I recently started playing Angelique Luminarise in English. The game was just released in May of 2021 in the Japanese Nintendo Eshop. It is not available in English. Not commercially – and not fan translated either. So how am I playing it in English?
Well it ain’t pretty, and it ain’t perfect but here’s how. Pretty simple really. The main thing you need is a smartphone with the free Google Translate app. I like to download the Japanese language pack for offline viewing too – but you don’t have to.
The other thing you’re going to need is to create a Japanese Nintendo Eshop account. This process is easy.
- Go to accounts.nintendo.com
- Enter your information
- Select Japan as the country
- Enter or create a new email address different from your existing nintendo email address
- If it asks for a street address, you can use Tokyo University (just google the address) (this also works when creating Japanese Itune accounts)
- Now on your nintendo switch create a new user account and link it to the new account you just created.
- If any of the menus or text on screen is in Japanese, now you can get your phone and use live translation to convert it to your native language (which for me is English)
- When you want to purchase games in the Eshop you will need a Japanese Nintendo Eshop Giftcard – I buy mine at Playasia and recommend them. I’ve bought probably over $500 in Japanese Egift codes from them and never have had a problem.
I would just use Paypal but Nintendo refuses paypals from my country (USA)
So I buy my giftcards at Playasia.
You can enter the giftcards into the Switch OR you can access the Nintendo Japanese eshop at https://store-jp.nintendo.com/ and add your balances or buy your games even this way. I find this easier – since with Google Chrome it automatically translates my screen without me needing to fumble around with my phone.
Even if you buy the games on the computer, you can install them remotely from your computer to your Nintendo Switch.
Very easy to buy Japanese games this way.
Now that you have the Japanese game you want to play, the awkward part may be trying to work two devices. I prop my Switch Lite up a bit – Switch users can use the kickstand, or play off their TV. I keep my Switch Lite in my lap, and in one hand I hold my phone with Google Translate running automatically.
Now in the case of Angelique you will want to go into settings and turn off the automatically advancing text option – use your phone to find it – It is on by default – and Google Translate is not fast enough to translate the screen before the text changes. Once you turn it off, you will have to press A to advance the text. It’s tedious but much better translation this way.
In my screen it says “Automatic Feed” TURN IT OFF!!!!!!! OFFFFFFF!! – You can thank me later lol.
Some scenes will still be “lost in translation” – not only because it’s machine translated and not 100% perfect – but because also some scenes are video and voice without text etc.
But nonetheless – this lets you play Angelique – and virtually any other game you can think of – in about 95% decent English.
The translation is pretty decent most of the time.
The funniest thing I saw was when playing Monster Rancher – the trainer introduces herself by saying “Hi, I’m Horrifying” instead of “Hi, I’m Holly”. After a few seconds google translate corrected itself – but it still made for a funny screenshot.
But no, in Angelique, from what I’ve seen with my brief like 15-minute journey into the game before work this morning, the translation is decent. I get the main gist of the intro story.
It starts out with a girl (that’s you) being soundly asleep and woken by a loud very rude kinda pompous and demanding character. He accuses you of being rude for not greeting him properly but says since you’re new he will forgive your rudeness. He introduces himself as the God of Light and one of 9 Gods in this universe and that he has taken you as a queen candidate from another world.
You meet a girl who arrived one day before you who is also another queen candidate and you meet a butler – who is also a God who gives you some paperwork to file. You enter your name, horoscope, blood type and answer a personality quiz.
After this, you’re taken to see the God of light again who explains the test you are about to face. You and your rival will be developing a nation using the powers of the gods, and whosever nation is more developed at the end will be elected as the new queen.
All of the screenshots that you see in this post were taken by me as I was playing Angelique Luminarise for Nintendo Switch. These are not edited in any way. Except for my featured image – the text is all correct – I just cropped it to fit as a featured image – and it was too funny and too appropriate not to use! “What the hell are these people saying? I have no idea” is exactly what I would be saying if I didn’t have my smartphone translating everything lol. So yes, that is what the character is saying in that scene, and every other image here. This is how it appears on my smartphone, replacing the text on the screen with English.
You don’t need to take photos – It does it real time. I just took a bunch of photos to illustrate on my blog here. I mean it’s not awful for machine translation. I have seen worse! And it’s better than being in Japanese – I have tried to learn before but it’s hard when it’s not just another language but a different alphabet – in fact… three different alphabets all of which can be used interchangably and like wtf… lol. Google you’re doing a good job. Keep being a bro.
It can be tricky especially if there is a glare or trying to get things at just the right distance or angle to translate properly. But it does in fact work, with a little finessing and fanangling.
What games will you be playing in English now?
I’m still most looking forward to Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 4th Heart this October and Air I think in September – but for now, Angelique will keep me busy.
Japanese games are expensive I feel like… I feel like I’m spending $70-80 for one game – where in USA I’m used to spending about $50-60 – But still worth it. Because most of these games will never come out in English.
Angelique has been around for 25 years. Angelique Luminarise is part of a 25th birthday celebration. But we have never received a single Angelique game in English.
Another game series I treasure is Idol M@ster. I think there are ways – probably with android more so than IOS – to automatically translate the text on the phone screen while playing games – I do know there’s a new (or remastered) Idol M@ster coming out soon – or recently released for PC and PS4 – but I am happy with my many different Idol M@ster games on my phone. I haven’t figured out a good way to translate the phone app simultaneously as google translate and the game are running. I imagine there’s apps for that on android – or people are using bluestacks. I just do it the tedious way by taking a screenshot, translating it in the app, and repeat forever.
It’s different now on the Switch or other device because I can LIVE translate, so I don’t have to take screenshots or exit and re-enter the game. I can do everything on the fly.
Plus if I’m being honest….
I skip almost all the dialogue in games like Idol M@ster, Love Live, Bang Dream Girls, UtaPri, Ensemble Stars, etc…. Even when English versions are released because it’s not that interesting? LOL….. It’s really not. – I play to collect the cute girls (and cute guys) and enjoy the music… I think maybe it’s the way the text is divided or structured – forcing you to read bits of it to unlock the next scene or song – and wanting the rewards etc. I just skip all that shit – am I the only one? And I love story driven games – but damn, I just feel like all those mobile apps, the story slows down my gameplay and I just want to play and not be bogged down. Maybe because it’s slice of life? But that’s my preferred genre when reading manga or watching anime – I dunno what it is – but really – I’m not missing much by Idol M@ster not being in English – I’d be happy just with an English menu patch/release really. Good enough for me lol.
Other games like Angelique or Tokimeki Memorial or Air or Kannon etc where the story is actually interesting and good – I’ll use my smartphone to be able to enjoy the story – even though it’s inconvenient.
I already know I’ll buy Air and Tokimeki Memorial.
I’m thinking of buying Memories Off Historia 1 and 2 (a total of about 7 or 8 games there).
Plus lots of other Japanese games.
It’s awkward and cumbersome – but yes – for the most part “This will do”.