It's a weird feeling...there's a discrepancy between how I should feel (excited), and how I do feel (apathy? jealousy at their excitement?). Now that all those crazy Japanese games I've been wanting to play are become more and more comprehensible, I feel I've lost something. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but it's a little strange to not feel part of the "WOO! IT'S COMING STATESIDE!" festivities. Although I guess I'm the kind of person who gets excited tracking Amazon packages...

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but it's a little strange to not feel part of the "WOO! IT'S COMING STATESIDE!" festivities.

On the bright side, you also don't need to be part of the "ITS NOT COMING STATESIDE!" whine groups anymore.

Personally I enjoy the elitist feeling of not giving a shit about games not being released in English and just laugh at gamers whining about games staying in Japan.

Think of it as karma and cognitive dissonance (on the part of the whiners). To use an example: for years people have been saying Square Enix sucks or Final Fantasy sucks. So how does Square Enix respond? "your wish is my command: no FF Type 0 PSP for you" That still doesn't stop the whining but its satisfying nevertheless.

You will also not regret learning Japanese because it is common knowledge that Japan mainly makes games that suits the taste of Japanese gamers. Western gamers are increasingly preferring Western games. This means that there will be fewer and fewer "WOO! IT'S COMING STATESIDE!" festivities.

To conclude, the irony of your situation is that you are no longer part of the festivities, but not for the reason you thought it was (competence in the language).

Same here, I felt that feeling 2 years ago..... I used to play visual novel that are in English and upon seeing Mangagamer releasing a new localized game I shouted BANZAI and paraded like hell. Until I ran out of visual novels to play I started using machine translator and starting to learn the japanese language......These days when playing PC VNs I prefer japanese ones because if its English the experience won't be that promising. The way I see it is a japanese character speaking in english like those anime eng dubs which I don't really like.

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:Although I guess I'm the kind of person who gets excited tracking Amazon packages...

Learn to enjoy tracking international Fedex and UPS parcels.

This was an expected discovery for my personal experience; however, I was usually not too excited about localization news for games either. Maybe just like the 逆転裁判 series and that's it. So it doesn't impact me too much I suppose.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Personally I enjoy the elitist feeling of not giving a shit about games not being released in English and just laugh at gamers whining about games staying in Japan.

lol, exactly how I feel too.

I'm replaying some games right now which I've only played before with really crappy dubs (because they were released outside Japan without original voices), and they are so much more fun now when I can play the original version. So I can't say I recognize that feeling at all to be honest.

AlgoRhythmic Wrote:I'm replaying some games right now which I've only played before with really crappy dubs (because they were released outside Japan without original voices), and they are so much more fun now when I can play the original version. So I can't say I recognize that feeling at all to be honest.

The nice thing is:

When you say to other people "I like Japanese dubs better than the English ones", the anti-JapDub/Pro-EngDub groups (who are becoming, if not already are, more vocal than the Pro-JapDub/Anti-EngDub groups) will probably reply "You only like the Japanese dubs because you don't understand Japanese and don't know any better. If the English voice acting is shit, the original Japanese is probably just as shit. Now shut the ***** up and appreciate the English dubs because it's either English or nothing, you pathetic Wapanese."

This is where you use this opportunity to lay the verbal smackdown:

"I understand English. I also understand Japanese. Based on my knowledge of both, I have come to the conclusion that my personal preference is the original Japanese voice acting over the English ones. So no, I won't shut the ***** up. Quite the contrary, YOU shut the ***** up because I understand two languages, which is one more than you know."

I never really understood people who can say 'you don't understand Japanese and can't judge the quality of it' then in the next breath say 'the dub of [x] is better than the Japanese voices'. (Cowboy Bebop was the main example of this I saw, but though I haven't seen much of it I don't know what was meant to be so bad about the Japanese one. I've seen people say Spike in English sounds more laidback/casual, but I don't see a lack of that in the Japanese one. But I like Kouichi Yamadera a lot more than I like Steven Blum, so that's my personal preference. And I heard it hyped up so much before seeing it.)


I think localisation news is exciting because it means that this thing you're interested in is getting closer to being in a form where you can fully enjoy it. But when you learn enough Japanese you don't really need that middle-man any longer. You can enjoy it as it is initially released.

albion Wrote:I never really understood people who can say 'you don't understand Japanese and can't judge the quality of it' then in the next breath say 'the dub of [x] is better than the Japanese voices'.

Just another example of the cognitive dissonance that I mentioned earlier.

I was really excited for Tales of Hearts R. Funnily enough, the day my import arrived they announced its localization. But, for some reason, they decided to change the protagonist's name, and people are up in arms about it! The most popular response to this is "Quit whining, just be happy you're getting it at all!" (Because apparently people shouldn't be allowed to criticize what they buy with their own money...) However, that's a separate issue. What I'm wondering right now is, why is my game manual is covered in furigana? It's nice as a reading aid, but in-game they don't have it. I was under the assumption that people who are able to play the game wouldn't have any trouble reading, so I'm a little curious about it. It's basically used for everything that isn't hiragana or katakana. Even stuff like 新しく手に入れたイテム.

(On a side note, I love how thick the manuals are. My ENG Graces one is like 5pgs English, and 5pgs French. The JPN copy is like 55+. )

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:I was really excited for Tales of Hearts R. Funnily enough, the day my import arrived they announced its localization. But, for some reason, they decided to change the protagonist's name, and people are up in arms about it! The most popular response to this is "Quit whining, just be happy you're getting it at all!" (Because apparently people shouldn't be allowed to criticize what they buy with their own money...)

What was the original name and what was it changed to?

Related is that game censorship is still something that happens often and more serious than name changes but the anti-whining groups paint it as "localization" while continuing to attempt to silence whiners. Sorry but censorship is censorship.

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:However, that's a separate issue. What I'm wondering right now is, why is my game manual is covered in furigana? It's nice as a reading aid, but in-game they don't have it. I was under the assumption that people who are able to play the game wouldn't have any trouble reading, so I'm a little curious about it. It's basically used for everything that isn't hiragana or katakana. Even stuff like 新しく手に入れたイテム.

Something even more curious are Japanese games that are released in China. They go through the trouble of translating the game manual to Chinese but the game is still non-Chinese. How can Chinese people Japanese games? Might as well just leave the manual in Japanese. Granted Chinese people know their own Hanji but that's a less than optimum game experience.

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:(On a side note, I love how thick the manuals are. My ENG Graces one is like 5pgs English, and 5pgs French. The JPN copy is like 55+. )

In the past, Western game manuals were pathetic.

Now, Western game manuals don't exist (online only). And that's also pathetic.

JP = シング・メテオライト
US = Kor Meteor

I actually think they're both kinda cheesy (The US one more so, probably because it ryhmes). While I'm not *for* censorship, if it's a choice between getting a product with like 5% of content cut (and in a language you can understand) versus not getting at all, I'd choose the former. Of course, I'd love for companies to leave things as is, but at the end of the day, it's all about business and the money. But the whole name change seems unnecessary. Not that it bother me overmuch, since I feel like a VIP or some kind of time traveler with my advance copy hidden in my sock drawer.


Neat, I didn't know about the China thing. Granted, pretty much every game I've played has a decent in-game tutorial, so it seems pretty redundant. And as much as I like detailed manuals, it shames me to admit I haven't spent more than 10 minutes flipping through it.

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:I actually think they're both kinda cheesy (The US one more so, probably because it ryhmes). While I'm not *for* censorship, if it's a choice between getting a product with like 5% of content cut (and in a language you can understand) versus not getting at all, I'd choose the former. Of course, I'd love for companies to leave things as is, but at the end of the day, it's all about business and the money.

We're learning the Japanese language aren't we? Because we have the option of © None of the above. Bad luck to the non-Japanese-comprehending plebians but we have no need to fight for their cause anymore.

Part of the fun of certain games is being able to talk to your friends about it.

I played Pokemon Y in Japanese and it's really hard for me to go back and forth between the names when talking with my friends.

There are also a lot of features on 3DS games that rely on すれちがい mode or whatever so it's actually quite fun when you can use it with people here. (Not to mention, Nintendo and region lock. Jerks.)

So I'm still pretty excited when things get localized.

I can say the same for books too, I finished reading the book 告白 and I really want to talk to people about it but there is no localization. I can recommend the movie to my friends but it's not the same.

Yeah, it's pretty liberating, now that I think about it. I'm still doing "grammar checks" as I go through dialogue, but I rarely come across new points, so it's mostly just review.

I hate Nintendo's 3DS region locking. I have an American one right now, and would love to get my hands on a JPN one for Fantasy Life (looks super chill), but can't justify double dipping on a console for one game. Maybe I'll splurge on one in a few years, when the 4DS with time travel comes out.

I would love to start posting on JPN message boards, but I really haven't practiced any production (besides the 2 semesters in class the year before last). I'll probably pick that up after I get more confident in reading/listening.