English Japanese PS2 Games

[Hawkzombie]

Through some magic of the universe, I've come into possession of a Japanese PS2. Now, the problem is the only game it came with I have no idea what the title even is, let alone how to PLAY the damn thing. I'd describe it, but I have the feeling it's the same cover art for about 85% of Japanese games...lol

So, I'm looking for some recommendations on any (hopefully) Mostly English PS2 Imports that would be good to own for this thing. I know there were at least a few games for the Sega Saturn (I miss my gray box :( *sigh*) that were in Japanese but the controls were easy to figure out and offered English Voice acting/subs. So I'm hoping for a few like that for the PS2. Obviously I will only be interested in games that aren't out in English over here ANYWAY, so keep that in mind as you recommend :p

[Chris_D]

There must be some I suppose, but not as many as you might think. Being the most popular platform, a lot more stuff got localised for the PS2 than the Saturn. Most importers seem to go for shmups, which mostly bore me. Obviously, there are quite a few esoteric RPGs and adventure/dating games that never got localised but they would be pretty unplayable. Anyway, I'm sure someone will have some better suggestions.

[Hawkzombie]

Yeah, that's what I figured as well. But who knows, there might be some diamond in the rough.

[Tayaya]

I'll have to dig through the collection and see what I can come up with for you. I have about 200 games in my collection for my Japanese PS2.

The absolute best advice I can give you is to stick to fighting games, music games, and shooters (the little spaceship kind, not FPS titles). These are usually the most universally accessible types of games, but shooters and music games I admit are kind of a niche market.

Finding Japanese games that require no Japanese at all is pretty uncommon. However, if you learn katakana, which in Japanese is used for loanwords, you can usually sound out what the menu items are on the main menu of a game. When I'm on a computer that I can input Japanese on, I'll put in some of the most common examples for you here on the thread. I wouldn't say this'll teach you enough to play most story-driven games, but it'll let you play and configure most normal games with little difficulty.

As for games off the top of my head that have a "full-English" option - Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4 did, as did Rez, but all 3 of those are available here now.... so there really is no need to import them.

I'll give you some good game ideas later!

[Mike Kelehan]

I mainly use my modded PS2 for DDR and Beatmania. Everything Tayaya said above it right.

[Hawkzombie]

Tayaya: Yep, I'm pretty much expecting for most of the 'no English Required' games to pop up in this list. While I'm hoping maybe one or two story-driven titles that need no huge amount of Japanese to get through might pop up, I'm more realistic in knowing that I'll have better luck with those other kinds of games you've mentioned. I look forward to your recommendations!

My wife can read some katakana, so that'll help :p

[Tayaya]

Tayaya: Yep, I'm pretty much expecting for most of the 'no English Required' games to pop up in this list. While I'm hoping maybe one or two story-driven titles that need no huge amount of Japanese to get through might pop up, I'm more realistic in knowing that I'll have better luck with those other kinds of games you've mentioned. I look forward to your recommendations!

My wife can read some katakana, so that'll help :p

Sorry I've been delaying on getting back to you. Haven't forgotten... it's just been a busy weekend for me here and I'm stuck at work once again.

If you're looking for some good shooters, I would recommend Espgaluda as it's my favorite. DoDonPachi Daioujou (may have spelled that wrong) taking a close second. I own tons of these kinds of games, though, but those two are just solid, and Espgaluda is very well polished. Since youre PS2 also plays PS1 games, try finding a copy of Gradius Gaiden... it's awesome (and has 2P simultaneous play, a rarity for Gradius). Sexy Parodius is also a great shooter for the PS1, and a hard to find Squaresoft title called Internal Section is a great precursor to Rez.

On the music game front, it's hard to make recommendations since most of them require purchasing a special controller. The Pop'n Music series is great though, with Pop'n music 12: Iroha, or Pop'n Music 8 my two personal favorites. If you can find a Pop'n controller, these are highly recommended. Beatmania IIDX 12 HAPPY SKY and Beatmania IIDX 16 Empress + Premium best are the two best entries in that series as well, and you should be able to find a bargain bin copy of the American Beatmania game which came with a controller. Pitch the US game disc, though...it's awful! The Taiko no Tatsujin series is fun, and you can play it without the drum controller, since it only has two surfaces to hit (the face, assigned to all of the face buttons and d-pad directions, and the rum, assigned to all 4 shoulder buttons). Its appeal is lessened without the Tatacon. Any of the games from number 4 on forward look great thanks to a new engine, and the song lists aren't bad. The only hurdle with Taiko is that the menus are weird. In sticking with traditional Japanese themes they are vertical, and lack katakana. They're simple enough and of course I can translate them for you, but they are weird at first glance.

Never one to say no to a train sim, if you can track down a copy of Densha de GO! FINAL, there are some good times to be had there, simply because train sims are so foreign to American gamers. Boring as all get out to watch, I find them fun to play because they actually are really simple to learn, but very challenging to master (needing to arrive withing a 30 second window and also stop within 1 foot (30cm) of where you are supposed to is a tough challenge, and one that becomes kind of addictive for a while. There's a slight learning curve, needing to know which stations you need to stop at vs ones you can blow through if you're an express train, but Densha do GO! FINAL color-coded the arrival times and added a few things to the GUI to make it an accessible-enough game for some of my other non-train-gamer friends to pick up a copy of. If you've ever been to Japan or plan to go, the train games are great for learning where your stops are, too, or just for bringing back those memories when you can't actually go back there for a while.

More to come.

[Mike Kelehan]

S Beatmania IIDX 12 HAPPY SKY and Beatmania IIDX 16 Empress + Premium best are the two best entries in that series as well, and you should be able to find a bargain bin copy of the American Beatmania game which came with a controller.

I think my favorite was IIDX RED, although I haven't spent that much time with Empress yet.

[Banacek]

Final Fantasy X International is leaps and bounds better then the American version of FFX. It fixes so much that was wrong with the first game, and adds a ton more content as well. It's also entirely in English. It's criminal that it wasn't released in the US (along with FFXII Int).

[Tayaya]

Final Fantasy X International is leaps and bounds better then the American version of FFX. It fixes so much that was wrong with the first game, and adds a ton more content as well. It's also entirely in English. It's criminal that it wasn't released in the US (along with FFXII Int).

I concur with this statement... if only I didn't think FFX is a terrible game in its own right. The revamped sphere grid is great, though... way more flexible than the original, but also possible to totally break your characters by spreading things too thin.

[Tayaya]

I think my favorite was IIDX RED, although I haven't spent that much time with Empress yet.

RED is one of my favorites, but Empress and Happy Sky are more accessible.

[Banacek]

I concur with this statement... if only I didn't think FFX is a terrible game in its own right. The revamped sphere grid is great, though... way more flexible than the original, but also possible to totally break your characters by spreading things too thin.

Oh, I enjoyed FFX a lot as well, didn't mean to give that impression. I just really enjoyed FFX Int.

[Mike Kelehan]

RED is one of my favorites, but Empress and Happy Sky are more accessible.

They've all got Beginner, and the first step is to clear everything on Beginner. Once you've done that, you're ready for 4s and 5s, and they've all got plenty of those.