Have you ever beaten an unstranslated Japanese game?

[bjork]

I have to imagine there are more than this, but all that is springing to mind at the moment:
- vib-ribbon (which you don't really beat?)
- Noobow on Game Boy

 

[Patapolis]

years ago, i beat Dragon Ball Z - Super Saiya Densetsu (snes) untranslated.

 

[Turbo Kid]

The most recent example was me playing through Dynasty Warriors 8 Japanese version for the Switch last year as it's the only version to get a physical release. I just used a translation app and my phone camera to get past the language barrier.

Some people also have video walkthroughs on youtube to guide people through Japanese games with story and menu translations. If I really want to play something I don't let language barriers get in my way.

 

[Viviana Santos]

I finished the game Chippoke Ralph in Daibouken: The Adventure of Little Ralph for the first time in its original Japanese language, way before the Portuguese and English patches existed.

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I also finished the first Devil Summoner for the Sega Saturn in Japanese. I used a guide and also a let's play that translated the main dialogue to English.

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I also finished the game Panzer Bandit in Japanese before the Brazilian Portuguese translation existed.

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I also played several fighting games exclusive to Japan, such as Asuka 120% (and its sequels/enhanced versions), all of which are in Japanese.

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

In my case it was the Yuu Yuu Hakusho Final: Makai Saikyou Retsuden (SFC) although the game was completely in Japanese at least I was able to play it anyway without understanding anything Japanese in the Story Mode and that it had 7 Stages (According to the Character) and was a Fighting game.

 

[nobitakun]

I have done this thrice, mostly out of a combination of impatience and stubbornness.

The first one was Panic Bomber!, which was not a big deal -- gameplay is self-explanatory and there isn't much dialogue. I do think I missed out some by not being able to read what the opponents said, but that's about it.

The second was Summon Night 2 on the DS, which had a TON of text... but game lets you skip or automate most of it, anyway. Again, I missed out on the actual plot and story (which Summon Night games are known for), but I was able to throughly enjoy it and I'm actually going at it again this very second.

And the third one was Magic School Lunar! (the only Saturn game I have ever completed), which was such utter hell to beat that I actually went a wrote a "thank you" email to the guy who created a step-by-step walkthrough of it because I simply would have never figured out how to tackle it otherwise (and believe me, I tried).

Oh! And I guess I played a couple of arcade-y ones on the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 as well, but those hardly count, since most of the critical commands were in English.

I kind of don't recommend doing this at all (specially for freaking RPGs) but maaaan... there's something utterly satisfying about seeing everything click after memorizing what the menues and buttons do and finding your rhythm.

What about you? Ever did this?

Wow, Summon Night saga is one of my favourite sagas of all times, they have that unique magic that most tactical RPG's lack. And their OST's are awesome. I've beaten Summon Night 1 & 2 on PS1, and I don't know if there are many differences between the PS1 and DS ports. I didn't understand anything at all because it was like 20 years ago, but I enjoyed them a lot!

Eh, it was the only Lunar game I hadn't beat and the English patch seems to have died entirely not even a quarter of the way in.

Ahhh, by the way, this happened me as well. The Saturn english patch is still on the way, they had some kind of issues but fixed them. I believe for this year or next one we will have the game translated. I am eager to play it because I finished the original on GameGear and I would love to see the Saturn remake.

Well, my list of games that I recall playing when I didn't know a bit of japanese were:

• Parasite Eve (still not released in USA)
• Final Fantasy Tactics (still not released in USA)
• Groove Adventure Rave: Mikan no Hiseki
• Tales of Phantasia (PS1)
• Tales of Destiny (still not released in USA)
• Hard Edge (actually I beat this one like 3 times, I loved it)
• B.L.U.E. Legend of Water
• Summon Night 1 & 2
• Marl-Oukoku no Ningyou Hime (Rhapsody in USA)
• Athena: Awakening from Ordinary Life
• Bardysh
• Biohazard 2 (still not released in USA)
• Biohazard 3 (still not released in USA)
• Hokuto no Ken (don't recall its complete name, but it was beat'em up style)
• Devilman

As you see, I was kind of impatient of playing games. It was not intentional, at that time I used to go to a famous flea market of second hand stuff and they had a "section" of pirated PS1 games. I use to pay like 5-10€ and I got the game and the cover usually high quality printed. For me, it was gold, as every game at that time costed like 40-50€, so paying 1/8 allowed me to have tons of games before I was 18.
But I have to admit, in 1999 I got my first computer, and it had a CD burner, so I saved tons of money from that :)

 

[solnK!]

The Tekken 3 version I played as a kid was the Japanese one, does that counts?
If I continue to study the language, I´d want to play Tales of Destiny 2 and the Summon Night games, maybe also some stuff on the Saturn.

 

[Deean]

Yes,mainly the one that doesn't need explanation for the gameplay.
For example Tokusatsu fighting games, they're made for children so the controls and stuff you must do is not that complicated.

Then the Sengoku Basara series,the maps is linear but sometimes there's objective that i had to try a few times to understand.
The items i also need to lookup to Gamefaqs for it's effect.

The one that has the longest playtime was Sengoku Musou 3Z Sp on the PSP.
(the english version was only on the wii ,and has fewer content)
It pretty linear compared to other Sengoku Musou games,but still had a lot of text on Japanese such as weapon effect, rare weapon objectives,etc (thanks Gamefaqs for having a translation).

I also played Shin Sangoku Musou 6(Dynasty Warriors 7) Special on PPSSPP,turns out this giving me a bad first impression because i can't understand the game's story.Not until i played the English version on PS3 that i got to appreciate the game.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Summon Night games,

Great choice!

And, just in case you are not aware, the first two GBA games and Twin Age on DS are fully translated. There's an ongoing effort to get the third GBA release done as well, but it's been years.

 

[Zooey]

No, and never again. This came up in the mtg thread, and I thought I could try the dc game, since I know what the cards do and how to play, but it was a terrible idea >_< I do not recommend games with lots of menus you cannot read
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I still wish that would get a translation, or maybe a Android port for Shandalar.

 

[blindpr0phet]

Not yet! But I was pretty close to finishing my Japanese copy of Tokimeki Memorial. I don't think the Saturn version ever got translated, which is the one I've got. I have a lot of other Japanese games in my backlog so maybe I'll beat at least one of them, lol

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Yeah I’ve beaten plenty of SHMUPs

 

[NovumVeritas]

At the time when Tales of Destiny Remake and Tales of Rebirth were fresh, I've beaten both of them completely in Japanese. I'm happy we have English translations now though.

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

I've done a quite a few mainly in the strategy/rpg deparment like the Black Matrix series and some of the untranslated Langrisser games, Some dating sims like Tokimeki Memorial 1 and 2, Mitsumete Knight, among others, and some Hiragana/Katakana only games, like the first Famicom Tantei game.

 

[RageBurner]

I tried it once (the PS2 version of Tales of Symphonia), but it was so irritating and tiring that I dropped it pretty quickly. Now unless it's a shmup, beat 'em up or something else that requires basically zero Japanese comprehension, I don't bother.

 

[PSVitaForever]

Never, I may sound dull but if it's not in English I don't care to try, also I don't like to see all those writings in a language I can't understand: sure, there are games I've would love to see patched, but there are also so many (officially translated or patched) already, my backlog doesn't need jap games!

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Yup back in the day we didn’t get the NES all we had was the Famicom imagine finishing the Ninja Gaiden trilogy without knowing the full story.

 

[Jayonnaise6105]

These five:

It helps that four of them are rhythm games, but they did at least require me to become familiar with the menus. Thankfully, the K-on! game had color-coded menus and didn't take long to get used to. Goodness, K-on! Houkago Live is a fantastic rhythm game!

I was also way into the Hyperdimension Neptunia RPGs around the time VII came out (the 4th mainline game), so I imported the Japanese collector's edition and played through all of it because I couldn't wait for the English language release (which came out nearly a year later!)

Post automatically merged: Today at 7:39 AM

years ago, i beat Dragon Ball Z - Super Saiya Densetsu (snes) untranslated.

I love that game, but I've only played some rather rough fan translations

 

[wokewendy]

Closest I've gotten is the Gyakuten Saiban trilogy on gba recently without using the english patches, but following a guide (also completely in Japanese). Was cool to see what kanji I knew the meaning for in real time and made it a lot easier to match what the guide was saying with the text in-game.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

No, I haven't yet.

 

[Deca]

Termine varias veces el juego KOF Kyo intenté desbloquear a todos los personajes pero jamás pude en una sola partida quizás ahora que está en español vuelve a intentar

 

[Mirai1412]

SRW Z2 Saisei hen

I skip the story, obviously