Japanese text in Windows game won't display correctly

I tried to play Action Mogura, a Japanese freeware game, on Windows 10. The game itself runs fine, but the Japanese text in the game is mangled, i.e. seemingly random characters are displayed.

I've tried the following so far:

installed two Japanese fonts included in the game's files (cinecaption227 and nukamiso_2004_beta08)
tried to switch the Windows system language to Japanese
put a file with Japanese characters in the file name on the desktop, as has been suggested to people having trouble with Japanese fonts in this question.

None of the above seemed to have an effect on the rendered text.

The game apparently runs on DirectX. Before the actual game starts, there is a setup window; parts of that window's text display Japanese text correctly, parts display the same mangled characters as the game itself.

I have no prior experience with running Japanese software on a Windows machine; possibly someone has experienced similar issues and can help me locate the cause?

Best Answer

Changing your locale works, but that will make a lot of other things difficult to do, and essentially makes Windows tell your entire computer that it's Japanese.
An alternate solution would be to get Locale Emulator or the like. Then, you run the game under this program, and it simulates the locale change.

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How do I fix Japanese font?

Open Open "Change keyboards or other input methods" of "Region and Language". Open "Change system locale..." of the "Administrative" tab. Select the language of your choice from the drop-down menu. Your default language will not change by selecting the language here.

How do I get Windows to read Japanese text?

To change it, click or tap \u201cChange system locale.\u201d The Region Settings window is displayed. By default, you see the current language that is used for non-Unicode apps and files. Click or tap the \u201cCurrent system locale\u201d drop-down list to view all the languages that you can choose from.

How do I fix Japanese files?

Check to make sure you have Japanese set as your language for non-unicode programs

Open Control Panel.

Go to "Clock and Region" and click "Region"

Go to the "Administrative" tab in the box that shows up.

Press "Change System Locale" and select "Japanese (Japan)" from the drop-down menu.

How do I enable Japanese font?

Turn on Japanese InputIn Windows 8, open the Control Panel, start the Language Control Panel and click Add a Language. You don't need a special keyboard to type in Japanese. Pick Japanese from the list and click Add. Windows might need to download additional files to install Japanese input.

Easy Way to Grab Japanese Text from Manga and Video Games (OCR)

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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