American Super Street Figthter II with Japanese Names? Help!

[monkspider]

Hey guys,

I have found an oddity and you are the best ones I can think of to ask about it. I have an American Super NES copy of Super Street Fighter II, that looks completely normal on the outside of the cartridge, I can find no difference between a regular American copy of the game, but when I play the game on my Super NES, the boss characters have their Japanese names (Dictator is Vega, Boxer is M. Bison, etc). There is no Japanese text in the game in any of the options menus or anythings like that though. Does anyone know what this could be? Could it be some kind of odd prototype? Are there any markets that used American cartridges but Japanese names for the characters? Have any of you ever encountered one of these before?

[Dangerboy]

The cart could have been opened and the boards swapped.

[kai123]

Hey guys,

I have found an oddity and you are the best ones I can think of to ask about it. I have an American Super NES copy of Super Street Fighter II, that looks completely normal on the outside of the cartridge, I can find no difference between a regular American copy of the game, but when I play the game on my Super NES, the boss characters have their Japanese names (Dictator is Vega, Boxer is M. Bison, etc). There is no Japanese text in the game in any of the options menus or anythings like that though. Does anyone know what this could be? Could it be some kind of odd prototype? Are there any markets that used American cartridges but Japanese names for the characters? Have any of you ever encountered one of these before?

Open it and look at the PCB or take a picture of the PCB I am sure someone would be able to compare it. If it was a proto the PCB would normally look different.

[Tanooki]

THere's potential there of it being a proto of some sort. I'm only guessing this because you said the game is in english, but Vega/Bison have the name swap. The real Japanese version of the game would have all that post-fight trash talking in Japanese symbols, not something you can read.

[Gentlegamer]

Get Evan in here, he may know something about this if it's a prototype.

[8-Bit Archeology]

Use caution if it has potential to being a prototype. Some have open EPROMs that are erased by certain types of light. Are there model numbers I.e. dmg-sf-04 or such?

[Gameguy]

Weren't early rental copies of the game using Japanese boards? I'm not sure if I'm remembering this right, I'd have to look more into it to verify.

[hybrid0]

This one seems a little different then the error i know of for SSF2 with the cart i have the options menu and post fight text is in Japanese.
Vega is named Balrog
M Bison is named Vega
Balrog is named M Bison

[Tanooki]

Yours sounds like a Japanese board thrown into a US shell. The one this guy has is just screwy.

[hybrid0]

Concerning the cart i own I would normally dismiss it as an after market board swap unless multiple accounts of the same thing happening. to the original poster we need some pics of the,board, the options screen . It seems to be halfway through the localization for the US market

[kai123]

Well it seems I used to have one of these. I am not sure if I still do I will have to check. I posted about it way back in 2003 haha. The picture links are long dead though. Nobody knew what it was back then either.

http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?16811-Super-Street-Fighter-2-Something-weird-about-it-with-pics&highlight=street+fighter

[Gatucaman]

May i ask, what was about the japanese versions being put on an american cart shells when it came to this game.

Also, while the music was re-composed and most of it sounds better in the US version (better instrumentation), they overly compressed the voice samples and change them, and that suck balls, why?

[Tanooki]

Well given size constraints I would imagine if they boosted the music quality, they had to cut the speech quality to make up for the change in size. Give some, take some when it's limited space like that.

[Gatucaman]

Well given size constraints I would imagine if they boosted the music quality, they had to cut the speech quality to make up for the change in size. Give some, take some when it's limited space like that.

When it comes of preferences, i am split between both versions, you'd see, i used to own the japanese version that came on a US plastic shell, and i was actually in the fear that it was a pirate due to propaganda from a mexican magazine, but yeah, it didn't broke my SNES, and i loved that version very well, then replayed the US version on emulation and i was baffled of how different some of the songs sounded, and noticed that the voice clips sounded worse in the US version, Chun-li sounded like a man and Ryu like a monster.

Now, before i listened to all the tracks form both versions, i used to prefer the japanese versions of the songs a lot better, mainly due to one song that was butchered in the US version, but ill get to that.

Well here's some comparisons

Here's the Japanese Version of Balrog's Theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zlcNDqDolk

Here's the North American version of Balrog's Theme

http://youtu.be/mT0IKJ_bqWg

The North American version sounds Really improved specially with that instrumentation that worked for many of the songs, But then there's other songs when its a bit of a mixed bag, like Cammy's theme


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dE3TIJCq5k

In the Japanese version the cue the 0:14 part has a nice instrumentation that sounds accurate to the arcade, but the res of the instrumentation seems flat, almost as if it wasn't polishes up.

(CONTINUED IN A 2ND POST BECAUSE I CANT POST MORE THAN 3 VIDEOS PER POST)

[Gatucaman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG3fSt2qM7Q

Whereas the North American version improved the instrumentation greatly by using more effects on the samples specially the guitars, BUT, they changed the 0:14 by giving it different instrumentation.

And the one song that they fucked up in the US release, is Ryu theme, i always preferred how it sounded in the Japanese version.


http://youtu.be/b8WPiF2syUw

And here's the North American version


http://youtu.be/VIPPQAgXXwk

What happened, i may sound crazy but for a moment it sounded to me like they replaced many of the isntruments with a single one, and sounded to scratchy, not as bad as the abominations of most of SNK's SNES ports music, but it sounded awful to me.

[Blitzwing256]

There was a short run of early sf2's that had the wrong chips in the cases, there was a thread about this a few years ago here. pretty neat to come across i've never found one myself.

[Gatucaman]

There was a short run of early sf2's that had the wrong chips in the cases, there was a thread about this a few years ago here. pretty neat to come across i've never found one myself.

You still think it was Early?, because i remember getting the game as a birthday gift from an old friend from my sister in the late 90s and he told me it was acquired on Toy's R Us, and it came CIB. and it was no Majesco Reprint (i don't think they did reprinted that one, but there were many SNES games being sold cheaply there in the late 90s and the year 2000).

And i did sold it in the mid 00s...............i regret selling that one game on the SNES. :bawling:

However i do know that this unique editions were sold more directly in mexico on Bundles, a cousin of mine got one in the year 2000 and it have the same game as well. (the bundle was actually from 96, probably was an unsold one).

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/5189/img0048j.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/852/img0050i.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6837/img0056r.jpg

[Tanooki]

Now that's a clincher right there with the SSF2 art on the SNES box and in your region with it being a US box, but the Spanish sticker pointing to a Japanese version of the (board) game in the box which would have been in a SNES shell since the SFC slot is different.

About the music I think all of them on the SNES were better than SFC, but I guess that's personal taste. I'll admit I played a good bit of SSF2 in the day, but played the crap out of SF2 far more since I co-learned it on an arcade cabinet at the same time so I could kick people off the thing and not lose my quarters. :D

[Gatucaman]

By the way, those pics aren't mine, they ere rescued from one of he old threads.

[thisIsLoneWolf]

I too prefer the US version of the music. It is kind of cool that they bothered to make these revisions though. I wonder what compelled them.

[Gatucaman]

What hurt it was the over compression of the voice samples (which weren't that perfect in the Jp version to begin with :P) as well of the change of some of them, and i don't mean the changes to Spiral Drill to Cannon Drill, i mean that they change Sagat's voice sample when he throws people with the old one from SF2 world warrior!, or that matter, Ryu & Ken share the same sample when they throw people but in different pitch, and that the voice samples of Ryu, Ken, Chunli are OVERLY compressed, seriously, Chun li sounds manish in the US version, and Ryu like a monster.

they also have lower volume if you know what i mean.

Call me nitpicker but i was so used to playing the japanese version because i used to have that one, and i was very young to adapt to the US version that i rented back when i was 10.

[thisIsLoneWolf]

I won't call you a nitpicker. Let's say observant. :)

[Az]

Wow, all these years and I had no idea of the audio differences between the US & JP versions. As much as the SFII ports are compared and dissected I've never once read that being mentioned.

Shoving leftover JP boards into US shells for the Mexican market is baffling. From my understanding Capcom was drowning in unsold English copies of this release so they must have really overproduced the Japanese version.

[Az]

Double post

[Shoryuhado]

Here is a list of differences regarding the music and voices of the Japanese and English versions of SSFII for SNES.



Ok, so in the US version:

Some of the music uses different samples. Most notably Ryu's stage, Ken's stage, Zangief's stage, Guile's stage, and Cammy's stage for the worst. I also compared the American and Japanese versions of Blanka and Guile's ending themes each, and the American version seems to sound noisier.
Ken uses a higher-pitched version of Ryu's throw voice, even though he had his own throw voice in the SFC version.
Dhalsim's K.O. cry sounds different, perhaps at a lower pitch?
Fei Long's stage and Ending Credits theme is one pitch higher than the SFC version.
Ryu's throw voice sample was also changed, and the one used in the American version is also played when you pause the game.
The only thing I like about the American SNES version, is that the announcer will say the names of the characters, and even an added "Versus" if you're playing in Tournament Mode. In the SFC version, the announcer always says "You Win" in 2-Player matches, and doesn't say anything at the VS screen in Tournament Mode.

Well, that's all I know for now.


Source: a thread from the GameFaqs forums.

[Gatucaman]

Here is a list of differences regarding the music and voices of the Japanese and English versions of SSFII for SNES.



Source: a thread from the GameFaqs forums.

likely a really old post from some guy who didn't put any tough.

All the music cues that guy mentioned actually are improved in the US version, with the only exception being Ryu's theme, seriously, pay attention to how the instruments play in both versions of Cammy's Theme and Guile's Theme, you'll see that the US versions don't sound flat and have decreasing and increasing guitar sound.

But like i said, the voice samples were hurt, tough i think it was more because the additions of the Announcer saying the character names.

[hybrid0]

http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?105228-Super-Street-Fighter-2-SNES-Prototype-Found&highlight=super+street+fighter
According to monkspider's previous post on this cart he has one just like the one i own