備　（そうび） - equip
宝　（たから） - treasure
箱　（はこ） - box
宝箱　（たからばこ） - treasure chest
階段　（かいだん） - stairs
鍵　（かぎ） - key, lock
経験値　（けいけんち）, experience points
ゴルド - gold
お金　（おかね） - money
黄金　（おうごん） - gold
金　（きん） - gold
銀　（ぎん） - silver
武器　（ぶき） - weapon
防具　（ぼうぐ） - defensive equipment
鎧　（よろい） - armour
盾　（たて） - shield
靴　（くつ） - shoes
指輪　（ゆびわ） - (finger) ring
道具　（どうぐ） - tool
剣　（けん・つるぎ） - sword
槍　（やり） - spear
斧　（おの） - axe
弓　（ゆみ） - bow
矢　（や） - arrow
鎖　（くさり） - chain
鎌　（かま） - sickle (farming tool or weapon)
鎖鎌　（くさりがま） - chain-sickle (sickle with a chain used by ninja)
体力　（たいりょく） - stamina, HP
攻撃力　（こうげきりょく） - attack power
防御力　（ぼうぎょりょく） - defence power
魔法 （まほう） - magic
素早さ　（すばやさ） - speed
知恵　（ちえ） - intelligence, wisdom
精霊　（せいれい） - spirit
魂　（たましい） - soul
運　（うん） - luck
冒険　（ぼうけん） - adventure
魔物　（まもの） - monster
妖精　（ようせい） - fairy, elf, sprite, spirit
小人　（こびと） - dwarf (games might write dwarf in katakana though), midget
スライム - slime
骸骨　（がいこつ） - skeleton
龍　（りゅう） - dragon
リカント - lycanthrope
悪霊　（あくりょう） - evil spirit
魔法使い　（まほうつかい） - magic user, magician
戦士　（せんし） - warrior
盗賊　（とうぞく） - thief
海賊　（かいぞく） - pirate
山賊　（さんぞく） - bandit
剣士　（けんし） - swordsman
シスター - nun, sister

[smeghead]

[size=100pt]業[/size]

[That Guy from Faxanadu]

Yes kanji is best learned together with words where they are used in. There are so many kanji that never comes alone that just memorizing the kanji alone, doesn't help with those kanji.

Awesome P! That´s a great list, I´ll study it!