Biohazard vs Resident Evil

[Spartacus]

I've seen some Japanese PlayStation versions of Resident Evil games on Ebay for a couple of bucks. Other than for the novelty factor, is there any reason for me to pick these up. Has anyone heard of any differences between the Japanese and Western versions? Thanks.

[gepeto]

Before it was ever released I will never forget the first time I saw the biohaz. video running in the japanese version of street fighter alpha. The minute I saw the creature come out and smack the guys head off. I new it was going to be a special game. I have never seen that in the original resident evil game. I think it was toned down. Dont quote me.

[Cloud121]

Other than the the censorship, here are the differences they made to the USA version:

No Auto-Aim
Half the ammo (30 vs 15 in a clip)

And uh... I think that's it actually.

In the Director's Cut, "Training" is the Japanese version of the game, and "Normal" is the American version.

[Chadmahn]

In the Japanese version of Resident Evil 4 chain saw death cinematics are shortened a bit. The chainsaw wielding ganado pulls back the chain saw and right before it decapitates leon it just fades and cuts to the dead screen. The Japaense version of RE 2 (Biohazard 2) was not as difficult as the North American version, fire power was increased, items and enemies showed up in different spots in Biohazard 2.

[Spartacus]

I tried Googling and wasn't having much luck finding anything about the differences between the versions, so I thought I'd ask here. Thanks for everyone's help!
I looked on Wikipedia last night and found this.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_%28video_game%29

"RE Overview:
Unlike subsequent Resident Evil games, the first game had a live-action opening and endings in the style of a horror B-movie. The opening footage in Western releases was significantly re-cut to exclude much of the gore. Although Capcom had intended to include the complete and uncensored version of the intro in the later releases, only the PC, some North American and European Sega Saturn releases, and the German and French PAL PlayStation Director's Cut releases contained the original FMV.

English localization:
A scene from the uncut intro. Chris smokes a cigarette. The original PlayStation version of Resident Evil featured several considerable changes between its original Japanese release and its English-language counterparts. Many of the more violent scenes (such as an image of half-eaten corpses, and Joseph being mauled by the Cerberuses) from the live-action FMV were removed, including scenes featuring Chris Redfield smoking a cigarette. These were done so to comply with SCEA's censorship standards. The original Japanese PlayStation version also featured two vocal themes performed by J-Pop artist Fumitaka Fuchigami that were not in any other versions of the game. The game's difficulty setting was also increased in its English release in order to make it harder to complete the game in a single rental. The auto-aiming function was disabled and the numbers of ink ribbons found by the player were reduced. Capcom also planned to eliminate the inter-connecting item boxes for the North American version and this was actually implemented in review copies of the game, but was eliminated due to negative feedback from play testers and game reviewers. This feature was brought back in the GameCube version as an unlockable difficulty setting known as "Real Survival."

Ports of the original Resident Evil were produced for the Sega Saturn and PC, each version containing platform-specific exclusive content.

The Sega Saturn version added an unlockable Battle Game minigame in which the player must traverse through a series of rooms from the main game and eliminate all enemies within them with the weapons selected by the player. This minigame features two exclusive enemies not in the main game: a zombie version of Wesker and a gold-colored Tyrant. The player's performance is graded at the end of the minigame. The Saturn version also features exclusive enemy monsters, such as a re-skinned breed of Hunters known as Ticks and a second Tyrant prior to the game's final battle. Exclusive outfits for Jill and Chris were added as well. Some Sega Saturn versions in North America and Europe contained the uncut full-color intro, Kenneth's head scene, and the original bad ending for Chris."

So... If I'm understanding this correctly. I might find a NTSC Saturn Resident Evil with the uncut opening FMV, but it still would be missing some of the more violent scenes from the NTSC-J PlayStation Resident Evil.
When I checked Wikipedia about Resident Evil 2, I found this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_2

"RE2 Regional Differences
In Japan, where Resident Evil 2 was titled Biohazard 2, the game was released a week after the North American release. The game was made easier for the Japanese market with changes in item and enemy placement, increased firepower for weapons and the auto-aiming feature turned on by default.

In addition, the game over scenes are less violent and edited in the Japanese version, as zombies and other creatures do not devour or eviscerate the player's character on-screen like they do in the North American and PAL versions."

This suggests the NTSC version of Resident Evil 2 is the least censored version of Resident Evil 2. In fact as I was browsing thru the remainder of the Resident Evil series on Wikipedia, it seemed to suggest that other than the original Resident Evil game, the rest of the NTSC versions of the series were the least censored.

Again, thanks to everyone for their help! I think I'll try and pick up a Japanese copy of Resident Evil and see what I've been missing.