How to play the best Japanese games on your PS3

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Good news. Your PS3 and PSP are 'region free', so you can import games from any country. While Japanese games present obvious language difficulties, the editions sold in Korea, China and Singapore (known as 'Asian' versions and often released not long after their Japanese equivalent) often include the option of playing the game in English.

That means that all you need to worry about is which website to order it from. Play-Asia.com used to be the go-to site for this kind of thing, but it's recently stopped shipping to Europe. Your first stop should be renchi.com, which ships everywhere and clearly labels the languages of the games you're looking at.

Once you know exactly what edition you're after you can then shop around at ncsx.com and yesasia.com for a cheaper price, though they tend to offer less in the way of choice. As always, the lowest prices are to be found on eBay, though that's a risky business.

As a closing point, these sites also sell Japanese PSN point cards which let you enter the code on the back for instant credit on the Japanese store. There aren't any exclusives we could comfortably recommend, but it's a nice thing to have lying around. For a guide on how to get access to the Japanese PSN on your PS3 (without ditching your European PSN account) check www.tiny.cc/psnwoo.


Aquanaut's Holiday
Explore the sea and gaze at the stars in this 'relaxation' game

Format? PS3
How much? £18 plus shipping from ncsx.com
English available? Yes
What is it? An exploration game set under the sea
Why do I need it? There's nothing else like it available in the West

Did you know there's a whole genre of games in Japan that are designed to do nothing but relax you? Games which are less about challenge and more pure enjoyment? It's an idea that probably peaks with Boku no Natsu Yasumi 3 (My Summer Holiday 3) for PS3, a game where you play a child during their summer at their grandparents' place. Your days are spent making friends with locals, catching insects, stargazing - basically having a magical experience.

There's slightly more stuff to do in Aquanaut's Holiday (the latest in the Summer Holiday series). You play a journalist in search of a missing scientist who's vanished somewhere off an island atoll in Polynesia.

Tucked away safely in your MiniSub you're free to poke around under the waters looking for clues, and adding various fish, wrecks, reefs and rock formations to your database where you can read about them at your leisure. As you push deeper and deeper you find and activate broken sonar buoys, unlocking further chunks of the map.

It's worth noting that the translation in the Asian version is pretty inconsistent. The database entries for marine life are all fine, but the dialogue when you return to your research facility is occasionally poor.

Import Rating: 3/5

Afrika
The infamous safari sim, now in English

Format? PS3
How much? £18 plus shipping from ncsx.com
English available? Yes
What is it? A photography-sim set in sunny, smiley Africa
Why do I need it? It's very refreshing to play a game concerned with sneaking up on things without killing them straight afterwards

We reviewed this back in issue 110 and gave it 71% - not too shabby for such a niche title. It's a game about shooting things with a camera instead of a gun. It's got plenty of depth though - your shots are rated on technique, distance and angle, and your rating determines how much cash yet get for each one.

You then spend the money on hard drives, fancier (Sony) cameras and even on RC cars with one built in. A simulation on this scale cries out for the sort of technical excellence you can only get from a massive budget and a big team.

The devs did an admirable job with the resources they had though, and they've paced the content excellently. The music's a surprise too, a full orchestral deal that went on to win composer Wakaru Hokoyama several awards. And as a final selling point, Afrika's very cheap. If you're placing an order for something else you'd do well adding this to the bundle.

Import Rating: 4/5


Railfan: Taiwan High Speed Rail
An ultra high-res train simulator that uses real 1080P HD video

Format? PS3
How much? Depends on how good your eBay-fu is
English available? Yes
What is it? The prettiest train-simulator ever
Why do I need it? Because deep down everyone wants to have a crack at driving a train. Just admit it

This ain't your daddy's train simulator. Taiwan High Speed Rail begins with a video of what amounts to train pornography.

You're bombarded with lots of short clips of Taiwan's high-tech rail network in action, cut together with speedy transitions and electro music. It's like watching MTV in an alternate universe where products are sold not by boobs but footage of Asian public transport.

Past that, everything you'd hope from a train simulator is here. You've got 700km of flawlessly recreated tracks, you've got a 300kmph speed limit and you've got control over brakes, traction control, train doors, the horn, windscreen wipers and even seat adjustment.

Most importantly the view from the cockpit has been captured in full HD, so even if you're not that into the whole train thing the game's never going to be less exciting than staring out of a train window in real life.

As to what you'll actually be doing, you can either challenge yourself in modes that test either speed runs, stopping accuracy or electricity preservation, or alternatively you can just tour Taiwan. There are over 300 locations in the game pertaining to either sightseeing or eating out and the game does its very best to tell you all about them when you stop at a station. It's like being there.

There are actually a whole bunch of Railfan games out for the PS3 (some of which feature a GTA-like cinematic external camera), but THSR is the only one to get an English translation (which rapidly sold out). There's still copies on eBay though...

Import Rating: 3/5


Demon's Souls
A refreshingly inventive RPG

Format? PS3
How much? £40 + shipping from Renchi.com
English available? Yes
What is it? A third-person action RPG
Why do I need it? Well, it's the best English-language game without so much as a release date in Europe. How does that sound?

Demon's Souls is a re-invention of the dungeon crawler for this generation. Players are sunk into the boots of an adventurer on a quest to rid the world of a terrible demon-spawning fog that's spreading over the world.

A quest that goes a bit wrong when you're murdered by a horrible demon the size of a house before finishing the tutorial. Between this and the boxart depicting a knight in full armour with arrows sticking out of his shield, slumped against a wall in either exhaustion or death, the tone is set.
Unable to even die properly within the fog, your character goes on to become a fragile lost soul with nothing left in their afterlife but demon slaying. Become strong enough and maybe you'll be able to defeat whatever lies at the centre of the corrupted world.

The game itself is incredibly polished. Combat is weighty and well-animated enough to be enormously satisfying, as well as being so in-depth you're constantly spotting new subtleties and coming up with new ideas.

You might start feeling your shield isn't sapping hits well enough and try and decide to keep your eyes open for a slightly wider one, or you'll notice with glee that the monster you've been having so much trouble twitches in pain when exposed to fire. Or most likely you'll simply have to grit your teeth in terror as you fling yourself out of the way of killing blows, your mind racing as to how you can end whatever battle you're locked in.

But that's just the crust on some kind of pie. Full of, er, demons. Yes. Demon's Souls also features stunning level design, a flawless difficulty curve, endlessly surprising enemies and inventive multi-player - anyone can get their stronger, physical body back temporarily by dropping into someone else's game (chosen at random) as either a murderous black phantom who has to kill the other player or a friendly blue phantom who must help them defeat a boss.

When Demon's Souls comes out in the West it's going to be massive. If you're only going to import one game, and have even a passing interest in demanding RPGs, pick this up.

Import Rating: 5/5


Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? 2
Hectic dungeon-keeping on a small screen

Format? PSP
How much? £20 + shipping from Renchi.com
English available? No
What is it? A tricky, speedy dungeon-builder
Why do I need it? It's hectic but deep throughout

Known in Japan as For a Hero, You Are Quite Bold/Cheeky, this series challenges you to quickly develop a dungeon that'll prove dangerous enough to kill the increasingly tough waves of heroes that come trundling down. If the heroes make it to your tiny dungeon overlord they truss him up and begin the journey back up to the surface with him. If they make it out alive, it's game over.

What's fun about HIOPBWDIDTDT is that more than the traditional dungeon-building thing of juggling resources and placing traps, it's about managing an ecosystem of monsters. Before you know it you're trying to keep a sprawling labyrinth full of lizardmen, faeries, skeletons, dragons, spirits and demons fed and healthy, which is just about impossible while trying to maintain a decent dungeon's deathtrap layout.

The first game just got released in North America in English, but if you're not put off by the idea of muddling your way through some simple Japanese menus then the sequel, currently only out in Japan, is a fair bit deeper and features a story mode you can actually win. It can be found by searching import sites for Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida Or 2.

Import Rating: 2/5


Half-Minute Hero
Not your average JRPG...

Format? PSP
How much? £28 with free shipping from yesasia.com
English available? No
What is it? A whole mess of RPGs that take place in 30 seconds or less
Why do I need it? Whether you love it for the in-jokes or taking the piss, it's a funny and fun game - a real rarity

The horrible mutant offspring of an RPG and an arcade cabinet, Half-Minute Hero lets you play through four distinct riffs on the RPG genre that have two things in common - cute, crisp pixel graphics and a 30 second time limit.

To use Hero mode as an example, your goal is to level up enough to defeat the evil devil king. This involves sprinting around looking for lightning-fast random battles that you win by flinging yourself at enemies and occasionally hitting r to use a healing item. Eventually (after a minute) the time will come for a final dash for the end boss' fortress where you'll engage in a final drunken slapfest before scraping through with milliseconds to spare.

As well as Hero mode you've got Princess Mode, Knight Mode and Devil King mode, which experiment in blending RPG stereotypes with shooters, Zelda-like action games and strategy games.

Whatever mode you're playing, the ridiculous time limit never goes away. Anyone interested can find Half-Minute Hero by searching for Yuusha 30 on the import sites.

Import Rating: 4/5

PSM3 Staff