katakana and hiragana friendly games?

[Richter Belmount]

I have only a large knowledge in those
what titles use mostly that type of japanese ?

[Aussie2B]

The majority of games. o_O Kanji is mostly used in RPGs and strategy games. Also, modern games seem to use more kanji than older games.

[Lord Contaminous]

Famicom games in particular. Normally because of the size of the Famicom cartridge, it doesn't have enough memory space to handle all 2000 kanji.

[Aussie2B]

Same goes for Game Boy, although Game Boy games in general don't tend to have much text of any kind.

[Lord Contaminous]

Actually on Famicom there are some exceptions.

Just Breed by Enix, Akumajo Densetsu, Madara, Esper Dream 2, Lagrange Point.

Kanji appears quite a bit in these games, particularly on status and weapon/armor equipment screens. In cases like that, the kanji represents the body parts. But then again, all these games use the superior memory expansion chips (MMC5, VRC6/7) as crutches.

Now "Just Breed" can do some Super Famicom kanji whoring.

[Dimitri]

Mother 2 on the Super Famicom (original Japanese version of Earthbound) is supposedly entirely in kana.

PAL on Playstation is, as well...I've heard it's really good, to boot, so I've got a copy sitting around until I get back into my studies. :D

[Cryomancer]

Is Katakana and Hiragana actually as simple to learn as i've heard? I know Kanji is the hard part, but how intensive is actually teaching yourself the other two? I've got no shortage of "practice" material via games and whatnot, I just dunno where to start...sorry for the derail.

[Aussie2B]

Well, I taught it myself entirely on my own, so it can't be too hard. :P I can't even understand 95% of the hiragana I read, but at least I can read it, hehe.

Yeah, practice material really helps out. I have tons of stuff imported from Japan, so I have no shortage of it myself. I find games and comics to be the most useful, but really, anything with a bit of Japanese on it could prove to be good practice. To start off, just download charts of the katakana and hiragana symbols (browse around because some are better than others, I think), and then pick out a game and try to translate the character names or a few items, something short and simple. Romanize and write out the katakana if you need to, try saying the words out loud imagining you're speaking English with a thick Japanese accent (make sure you know Japanese pronunciation before this, of course), try slashing out various combinations of the U's and I's (since they're often silent, or just barely whispered), and keep in mind the R/L thing and other various little rules you can find while searching for the charts. Keep in mind that some words in games are made-up and nonexistent, so if you can find a reliable source to check your translations with, that would help.

[GaijinPunch]

8-bit and under games are almost alway one or the other. It's a technical limitation... not a feature. Some 16-bit games as well, and of course games aimed for the kiddies feature only easy kanji.

The genre has little to do with it in the big scheme of things.

If I'm not mistaken, those older games that use kanji have only the ones they use stored. Azazel has done some rom hacking and told me about it a while ago, but I can't remember now.

Of course some games (very few) have "kids mode" where they will at least use furigana.

[Lord Contaminous]

TRIVIA

In the Japanese version of Earthbound 0 (Mother 1) for Famicom, practically the game's script is in haiku

[Azazel]

8-bit and under games are almost alway one or the other. It's a technical limitation... not a feature. Some 16-bit games as well, and of course games aimed for the kiddies feature only easy kanji.

The genre has little to do with it in the big scheme of things.

If I'm not mistaken, those older games that use kanji have only the ones they use stored. Azazel has done some rom hacking and told me about it a while ago, but I can't remember now.

Of course some games (very few) have "kids mode" where they will at least use furigana.

Actually the genre can have something to do with it. Some action games like City Hunter, Bionic Commando etc. will use Kanji in them as the dialogue is generally smaller compared to a stretegy or RPG game.

[Lord Contaminous]

Oh man City Hunter is saturated in kanji....

In fact, PC Engine handles kanji very well. And I'm speaking for the chips not CD's.

Wait...the Ghengis Khan games for Famicom, I think they use alot of kanji as well. Particularly any RPG that was set in ancient China.