No, I never played any of the Spaz titles.Originally Posted by j_factor
No, I never played any of the Spaz titles.
difficulty level and some sprite changes
My Feedback thread: http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144938
Seems like this thread isn't about drastic changes anymore, but anything that was altered in general. At least we're not naming every game that received a title screen change, heh. (Rockman came to mind, but it's worth pointing out that Rockman 2 got an easy mode shoved into it for the overseas version..)
I wanted to elaborate on some of Parodius' examples since I'm aware of some of these off-hand.
Bayou Billy (Mad City) - Multiple endings on Famicom and the game is not irritating; the enemy HP is different. Apparently the controls for the jeep are better but I never played this game on NES so I cannot confirm.
Bionic Commando (Top Secret: Resurrection of Hitler) - Nazi references, unsure if the gameplay is different.
(Journey to Silius) Raf World - The main sprite is changed and the title screen is changed. Everything else is the same. Even the intro in English is still in English on Famicom. I was surprised by that too...
Ninja Gaiden III (Ninja Ryuukenden III) - Famicom version has a password system, dialogue isn't censored (this applies for all 3 games), and the enemy HP isn't messed with. You also have unlimited continues like the first 2 games.
All Castlevania's:
Akumajou Dracula is the same on NES except the save files are gone. The FC re-release also removed the save files but added easy mode.
Dracula 2 has save files instead of password which is on NES and of course you have the reduction in BGM since NES has no FM synth.
Akumajou Densetsu had Grant throwing knives as his primary weapon and the BGM was ridiculously more enhanced with the VRC6 chip and implementation of additional sound channels that the NES is missing. The statues are not censored like they are on NES and the enemy that is a fleaman on NES is a much scarier looking creature on Famicom. Some bosses were changed with their behavior (where on the screen they move or how their projectiles look).
All FDS ports had to be heavily altered code-wise
I think this is somewhat misleading because, like any other game, the changes are on a per-case basis really. For the most part you can expect audio to have been altered since a bunch of games used the FM synth. Disk games can save too so not every NES counterpart has a battery to preserve saving functionality (Metroid and Light Myth/Kid Icarus lost saves on NES, no batteries.) Games like Akumajou play the same but others like Green Beret (Rush'n Attack on NES right?) and Final Command (Jackal on NES I think) had changes to gameplay on NES.
There are so many changes it's ridiculous. I bet most people don't really notice changes such as Top Gun because hardly anyone in the west plays this on Famicom anyway. You may know about the BGM inversion change but there is also a screen the NES version doesn't show at all. You get a screen after each death to show how many lives you have left and what your score is, and you get a tally shown at the end of each mission with a picture of the side of your plane with stars being added to it. Also you can get a 1UP around 50,000 points and you hear a sound play to indicate this, and I had over 50,000 on the NES version and never heard any sound or got a 1UP either. So I guess Konami removed this for overseas versions. Lame.
Obake no Q-tarō WanWan Panic became
Chubby Cherub
Basically, Bandai took a video game based on a long standing popular anime staring a ghost and swapped an angel for the ghost. Why? Did it really help move the game any better off the shelf?
Let us compare cover art, shall we?
I understand the desire to appeal to the unique tastes of a particular culture's market, but come on! Then again, I don't think this game stood a chance in the North American market, regardless of how it was packaged.
Last edited by treismac; 02-08-2012 at 12:28 AM.
There's your answer right there. Licensing, bro.
Yeah...
Look, I understand that there are times that people will buy a game because it it a license, whereas they would have passed if the license was absent, but don't the license benefit from video game companies making interactive commercials for kids to play for hours on end? I know a Japanese cartoon in pre-anime invasion North America was not too likely to benefit from this exposure, but what did they have to lose.
No, I mean the fact that it's a licensed product is probably why it had to be changed. You can't just distribute a license all willy nilly around the globe. You have to take the legal steps to secure the rights per territory. It's why the NES Superman game didn't use the movie theme when it came out in the U.S. It's overwhelmingly likely that while Kemco obtained the license for the music in Japan they didn't have it in America. Same for why Capcom had to remove Norimaro from the overseas versions of Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter.
So what do you do if you're Bandai and you want to bring your game to America but can't use the same characters? Ya change 'em, of course.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 02-08-2012 at 12:57 PM.
Ah... I forget the tenacity of the legal system and lawyers worldwide.
That didn't stop Tecmo from blatantly copying it for the NES version of Rygar. :P
Blaster Master Enemy Below added GB and SGB support for the west. It was GBC only in Japan.
Oddly however, Wetrix did near the opposite! Becoming GBC only in English.
Last edited by theclaw; 02-09-2012 at 04:53 PM.
Lum fan.
I remember my friend's kid sister wanting to get that game, so I guess it did have a market it appealed to, albeit not the right market to sell many copies, certainly not in the NES days.
I understand the desire to appeal to the unique tastes of a particular culture's market, but come on! Then again, I don't think this game stood a chance in the North American market, regardless of how it was packaged.
Konami GB Collections. The Japanese versions only had SGB support, the EU versions had GBC support. I'm guessing the SGB support was removed though (tried to play them in my NTSC Super Game Boy and they just ran as non-SGB games, so I don't know if SGB support was removed or if it requires a PAL SGB).
(though I think a few of the games in the EU sets were given generic games. Quarth became "Block Game" (and omitted link play, though I don't know if the JP version did) and Motocross Maniacs became "Bikers".)
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