I only know what I've picked up through anime, and since they feature common themes, stuff is easy enough to pick up. I think the game is fairly straight forward though. The real things that I didn't understand were when they spoke about military things and some small amount of politics and "science". I can't read anything except hiragana and katakana. I know a few kanji, but I wouldn't know how to read it aloud, just the meanings.
Aston, Asbel's father, spoke in a really more formal tone, so it was very complicated. Malik is a bit more military in his speech I suppose.
I'm not too sure how to quantify how much I know, though. I just think that this game was fairly simple. Every story-important event in the game is voiced. I would say I could understand 95% of the speech there, and what I couldn't were unimportant details. Skits were all voiced as well. I could understand a bit less in those because there were more complicated things talked about, but I could get most of them.
It took me a little while to understand what a Valkineas(sp?) Cryas was though, other than knowing it's that big glowing rock right there, among a few other original, katakana-written concepts, like Anmalchians.
While outside of town, the mini-map displays a blinking light as to which direction to go, and the "C" button makes a small pop-up in the bottom left corner that displays your objective. It makes the game significantly easier, though "C" won't help if you can't read anything at all. Usually, it says something like Go to <Town Name>, Travel further into the dungeon, Find <Character>, Go to <Compass Direction> of <Town Name>. I've only gotten lost twice. The first time, the objective was to "Find Richard" or something near the beginning of the game, and I had no clues given elsewhere other than knowing it was in Baronia Capital. The second time was in a town in Fendel where I had to find a Cryas shard or something related to that for some kids; the conversation wasn't clear enough for me, but I believe it said monsters dropped it.
Rastoria has one confusing ass puzzle though that takes a while to get through, whether you understand it or not.
Titles had some things in them though that were confusing. Some added weird special effects that I didn't fully understand because of the kanji. I also couldn't read most of Pascal's spells at the beginning because, despite being in katakana, I didn't really understand how to pronounce them properly.
For example ランパートサイン [ranpa~to sain], a defense buff, which I still don't know how to read. [??? Sign]
You can set characters to auto-learn titles (they switch automatically to a new title when they reach a certain level) so you won't have to worry about it.
Having beaten the game a few days ago, I think it was a good game. The final battle wasn't too tough though. What made it worse, was I hadn't realised that I acquired newer, significantly stronger equipment on my way down the final dungeon for this fight, only finding out after I loaded my save from beating the boss. Despite this, the bonus dungeon proves too difficult for me still. The story overall was good though. Pretty Talesy I guess. The ending is... interesting. Here's some spoilers:
Aston, Asbel's father, spoke in a really more formal tone, so it was very complicated. Malik is a bit more military in his speech I suppose.
I'm not too sure how to quantify how much I know, though. I just think that this game was fairly simple. Every story-important event in the game is voiced. I would say I could understand 95% of the speech there, and what I couldn't were unimportant details. Skits were all voiced as well. I could understand a bit less in those because there were more complicated things talked about, but I could get most of them.
It took me a little while to understand what a Valkineas(sp?) Cryas was though, other than knowing it's that big glowing rock right there, among a few other original, katakana-written concepts, like Anmalchians.
While outside of town, the mini-map displays a blinking light as to which direction to go, and the "C" button makes a small pop-up in the bottom left corner that displays your objective. It makes the game significantly easier, though "C" won't help if you can't read anything at all. Usually, it says something like Go to <Town Name>, Travel further into the dungeon, Find <Character>, Go to <Compass Direction> of <Town Name>. I've only gotten lost twice. The first time, the objective was to "Find Richard" or something near the beginning of the game, and I had no clues given elsewhere other than knowing it was in Baronia Capital. The second time was in a town in Fendel where I had to find a Cryas shard or something related to that for some kids; the conversation wasn't clear enough for me, but I believe it said monsters dropped it.
Rastoria has one confusing ass puzzle though that takes a while to get through, whether you understand it or not.
Titles had some things in them though that were confusing. Some added weird special effects that I didn't fully understand because of the kanji. I also couldn't read most of Pascal's spells at the beginning because, despite being in katakana, I didn't really understand how to pronounce them properly.
For example ランパートサイン [ranpa~to sain], a defense buff, which I still don't know how to read. [??? Sign]
You can set characters to auto-learn titles (they switch automatically to a new title when they reach a certain level) so you won't have to worry about it.
Having beaten the game a few days ago, I think it was a good game. The final battle wasn't too tough though. What made it worse, was I hadn't realised that I acquired newer, significantly stronger equipment on my way down the final dungeon for this fight, only finding out after I loaded my save from beating the boss. Despite this, the bonus dungeon proves too difficult for me still. The story overall was good though. Pretty Talesy I guess. The ending is... interesting. Here's some spoilers:
Spoiler