Ask Questions Thread

[Okayu]

I figured with the increase of interest coming from Deresute and the PS4 title it'd be good to have a thread for new fans and old fans alike to ask any questions they might have about the series.

Also for any new lurkers you can post as a guest without an account by replying normally and filling out the captcha.

[MetalPredat0r]

How much knowledge of the Japanese language do I need to play the games?

[Kimiko]

How much knowledge of the Japanese language do I need to play the games?

the main games or deresute?
for deresute, if you want to know what is going on in the commus you should know some japanese but for the gameplay, you not really need them
as for the main games...
I started them when I wasn't that good in japanese and I got a lot of bad and good commus, so if you aim for perfect commus and co you need to understand japanese

[animagic4u]

How much knowledge of the Japanese language do I need to play the games?

When I started playing, I didn't know any Japanese but over the last 7 years or so I've been beginning to understand more and more.
Although you don't need that much knowledge to be able to enjoy the games, I would highly recommend taking your studies to the next level to see where you can get.

[mariokirby]

How much knowledge of the Japanese language do I need to play the games?

Short answer:

None, if you just want to play the game from start to finish and view Stage for You concerts.

I was able to play through Im@s 2 and OFA using Online English guides and helpful people here.


Long Answer:

Obviously, without knowing Japanese, you'll miss out on a lot of the dialogue since the game has a visual novel component.

Some kind people did some translations for each game, but not everything is translated due to the sheer amount of dialogue.


So, it's up to you.  If you can learn it, then that's awesome.  You'll enjoy the games more and be respected among the community.  Plus, you'll be able to translate for others.  Don't know how much Japanese is necessary, but obviously the more you know the better off you are.

[Cael K.]

How much knowledge of the Japanese language do I need to play the games?

Idolm@ster's language is pretty tame honestly, and the vocabulary you see in it isn't overly large, but it's still another language. If you wanna Ironman it (i.e. start learning Japanese by translating stuff), I'd say you need a good handle on grammar first, especially particles. Once you get that down, it's usually a matter of dictionary lookup (which takes a while), and then making sense out of how words relate to each other. I guess the second part is identifying when you're looking at an idiom or something, and of course those timed choices.

The Windows IME for kanji recognition does look at stroke order though, so it helps to know the basic rules for what strokes should come first. You should be able to find them on Wikipedia or something. The Android app I use doesn't care, but then its recognition isn't even close.

[Nakiame]

The Windows IME for kanji recognition does look at stroke order though, so it helps to know the basic rules for what strokes should come first. You should be able to find them on Wikipedia or something. The Android app I use doesn't care, but then its recognition isn't even close.

Btw the reason i have a video capture card in my PC at all is to be able to use OCR (image to text) program for fast kanji recognition.

[Naryoril]

The Windows IME for kanji recognition does look at stroke order though, so it helps to know the basic rules for what strokes should come first. You should be able to find them on Wikipedia or something. The Android app I use doesn't care, but then its recognition isn't even close.

Don't do kanji search by stroke order or by trying to draw them, look up kanji by radicals, it's much much more reliable, especially if you have come practice with it and know which parts are radicals. One example where you can do this is here: http://jisho.org/#radical
The dictionary app i use on my phone also lets me search by radicals.

[Cael K.]

Don't do kanji search by stroke order or by trying to draw them, look up kanji by radicals, it's much much more reliable, especially if you have come practice with it and know which parts are radicals. One example where you can do this is here: http://jisho.org/#radical
The dictionary app i use on my phone also lets me search by radicals.

Eh... whatever's easier for each person, I guess. Think I got to used to the Windows IME, which was pretty good at recognition, and I could have a kanji written out much faster than it took to look up one radical, even when I knew what I was looking for.

Though kanji stroke order is still good to know. You gotta know how many strokes are in a radical somehow, right?

[terucchi]

Why the hate towards male idol characters and mainly mobage/GREE/mobile games in general?

[DeviantProtagonist]

In a nutshell? It's not 765.

[terucchi]

damn that's pretty much how it looks like in the LLSIP fandom too, that some haters hate LLS because its not u's like and they make wars every day about the best girls because they're not (put haters' best girl name here). But thats like a very shallow reason.

[Naryoril]

For me it's mainly because there are way too many, which in turn means the characters are not as fleshed out as 765 pro.
I like 876 pro (Dearly Stars), but they are just 3 "girls" and some side characters (especially Mai is a lot of fun).
And that's also why i see the biggest potential in ML of all the spin offs, but even there it's way too many characters.

Also, if they are clever they will make a smooth transition from 765pro to ML, not just drop the old ones all together and then push the new ones, they could make the ML girls mingle in with 765pro and have them slowly take over. The story is set up for that and in some way they are already doing it, but they will need to do it outside of mobage (they did in some extent with the movie). Imo they should do it over the course of 2 or 3 console games.

[MetalPredat0r]

Why the hate towards male idol characters and mainly mobage/GREE/mobile games in general?

I'm actually someone that likes all the different sub-series: main, CG, ML, and SideM. I'm particularly a fan of main + ML myself.

However, I'll have to mirror what Nayoril said. There's just too many. The series from 2010 all the way to now went from 13 main voiced idols to over 100. That's just voiced idols alone. A number of people just can't keep up with that high a number.

And going to Nayoril's second point, the amount of idols is difficult to fully develop all of them. Moreso in CG than ML and SM since contrary to popular belief, the latter two (especially ML) have story commus that give more insight on the characters. However, of course it's not nearly as much as 765Pro, which to be fair have had 10 years worth of development, games, and overall existence to be fleshed out while these spin-off characters have hardly had half that time. There's great potential, but these characters need to be in a console game for that potential to be realized by a larger number of people.

To go to DeviantProtagonist's point, it may be a vague and blunt answer, but that's another existing mindset. People have gotten so attached to 765Pro for the longest time, they can't see themselves be bothered to get attached to the spin-offs. Whether it be the large number of idols, the lack of development in comparison, the lack of a console game, not having their favorite idol, etc., some people can't be bothered to leave what they're most familiar and comfortable with.

Also, as games, I hear the mobile games aren't very good. Like, at all. 

[ChocoCats]

The mobile games that is not Deresute are pretty bleh and looking at your comment at that hate thread, you seem to agree.

While I don't mind the mobile series, I do agree that the characters are pretty much cliches, CG in particular, though they're getting there.
I do like how SideM handles their CVs and CDs though so there's that.