Chinese Original Zelda Phantom Hourglass Famicom

[Stan]

Sounds pretty cool to me.  I don't know much about it, and sorry if this has already been asked (didn't notice anything when I glanced), how exactly does this game play?  Is it just a port of one of the Pokemon hacks with altered graphics or a totally new game based on this Minish Cap I hear about (or a hacked version of it)?  Is all of the in-game text in Mandarin?  If so, awesome.  Talk about a great way to learn new characters.  Edit: Just saw some shots on Youtube.  This game looks pretty cool.  Answer my questions up there so I can decide what I want to do.

[thumper]

It's not a Pokemon related game at all, it just uses some random Pokemon music in the game. As far as I could tell when I played it the game is no different from the Minish Cap game, just that they changed the title screen to the title "Phantom hourglass" instead(in Chinese of course!). It's a regular RPG game, and I'd say one of the more decent ones for a pirate. The battles aren't nearly as bad as in other pirate games where you can barely move without meeting instant death right from the beginning.

And yeah the game is all Mandarin. Glad to see you have interest in learning some hanzi from it. Not enough people around here who appreciate the Chinese aspect of these games.

[Trenton_net]

FYI: There is no Mandarin writing. Chinese writing only comes in Simplified and Traditional styles.

[thumper]

You're right Trenton, I didn't think about how it sounds to say it's in "Mandarin." I guess the question should be rather which script of Chinese is it in, which would be Traditional. I don't know if they make games in Simplified these days or not but Traditional seems to be the mainstream script in Taiwanese pirates.

[sumguy]

Is it really in Traditional Chinese?  I can't believe that since its from China.  It would be awesome if it was though, since I can read that kind better.

[Bramsworth]

I'm pretty sure it's Simplified. All Nanjing games come from China, none are in Traditional since they don't use that there.

And I'm with you on Traditional text. It's easier to read, I hate Simplified. Pain in the ASS

[Trenton_net]

Simplified, is well... More simple to read and write. Of course thats only if you take into account the fact that the person has to learn Chinese from scratch. If you learned it before, then of course you will prefer the way you were brought up in.

[thumper]

I guess it was in simplified then. Sorry for the mistake. I coulda sworn most all pirates are in traditional so I just said it was without being 100% sure. Since I don't study Chinese much myself I guess I don't pay attention to the characters as much as I used to.

Also I thought all pirates were Taiwanese, thus Traditional. Learn something new everyday...

[sumguy]

Simplified is more simple to write.  Its debatable if its is more simple to read.  For me, I find traditional easier to read since there are more strokes to recognize, and I find them more enjoyable aesthetically, though both are still pretty darn difficult...Plus there's political tension in any debate on the subject...so please don't take offense at this--just my opinion.

[Trenton_net]

Double Post from previously.

[Stan]

Technically, you could argue there's 'Mandarin writing' because of dialectical differences.  HOW IN THE HELL could you like traditional over simplified?  In 什么 for example, the characters are just ridiculous for such a simple demonstrative.  Taiwan uses traditional, Mainland China does not really do it anymore, so that's an easy way to pick out what came from where.  They would have been stupid to go traditional because it would taken up probably three times the amount of memory.  Slight differences in dialect too that show through in the writing.  I see you also have Final Fantasy VII?  Is that correct?

[thumper]

Traditional is definitely easier to read to me. Simplified characters look oversimplified for many characters. I'd prefer to have more to recognize the character by. Also I think Traditional displays more of an aesthetic quality to the language that simplified characters just completely ruins.
Looks like my opinion is exactly the same as sumguy.

Btw not to sound mad or anything but I kind of consider it rude to be bringing other transactions into my sale post. If you're talking through PM/Email there's no reason to bring it out here.

[sumguy]

Yeah, I think I agree with you, Stan about the 'Mandarin writing' thing.  I've been wondering myself the intricacies of different dialects.  If the written system is universally understood, then different dialects would simply have different pronunciations of the characters, but would be grammatically the same right?  What I gather from my friends, Taiwanese seems to be this way.  But if the dialects are as different from each other as English and Dutch, as I've also read, wouldn't that imply that grammar is also different?  Must be time for some research.

There are also historical and political reasons I prefer the traditional system, but having both Chinese (mainland) and Taiwanese friends, I can see how personal the issue is, mostly for the mainlanders I think, so I have no problem with anyone who prefers simplified or their reasons behind it.

[Trenton_net]

Traditional Chinese is officially used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Traditional Chinese has also been copied for Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and other languages which did not develop their own writing system at the time.

Simplified Chinese is used in Mainland China now (Since the push for higher literacy), and all before it was Traditional.

When dealing with Chinese communities all around the world, your mileage between the two will vary.

As far as dialects go, there are many Chinese dialects. All of which have the same grammar and writing system. The only difference is pronunciation and slang. As long as you can write Chinese, you can always communicate with someone. As for which of the two systems are better, its all preference. But I will say that learning Traditional Chinese is more of a "dead-end" (if you will) as a huge portion of the Chinese population only reads Simplified. It's very much the same with trying to learn Cantonese over Mandarin. You might be more "accepted" in the small pockets of Cantonese speaking regions, and have bragging right to your friends, etc, but as far as practicality and standards go, Mandarin is it. You can go all over China, Taiwan, etc and many people know Mandarin (Somewhat like English). Cantonese? You might as well be speaking greek. Only Canton, HK, and small pockets in US/Canada speak it, and even then, those communities are usually bi-lingual with Mandarin as their second language.

[sumguy]

Yeah, thats true.  Surprised to hear about the dialects having the same grammar...seems counter intuituve somehow.  I've been mostly rebelious about writing traditional Chinese, especially since you can use phonetics to input everything into computers, but just recently I discovered its not as hard as I thought and it helps my reading 100% so its totally worth learning while learning to read, but not a huge deal if I forget a character or a stroke here and there.  If your not living in Taiwan, HK or Macao, traditional is mainly an academic persuit which has its own rewards too.

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