u/TheFranFan

やった！ナゾは「レイトン ミステリージャーニー カトリーエイルと大富豪の陰謀」というゲームから出てきた。ひらめきコインを4つ使ったけど。。。それでも、自分を誇りに思う！

TIL switch games can connect to your Japanese eshop account to decide if a game has been released yet or not. LET'S GOOOOOO!

It was interesting playing it in Japanese. I didn't understand everything, but I got quite a lot. Overall it had a lot more flavor due to being able to communicate more information with fewer characters. Like, did you know that Agni is さいごのちから aka "Ultimate Power"? The town names were arguably better in English though - like "Gust" vs "なぜのむら (Wind Village)" or Tunlan being "おんがくのくに (Music Country)." Most of the Japanese town names are just straight-up literal like that. In any case, it was good to finally put this game to rest. Looking forward to finishing up the series (not you VI).

This version has a lot of differences, but this one is the most... uh... well it speaks for itself? Probably one of the many, many Japan -> America changes of the SNES era that makes the most sense. This just would not play well in our culture, today... or any day.

Also, his name is Danku which would probably just translate to Dank. Some people say it's "Danq" but that's kinda... eh, I disagree. "Ku" on the end is not meant to imply "q," it's just how a final consonant "k" in Japanese works. Plus "Dank" just fits his character better. Either way, maybe Karn + the new portrait was better.

You learn something new every day. It's incredible how different this version is when the problem of smushing words into tiny spaces didn't exist.

These fonts fascinate me because they are at once very "clean" and yet so confusing. The lines are so pretty and smooth and yet the placement of the lines plays with my expectations just enough to make me stop and say "えええ？" For example:

- In the first screenshot, check out the た in 歩いた. The "upper stroke" on the lower-right melds into the base of the character, and the "bottom stroke" is significantly more curved than I would expect - almost like a u-shape.
- In the second screenshot, things are mostly a bit clearer, but holy heck is that な warped! The curvy part on the lower-right dominates, and the first three strokes are tiny in comparison.
- Also in the second screenshot... に. Enough said lol

I'm at the stage where I'm comfortable pushing myself to understand text like this, because being able to tell why multiple versions of the same character all work is very valuable for long-term progress. But man, it's gonna be a bit of tough going until I get good. Has anyone else played games or otherwise run into fonts like this - and what did you think when you did?

Edit: Why on earth are people downvoting this? I do not understand what I did that would deserve that response.

My two personal GOATs together singing my favorite song. Today is a good day y'all

I understood most of the text too! Definitely learned a bit more old-school Japanese. I am really proud of this one, DQ holds a special place in my heart. Couldn't have done it without this subreddit - thanks for all the advice you've given me over time, y'all!