VGMaps

General Boards => Map Requests => Topic started by: Tropicon on July 20, 2009, 02:25:53 pm

Title: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 20, 2009, 02:25:53 pm
Posted this request all around the net and still no definitive answers. I'm stuck as far as the requests go at my site because I just can't play the Japanese games people want maps for. None of my help wanted ads have gotten anything so far. Does anybody wanna help? You get to join vgmapper if it means anything. Anybody like doing collabs?



Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 20, 2009, 03:11:01 pm
I know a bit of Japanese, nowhere near fluency (still working on that), but I can navigate my way through a Japanese game and more or less get the gist of what's going on. I think I would be interested, but right now I'm rather busy with preparing for art shows and making sure I pass my summer course, so something like this would pushed off to the side for the moment.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Will on July 20, 2009, 03:15:27 pm
I know only tiniest bits of Japanese like this:



Senshi - Soldier

Sensei - Teacher

Senbei - King

Yoshi - Love



Unfortunately I cannot read Japanese symbols. I myself had trouble in playing the SNES game Arabian Nights, because I had to make do with the Japanese in it. If you're lucky you might find the roms dubbed by fans. For instance there is a translated rom of the SNES game "Dragon Ball Z: Super Gokuuden Kakusei Hen (J)". I wish I could assist you more, but the langauge is beyond my knowledge. I cannot read any runes apart from Hieroglyphics (just a hobby to read them, nothing special or useful). Good luck.

Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: DarkWolf on July 20, 2009, 03:40:10 pm
I don't know any Japanese other than a few vocabulary words and once again that's verbal, not in kanji/kana form.  Thus my Japanese gaming experiences have been limited to games that aren't heavy on text.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: JonLeung on July 20, 2009, 05:00:36 pm
...anime, bo, dojo, ecchi, gi, Gojira, Hadoken, hara-kiri, hentai, karate, katana, kawaii, konninchiwa, manga, ninja, ninjustu, nunchaku, otaku, ramen, sai, samurai, sashimi, sensei, seppuku, Shoryuken, sushi, tsunami, wasabi...
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Revned on July 20, 2009, 05:20:17 pm
We actually had Japanese class in my suburban Colorado elementary school, strangely. We never learned much past numbers and greetings.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 20, 2009, 07:56:17 pm
Some of the projects are massive.  Others not so much.  Some of the requests are full blown world maps, these things take a lot of in-depth research and cataloging.  Another person just wants passwords for a mahjong game.  I could do most of the heavy lifting map wise, I just need someone to break through the language barrier.



FlyingArmor, you wanna give it a shot?  You can take it real easy, there's no rush.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 20, 2009, 08:22:34 pm
Yeah, might as well. This would be a great way to practicing my reading skills, if for no other reason. :)
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 20, 2009, 09:42:31 pm
GREAT!!  I'll start us out with something real easy.  An old request for instructions on how to get through the sixth level of this game:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/home/944697.html



I can't get off the first level.  I think it has something to do with a trading game.

The first step is just to get to level 6.  Give it a look, tell me what you think.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: snesmaster on July 20, 2009, 10:28:37 pm
Back in the day I fell in love with Final Fantasy II (IV) on the SNES.  I wanted more, but there were no more Final Fantasy games on the SNES at that time.  I was so desperate, I bought the Japanese Final Fantasy V.  I did not know any Japanese, but I was able to make it all the way through the game.  It took around 200 hours.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: JonLeung on July 21, 2009, 07:00:26 am
Back in the NES days my dad borrowed four Famicom games from a friend who lived in Vancouver or something.  These included a Japanese version of Blaster Master (with a vastly different title and opening sequence), a game me and my brother somehow jokingly referred to as "Yummy II" (don't ask - but I'm pretty sure it was a Goemon game), and a couple others.  As there wasn't much to read, we got about as far as we would in other games at the time, English or otherwise.  (EDIT: Come to think of it, I think one of the remaining two was Faxanadu.  I certainly didn't get far in that without understanding Japanese!)



Later, some mall that was very kid-centric opened up in town, but it didn't last very long and has long been a bowling alley.  But at the time it had a store called "Super NTD", which featured a bunch of video games, many of which were Japanese.  Me and my brother played through all of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 3 when we rented it from there.  When we were having trouble with Bowser for whatever reason, one of the store employees gave us some baloney tactic of jumping on Bowser's fireballs to somehow snuff them out to turn them into Bob-Ombs and throw them back at him.  Whatever.  You don't need to know any Japanese to get through SMB3, though.



In the late Super NES days I discovered an import store near West Edmonton Mall called AV Power Square(d).  It was here that I rented games like Kirby Super Star (and finished it a couple times, before renting the American version, before actually buying it and doing it again), Super Bomberman 3-5, some Dragon Ball Z games (before it got stupidly popular in North America), and played a bit of Super Mario 64 long before the N64's North American debut.  I avoided renting Japanese RPGs for the Super Famicom, because of the language barrier, though a friend tried to stumble through Bahamut Lagoon.



I guess I never really needed to know much Japanese, so I guess I'm off-topic...  I guess the game that I played longest in Japanese was two-three weeks' worth of the Japanese Animal Forest (the precursor to Animal Crossing) on the N64.  Who knows what those villagers were saying to me.



EDIT: I don't know how I forgot that I actually got through Pok?mon: Red Version once through Japanese.  That took a bit of work.  I don't think I made a serious effort to "catch them all" until I got the North American version in English, though, especially considering that at the time each Pok?mon didn't have their own unique sprite outside of battle or the Pok?dex.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 21, 2009, 11:35:40 am
Don't get me wrong I've played tons of Jap only games, Bushi Seiryuuden: what Game Freak was doing before Pokemon.  And I've played the Jap versions of all my favorite games.  But now I have to collect real information and I'm not going to just make stuff up.  I need to the real names to towns, items, or people for an accurate map.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: snesmaster on July 21, 2009, 03:48:12 pm
I was lucky when I was writing a FAQ for Seiken Densetsu 3 I was in college and I had a Japanese housemate who was able to give me the actual names of towns and items.  You just need to find a friend from Japan and rent him a room in exchange for translating the games :)
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 21, 2009, 06:14:31 pm
Wally wo Sagase is actually not that bad of a game, once you get into it. :) As I'm playing it, I'm constantly opening and closing my DS when I'm not sure of a word, heheh. But if the stone age area is the first level, it's taking quite some time to get through it. Right now I'm searching for the last ingredient for Nana's stew so Uga, her husband, doesn't go and eat the Wally Watchers he's holding captive for dinner... or that's what I think is going on, haha. :D
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 21, 2009, 09:08:54 pm
I knew it was a trading game.  I still don't get the select screen.  There's the two top boxes and the middle one with the rotating present.  Is the small box on the left the equipped item?
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 21, 2009, 10:49:30 pm
I'm not sure I'd call it trading they're doing... it's more like "Go fetch this item for me! Go find this person! Go get permission first!", that sort of thing.



Too bad I can't post images, otherwise it'd make explaining things so much easier. Oh well.



Starting with the vertical window with the two icons. The first one with the face crying "Help!!" tells you how many Wally Watchers are remaining to be rescued in the level. The second one with the dial is where you can change the sound settings and button controls.



The next window to the right is the current person or item you need to find.



To the right of that are the "equipped" items with which you use during gameplay. What's in it for me right now is the Magic Stick, Gloves, and a Lollipop (which they name "Red Candy").



The long horizontal window with the rotating presents is where the presents for Wenda's birthday party are kept. So far I've got Wenda's favourite flower and a stone axe.



The small window at the bottom with the question mark coming out of a box is where the contents of the presents are shown when you select one.



And lastly the window beside that is where all the written info is displayed.



Hope that makes things a little more clear. :)
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 22, 2009, 01:40:20 pm
Great! And I almost forgot, I've got set up your page at vgmapper.  First of all what do you want to be called and what do you want your icon to be?  I'll see about making a place for you to dump images.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 22, 2009, 08:11:40 pm
The same as I am here: FlyingArmor. And as for the icon, something related to my name would probably be appropriate. :)
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 23, 2009, 12:55:03 pm
OK, it's mostly set up. Send me an email so I can send you your password. My email's on the bottom of the vgmapper.com homepage.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 23, 2009, 09:32:21 pm
I couldn't find your e-mail on VGMapper, so I'll send a PM instead.
Title: RE: Anyone good with Japanese?
Post by: Tropicon on July 24, 2009, 09:05:05 am
Damn, how could I miss something like that.  Anyway I sent you all the info.  Check out your page and try to login.