Import Saturn for non-Nihongophone

I'm going to have a chance to pick up some import Saturn games this weekend. The Saturn was the first console I bought with my own money, and so I continue to be enthusiastic about the platform. And about six or seven years ago, imports were cheap enough to make it worth my time to buy them indiscriminately. So I have Sakura Taisen and Riglord Saga 2 and all these sequels that never got localized in the west, and I can barely play any of them because my decade-old plan to learn Japanese never actually got started.

So, now that we've established that I'm lazy, anybody have any suggestions as to import games that don't require a lot of Japanese literacy? Bulk Slash is already on my list, as it's an excellent giant robot shooter that doesn't require you to understand the long cut scenes. I also plan on grabbing the two Bomberman games that were Japan-only, if I see them. I prefer RPGs, but since those are all text-heavy I can guess that most of them don't fit my criteria. Anyway, any suggestions are appreciated.

 

You'll naturally have a hard time with the majority of the RPG's, but there are rough translation guides for some games on Gamefaqs etc.
Of course things like the status displays and menus will be mostly numbers anyway.
I've only ever played the obvious beat 'em ups, a couple of racing games, Nights, and the Panzer Dragoon titles, all of which don't require any Japanese knowledge to play.

Also have a look at Yakumo's Segagadomain.com as some of the reviews there mention if a game has a lot of Japanese text etc:

http://www.segagagadomain.com/

 

Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari is a wonderfully designed game, but very text-heavy. There's a guide up on GameFAQs that helped me a lot, but it's incomplete and ends after Chapter 7.

If you're into dungeon crawlers, try Wizardry Llylgamyn Saga. It's almost entirely in English and considered one of the best of the series if I'm not mistaken.

Another crawler you should try out is Dungeon Master Nexus. Other than the PC-Engine Dungeon Master, it's completely playable without knowledge of the Japanese language. I've also been told that this is the best of the series, but don't ask me for my personal opinion, I hate this sort of games more than the first EA-sports games that used polygons! :lol:

But if you like RPG's, I'd recommend to stick to the few localized US titles and maybe switch to PSone since it has way more localized J-RPG's.

btw: If you like sidescroll beat'em ups, Dungeons & Dragons Collection and Tenchi o Kurau 2 (aka Warriors of Fate) are excellent choices. They feel a bit like an action-rpg even, that's why they came to my mind.

 

The Saturn's best games are really arcade/action games where you don't need to understand Japanese at all...the KoF series and other SNK ports, Capcom fighters, the shooters (of which there are way too many to list here). The ones that have Japanese in them could easily be played with a translation guide. Of course, there are a couple of RPGs, for example Panzer Dragoon Saga/Azel whose Japanese version is inexpensive compared to the Western release, but it could be a lot worse for non-Japanese speakers.

 

As 7Force said, the arcade/action games are really great on Saturn, and with a 4MB RAM cart, 2D really shines on a Sega Saturn. Just about arcade quality. So I would go with what he said about those games.

Now, I can't read Japanese either. I can read Hiragana and Katakana, and speak a basic level, recognize a few kanji, and thats about it. I also have had a long plan to learn Japanese, it seems like everything else in my life always gets in the way, and well, thats as far as I have gotten.

My first very big suggestion is to get all the Sakura Taisen games for Sega Saturn. Each game has been fully translated into English, as well as Sakura Taisen 4 for Dreamcast. Those are some of the very first import RPGs I played, I beat all of them and enjoyed them very much; ranked as some of my favorite RPGs now. What I did is sat there and played each game with the translation guide right next to me. Weird at first, but then it gets easy.

Theres quite few other games like that, that are easy to play or have fan translations. Just to name some more off the top of my head. Wachenroder and Grandia have translations as well. You could just play Grandia on PS1, but I prefer it on Sega Saturn, it actually looks better. Another one that just popped into my head, I believe El Hazard for Sega Saturn had a translation too.

EDIT: You can find a lot of translations via GameFAQs, or by just Googling "game name + translation".

 

x

 

Thanks all for the advice and suggestions. Turns out the vendor I was visiting didn't have their Saturn stock with them at the show, so I came home empty-handed. Still, I have a lovely business card and more money than sense, so this random shopping is likely only delayed and not thwarted.

 

What show was this?

 

The MegaConvention in Orlando this past weekend. The vendor in question was VideoGamesNewYork, which is a store I hadn't heard of before this weekend. They seemed pretty knowledgeable, although the majority of the stock they had with them was recent PSP and Wii stuff. I didn't drive all that way just to visit that one vendor, it was just a lucky coincidence.

 

INDEED !

Beware

 

Notorious in what way? Are we talking defective gear, bootlegs, or what? Their website looks sketchy enough that I wasn't comfortable ordering off of it, but I was going to keep that to myself until now.

 

Sorry about the thread necromancy. VideoGamesNewYork are going to be at another convention in June that I have an opportunity to attend. Does anybody have anything to say about that particular vendor, positive or negative? I didn't end up buying anything from them the first time around, so I'm interested to know if people think they're worth doing business with or not, and why.

 

sakura taisen was/is still my fav game.
what's not like about with the robot RPG and dating sim... ^ ^

 

Culdcept, all of the SEGA AGES titles (except Phantasy Star Collection), O-Chan no Oekaki logic, Gals Panic SS, Metal Slug, X-men vs Street Fighter, Radiant Silvergun, Soukyugurentai Otokuyo, Layer Section II, Mizubaku Adventure, Bomberman Fight!!; all favorites of mine and perfectly playable.

 

Wow, thanks for the recommendation! I didn't know this one at all, and it surprises me that there's another Picross-like puzzler on the Saturn. I've already got "Logic Puzzle Rainbow Town" and it's really enjoyable. Although I've had a hard time to understand how it works because I had never played Picross on the Gameboy until then

I think it doesn't really make sense to recommend shooters or arcade-ports 2D-fighters though because these are common knowledge. It would be better to recommend only the hidden gems, like platformers, dating-sims/puzzlers or just unique concepts that do not require Japanese to be understood

Some more:

Zenkoku Seifuku Bishojo Grand Prix Find Love
-> photo puzzler, like those: http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/1179/snap0026p.jpg

Super Tempo
-> Enhanced port of the 32X-game

Willy Wombat
-> isometric jump'n run with smooth sprite graphics in a 3D environment with free camera adjustment

Keriotosse!
-> 3D battle action for up to 4 players

The Yakyuu Ken Special
-> trashy paper-scissors-stone game with the aim to win five times to unlock nude videos of one of 12 ugly women (and let me tell you: it's impossible to score more than four times )

IREM Arcade Classics
-> Zippy Race, Spartan X (Kung Fu) and 10-yard Fight. Also included is a superplay of Spartan X by GAMEST, but it's been cut together like mad and shortened to fit on the disc. All games feature nice rearranged soundtracks though and it's a cheap game, so get it

 

Ok good, here's a short video; http://youtu.be/lcZ0j1UJGcg

Yeah, fighters and shooters are a given, just thought I'd list some of my favorites. I did eventually win in the Yakyuken special btw

 

I've tried for about two hours when I got it and for another hour when a friend wanted to see it, but none of us ever managed to get past stage 4 of 5. It's fucking impossible Aren't there any cheats? What's the algorhythm of the game?

 

You actually like Bomberman Fight!! ?