Before writing about some of my current gaming experiences, I want to touch briefly on some of what I've been doing for the last few years. I'll try and briefly summarize my amazing experience of learning enough Japanese to stumble my way through some amazing games I always wanted to play, but which never came out in the U.S.
Back in 2003 or so, when I first sampled the online game Final Fantasy XI, which places players from the U.S., Europe, and Japan together on the same server, I decided I had more than a passing interest in learning Japanese. I saw two useful purposes. First, I could interact more fully with the prominent Japanese population on Final Fantasy XI. Second, I could use the knowledge to play Japanese entries to my favorite series that didn't get released in the U.S.
Back then I used resources I found on the internet to learn some basic fundamentals of Japanese kana and some very basic vocabulary. But it wasn't long before I realized how intimidating my task would be, and I sort of dead-ended.
Later on, I came up with a brilliant plan. I figured the best way to start learning was to expose myself to Japanese writing with a subject that was compelling enough to actually motivate me to wade through it. I also realized that it would be beneficial if that material initially was written in Japanese kana (basic letter-like characters), rather than kanji (pictographs), to make it more accessible to a novice like me. So when I had some extra money, I decided to purchase the Nintendo Famicom on Ebay, along with a copy of Dragon Quest I, the Japanese version of my favorite NES game of all time, to begin my Japanese study in earnest.
Unfortunately, I discovered that the system I had purchased didn't work on my TV. And in trying to diagnose the issue, I got a little too aggressive and opened up the system, accidentally breaking off a resistor in the process. Later on I learned that the system had probably worked fine, but it takes just the right setup to get a Japanese system from that era to work on a U.S. TV. But I had broken the system and was now demotivated and went back to my Halo.
After I got married, I found my Dragon Quest cartridge and decided I wanted to try again. I purchased a Famicom, and with my wife's help I was able to find a TV that I could get the system working on. I started up to the classic Dragon Quest march that I loved so much as a child, entered my name as close as I could approximate it with Japanese characters, and started my journey.
It was a slow start at first as I began learning the ins and outs of basic Japanese grammar and vocabulary. I found an online dictionary, www.jisho.org, that was invaluable to me in learning the meanings of the words I entered. Japanese doesn't use word breaks the same way we do, so it often took me several different tries to figure out what I actually had to look up. Since I knew the English version, Dragon Warrior, in and out, I could usually tell when I had got it about right. I was able to accelerate my efforts when I discovered the entire Japanese game script published, with a rudimentary translation, on www.gamefaqs.com, by user xloto. It took me over a year, but I was finally able to complete the whole game, translating for myself most of the dialogue to a point I was confident in most of the meaning.
In 2012, my efforts increased considerably. By this time, I understood the basics of Japanese grammar and had a rudimentary video game related vocabulary. So it wasn't near as slow a start when I purchased and started playing through Dragon Quest II. Furthermore, as this was near the time I decided to quit Halo, I found myself able to devote a lot more time to it. At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to complete the game by the end of the year. But by the time my daughter was born in May of that year, I had completed Dragon Quest II and Dragon Quest III, and had started Dragon Quest IV!
My efforts slowed after my daughter was born. She was hospitalized for the first four months of her life, and most of my gaming efforts were put on hold or at very slow progress during that time. And of course, even after she came home, kids eat up a lot of time, so I didn't progress quite as fast. Nevertheless, by the end of 2013 I had completed Dragon Quest IV (the first game I played not to have a transcript by xloto), as well as Final Fantasy I, II, and III.
The latter two were hugely significant for me, because unlike the others before, I had never played an English version of those games. They were lost pieces of my childhood, entries in my favorite game series of all time that I had never had a chance to play, finally available to me for the first time because of the effort I had put forth in learning the language. I was able to piece together lost pieces of the history of Final Fantasy. It was surprising to me how many features of the series were introduced in those two games, and in particular how much Final Fantasy III laid the groundwork for Final Fantasy IV, one of my favorite games of all time. Both games were a tremendous experience to play through after all those years, and I particularly enjoyed Final Fantasy III.
After playing those, at the beginning of 2013, I dropped some money down to import a Super Famicom and play through Dragon Quest V and VI. These were harder because they used kanji, the Japanese pictographs, in their dialog. But I had a decent enough background by now in Dragon Quest-type vocabulary to begin to learn common kanji. I familiarized myself over time with how I could look kanji up on www.jisho.org, and I was able to play both games through in a little over a year. They were both amazing games, but Dragon Quest V in particular really spoke to me. I think it might have a place now on my favorite games of all time. It's a tragedy that I could not play it back when it was first released, as I know I would have loved it. But it's also the rare sort of game that is easier to appreciate as an adult with a family, because that is tied into the game's main themes.
After Dragon Quest VI, I resumed the series in English, since they have been released stateside from that point. I eventually want to import other Japanese games, and have a strong interest in Dragon Quest X, which is Japanese only. But with the exception of the Super Famicom Dragon Quest I, which I played through a couple of months ago, I haven't played any Japanese games since Dragon Quest VI. However, I have recently begun to revisit the game which started it all for me, Final Fantasy XI, and my interest in learning more Japanese is going up again. Hopefully I'll have some more amazing opportunities here in the future.
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