3. Ability

Your regular sword slashes and fire magic just ain't cutting it for this fight. Or maybe you just want to pickpocket some gold from the creature in front of you, all stealth-like. Perhaps that jump attack your dragoon knight has will just turn the tide of the battle.

That there above, readers, isn't a blogger's typical spelling error. In J-RPGs, our English word "ability" is morphed into abiriti, a friendlier pronunciation for Japanese tongues. And as I've mentioned in the past, the script for the word is in katakana, specifically designed for foreign words.

Always with this word, you will find that selecting it will take you to a secondary screen, with even more weird and wonderful Japanese words. All this blogger can tell you is: Good luck! With any imported title, part of the fun is figuring things out by trial and error -- it's not the end of the world if your Level 56 Hero of Awesomeness dies in battle because you don't have a clue what to do. Experiment! Click away on all the crazy Japanese words. You'll get there!

4. Experience

For an RPG fanatic, seeing your characters grow and become stronger is nothing short of satisfying. You remember those times when he was just a wee boy, wielding a short sword at Level 5. Look at him now! A grown man, all chiseled and weary, holding a great big battle axe. I remember when you came home crying -- all you had on was some simple leather attire, and all the kids at school wore shiny mithril. And, uh, that's enough of my dreams of being the good wife in the small and peaceful village of Dresnia.

We all know and love experience points. As gamers, we are always on the lookout for when our heroes will go up a level. We want it in chart form. So to sate your appetite for leveling up in a Japanese language RPG, behold the text image above. As I repeatedly point out (to the annoyance of the readers possibly!), the first script is the more complicated kanji form. You will tend to find fairly equal amounts of both variants. Often, it will be between some other words. In this case, the phrase can more than likely be translated as "Experience points needed for next level."

5. Load

In our last lesson with RPGs, we came across the Japanese for "save." Sometimes, however, your progress in the game is halted by some horrible mistake you made on the way. Lucky for you, you had an alternate save slot of an earlier time in the game. Call it "gamer's premonition," if you will. But where is that all important "load" button!?

Oh, yes, it's right there on the, uh, right. How convenient of this newfangled column! In Japanese, "load" is fairly similarly pronounced like the English, except for the extended ending. We're sure you will find this word useful to recognize in-game, when you simply get stuck on something.

Closing Off

<< BACK COMMENT

Items of Import is a fortnightly column dedicated to titles only out in Japan. With in-depth impressions of games long before localization and knowledgeable language how-tos, it attempts to bridge the gap between the import savvy and import fearing. Come on, now! You, too, can make that giant leap! Yokoso!

After a lot of deliberation, Joe Player finally decided to try importing a game from Japan. It was nerve-wracking, clicking through to an online retailer and perusing the list of unusual titles. With fingers poised above the keyboard, he hesitated -- would his credit card information be safe? Should he choose express post? How long would delivery take?

He was worried -- did he make the right choice? Was his Japanese sufficient to play the game? He'd learned hiragana in classes, and picked up some ninja phrases from fansubbed episodes of Naruto. Would it be enough? He would soon find out.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Items of Import, a new weekly feature that will make you feel a little less worried about your import choices. Sometimes playing a game in Japanese can seem like a daunting task. But make no mistake: Items of Import is here to nurture you, guide you, and teach you the ways of Japanese games. Keep checking this space for your dose of import impressions and language lessons.

COMMENT NEXT >>

We've got an ultimate game pack up for grabs with this latest DS Fanswag! One lucky reader is going to walk away with Space Invaders Extreme ($19.99), Arkanoid DS ($19.99), and an import paddle controller (in white; $29.99), and all for the low, low price of a comment.

What do you need to do to win? Well, since it's almost time for E3, tell us what you hope will be announced at the show! You may enter once per day and the contest will run through Sunday, July 13th; that night, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern, entries will close, and we'll choose one winner in a random drawing. To enter, you must be 18 or older, and a current legal resident of the United States or Canada (excluding Quebec). Have questions? Check the official rules.

It's no secret that we're very interested in Ecoris. With Wi-Fi compatibility included, plus the RTS theme, this game is quickly becoming the recipe for excellence. Even the game's big, spiky protagonist, Dorian, looks like the kind of main character we want in our games: completely ridiculous.

The latest Japanese commercial, which is embedded past the break, shows most of what we said. Keep in mind though that, like all Japanese commercials, the video is a bit shorter than what you're used to.

It's highly unlikely that SD Gundam G Generation Cross Drive will ever make it to the states; obtaining rights for 500+ characters spanning over a dozen different series, most of which having never made it out of Japan, would be a nightmare. Still, we like to keep up to date with the SRPG on the off-chance that a North American publisher might take a risk and pick it up, much like Atlus did with Super Robot Taisen Original Generations 1 & 2 for the GBA.

Bandai Namco has updated Cross Drive's official site with a two-minute-and-a-half trailer and a new commercial, advertising its August 9th's release. If you're at all interested in the title, or if you just have a bizarre fetish for chibi mobile suits, make sure to check both of the clips out!

See also: Mobile Suit DS Lite

While we burn for new info on Archaic Sealed Heat, we'll happily take these enormous scans, even if they're mostly filled with images we've seen before. You know what else we want to hear about? Companies jockeying for the chance to localize this bad boy. Between the amazing top-screen FMVs and our love for all types of RPGs, we're going to need to see this one head outside Japan within a year of release. We're willing to wait -- but don't make us wait forever.

Hit the jump for the scans, all of which are clickable for hi-res versions. And we're not kidding when we say that the bigger versions are big.

Now that Kanji Dragon's release is behind us, it's time for us to set our sights on the next Success Corp. release that we plan to obsess over: Insect Wars (Konchuu Wars). The latest update on the tactical RPG's site shows off a papercraft model of a horned beetle -- just one of the dozens of customizable units in your army of mechanized bugs -- equipped with an intimidating cannon on its back. This will presumably be offered as a limited gift to gamers who preorder Insect Wars in Japan. Scurry past the post break for a better look at the paper replica.

We shooed Insect Wars (Konchuu Wars) away when the game's beetle-filled screenshots first flew into our periphery, believing the bug to be an uninspired pest. "Go away," we said, "and bother us no more." In our defense, language barriers kept us from understanding what the Success Corp. title was trying to communicate with its antennae and movement patterns.

Having studied its habits, we found that the game isn't a Mushiking clone as we'd originally assumed, but a tactical RPG where you command an army of customizable, mechanized insects. Our mouths were agape, monocles falling from our faces when the truth was revealed. Below is a sampling of Insect Wars' creepy crawlers:

• a rifle-mounted praying mantis with buzzsaws -- my god, buzzsaws! -- for arms
• a lightning bug that terrorizes foes with its beam cannon tail
• a heavily-armored, treaded snail (pictured above) which acts as a transport for other units while healing them

Not since Puzzle Quest have our loins ached for such a game. Insect Wars swarms into Japanese stores this August 2nd. Head past the post break for a minute-long trailer.

Since we talked a little about import games here this morning, showing off a trailer for a game often mentioned in the same breath as "if only" seemed appropriate for our video spotlight. If you're one of the four people around who isn't familiar with Jump Ultimate Stars, let us enlighten you. Jump Ultimate Stars is a fighting game packed with hundreds of manga characters. Yes, hundreds, from dozens of series ... and it also happens to be a great fighting game on the DS. Check out one of the trailers for the game after the jump.

The more we learn about Ecoris, the eco-centric RTS, the more we're planning to riot if the game doesn't get an English-language release. Get Atlus on the project right now!

The latest updates on Ecoris focus on the beginning of the game, and there are some new details on online play as well. As the story opens, our fruity hero, Durian (sometimes Dorian in non-Japanese articles) begins to notice that not all is well in the forest. Development and pollution are destroying the ecosystem. He's not alone in his observations; the squirrels have noticed the same thing. On their own, the forest creatures are too weak to fight back ... but if they team up, anything is possible.

Some other interesting facts about the game: apparently, there's a level-creation mode (we can only guess this comes in as you start to rebuild the forest), and once created, you can utilize those new stages in online battles. Our translation here may be a little rough, but it also seems as though Durian can either summon some sort of ancestral spirit, or take on its form, and you will need that power to pass certain sections.

Ecoris is sounding more fascinating every day. For those gamers for whom the language barrier isn't a barrier at all, this one is looking like it may just be a must-import title.

If you're looking for a matte black look for your DS, look no further. Replacement cases are way better than DIY solutions, at least in this instance. This sleek aluminum shell is, frankly, pretty hot, especially with all that white peeking through. And hey -- just in case you harbored a secret desire to replace your soccer ball with a DS Lite one afternoon, this may be just the thing you need. Because it's metal.

The black aluminum shell sells for ¥2,520, or a little more than $20.

[Via Famitsu]

Long hailed as one of the GBA's best puzzle titles, Kururin Paradise never landed on North American shores, preferring instead to limit its release to Japan. Play-Asia has taken pity on our Kururin-less souls, listing the 8ing-developed game at a dicount price of $9.90! This deal lasts until next Tuesday, so you'll have more than enough time to collect change on the sidewalk for this purchase. Pilot your spinning craft past the post break for a video preview of this simple-but-addictive game!

First, the Japanese versions of US games. You can get Yoshi Touch & Go (Catch! Touch! Yoshi!), Mega Man ZX (Rockman ZX), Star Fox Command, the just-released Honeycomb Beat, and a few others for $10. If you want a uniquely Japanese experience, there's a bunch of stuff including Mawasunda!!, a lot of miscellaneous non-games and puzzle games (including an amusing-looking coloring game), and a nice selection of D3's Simple Series stuff. Stock is rapidly diminishing, so go browse right now.

[Thanks, joe!]