dreamcast imports

[mikeweezer80]

Being that i am collecting for dreamcast , i decided to venture off into the discouraging yet very rewarding world of imports. I went into digital press today and picked up a boot disc and street fighter zero 3 ( awesome, never played the alpha series). My questions are as follows-

1. is there any difference between the american and japanese versions of this particular game? also, in general are there differences between the american version and the japanese version in most games?

2. is there a website where i could find translation guides so i can go around the menu's easier? im not really sure where to go, and yes i tried googling but didnt get anything solid.

3. reccomendations- if you guys have any games you love that you think i should love please let me know!


lastly out of curiousity, how many games are there on the official japanese list? i know the american has like 247 if im not mistaken and have heard anywhere up to 700 for the japanese. thanks in advance guys!

[SegaAges]

There are some awesome jp only games. Virtua Cop 2 comes to mind.

[tomwaits]

I don't know any specifics about SFZ3 vs. SFA3 except that I thought the Saturn version was supposed to play even better than the Dreamcast version.

You might be able to find menu information on gamefaqs. Even if there's no specific FAQ file for the import version, the US menu options might match up.

In general, if you play a lot of imports, it's worth learning katakana. Japanese has 3 alphabets, one of which is used to phonetically spell foreign words. Many game menus, status displays, etc are written in katakana. If the characters are on the katakana chart, they're using the katakana alphabet... just sound them out and you'll know what it says. Here's a basic chart with all the katakana symbols.

[chrisbid]

There are some awesome jp only games. Virtua Cop 2 comes to mind.

wasnt this available on the sega smash pack in the US?

[j_factor]

Usually the menus in Street Fighter and the like are just in English. I know that in the Saturn version of Zero 3, the menu selections are in English, with explanations in Japanese at the bottom of the screen.

The only difference I know of for that game would be that the names of Balrog, Vega, and M. Bison are switched around. Should be the same otherwise.