Hello Saturn Era!
I was recently able to finalize a purchase on a region free modded saturn and I was hoping to get some opinions before I order some games for it.
I see a butt load of JPN only JRPGs, and between that and the seemingly lower price point on JPN games in general, I was wondering if there were any stand out games that don't really require reading.
I'm really interested in getting Panzer Dragoon I and II to start, but the NTSC-U versions don't seem too crazy for Canadian prices so I wouldn't mind buying the english version if reading is really important.
I just imported a Japanese copy of House of the Dead and it's entirely in English, from the menus to the in-game voice acting; there are just Japanese subtitles during the game. The Japanese version is much cheaper than the North American one, too (I paid $10 plus $5 shipping while an American copy goes for more than $100). You'll want a Stunner light gun, though, but those are cheaper in Japan than America, too. (And the black looks better than orange IMO.)
Vampire Savior (aka Darkstalkers 3) doesn't require you to know Japanese to play it. It has Japanese written dialogue between characters during arcade mode and during endings, but after you beat it once you unlock a menu that lets you switch the whole game to English, which is super cool. It's also one of my favorite games for the Saturn and doesn't cost a ton (about $25 or $30).
The Virtua Cops and Virtua Fighters are import friendly but their NTSC-U versions are already cheap.
I doubt many RPGs are import friendly but I've been using the Google Translate app's feature where you take a photo and it searches for any Japanese text it can find in it, then translates it for you. It takes a bit of a while to get through lots of screens of text and it eats through phone battery, but it works fairly well and it really makes a game come to life when you can read it practically in real time.
I'd also recommend learning katakana, which does take practice but is probably easier than you'd think. Watch a YouTube video or two that teaches you what sound each character represents. Once you know that, you'll be able to read a lot of Japanese game menus because katakana is just English words but written out in Japanese characters.
