Game Name: Chousoku Henkei Gyrozetter: Albatross no Tsubasa (超速変形ジャイロゼッター アルバロスの翼)
Developer/Publisher: Square-Enix
Release: June 13th, 2013
Genre: Turn-based car collecting RPG
Does it have lots of text?
Well, it's an RPG. From the 40 or so hours I've played of it I would say it's a small to medium length RPG in terms of how much text there is. It seems like NPCs in town only change from one line of dialogue to another once you clear a major event and then never again, the only things that seem to change constantly are what shopkeepers tell you. There's about 150ish Gyrozetters to translate including their flavor text in the bestiary and special Final Burst attacks, moves seem to be both unique and shared (As in, some characters have a special attack with a special name but it does the same effect as another move another character has) as well. There's about 100 or so skill cards you can collect (Basically, cards you equip to your Gyrozetters that can boost stuff like damage, what gear they're in at the start of battle, special damage, etc) but their descriptions are very short. The main story is where the meat of everything is in the end but even there the general dialogue isn't stretched out or anything, most scenes end up less than a couple minutes at best. There are some side stories but it's basically one or two per town and that's about it so far, and the wiki I'm using lists only about 10ish of them in total. There's also some challenges you can do but they just throw you into a battle, the only thing that would be translated on that front is the menu and the challenge card telling you what it is.
If you want a general idea, here's the wiki I've been using to figure out cards I'm getting and what Gyrozetters can be found here:
http://enjoigame.sakura.ne.jp/3ds_gyrozetter/index.html
Furigana is used constantly since the game is meant for kids, so it shouldn't be too difficult to translate in that respect. Another thing is that the game uses
a lot of Katakana with English names for things like the moves, the cars, the skill cards, and the challenges so those are basically translated for you, even some move descriptions are mostly in Katakana.
Why I don't think this will come out in the West?
The anime didn't do well in Japan despite lots of advertisement on Square-Enix's side to the point that even arcade machines were going unplayed and it's already been three or four years since the show aired so if it was going to be localized it would have been already. To add onto this nearly all the cars in the game are either based on real ones, are using the names of real ones, or would need to be licensed again for overseas usage and I very much doubt they would bother.
Another thing is that the group that subbed the anime itself had no plans to even consider this since they already have a ton on their plate and they just wanted to do the anime.
What is it about?
Think Transformers but they only transform using cars. The main plot of the anime is that a slab from the future gets transported to the past explaining how to make a magical engine that powers itself and unleashes tremendous power when used by the Chosen Drivers and talks about how the future timeline ended up in ruins and how to stop it (If I remember right, it's been a while since I watched the anime.) The game itself takes place during episodes 30 and 31 of the anime where Kakeru and Rinne get transported to the future, however you don't need to watch the anime to actually play it. While in the anime it's a super short visit and they meet nearly none of the cast of the game, the game has you meeting tons of characters from the anime and OCs. The characters in general are serious, silly, over-the-top, and they try to be heartwarming or cheerful, and the story seems to stay in the "We're heroes that need to save everyone" mindset.
The main story of the game I couldn't properly tell you, it seems like your family becomes Gyrozetter users and they try to stop Gedo from taking over the world on top of helping Kakeru and Rinne find their way back to the past while upgrading their Gyrozetters along the way, and it's a far more fleshed out experience compared to episodes 30 and 31 with multiple areas visited and tons of NPCs met along the way. This also is basically a prequel to the anime in a sense since it explains in detail how everything led to the anime's start and far longer insights into why characters in the past are the way they are in the anime (Though the last episodes of the anime have a slightly different explanation).
You can travel in two modes on the overworld: transformed and car. Different cars can travel faster on highways, faster on grass, faster on offroad, different cars handle different ways when drifting (Like the Toyota '86), and when in transformed mode they can dash faster, recover the dash gauge faster, can preemptive strike or be preemptively stricken, etc. All the cars have about 10 or more moves to learn each, cars themselves serve different purposes in battle such as damage dealers, buffers, healers, defenders, etc., and they also have their own elements for their attacks and themselves so it has a super effective/resistant system in it as well. You can even "capture" cars by purifying them from whatever Xenon was doing so they can join your side, even the "evil" ones from the show.
Battles are normal turn-based battles with some twists. Your cars themselves can have up to four moves assigned which you learn from leveling the cars up, however some moves they can only learn after you have driven something like 200 or 2000 kilometers in-game with the car (Not transformed) which happens relatively fast that you don't need to grind it out. The way fights work is you start in first gear (Unless you have a skill card), attacks that only take first gear can be used for free (Usually just single target moves), or you can pass your turn to shift up into the next gear up to 9 (I think) gears. Gear 2 onward are usually AoE attacks, heals, or buffs. Let's say you are in Gear 3 and use a Gear 2 move, it will subtract 1 and drop you to Gear 2 the next turn. Gear 5 and use a Gear 3 skill it will drop you down to Gear 3 (Gear 5 - Gear 3 = 5 -3 = 2 gears dropped = Gear 3 outcome). Gear 5 and use a Gear 1 move it won't subtract anything since Gear 1 is for free, etc. Boss fights takes this into account constantly and have you wasting turns from time to time to either do AoE heals or AoE attack/defense buffs or using the very powerful single target high attack moves and even having what I felt like were strong Gyrozetters are the time I had trouble with some boss battles which felt great since you expect it to be easy as it's a kid's game. You also build up a bar that lets you use your Final Burst which each car has that is a special unique move that differs between each car, some can be buffs, some can be heals, some can be massive damage dealers, but they all have really cool animations to fantastic music.
Popularity in Japan:
Not that great. First week sales were 17,925 debuting at number 3, second week it was 4,079, third week it wasn't even listed. As said before the anime didn't do that great and the sole reason anyone probably knows of it is because Square-Enix funded it (It's why I know of it).
Screenshots:
These are all personal screenshots of mine just to give you an idea of what I've seen so far.
Videos:
Official trailer:
Some challenge battle videos to give you an idea of how combat works, just remember the guy has top tier Gyrozetters (Skip to about 20 seconds in):
Why I think it needs to be translated?
The game itself is a completely solid monster (In this case, car) collecting RPG even if you don't care about the anime and it seems like it has the humor the show has. There are around 150+ cars based mainly off of real cars with either really silly transformed forms, really cool transformed forms, or evil/heroic looks with very flashy finisher moves, massive boss fights, and a variety of areas. The battle system is inventive enough, and it feels properly polished like most Square-Enix RPGs are, and as a game it feels like it does not just pander to kids as the game requires thinking ahead and planning out your gears properly so you don't get slaughtered by the new area's Gyrozetters or a boss on top of requiring you to manage buffs properly. There's special Gyrozetters, there's challenges to overcome, and in general it's just a fun game I think non-Japanese speakers should get to try out.
As it's an RPG it's not exactly easy to follow for people who know no Japanese (I'm just barely able to follow it since Hiragana/Katakana and Google Translate gets you through fights and setting characters up) and most people would get stuck on trying to make a good enough team, especially when they don't know what the skill cards or moves do which are vital to later battles. The game lets you know where to go for story and side stories thanks to the enormous compass on the bottom screen that shows you a trail to take, but you miss out on so much hilarity from Kakeru alone in the main story and obviously can't understand anything that's actually happening. The biggest problem is not understanding the moves, stats (I still have no clue what エコロジー/Ecology actually stands for, I think it's the damage of moves that use it?), your Driver ID setup (Determines what element gets increased damage), the skill cards (Things like Gear Up cards, negation cards, or buffs are very important later on), or what items do (Like what heals, what buffs you, etc).
You can also use a Toyota '86 to drift like mad while channeling your inner Initial D spirit and then going for a Rider Kick with it in battle so I'm sure someone can appreciate that.
What I can do to help:
The most I can do is point you to the group that translated the anime (msubs, I don't know if it's good to link their actual page or not) if you want some terms sorted out (Like how they used Kakeru's "絶望的に" line) and link you to the previously linked wiki. I don't know any programming and no Japanese so there's not much I can help out in that respect. Unless you want me to "translate" Kanji using Rikaisama and my pretty useless knowledge of Hiragana/Katakana to guesstimate what a sentence says.
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