Japanese games and English in them.....

Anyone understand the logic of why Japanese games have english mixed up in the middle of them? For instance the Japanese version of Space Channel 5 has english text in it (the words spaceport, start etc.)....what's the chances of a Japanese person knowing the english meaning?

Is it to do with the re-use of the code base for other regions?

 

This is a very interesting question with a not so interesting answer.

Games made by CSK such as Aero Dancing or Buggy Heat (TNT Hardcore in the US) all had English text with Japanese subtitles at the bottom of the screen. The reason for this was to make conversions to the west much quicker. No need for a translation, just remove the Japanese subtitles.

Now games like Space Channel 5 use English because it's cool. There are many Japanese pop songs that use English in the middle of a Japanese sentence yet many people have no idea what the word means. It just sounds cool. Same goes for games. Japanese should know what Space Port means in Space Channel 5 simply because they use that word in Japanese anyway but other words may be in English just because it's easier to say or looks cool. Doesn't matter to the Japanese if they can understand it or not. It's all about image. Which is something very important in Japan. So much so that I'm sick of it some times.

Yakumo

 

About the second case, as Yakumo has told you, it's just something related to the Japanese culture. Japan, after the 2nd World War, specially since the 60s, started to be very influenced by the US. It's susprising to know that some of its Ministers even wanted to take English as the official language, something which many people refused to do (it's obvious)

Because of that influence from the West, many new words had to be adapted and, simply, Japanese made new "signs" to represent that sounds. But they also made a new "language system", called Romaji, which used our signs (letters) Romaji allow them represent words in English and also their sounds. And, because of this, many times, they mix Romaji with Katakana or Hiragana, even adding Kanjis, specially for titles (like which they put in videogames)

Salutes .

 

Heh, you want a fun mixed-language game, play Sin And Punishment on the N64. All the text is in Japanese, but the cart supports full voice acting - in ENGLISH! It's pretty amazing and makes the game really easy to follow, my only problem is that the ending is text-only, and in Japanese at that. :smt019

I've also heard that Silent Hill 4: The Room on PS2 and Pikmin 2 on GC have full English text hidden away in them somewhere that can be unlocked with a Gameshark/Action Replay or something like that.

 

Silent Hill 4 has it as an option in the main options menu so I hear. I know Castlevania : Lament of Innocence also had full English support. If they do it with MGS3 too then I shall love Konami ^_^

 

"Konami has added an option to toggle the in game text between English and Japanese. Even the voiceovers in the game are in English with Japanese subtitles, which is a nice treat for importers."

 

Well, more and more companies and studios in Japan started time ago to do the translation work there, instead of doing this in the destiny country. The main example in the case of SEGA (the nearest to me) is Sonic Team, which do the localization of its games even before they release it in Japan, so you can get the NTSC-J version translated to English, German, French, Spanish...

Salutes .

 

I think Sonic Team is the only dev group that has really done the multi-lingual thing properly. Put Japanse/English/Whatever voices and subtitles in both versions, then let the region locks keep the non-fanatical from buying the import.

 

Sega have been doing dual language games since the days of the Mark III/Master System. Some games will run in Japanese or English if they have both sets of languages programmed in to the game. The 1st time I noticed his was back in 1988 with Super Shinobi. One day I took it to my mates house and placed it in to his PAL Mega Drive which we had just melted the plastic tabs off to fit in Japanese games. To our surprise the Super Shinobi title screen had changed to Revenge Of Shinobi with all in game text being in English. There are 100's of Mega Drive games like this and many Mark III / Master System games too.

Yakumo

 

Yes, that's true Yakumo, but I'm referring to multilanguage games which includes more languages apart from Japanese and English. Because there're many Japanese games of old consoles which, despite of being in Japanese, mix many texts in English. I'm from Spain and maybe that's because I think more in multilanguage games when I see texts in Spanish or other "strange" languages .

 

I was shocked to find that blue submarine no.6 had any english in it, considering the whole option and main menu is in english. Like Yakumo said it's mostly for style, just how we think japanese writing looks stylish, they do the same with english. I think it also has to do with saving money and time. Another could be them wanting more accurate translations. I know Kojima wanted to have someone else do the translation for mgs remake on cube due to jeremy bulestein (think thats the right name) making some of the dialouge more american style. Let's just hope if they ever bring inital d special stage here for ps2, that tokyo pop doesn't get involved with the translation.

 

Hey, do you see this fact so strange? Japan has assimilated English very very well since the 60s, and they use it much for commercial purposes. More and more countries tends to do the same (without forgetting its language) not only because it sounds cool, but also because they think in a future exportation of their products and English is already an Universal language for we all.

 

Resident Evil/Biohazard series has English voice acting with Japanese subtitles as well.

 

Who can forget the Super Famicom version of FZero? That had full English support and even the comic included in the instruction manual was in full English!

 

The whole idea of having games in English has nothing to so with future exportation of their products and English as negora wrote but down to the simple fact that it's stylish. Bio Hazard was in English because the game was based on those cheap and nasty 80's horror flicks. The game simply wouldn't have the same appeal in Japanese as it would in Japanese. Some goes for a western made game that is set in Japan. Having the game in English just doesn't sound right. So Japanese voices with English subtitles would be the "stylish" way to go about it as well as recreating that Japanese feel to the game.

On a side note. The Japanese originally got their English from Britain. This is easily proven by the way they used to spell English words. It wasn't until the late 80's when they started to change to American English. If you find old Japanese items you'll notice the difference in spelling. For example I saw a folder made in 1988 with COLOUR written on it. These days of course they spell it COLOR. The US Only way.

Yakumo

PS: serious question here. Why do Americans spell words differently from Europe, Canada and Australia?

 

I don't know, i guess it just changed over time.

 

It's newspeak inflicted by Reagan.

 

Really? Mine says "COLER".

I'm sure there is a real reason (I think I've even heard it before, but just forgot). I guess it should just be an example of how languages are organic, and change over time/space. Even in a country as small as Japan, the dialects from merely city to city are mind-blowing.

 

I think that's what we call Engrish :smt043

Yakumo

 

spanish is also different in all the countrys :s each country in latin america and spain have different words and meaning of words and spelling like in spain, to let some one borrow something is " prestad" in mexico and latin america is "prestar" i am guessing that people change it alilttle and then everyone just starts talking like that :S