Chinese video games?

[yersi]

If anyone is interested, I wrote a post on my blog yesterday about playing games in Chinese as a study method. I'm planning to rework it into a thread of its own here, so any comments or feedback on it is much appreciated

Edited March 16, 2009 at 10:09 PM by yersi

[Gleaves]

Nice post, Yersi. I think those are solid suggestions. You might want to note for Planescape there is a font mod that turns the background color of the text box to black, instead of the odd green/brown pattern. This helps a tiny bit with readability. Pic below.

Here's some other video game thoughts--

Dirty Split - This is a freeware adventure game that has been translated. I haven't really played it yet, so I can't comment on whether it is good or not. But you can turn down the dialogue volume all the way so that you have to depend on the Chinese text. And its the kind of game that you need to understand the text to advance.

I think the the Phoenix Wright games (1, 2, 3) could also be good for studying, as they are pretty much entirely text driven. They are very fun/funny.

[Hofmann]

I found a Simplified Chinese patch for PC Final Fantasy VIII here.

And yersi, that's a nice post. You might like to know that Chrono Trigger is also available in Traditional Chinese, but a lot of it is still in kana.

Nevermind, it isn't. I must have been sleepy or something. I was referring to Final Fantasy VI.

Edited March 17, 2009 at 05:27 PM by Hofmann

[null]

LMAO!

Grammatical mistakes made in Sora no Kiseki (Second Charpter)

http://tieba.baidu.com/f?z=267446213&ct=335544320&lm=0&sc=0&rn=30&tn=baiduPostBrowser&word=%BF%D5%D6%AE%B9%EC%BC%A3&pn=0

[AlexBlackman]

I must second Planescape if you are at an intermediate level

[Loriquero]

Why not start playing a chinese mmorpg instead of playing translations of offline games?

I think you can learn a lot more with other people´s interaction.

I don´t do that because I just hate mmorpgs...

[Hofmann]

People often make errors when typing online. Also, you have to communicate with them at a reasonable speed. I find the game's script sufficient.

[Gleaves]

I downloaded Peggle (xbox 360 Live Arcade), because I wanted a mindless game to play while listening to Chinese audio. To my pleasant surprise, it is fully translated into traditional Chinese (when you have the xbox langauge setting on Chinese). It's a puzzle game, so it's certainly not the best game to practice Chinese, but there's still a bit of text in between in each round. Very fun game. Kind of like plinko from Price is Right.

(Haven't been able to find the PC 中文版 of Peggle, but I'm guessing it is available)

[reallych1932]

I was looking at a language learning forum

An English learner said they practised English by playing computer games specifically graphic adventures (point+click) like monkey island, sam and max (all the lucasarts ones)

Does anyone know if these games are translated into Chinese?

Could anyone recommend any ogther games on pc/ds/gba/emulator with Chinese language that are fun?

[Mouseneb]

Great idea! I've wondered the same myself...

[Hofmann]

How about role-playing games? There are plenty of Chinese translations of Japanese role-playing games, such as the Final Fantasy series. Also native Chinese ones like the 仙劍奇俠傳 series. Also, see this thread.

[imron]

[imron]

VeryCD has a link for the Chinese version of Curse of Monkey Island （猴岛的诅咒). I am seriously tempted to install it - especially if it has all Chinese audio too.

[reallych1932]

cool thanks

we should maybe start a section witgh reviews (not just the game but the level of language)

[weregoingunion]

"Cave Story" (洞窟物語, Dōkutsu Monogatari) is a really fun game I've been playing for the last few days. It's a platformer game that's kind of like Metroid where you have to collect items and find various things. It is a freeware game made by a Japanese guy called Daisuke Amaya.

You can find a fansite here: http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/ and wiki info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story.

If you click "downloads", you will see translations for Chinese, both simplified and traditional.

I played it in English, but I'm now replaying it in Chinese. It has a good storyline, the dialogue is not overly complex, and it doesn't use weird RPG-style language.

[Hofmann]

Here is a Simplified Chinese patch for the Japanese version of Xenogears. Instructions are here. Screenshot Edited July 22, 2009 at 08:33 PM by Hofmann

[roddy]

You could also try searching for 汉化 on download sites - ie here.

[Gleaves]

For anyone with a Nintendo DS, I've been playing games with the help of a flash card and verycd (game collections here and here). The DS is sharp enough that it handles small Chinese font quite well. There are some tremendous games. I'm currently playing Professor Layton (a puzzle/riddle game) and It's a Wonderful World (a stylish Japanese rpg).

There are some emulators for the DS, DeSmuME seems to work, but I have not had a great experience with them.

[Hobbes828]

@Hoffman: Can you translate / give a simplified explanation of how to get FF8 working with simplified Chinese? I can't really read that and I'm not sure how to patch it into Chinese.

I've got it installed off some cds (dvds) I bought in a Chinese computer store. But right now it is just in English. I am willing to do it all over based on the other way if necessary, but of course optimally there would be a way to patch it directly from here without having to download a bunch more.

Thanks a lot!

[Hofmann]

Sorry; didn't see your post until now. Here is what worked for me:

Install FF8.

Apply the 1.2 patch. The one supplied is for non-nVidia video cards. Find the patch that suits your system.

Apply the Sinification patch.

Copy Disk1.pak, Disk2.pak, Disk3.pak, and Disk4.pak from the CDs to the FINAL FANTASY VIIIData directory.

If the game crashes or you see a black screen, install Use FF8_Launcher.exe and maybe install vcredist_x86.exe.