What PCE games would you like to see translated?

[Arkhan]

I'm glad for what we got, but if we all just sit and hope for translations, theres a bajillion games we will all miss out on. 

Fumbling through games with no concept of the story doesn't count as playing the game as far as I'm concerned.  I can't imagine Lunar being any good if it wasn't in English.  If all we had was the Japanese one, I'd be like "uhhhh".

Most RPGs from the 8/16 bit era can be played with a dictionary and a chart.  The katakana/hiragana comes pretty easy after awhile (its just a new alphabet!) .

The kanji is the hard part.  You can look them up in a 30$ dictionary though, and manage to get things out of the game!

Only downside: None of this helps the spoken word, so cutscenes are still a bit of a loss. :-/

[spenoza]

Translating on the fly is such slow going. I had studied Japanese for several years and took a dictionary to Grandia on the Saturn, and I just didn't have the patience for it. It was taking too much effort to get at the story. Most games don't have valuable enough content to be worth the effort. Games should be about putting effort into the gameplay, not into simply trying to read what's going on on-screen.

Besides, translations efforts are as much about what the translators themselves want to be doing with their time as anything else. In a few rare cases it motivates a whole community to action (see the translation efforts for the various chapters of Shining Force III for the Saturn).

So you have to wait, so what. There are so many good games out there it's not like there's a lack of stuff to play in the meanwhile.

[Arkhan]

There are games that will never be translated, and thus missed out on.

Plus with roleplaying games, its not like the gameplay is very engaging.  You click on menus and walk around. The story is the important part.

[SamIAm]

If you want LoX2 any faster, I suggest you email Esperknight and offer him sexual favors.

[nodtveidt]

How about money?

[Arkhan]

favors sound easier.

[Necromancer]

There are games that will never be translated, and thus missed out on.

Who said that they won't play a game until it's been translated?

Plus with roleplaying games, its not like the gameplay is very engaging.  You click on menus and walk around. The story is the important part.

And most of the story can be picked up from what happens in the cinemas.  Besides, story lines and dialog are so cliched that whatever I dream up in my head is likely funnier and doubtless much more filthy.

[Arkhan]

I dunno, I feel that if you aren't reading the dialog, you're kind of missing out, lol.  Playing it doesn't mean you're getting it, I guess.

Playing it and completing it without getting anything out of it is kind of meh to me.  The cinemas only go so far.  And you miss out on seeing what all the villagers say. 

Im one of those people that talks to everyone in the game.

[BigusSchmuck]

But you do after a while figure out what symbol means by trial and error, however it doesn't mean you are going to understand it any better. Shoot, back in the day I tried my hand in translating using Mario Paint(there is a kanji alphabet mind you) to ultimately find out that the symbols don't necessary equate to English letters.

[Arkhan]

No kidding, lol.

Katakana (angular)is used to sound out foreign words as best as possible.  If you see Katakana, try speaking them out like Mr. Miyagi to figure out what they mean.

Insanity did this:  I n sa ni chi  = Insanity.  Kinda.  See?

Hiragana (The curvy ones) are used to spell out actual Japanese words that you can look up in a dictionary.  Its slow going but worth it IMHO

the worst part is looking up Kanji.  The ONLY way to learn Kanji is to memorize them.  That's what Japanese people do too.  Its memorization.

[spenoza]

Plus with roleplaying games, its not like the gameplay is very engaging.  You click on menus and walk around. The story is the important part.

I don't understand this view. I mean, I do, but I don't. The best RPGs have more going on than just good story. They have combats in which you have to make tactical decisions, manage resources, and make choices among a variety of options with varying effectiveness and tradeoffs. Yeah, there are a lot of RPGs that are just menus and walking around, but those RPGs are not the best RPGs.

It is the fault of so many mediocre RPGs that the genre is now seen as not being about the gameplay. Story is important, but if the game hasn't got any fun going on, you might as well read a book or watch a movie. You'll get a much better story, I can guarantee. Shining Force and Tactics Ogre all featured tactical combat. The old SSI Gold Box games were great for combat. Even Final Fantasy gave you something to do before they all jumped the shark (I'd argue this happened much earlier in the series than most people would).

Along this line, I'd much rather see a game translated that has fun combat and gameplay segments than one which has great story and little else. A little fun makes up for a lot of bad story, but good story can't save stinky gameplay.

[nodtveidt]

When it comes to an RPG, a sucky story isn't corrected by a good play system. Everything has to work in an RPG or it fails.

[spenoza]

When it comes to an RPG, a sucky story isn't corrected by a good play system. Everything has to work in an RPG or it fails.

I think it depends. Action/RPGs can succeed with a weak story, and so can tactical RPGs ala Shining Force and Tactics Ogre. I haven't played any Langrisser of any kind, but I suspect it would probably fall into this category as well. For the jRPG format where you wander around on a map and get into random battles, yeah, the story is more important and you can't totally scrimp. Then again, early computer RPGs were lots of fun and were often weak on the story side and yet they did very well, even influencing jRPGs significantly.

[SignOfZeta]

I find that if I'm playing a game in English I blast through it in order to advance the plot. In a game where its in Japanese, which I can read very very little of of (and usually choose to read even less) I end up concentrating on the gameplay mechanics.

So a game like Cosmic Fantasy 2 did a good job of entertaining me since the story was compelling.

Final Fantasy 1 on Wonderswan was also very good. This is (I think) the only port of FF1 that kept the original spell system from the FC version. It has significantly updated graphics. I got really into the pure mechanics of just playing the game, which is convenient since there isn't much story in FF1, regardless of what language you play it in.

Now playing CF2 in Japanese? That would basically be torture. The gameplay is horrifically shitty.

A lot of PCE RPGs aren't that great, gameplay-wise. They would be fun translated, even badly/partially, but no fun just for the mechanics.

[Arkhan]

I think it depends. Action/RPGs can succeed with a weak story, and so can tactical RPGs ala Shining Force and Tactics Ogre. I haven't played any Langrisser of any kind, but I suspect it would probably fall into this category as well. For the jRPG format where you wander around on a map and get into random battles, yeah, the story is more important and you can't totally scrimp. Then again, early computer RPGs were lots of fun and were often weak on the story side and yet they did very well, even influencing jRPGs significantly.

Ultima isn't weak on the story! 

Alot of old RPGs literally are just menus.  Dragon Quest is still just menus basically. Pretty much every PCE RPG is just menus and clicking.  So, if you aren't getting anything out of the story, you're basically playing MyFirstRPG^tm and getting no story elements for the most part. 

"I clicked and stumbled my way through *insert rpg here* isn't as fun as "Man I finished it and liked the story!""

I play RPGs for the story.  If the story starts to get really boring and dumb, I shelf the f*cker and go play something else.  I don't care if its the greatest game system ever conceived, if the characters are lame, and the plots about as interesting as a golf tournament, I don't play it.

my point is, in the time people can spend waiting for MAYBE one game to come out, they could manage to read the Japanese for at least 2, probably.  Some of these games are not that long really.  So you get more games completed, experience the actual story (even if its a kindergarten reading level/speed like how I roll!), anndddddd you pick up on some noodlecart moonrunes at the same time.