It looks like the new Pokemon games will include an option to play in 7 different languages, including Japanese. It is my understanding that no matter which region you live in, your game should have the option.
And I also think that they started using kanji in the games now, ever since pokemon black and white.

I'm definitely excited to give this one a go in a few days!

Do you think it's worth a beginner putting it all in Japanese? I thought I read somewhere that you couldn't change it later on. :/

[s0apgun]

It probably has a Kana option if the kanji is too scary for you and from what I heard it can be changed later on. We'll just have to see when someone here confirms that or not with their copy.

I played the Japanese version of Pokemon Red in Japanese (kana) and it was pretty simple to understand if you know some basic grammar and verbs. There will be look ups as always with any new media.

MelonBerry Wrote:Do you think it's worth a beginner putting it all in Japanese? I thought I read somewhere that you couldn't change it later on. :/

Well, if you've played any pokemon game before, the story is gunna be pretty much the same as always. And if you get stuck because you cant read something, you can always check out a walkthrough or "lets play" on youtube.
Though, I would really say it all depends on how much of a beginner you are... pokemon language doesn't get too complicated though, most of the time. And you will see a lot of terms repeated over and over.

If it's like the last few games, you can change from kana only to kanji. Even with the kanji option, it's still not too difficult because of the target audience.

I hope that all of the regions have the languages available. If they do, I imagine that it'd be a setting of some kind, since the Japanese versions of the DS games had two scripts available.

I just am starting up my game and yes, you can choose to use kanji, even in the English (American at least) version HOORAY!

Edit: And you can change it between kana and kanji at any time, through the menu.

Edit 2: So far I can't see any way to change it back to English, so pretty sure it is a permanent language selection.

Thank you for letting us know! I've been waiting for someone somewhere to post about it. I'll be trying the Japanese language setting when I get it later today ! Not sure if I'll have Kanji on though. ( I don't know many, but maybe it will be good practice for me?)

I hope this pokemon game is going to be fun.

zurisu Wrote:I just am starting up my game and yes, you can choose to use kanji, even in the English (American at least) version HOORAY!

Edit: And you can change it between kana and kanji at any time, through the menu.

How tough is the vocabulary and grammar would you say (for example, in comparision to something like NHK easy)
I'm about 2/3 done with core 6k and if it's not too hard I would love to try this game out in Japanese.

Oh, cool! Thanks for posting about this. Hmmm, this may have to be the first game I try to play in Japanese. Technically I also have Tales of Hearts for the DS, but that's too advanced for me right now. Pokemon would also be difficult, but there's not as much dialogue and it would probably have simpler sentence structure. I read a bit of Yotsubato recently and while I still had to look up quite a bit, I had fun.

Are the names of the Pokemon similar to the English version, just written in katakana?

Not usually

The new FFXIV:ARR can also change language on the fly. Just a tip for those of you out there looking.

blueshift Wrote:How tough is the vocabulary and grammar would you say (for example, in comparision to something like NHK easy)
I'm about 2/3 done with core 6k and if it's not too hard I would love to try this game out in Japanese.

I would say it's significantly easier than NHK Easy just because it uses simple language targeted at a children's demographic, unlike news which targets adults and speaks about a wide variety of subjects and events (so the vocab in general is easier). It also has spaces between words which makes it easier to figure out what's going on in the grammar.

And you have plenty of context and prior Pokemon knowledge in general to rely on, so I doubt somebody's going to get too confused if they've played a Pokemon game before.

On the downside, sometimes text goes by without stopping to let you press A to continue, so in those cases you're just going to miss the text completely unless you can read very fast (I can't, even after turning the text speed on the slowest setting). This happens at certain times in cutscenes and during battles. Luckily, battle grammar is extremely repetitive, so you can condition yourself to the speed.

But gameplay-wise, if you enjoy Pokemon games in general, then you are really going to enjoy this The 3D polygonal pokemon battles are awesome, and the overworld looks great. Really happy with everything so far.

Edit Oct 13:

After playing the game further and getting a little more into the meat of the story, I feel like maybe this post is a bit misleading in underestimating the difficulty of the game, because it IS difficult for a lower intermediate learner like myself, and I'm having trouble understanding the majority of dialogue. That said, I feel like I'm in the middle of a 'low point' in my studies, and I'm not really sure if I am having as much trouble as I think I am or if I'm just getting frustrated as I'm creeping into the intermediate level blues. So I'm probably not the best person to be evaluating the difficulty anyway.

But... I mean it's a Pokemon game, so I'm still having fun =P

Sounds great! Can't wait.

I made a quick anki deck containing names of all the moves.
http://www.mediafire.com/?3w5ezcb9h759xdo

Actual credit goes to bulbagarden.net, I just copied their data.
This doesn't appear to contain any of the new moves yet, so I'll make a new deck once the info is all available.

Just bumping to let people know the official strategy guide has full furigana.

Photo: http://i42.tinypic.com/2628n09.jpg

amazon.co.jp store page: http://preview.tinyurl.com/nxmeafw

I can confirm that Amazon will (at least at the time I write this) ship it to the US.

I know Pokemon is one of those games you don't really need a guide for, but if you're like me and want to use one anyway, the furigana is good to know about.