The Foreign Gamer Problem: Not So Bad After All

So as I've told you like a million and one times I'm a guy who lives in Japan, I'm sure you know this pretty well by now.

So today, I had a day off work and I decided to have a bit of a stint in my local game centre.  In that game centre there is a game I have mentioned on this blog before known as Code of Joker.  I did a post on code of Joker outlining what that games all about here

http://identitygaming.blogspot.jp/2013/10/return-to-game-centre-code-of-joker.html

To sum it up though its a card game that's sort of like smashing Pokemon, Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh all together at the same time.  Now my record on this game is bad, I think out of the 21 games that I've played I've won 9 of them (it might be 6 but I'm pretty sure it's 9), which is a less than satisfactory performance to say the least.

Now don't get what I'm about to say twisted, I'm not making excuses, I do genuinely suck at Code of Joker but my suckage isn't the only factor at play here.  You see, everything in Code of Joker is obviously written in Japanese and as a foreigner it obviously takes me a little more time to understand what each card in the game does.  However, when you consider how the game handles play time and credits it creates problems for someone like me.

Inserting money into the game doesn't give you a credit equal to one go, it gives you something called GP which is equal to time on the menu.  Playing one match of the game costs a set amount of GP and after each game you are given about 45 seconds of "Service Time" to make any quick changes to your deck before you start the next match.  If the 45 seconds of service time run out, then it starts ticking down from your GP.

So how does this create problems for me?  Well because I'm sort of bad at reading Kanji it's basically impossible for me to create and effective deck for myself unless I pump the machine full of money and take my time working out what each card does.  This isn't a fault of the game, it's all my fault for being terrible at Kanji.  This has become a factor in a number of my losses at the game where I think a card does one thing, and then it doesn't and the mechanic works slightly differently to how I thought I read it and this causes everything to go wrong mid duel.  I'm then left to lick my wounds and scour my dictionary to re-translate what the fuck was written on the screen.

But it's not all doom and gloom!

Obviously I don't want to lose and I do really enjoy playing Code of Joker so I do want to get better at the game and what's the one way I can do that?  Practice my Japanese more!

So by sucking at the game I'm indirectly being forced to improve my language ability in order to increase my win rate.  As someone who is currently studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, this is no bad thing.  So even though my performance at this game is laughably bad there is something positive to be gleaned from the situation at the very least.

Basically what I'm trying to say with this post is that if you're a foreigner in Japan and you enjoy going to the arcade, expect to lose...A LOT.  But don't get all sad and discouraged and use it to motivate yourself for some language study.  Doesn't matter if you've been studying it for 5 years like me or you're a beginner; if not wanting to suck at games is the kick in the ass you need to learn something new, then get to it.

Return to the Game Centre! Code of Joker

Well it's been a long time, but today I finally made a return to one of the many game centres of Japan.  Pretty much as soon as I went through the door, I was greeted with all sorts of new games just waiting to be played, but the one that caught my attention today was digital trading card game Code of Joker.

If you have seen my prior posts about the game Mahjong 5, then you may notice that the machine is basically identical to that, however the game is obviously anything but Mahjong.  Code of Joker is a trading card game but unlike other game centre trading card games, you don't actually have to buy any cards, everything is done in game and stored on an Aime stat card.

Due to the fact I was with a group of friends, I didn't really get to play all that much but I did the tutorial and one normal game against the CPU, so I got a good feel of how it works.  I guess the easiest way to describe the game play would be like a strange hybrid of Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh.

Cards in Code of Joker come in 4 types that include Units, Combination Monsters, Trigger Cards and Intercept cards.  Units are your basic monsters that you can play any time and combination monsters are upgrades for your basic units to make them even more powerful.  Trigger and Intercept cards are things that you play like Yu-Gi-Oh trap cards but the difference being trigger cards are activated when you play monsters or call an attack automatically, while intercept cards can be activated any time you want.

While I haven't tried them yet, there are lots of other modes that include an online mode that will hook you up with another player anywhere in Japan.  In the game centre that I was in there was also a "live" version of the cabinet, which I can only assume streams the game somewhere for people to watch but I'm not sure exactly.

The only disadvantage to this game is that if you were only staying in Japan for a short time then it's basically not worth playing.  Also, with it being a card game, knowledge of Japanese language, especially Kanji, is required in order to enjoy the game, so if you were a tourist hoping to try out Code of Joker then unfortunately your out of luck.

If you do know Japanese then there is a really good trading card game in here, so I would suggest checking it out.  I'll be covering Code of Joker as well as many other arcade games in the near future, so stay tuned!