日本語で Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken Part: 1

I recently knocked another game (Suikoden) off my To-Play list, which means that the next one to tackle just so happened to be Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken. Now this is one of the titles that made my list purely because I have the option of playing it in Japanese. Which means, I fully expect to spend more time trying to understand the text as opposed to actually playing the game. I haven’t read a single review of the game, and only bought it by accident as it was part of Humble Indie Bundle 9 back in 2013. Time to work my way through the menu screen.

My one complaint so far: I don’t appear to have any sort of a preference file I can edit to keep the game locked to Japanese. Every time I boot up, it’s en Anglais. C’est la vie.

The translation appears to be better than Brothers was. I don’t see any glaring issues. With the actual translation I mean. As you’ll see, there were a few spots where the devs didn’t bother to test their localization. As a result words go off the screen, or have glitches. Too bad.

Right off the bat there’s some familiar stuff. I guess this will be old hat at some point, but at this point while I can recognize the odd kanji, I still don’t remember the pronunciations. I really need to get around to grilling them into my brain the same way that I did with Hiragana (honestly, my Katakana isn’t as good as it should be, so this is a refresher on those as well).

Ok… let’s get started:

The main title of Rocketbirds: hardboiled chicken in Japanese.

シングル common single
プレイ common play
ローカル common local
協力きょうりょく jlpt n3 A. cooperation; collaboration
ネットウーク common Network/Online
オプション common Options
特典とくてん common N. privilege; special favor; special favour; benefit; prerogative; perk; amenity
やめる common Quit
選択せんたく jlpt n3 V. selection; choice; option;

I’m going to dive into this from bottom to top since going through Single Play(er) will end up taking us into the game itself. The following is the Quit (やめる) menu option.

Rocket02

終了しゅうりょう jlpt n2 V. end; close.
して common is the imperative form of “to do”. So it basically means “do it”.
よろしい common A. good; ok; all right
ですか? common is?
終了してよろしいですか? “Is it ok to quit?” or “Are you sure you want to quit?”
もど jlpt n4 V. to return

The Perks (特典) option:
Rocket03

ムービー common n. movie
追加ついか jlpt n2 A. additional; supplement
コンテンツ common n. content
クレジット common n. credits
調整ちょうせい jlpt n2 v. adjustment

The menu that pops up if you press esc while watching the movies (モービー):
Rocket04

続けるつづける jlpt n4 v. continue
スキップ common v. skip
字幕じまく common n. subtitles
オフ common off
オン common on
音量おんりょう common n volume

The 追加コンテンツ (Extra Content) menu option simply brings you to a non-existent page for DLC.

クレジット or Credits will bring you to the following screen:

Rocket05

チェックポイント common n. checkpoint
から common from
再開さいかい common v. resume; reopen
タイトル common n. title
画面がめん common n. terminal screen
common p. indicates a direction
戻るもどる jlpt n4 v. to turn back

Ugh. It’s a start I guess. I actually have more translated than this already, but it’s impossible to find the time to do stuff like blogs these days. When I’m not at work, I’m looking after a one and a half year old. Hopefully I manage to get some sort of balance in my life soon. Time to sleep.