Touya

I have a scanner and can scan whatever I get out of B01 and the starter decks. Maybe we should divide up the work, since there's quite a few of us ordering cards? A correction on Gaius, we currently have him destroying the card that he reveals, but the card actually reads something like this: 暗殺 起 [行動する] 相手のデッキの1番上のカードを公開させる。そのカードの出撃コストが3以上の場合、あなたは［リバース2］してもよい。そうしたなら、敵を1体選び、撃破する。 Assassinate: Activate: [Tap this unit] Reveal 1 card from the top of your opponent's deck. If that card has a deployment cost of 3 or greater, you may [Reverse 2]. If you do, choose 1 enemy, destroy it by battle. ("Reverse" is a term that comes from the Japanese wiki, it seems to be the term for flipping a bond. I'm not sure if it's official or not, but in my experience Japanese wiki writers are very fastidious about their terminology so it probably is.) Basically Gaius specifies destroying an enemy, and doesn't actually do anything to the revealed card, which makes sense given that it's an assassinate skill. This also means that if you use Assassinate and his CSS goes off, it's a net -1 to the opponent and +1 to yourself. And cost 3 units only have an average support value of 10~20, so you'll know what's coming up during the next attack you make...I'm curious if you can use Assassinate on their lord to instantly break an orb.

Finally got through the whole thread. There's something that I want to bring up on the translation front. Aubergine so far has been localizing the kanji for each skill as a symbol, but I think that this may not be the best way to go about it. In Japanse kanji are advantageous because they have an inherent meaning that's obvious just from looking at the character, but these symbols don't translate that nearly as effectively as abbreviated text would. There's been some comments about how Cipher's lifted mechanics from Vanguard, and they're pretty much true; several of the skill kanji are identical in the way that they're used and the only differences are the associated colors. (Stand and rest is also identical to untapped and tapped states, of course. I do wonder if we should really call it "tap" at all, since it's not called タップ and "acting" versus "acted" states would be more accurate to 行動.) Presuming that the game gets popular enough to merit an international release, Nintendo's likely going to follow Bushiroad's route and use abbreviated words rather than symbols--i.e. 起 becomes ACT and 自 becomes AUTO. (There's not really any danger of lawsuits because Bushiroad does not have any claim on those kanji, or their English translations, or their functions in the game.) In the meantime, I think we should emphasize user-friendliness with these translations to make it as easy as possible to get people into the game. Looking at English text and seeing a series of symbols isn't going to help intuitively describe what a skill does to a new player. That's part of the value of kanji too, that you can look at them and instantly get an idea of how the skill behaves. So maybe try this convention: 起 = Activate 常 = Continuous 自 = Automatic 攻 = Support 特 = Special And then color code it on the English wiki and in other spaces, so that people learn to associate Activate with red, Continuous with green, Special with purple, and so on. What does everyone think of this idea? I want to support the game as much as possible, and I think part of that is making it easy to get into.

Currently binging through the whole thread, but only on page 10 so far. I'm importing two starter decks and a booster box and trying to get my local play community into it, though none of the cards I've seen so far really grab me so I'll just collect and play until a specific deck catches my eye. This month I'm launching a site for aggregating things like tournament videos and reports from Japan to try and get the word out about the game. (I'm pretty familiar with sorting through the Japanese blogosphere.) If there's any need for another translator, I can occasionally throw my hat in to help out. One thing that I noticed going through the official site is that this game seems to have really taken off even before its launch. There are more than 500 shop tournaments scheduled in advance for the month of July...

Totally absolutely honestly, I'm here because of Fire Emblem Cipher. Name's Touya with a long O, I'm the senior editor for vanguardus and ordinarily I'm sacrificing my soul one piece at a time to Cardfight!! Vanguard; I'm a professional journalist and amateur Japanese translator working on an undergrad degree in Asian Studies. I've lurked around the Fire Emblem fandom since 2003, but I was content to sit back and read rather than contribute. Cipher finally piqued my interest, which is what spurred me to make an account. I've played FE1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and the demo of 13. I haven't touched enough of Gaiden for it to count. Playing 3 in Japanese was one of my first attempts at a foreign language game. I've been repeatedly cautioned against playing Awakening, and after trying the demo and looking at other material related to the game it doesn't seem to be for me. The Elibe games were what stuck with me the strongest, and FE7's the only one that I did every character and mode on. Being more into SMT than I am into FE, I was really excited for Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem until the trailers came out, and now I'm just disinterested.