univbee posted:

Remember the Japanese version actually is about Hitler and the Nazis, I could see that being a line the relatively kid-friendly show doesn't want to cross when other game choices exist.

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

Hitler probably makes things difficult.

Mister Chief posted:

Golgo 13.

univbee posted:

Remember the Japanese version actually is about Hitler and the Nazis, I could see that being a line the relatively kid-friendly show doesn't want to cross when other game choices exist.

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

Hitler probably makes things difficult.

SmockJoc posted:

Me too! That's why I gave him a copy of Startropics at the LA event. I keep hoping that they'll use it one day.

mikeycp posted:

Have they done a game where the entirety of the text is in English before? Also, I wonder what they would do for the note.

Lurdiak posted:

Isn't Startropics an RPG or something? That might be trickier than a platformer.

Legends of Localization posted:

First, English is a required subject in the Japanese school system, so everyone gets a couple years of exposure to the language. Mostly it’s a lot of rote memorization of vocab lists, so it’s not entirely useful. But it means that Japanese people can still pick out words they recognize when confronted with a wall of English text.

Second, English words are used all the time in Japanese. If you study Japanese, you’ll immediately learn that a good percentage of common Japanese words are actually taken from English. So English is right at home in Japanese entertainment.

Third, English has an interesting allure to it in Japan. You know how Americans love to get Japanese/Chinese characters for tattoos, even if they don’t really know what they mean or how to pronounce them? This is kind of like that, but times a million. If you walk around any Japanese street or go into any Japanese store, you’ll find English everywhere.


_{Okay, these aren't the best example, but maybe you're hungrier for chicken flavor chips now? P.S. Go Go Turkey Rangers}

There are also often technical advantages of using English instead of Japanese – you only need memory for 26 letters if you use English, but well over a hundred if you decide to use Japanese katakana and hiragana.

A side result of this is that many games released in 1980s Japan used English text. So where we English-speakers fondly view retro games as having poorly-written English, Japanese retro games have an “oh, all the text is in English” vibe instead.



Another thing to note is that all the keywords in the Zelda story are highlighted in some way. This is somewhat common, as you can see in the Air Fortress screenshot above, and if you play any of the other Zelda games.

The color coding in Zelda’s case isn’t accidental, either – all the stuff relating to the Triforce is in blue, the Gannon/Princess stuff is in red, and the part about Link is in green. This means that even if players (of any country) aren’t very good at English, they know exactly what words they should focus on and possibly how they’re connected – enough to get the gist of the game’s goal, in other words.

SmockJoc posted:

Me too! That's why I gave him a copy of Startropics at the LA event. I keep hoping that they'll use it one day.

Lurdiak posted:

Isn't Startropics an RPG or something? That might be trickier than a platformer.

Light Gun Man posted:

Startropics 2 would probably be even better since it's just...a weird fuckin game.

mikeycp posted:

Gotta have that continuity! Also the first is a much better game.

Trainmonk posted:

I think Robocop was all English?

univbee posted:

Has Arino found out his secret game of skill, or did I just splice in adelikat's tool-assisted speedrun? The answer may surprise you. May. Like if you've never seen this show before, for example.

univbee posted:

The White Dragon posted:

"These volcanoes didn't hit me, something must be wrong with the game. I need to reset it."

Champeenship posted:

That's not even the best video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM0crXxV1G8

HoneyBoy posted:

I hope they play all the Panga levels