Japanese speaker needed :P

[daemoth]

It seems like the developper of Odin Sphere left a little message and im curious

Context: Its next to the world map sprite of the human town of Titania.

[Gors]

it's impossible to translate as the letters are all over the place.

---

more accurately, they do mean something, but it just looks like GUI elements rather than some hidden message. I'll do some research.

[Deathbringer]

Are you sure such writing doesn't appear on any other parts for the world map?

[daemoth]

Are you sure such writing doesn't appear on any other parts for the world map?

Not that i can see.
Heres what its suppose to look like, its the city at the the right:

Edit: Oh, maybe its just the jap. name of the location.

[Deathbringer]

I meant on similar textures for the maps.

[Gors]

I don't know about the other textures and I also don't know anything about the game.

---

Analyzed some of the stuff here, as seen. The kanji words 決定 (kettei) and 目的 (mokuteki) are 'select' and 'objective', respectively. Mokuteki was weird because it was reversed in the game tiles for some reason.

"地入" however is not a known word - extra weird, because the character に is glued together, which implies that 地入 is indeed a single word. My dictionaries do have an entry on the term 入地 (Ireji), but that's a given name of an existing place in Japan and I don't see what this would mean in the game.

As for the characters　[り ri ま ma す su] (hiragana) and [ウ u ラ ra ン n ド do ル ru ン n セ se キャ kya] (katakana), I have some theories:

1- Since there's just 4 hiragana [に り ま す], I guess it is a conjugation of either these kanji words.
2- The katakana is used for foreign words, so it's extremely likely to be a name place.

[Gors]

I solved the conumdrum.



My girlfriend found this screenshot, and the top GUI has the same letters:



By exclusion, it was easy to work out the rest.

[daemoth]

Ah right, of course, the jap Ui. Thx for your time guys ^^

[Koh]

Gors, teach me Japanese o3o! Or am I gonna have to go Rosetta Stone~ You deciphered it so quick, and it was just a bunch of pieces.

[Gors]

If you want to learn Japanese, there are a few pointers to keep in mind:

1- Learn hiragana and katakana first. They are the fundamental parts of all japanese language. You know those kanji? Yeah, they can be fully rendered in hiragana alone.

But then why bothering with Kanji? Sheesh!!

Kanji allows quicker interpretation of the sentence, as the picture itself has a meaning. So even though you don't know how to read it aloud, you will understand its concept. As a bonus, it can reduce ambiguity too. Many kanji are read aloud the same, but because of their symbol, you'll understand what they mean.

2- Don't Give A Shit About Stroke Order. This goes backwards with what everyone say, but it's true. For a foreign learner, it's better to focus on the vocabulary and structure than polishing your letter's appearance. Of course, it's good to learn some basics on stroke order but don't waste your time on it too much.

3- Do not, I say, DO NOT learn kanji without knowing its radicals. The biggest mistake ever conceived by japanese teaching schools is that they try to teach words like westerners do. Do you remember your kid school days, learning related words such as hot/cold, tall/short, big/little? YEAH THIS DOES NOT APPLY IN JAPANESE (especially because these words would be 暑/寒, 高/低, 大/小 respectively).

But... what's a radical??

Radicals are what letters are to us to their kanji. There is no sense teaching a kid who doesn't know the concept of letters, whole words. Equally, if you aren't aware of kanji radicals, then there is no sense learning a full kanji. Want a taste?

Try writing this kanji without prior knowledge: 我 (waga), meaning "I"

Now, if you analyze it by parts, you'll recognize 手 (hand) and 戈 (spear). Combining them together will yield 我. This is because back in Ancient China, warriors would each receive a spear before combat, thus it was a personal item. The fact of a hand holding a spear came to represent the person as a whole, thus "I".

This 戈 radical also appears in many others, such as 城, 成, 盛 ... Which will make your life easier. Much MUCH easier if I do say myself

4- Install furigana in your browser. Furigana are small annotation characters that aid kanji reading, like this . It will help you memorize reading and vocabulary building better. This is useful ONLY after you learn hiragana though.

5- Use http://tangorin.com . It's a English <-> Japanese online dictionary. You can search in English, Japanese and romaji, complete with example sentences. It also has pre-built furigana and clicking on the words and kanji will yield its meaning!!

6- Not sure what a kanji means and can't copypaste it into Tangorin? Use http://kanji.sljfaq.org and write it yourself, or pick the radicals that make it up. Then click on the results!

7- This is surprising, but search kanji here in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page . It will give you the Japanese meaning, PLUS Chinese and Korean. It's interesting that it also has the kanji's etymology, which aids memorizing the strokes in an interesting, fun and easy way.

8- Learn it for the sake of learning a language, and not because of weebshit. 90% of the learners start with this intent and due to their sheer lack of motivation in everything else, they drop learning. Japanese is a language with many nuances and mythological elements so it's much more fun if learned properly.

[daemoth]

So, theres this debug menu in Star ocean Second evolution, anyone can read it for me, please?

Particularly, im searching for the friendship and romance value, my guess is the 2 lines with a 6 at the end.

[Gors]

デバッグ: Debug
スキルポイントMAX: Skill point Max
スキル ALL: Skill All
わざ or じゅつ: Technique or Jutsu
わざじゅくれんち: Technique/Ju(tsu) Clench
タレント: Talent
ゆう ディアス／クロード: Friend Diaz/Claude
あい ディアス／クロード: Love Diaz/Claude
STATE まひ: Stat Paralysis

[daemoth]

Just by curiosity, i think those are the hiragana for "Ka" and "O" ?
Found in the equipment's icons of Final Fantasy Tactics; War of lions ( psp remaster)