Samurai is one of the most winnable classes in NetHack. The only drawback may be the Japanese item names, which are intentionally obscure. Is it that these are no drawback for Japanese players? The answer is No.
These so-called "Japanese names" seem Greek to me native Japanese speaker. What's "gunyoki"? There is no such Japanese word. The closest one is "gun-you-ki" (pronounced as goon-yaw-key) which means "military aircraft". Japanese players have long been joking on this strange word, imagining a samurai eating WWII zero-fighter.
STATIC_OVL struct Jitem Japanese_items[] = {
{ SHORT_SWORD, "wakizashi" },
{ BROADSWORD, "ninja-to" },
{ FLAIL, "nunchaku" },
{ GLAIVE, "naginata" },
{ LOCK_PICK, "osaku" },
{ WOODEN_HARP, "koto" },
{ KNIFE, "shito" },
{ PLATE_MAIL, "tanko" },
{ HELMET, "kabuto" },
{ LEATHER_GLOVES, "yugake" },
{ FOOD_RATION, "gunyoki" },
{ POT_BOOZE, "sake" },
{0, "" }
};
Here I quote an old post by Prof. Izchak, the late Dev member of Hack and philosophy professor at Univ. Pennsy:
Obviously he didn't get any help :-(
From:Izchak Miller (izchak@linc.cis.upenn.edu)
Subject:Help needed, Old Japanese
Newsgroups:rec.games.hack
Date:1992-07-30 08:00:44 PSTWe're looking for a person who knows enough about Mediaeval Japanese
customs and forms of speach, and who is willing to help in composing
appropriate English equivalents of Samurai dialogues in NetHack.Please contact me (izchak@linc.cis.upenn.edu). Thanks.
-Izchak
