An import games FAQ?

[kern]

I'm new to this forum, but I've been around the import game forums on GameFAQs for several years now, and I've seen the same few questions about import games show up again and again with almost every new import game that comes out. Many of them I've also seen here. However, they often do not get answered or they receive poor answers from other people who really don't know what they're talking about either.

I worked up this FAQ list in the hopes that some people will benefit from the information. Any suggestions? Although a lot of the answers may seem discouraging, the purpose is to provide straight and truthful answers to the questions, while hopefully #14 will channel their motivation and energy into a place where it can actually do some good.

1. It seems like people are playing these games before they come out; how can they do that?

In general, console RPGs come out in Japan before they come out in the US, often as long as 9-16 months or even more. People who are playing the games either live in Japan and have bought them from stores there, or somehow found a way to import the games from Japan to their home country (a lucky few actually have shops close to them that sell import games).

2. Do they actually know Japanese?

In my experience, most of the people who play import games on the message boards know very little, if any, Japanese. There are always a very small number of people who actually do know Japanese.

3. Can I play the import game on my PS2?

Generally, no. You need a PS2 capable of playing region 2 games. If you bought your PS2 in a region 1 area (i.e. USA) then it will not be able to play PS2 games.

4. What do I need, then?

You either need to purchase a Japanese PS2, or modify your non-Japanese PS2 so that it can play region 2 games. There are a variety of means for doing this such as slide cards, swap discs, and mod chips. You can figure it out for yourself through Google searches.

5. Do I need a Japanese memory card also?

Memory cards are region-free. You can even keep saves from Region 1 and 2 games on the same memory card.

6. Where do I buy the game?

There are a number of import stores online; some of the most commonly used ones are:
http://www.play-asia.com
http://www.yesasia.com
http://www.ncsx.com
http://www.himeyashop.com

The last link (Himeya) is the best one to use if you must have a preorder bonus at all costs -- the prices tend to be higher but because the store is based in Japan, getting a preorder bonus is more reliable than the other places.

Ebay is also an option; it's very possible that you can find what you are looking for cheaper on ebay than from an import store, if you are willing to get a used copy.

(As a side note, if you are looking for a somewhat rare or out of print title that you can't find on any of these sites, you can often get them on yahoo.co.jp marketplace or amazon.co.jp -- however, these sites are all in Japanese and they only ship to Japan, so it may not be an option for you.)

7. What is the "asian version" that I sometimes see on the order sites?

The Asian Version is the same thing as the Japanese version except that it comes with a small sheet in Chinese and English explaining how to play the game (the detail provided in the sheet varies depending on the game).

However, the language in the game is still only Japanese.

8. Is there a way to change the game's language to English?

The answer is almost always no. There's no reason why a company would spend money on translating the huge amount of text in an RPG to English when most of their target audience would not understand it. Yes, FFX International had an English option, but that game came out in Japan *after* FFX had already come out in the US, so all they had to do was take an already-made localization.

(There's also nothing that you can plug in or add to your PS2, or any game system, to automatically translate the language to English. If this device existed, companies wouldn't bother with localization teams.)

9. But I saw some English words in screenshots of the game.

It's pretty common for Japanese games to make scattered use of English words (the most extreme example of this being Valkyrie Profile), but this never extends to the dialogue. Usually at most, some menu options might be in English. The exact reason why this is done is not completely clear, but it seems to just be because some people think it looks cool. However, what *is* clear is that the presence of English words does *not* mean that the game will have an option to change the dialogue to English.

10. OK, then I better learn Japanese. Is there a web page that will teach it to me?

A foreign language is not something that you can learn casually just by browsing web pages. This is especially true of Japanese, which is quite difficult to learn (by the standards established by the US Government, Japanese is considered to require 4 times as long as European languages to learn). It's certainly not impossible, but it requires a lot of motivation over a long period of time.

If you want to take Japanese, pretty much your only chance is a class. If you don't have access to a class, wait until you get to college -- the import games will still be around then. It's not literally impossible to learn Japanese without taking a class, but the odds are stacked so heavily against you that you should seriously consider whether it is worth your money and time.

If you're diligent, you may be able to understand an import video game reasonably well with heavy dictionary use after 2-3 years of study, and may be able to play it without a dictionary after 5-7. It could take much longer, though.

A second problem with internet sites is that there's a huge amount of misinformation about Japanese out there. Some sites are fairly reliable, others were obviously written by people who had no clue. There's no way to sort the junk from the useful stuff unless you already know what's correct and what isn't.

11. Well, I don't need to know all of Japanese, just what's in the video games.

Unfortunately there isn't a specific subset of Japanese that is used in RPGs -- anything and everything can show up. There are some common words and phrases, but just learning those would not really help you if you don't have a basic foundation in the language.

The Japanese that appears in typical RPGs is actually rather difficult -- because it usually involves fantasy worlds, it often contains a good amount of super-formal, written, and archaic Japanese, as well as a number of rare vocabulary and kanji.

12. Can't I just buy a dictionary and look everything up, and learn Japanese that way?

No, this will not work. Without knowledge of the grammatical structure of the language, you wouldn't even know what to look up. Also, you would be playing the game through so slowly that you might lose interest -- the first story sequence in the game might take you a week.

13. I've already played [game name] in English; can I buy the Japanese version and learn Japanese that way since I already know the story?

Same answer as #12. Language learning is not something that can be done simply through casual exposure.

14. Is there *anything* I can do in a short amount of time to help me?

Although everything I've typed up to now seems pessimistic, there is in fact something that people with even no Japanese knowledge can do that will improve their ability to play import games -- learn to read words written in katakana.

Now, when I say that, I don't mean just findind a katakana-to-romaji chart on the Internet. That only solves half the problem. When you see something like ロングソード in a game, you can decode that into "rongusoodo" with a chart, but unless you can go from there to the English "long sword", it's not going to do you a whole lot of good.

I recommend a book called Japanese: The Written Language Volume 1 Part 1 which is an in-depth coverage of not only the katakana symbols themselves, but also how to read loan words written in them. The book requires absolutely no knowledge of Japanese to use.

The advantage of focusing on katakana is that there are a huge number of words used in regular Japanese, and even more in video games, that come from English. If you know English, and learn how to decipher the way the words are represented in katakana, you can access a large amount of text. It won't help you understand the story at all.

To use Tales of the Abyss as an example, things that are written in katakana that can be understood with no knowledge of Japanese grammar:
- Character names
- Place names
- All AD-skill names
- Almost all the items
- The entire skillsets of Jade, Anise, and Tear
- All the Capacity Core names
- 5 of the 8 menu choices
And probably more that I'm forgetting.

This is the single biggest thing you can do to benefit yourself, and if you ever go on to actually learn Japanese, this will benefit you there as well. It may take you a month or two to work through the book I said above, but if you master it, you will see the rewards for yourself.

Unfortunately beyond that, there's not much you can do -- learning hiragana will not be very beneficial. There are many things that are written in katakana that stand alone and can be understood with no knowledge of grammar. But hiragana is almost always combined with kanji and so knowledge of hiragana alone will not help you very much.

15. I've already learned some Japanese; will I be able to understand the games?

It depends on what you mean by "learned some Japanese". If you mean that you've picked up "kawaii" and "baka" from watching anime, then no, you will not be able to understand it.

If you've taken a few years of class, you won't really have the level necessary to play the game without any reference materials. However, you should have a sufficient basis to start using the video game to increase your knowledge of vocabulary and kanji. I also recommend using a kanji textbook on your own to improve your vocab and kanji aside from the game -- the one I got a lot of use out of is Kanji in Context (a reference book and a workbook).

16. What kind of Japanese is used in video games -- hiragana, katakana, or kanji?

These are not different "kinds of Japanese"; they are three separate sets of symbols that are used in writing Japanese. Any Japanese writing, with only a few exceptions (i.e. books for kids under 6 years old) will be written with a combination of all three. If you want more information on this topic try Wikipedia or Google.

17. Kanji is my biggest problem; how much kanji is used and is there any way to turn on a furigana option?

First off, is kanji *really* your biggest problem? If you are honestly in a situation where you can understand the spoken dialogue but just can't read the kanji, then you should be able to use a kanji book to gain significant reading knowledge fairly quickly.

However, it's much more likely that what you mean by this is "I don't know Japanese, but I see a bunch of kanji in the games so that seems like a good place to start" -- refer back to questions #10 and #12.

And no, there will never be a furigana option in an RPG. Because of the hassle of coding furigana, many games completely lack the capability of displaying furigana -- Tales of the Abyss is an exception, but even in TotA the furigana are not used that often (and mostly for showing made-up readings of the kanji using their invented terms).

18. So wait, some people on the message boards I see do actually know Japanese. How did they learn it? You make it sound impossible, but I don't think these people would have spent that much time just to play a video game.

Most likely the people on the boards that actually are able to understand Japanese fall into one of two categories -- either they are bilingual (i.e. their mother, father, or both is Japanese) or they learned it at a school. The people who learned it at school probably have been studying for 5-7 years or more (if they actually completely understand the games), and it's unlikely that they took Japanese for the sole purpose of being able to understand video games. But, the length of time it takes is the main reason why you don't see that many people who understand Japanese.

(Also, don't necessarily believe someone if they claim to "know Japanese". Some people have a very loose definition of the term and claim to "know Japanese" when they just know some random stuff they picked up from anime and web pages. You should be especially suspicious of anyone who claims to be able to speak Japanese but not read it -- this is extremely unlikely unless the person has a Japanese parent.)

19. I have some walkthroughs for the games, but my computer can't display the Japanese characters.

This depends on your browser and operating system. Look around in the menus of your browser for "encoding" and try setting it to auto-detect Japanese, or to Shift-JIS. If this doesn't work, you may need to figure out how to install Japanese support on your computer; there are many web pages that explain in detail how to do this.

20. Do you have any tips for getting used to playing import games with no Japanese knowledge?

I didn't personally start playing import games until I knew enough Japanese to handle them, so I don't know. This is a place where others who have managed to do it without Japanese knowledge could help out.

21. I want to play [specific game]; how hard is it with no Japanese?

This is probably a good question to ask on a board dealing with that specific game. There are a lot of factors that go into this; obviously a game that works off a familiar archetype (i.e. a standard RPG) will be easier than something that's totally new (i.e. something with unusual gameplay like the Atelier series). It also depends on what sort of guides exist for the game, and things like that.

22. I have a question about Japanese.

There are various forums around the Internet dedicated to Japanese learning, but you have to be careful, and you're in something of a difficult situation. If the board is an anime or video game board, you may get a lot of responses from people who think they know what they're talking about, but who don't have a clue. On the other hand, if you go to a more "serious" board, they may look down on curiosity-type questions from anime fans who aren't actually learning Japanese. I don't really have any good advice on this topic.

[Aikanaro]

Hey, great faq. I like it.
_________________
Any spelling or grammar correction will be really appreciated.

[RPG Seeker]

Yeah, this should be stickied.
_________________


Currently Playing: Twilight Princess, Skies of Arcadia Legends, Tales of the Abyss
Backlog: Rogue Galaxy, Suikoden III, Tales of Destiny (USA) 2

[Daryll]

You should probably mention that modding the PS2 voids your warranty.
And I agree that this should be stickied.
_________________

[jesselt]

Very Nice!

You might want to mention that people wishing to import a game might first check online to see if someone has translated the whole thing. I have found this to be the case numerous times when a game has been out in Japan for a couple months.
_________________

^Cruxis

[kern]

Definitely I want to expand Question 18 -- I'd like to hear from people who have succesfully played an import game with no (or little) Japanese knowledge, using walkthroughs and FAQs. I think some people are scared to buy a game that they won't understand, but maybe if they hear from people who were able to do it they will be more likely to give it a try.

[jesselt]

Just tell people to check www.gamefaqs.com for translation guides. I just looked there a second ago and found a translation for all attacks in most Tales of... games. http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/tales_trans.txt

I also found a story translation guide
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/tales_of_the_abyss_story_trans.txt

It's also important to remember that story translations are mostly just direct translations and may not always make sense due to language barriers.

Edit: I think a mod should sticky this; it's very helpful.

Edit 2: Please note that you must COPY and PASTE the links into the browser, NOT click on them.
_________________

^Cruxis

[MasterT]

[jesselt]

General Tales or Video Games would be best.


By the way, you are allowed to list import sites (You just can't make posts that are advertising them), and probably should. List www.play-asia.com as one if you weren't going to already
_________________

^Cruxis

[Shadow Master T]

A great guide! I think I might actually try to learn the katakana, it'd be quite helpful to understand things like items' names... Especially since I mix some of them up, like the herbs >_>

The thing is, about question #17... my computer has "Shift-JIS" font installed (As well as "Japanese (Automatic)" and "Japanese (EUC)", I just installed all the fonts I could see), but the problem is that most of the times all I see is "[][][][][][][][]" instead of Japanese if set to Shift-JIS, or some random gibberish on other fonts... I've tried searching google, but I just can't seem to find a way to fix in no matter what I search, and the thing that bugs me is that on the rare occasions I actually CAN see Japanese (Most I remember is 2 words on the ToR translation guide, and if during the messenger I get a "X has connected" with Japanese in his nickname, it's visible in that window but when I open the dialogue I still see that [][][][][][][] thing >_>). Could anyone give me hints to narrow my searches? I never needed it for ToA, but I can't understand ToD2's refining guides, or ToR's passwords that I heard are required at times...

I'd help about how I managed to play ToA in Japanese, but the thing is, with a story translation by Spekio and Echang's excellent walkthrough, as well as sites like Master LL's page that offer screens of menu translations, It's almost as simple as playing it in English...
The only thing that's missing is understanding the skits and several sidequests though... but that doesn't bother playing the game. It just diminishes a little part of the extras, and in the case of skits, the character interactions... although their general behaviour is easily understood and at times it's not hard to imagine what they are saying.

[kern]

[kern]

[Shadow Master T]

Thank you! I followed your advice and immediately downloaded the font from microsoft's site, and now I can view Japanese in documents! explorer is a bit off, but that's the least of my worries! ^_^

I can't thank you enough for finally helping me solve this problem, I always thought I had it all along... ><

[jesselt]