Which Japanese Fire Emblem games do you well enough to play in their original language?

[Bullwine85]

Thracia cartridges are rediculous. To this day the most expensive game I've bought is Chrono Trigger CIB, and FE5 is even more expensive than that. What does it go for now, $300 if you're lucky?

To be fair, $300 is for the Deluxe Edition. Cheapest I've seen Thracia is $45, but that's for the Nintendo Power flash memory version of the cartridge. An actual copy of the cartridge complete with label (which was released a year later IIRC) goes for about $150 at the cheapest, at least on eBay. Hell I found a Thracia fan translation put on a SNES cartridge for $60 at a local store, one of the few times I've seen a fan translated reproduction cartridge be cheaper than the original JP cartridge.

Of course, same goes for Binding Blade apparently as of late as well, only copy of the JP cartridge I can even find on eBay is about $60, and $75 if you want it shipped faster instead of having to wait like 3 weeks by boat (cartridge is actually in Japan, so no surprise)

Edited March 5, 2016 by Bullwine85

[Lantairu]

To be fair, $300 is for the Deluxe Edition. Cheapest I've seen Thracia is $45, but that's for the Nintendo Power flash memory version of the cartridge. An actual copy of the cartridge complete with label (which was released a year later IIRC) goes for about $150 at the cheapest, at least on eBay. Hell I found a Thracia fan translation put on a SNES cartridge for $60 at a local store, one of the few times I've seen a fan translated reproduction cartridge be cheaper than the original JP cartridge.

Of course, same goes for Binding Blade apparently as of late as well, only copy of the JP cartridge I can even find on eBay is about $60, and $75 if you want it shipped faster instead of having to wait like 3 weeks by boat (cartridge is actually in Japan, so no surprise)

I actually have a Thracia repro I got off the internet for $55.

[Gradivus.]

I played FE9 japanese because of maniac mode and it worked really well, I misclicked pretty rarely so far, mainly because I could recognize weapons by their stats handily and had the command order in mind (and could also somewhat memorize how they look in japanese). For the rest, I didn't try because of translation patches, but I can imagine aside from Thracia (how often will you misclick wait?) it should be manageable if you played the game before.

[Jedi]

I played fe6 in Japanese fairly well because I own the cart. I play FE5 in Japanese because the translation is terrible.

[Gradivus.]

Why is the translation worse than JP FE5? I mean it does clarify the menu commands for people that don't know japanese well. (Personally I could probably recognize weapons by their icons, but it's still easier to confuse stuff like bolting for tron when you can't read the names)

[RidellCrimea]

FE12 was the only FE game I played in Japanese.

Oh, and apparently I wasn't well enough at Japanese to play it. I once mistook Physics for an ordinary staff and healed a nearby ally, what a waste. :/

[Bullwine85]

I actually have a Thracia repro I got off the internet for $55.

Funnily enough, looks like even the Thracia repro's are getting pricey, though the cartridges that come on the Nintendo Power version are....affordable, if you can spare about $45 or so.

Then again, I might be better off playing the fan translation version of it for now, otherwise my experience may end up like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTPrxO3xKA

[Jedi]

Why is the translation worse than JP FE5? I mean it does clarify the menu commands for people that don't know japanese well. (Personally I could probably recognize weapons by their icons, but it's still easier to confuse stuff like bolting for tron when you can't read the names)

Because the menu's are all funky with the translation patch, and it bugs the hell out of me.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Jedi

[Lantairu]

Because the menu's are all funky with the translation patch, and it bugs the hell out of me.

Don't forget the weird text wrapping issues.

[Jedi]

Don't forget the weird text wrapping issues.

Yes that's very jarring too.

[MCProductions]

Funnily enough, looks like even the Thracia repro's are getting pricey, though the cartridges that come on the Nintendo Power version are....affordable, if you can spare about $45 or so.

Then again, I might be better off playing the fan translation version of it for now, otherwise my experience may end up like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTPrxO3xKA

I will never understand how FE5 didn't break sales records with this masterpiece of marketing.

[Lauren]

I know some Japanese and am very familiar with the Fire Emblem UI, so really, playing any FE game in Japanese isn't very hard. I honestly think as long as you're used to the UI, which is pretty consistent amongst all the games, you'd be fine playing in Japanese.

[Topaz Light]

Binding Blade, I've reached Chapter 17 playing in Japanese on a cartridge.

New Mystery, I've actually finished twice; once on Normal mode, and once on Hard, again, in Japanese, on a game card.

[Jave]

I played through the entirety of FE12 before the patch was out.

I also attempted FE4 and FE5, but didn't get very far.

[Thor Odinson]

I have never played FE5 with the english patch because the english patch is awful. I went and read the script on SF instead, without the shit memes and bad menus.

I also have never played FE12 in English--while the translation patch here is quality, my laptop at the time of that wasn't nearly as fast or powerful as the one I have now, and doing DS emulation was a pain. I beat 12L in JP so, whatever.

However, I'm fluent in Chinese and I can actually read the menus since the menus are usually mostly Kanji :B

[Obsidere]

I can't read anything in Japanese but I own a physical copy of fe6 and I've beaten it a couple of times. Of course I can't read anything but I have almost everything remembered off the back of my hand. Also it uses the same interface as fe7 and fe8 so it's really just remembering about what button does what. I mainly use the pictures to identify weapons but sometimes it can be tricky because I think both iron and steel weapons use the same picture.

I actually find it pretty fun to play it this way on the gba instead of an emulator. With no save states it can be a hassle but that kinda is what makes it so fun! And I could maybe beat fe4 or fe12 in raw Japanese if I wanted to as well but I'm not quite as familiar with them as fe6.

[MagicIsOP]

Gaiden, except for the fact that it's a coin flip on what the villagers promote to (Dammit, cliff is a merc for the umpteenth time)

[Dr. Tarrasque]

All of them except FE1.

[Glitchy]

I could probably get through FE6 just by looking at numbers and looking at different icons, to see what each weapon actually is.

[Joerai]

Probably FE7, FE8 and FE9. Not sure, but I think i could do it

[Yvette]

Never tried to do this, but probably FE9 as I think I have the most playthroughs on that one. 13 and 14 probably as well, layout is pretty self explanatory and all of the icons (like those in MyCastle with buildings) would help immensely.