(Summer) Kawase in Blade Strangers

[Drifter]

https://twitter.com/nicalis/status/1166128778919272448

Just in time for summer.

[KawaseFan]

Could've sworn I replied to this when it was posted .  Anyway, I do wonder whether it would've been better to include a different series character, rather than Summer Kawase -- maybe a character from Fresh to promote that, or even childhood Kawase from Sayonara if they wanted to include an alternate Kawase -- but in any case, it's pretty cool that they're still supporting the game with new (and free!) content a year after release. (Actually, if I'm not forgetting anything, this update marks the first release of anything related to Doki Doki Poyacchio in the west, which is pretty neat.)

[Alc]

Actually, if I'm not forgetting anything, this update marks the first release of anything related to Doki Doki Poyacchio in the west, which is pretty neat.

I was reading around and found out that this was a PSX game from back in the day, apparently a Harvest Moon clone. Is it any good? I guess in the first instance, is it even playable without a firm grasp of Japanese?

[KawaseFan]

Actually, if I'm not forgetting anything, this update marks the first release of anything related to Doki Doki Poyacchio in the west, which is pretty neat.

I was reading around and found out that this was a PSX game from back in the day, apparently a Harvest Moon clone. Is it any good? I guess in the first instance, is it even playable without a firm grasp of Japanese?

I actually bought a copy four or five years ago, but I haven't played it.  I should really try it out one day, to be certain, but most of the screenshots through the manual and on the back cover show some form of text, so it definitely looks like decent knowledge of Japanese is required; certainly more knowledge of the language than I have at this stage, anyway.  It doesn't look like a fan translation exists, either, from what I could find... but if they're adding Doki Doki Poyacchio characters to games like Blade Strangers and Umihara Kawase BaZooKa, which either have been or will be released worldwide, then maybe we could hold out hope that Doki Doki Poyacchio itself could get an English-language release one day?  I don't know how likely that'd be, but it'd definitely be pretty cool to see it get a release on the PlayStation Store in the west.

[Alc]

I think translating for release in that fashion only really happens to high-profile titles, and Doki Doki Poyacchio probably doesn't reach the bar.

I've been meaning to have a go with the optical machine translation tools that are available now (you can use your phone's camera to pick up kanji and get translated text back), trying a simple game might be a good project to start with, assuming the Kanji being pixelated doesn't throw it for a loop. I know that Google Translate switched to an AI model a few years back and it's been substantially better than it was previously, but many of the sentences it generates are still head-scratchers, and subtleties and nuance are lost, so I'm not expecting great results from anything that also has to go through an OCR process first.