Recently, I decided to take up the seemingly daunting task of learning Japanese. In order to facilitate this process, I’ve been trying to limit the amount of English that surrounds me. The very act of writing this right now is somewhat akin to a person on a diet eating a slice of cake. Limiting English at my current job is difficult, but it isn’t a large problem when I'm not working.
When I first assessed this idea, my first concern — as it always is with any life-changing activities — was, “How will this effect my gaming habits?” Immediately, I started thinking about what changes I would need make. Should I cancel my GameFly subscription? Should I even bother looking at all those sweet, sweet Gold Box deals that Amazon always has? What about the orders I've already placed? Finally, the most important question I faced was, "Will I ever get to 100% in Super Meat Boy?"
Then I realized something: Aside from menus and warnings and such, Super Meat Boy’s actual gameplay is free of words. Another of my favorite titles, Limbo, has one word in it: HOTEL (and it’s just a sign that could say anything or nothing.) VVVVVV, which is also a top three title for me this year, does have plenty of English since each room is named, the characters speak to each other for story, and some of the enemies are actually flying words that say things like “LIES." However, the gameplay for all of these games require no language skills at all.
After this pleasant revelation, I went to look at my current Amazon orders. The two titles I have on order are Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and NBA Jam. How much language appears in either of these games? One maybe shows the word “POLICE” on the side of a vehicle now and then, and I’m sure I have to navigate an options menu. The other has player names and a dude yelling out phrases like “He’s on fire!” I could easily mute NBA Jam and play it with no problem.
I started going way back in time and thinking of all the games that really need no language skill at all, because they contain hardly any text. Even Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest has a lot of English, but its text just confuses you even more. Maybe it would’ve been easier to figure out that whole "stand next to that wall and somehow you’ll get carried elsewhere" thing without anybody spewing complete nonsense throughout the game.
This doesn’t mean I’m free and clear. If you yelled at your screen at any time while reading this, you probably said three letters: RPG. Text is important to role-playing games because most of them have a cohesive story and plenty of menu text that you just can’t ignore.
Three more letters I'll probably have to avoid are FPS. If I pick up a shooter that I played before, like Halo, I’m probably going to stick to the action and skip the cinematics. However, for titles I haven't played yet, like Halo: Reach, the story is important to me, and I'll want to see the cutscenes.
To get a better grasp on which games required either verbal or written skills in a particular language, I decided to do a completely non-scientific experiment. I went through a list of all my games and determined if they require language skills to fully enjoy the game or not. For example, something like Bionic Commando requires language for the story but not for the gameplay. Since story is an important factor for many people, this title gets a "yes" for needing language skills.
I didn't consider normal options menus to be important since they appear in just about every game. Menu-driven RPGs, on the other hand, always got a "yes" vote because you can't play the game without knowing the available selections.
Out of 548 games in my collection (which ranged from the NES era through present day), 46% did not require knowledge of any language for someone to fully enjoy them. If you're willing to ignore story and cutscenes in games like Bionic Commando and the Halo series, this ratio increases to over half of my collection.
Before I made this crazy attempt to learn Japanese, I actually played Densetsu no Stafy 2. Although I did have fun, the game has a lot of text. I can only hope that a few years from now I’ll be able to pick up that game again and be able to understand the deep universe that surrounds that series.
In the end, the number games I could enjoy without personally having any language skills at all surprised me. I have to wonder, though, if the industry's trend towards more story-driven games will cause this ratio to become more lopsided as time goes on.