Games Where Konami Fucked It Up For The West
It's not really a secret that sometimes games are changed a bit for the western market, but Konami was by far one of the worst if not THE worst at adjusting their games to absolutely shit all over westerners. About time someone compiled all of it to give everyone a warning....
If anyone who stumbles upon this has a suggestion or a correction, feel free to yell at me.
If anyone who stumbles upon this has a suggestion or a correction, feel free to yell at me.
32 Games
19 Comments
Would the whole thing with English releases changing Soma Cruz into an exchange student despite basically everything else about him contradicting that count or is that too minor of a detail?
There's enough of this where it all must speak to some kind of deeply held corporate ethos, and I think it's the difficulty situation on Rocket Knight that finally spells it out explicity: "Fuck American children"
@BigGnome it's minor, but stupid enough I feel like burying Konami for it.
@DJSCheddar "fuck them kids" as they always say.
@DJSCheddar "fuck them kids" as they always say.
Another annoying thing that's probably minor about Belmont's Revenge is in the Japanese version, songs in the sound test were actually named. This isn't the case over here where they are given the names like BGM 1 (which was "NEW MESSIAH" in Japan). Kid Dracula on the Game Boy has this issue too for some reason. Oddly the PAL rerelease that was in a Konami GBC collection actually retains those Japanese names, really confusing.
It might be worth considering that all those old Contra games were reskinned as Probotector for Europe, but if we're going down that route, you'd probably have to consider how many of these fast action games were hurt by lacklustre 50Hz conversion.
Apologies for another comment. Forgot about one Konami game which is Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventure. It had a PAL release called Pop'n TwinBee: Rainbow Bell Adventures. There's a lot wrong with it.
- They made the game linear, originally there were multiple exits meaning there were different level paths you could unlock. This also means levels with more secretive or harder ways to get to in the PAL version are pointless cause they lead to the same level now.
- There is no saving in the PAL version, it was removed to be only passwords. It should be said though that there were passwords in the JP version but you could also just save.
- The multiple endings were removed due to the game being linear
- Dialogue before levels was also removed
- They made the game linear, originally there were multiple exits meaning there were different level paths you could unlock. This also means levels with more secretive or harder ways to get to in the PAL version are pointless cause they lead to the same level now.
- There is no saving in the PAL version, it was removed to be only passwords. It should be said though that there were passwords in the JP version but you could also just save.
- The multiple endings were removed due to the game being linear
- Dialogue before levels was also removed
is it really that bad the cviii release on the west? i´ve seen a lot o pleople praising that instead the japanese version
@Angel_Arle no need to apologize. I'm just gonna quote you out of laziness. :P
@nervalitis Maybe I hang around dedicated circles a bit too much, but I seriously can't imagine preferring the localization. Like the highest praise I could give it is the crosses somehow making it through Nintendo's policy and the font looking a bit cooler. Like they even replaced the ghoul rabbit, and that's that most inexcusable change tbh.
@nervalitis Maybe I hang around dedicated circles a bit too much, but I seriously can't imagine preferring the localization. Like the highest praise I could give it is the crosses somehow making it through Nintendo's policy and the font looking a bit cooler. Like they even replaced the ghoul rabbit, and that's that most inexcusable change tbh.
Whenever someone talks about CV3 being underwhelming or brutal, I instinctively ask if they played the original JP or USA release. It's insane just how many changes and bullshittery was done to what is, from what I can remember, one of the best 2D platformers on that system. At least we have romhacks to correct this blunder.
I can't recall any Konami Fuckups right now, but I'm sure I'll remember one later to comment.
I can't recall any Konami Fuckups right now, but I'm sure I'll remember one later to comment.
Secondhand info here (from a book) but apparently Konami ruined their Gauntlet-by-way-of-Indiana-Jones game "Devil World" when they brought it west as "Dark Adventure" by changing the focus from projectiles to melee weapons (without rebalancing anything), replacing the Gradius-style power-up system with normal items, and changing from a linear set of levels to branching paths which can loop back around and make you repeat areas over and over before you find how to progress. Great job!
American cabinets of DDR supernova didn't support e-amuse online functionality and the upgrade kits weren't compatible with other DDR games. If you wanted to put supernova on a DDR cab you already bought it had to be the Japanese version, so most arcade operators didn't buy supernova at all and started the rolling ball of DDR dying stateside.
Then DDR X 1 and 2's American cabinets were produced by raw thrills and were nigh unusable cause the pads used a physical spring-loaded button that you had to depress with your feet instead of a weight sensor
And now Konami isn't offering DDR A3 upgrade kits to arcades unless they give them royalties for every credit spent on the machine. Round 1 agreed to it, Dave and busters didn't, so 5 years from now we're gonna have about 300+ DDR cabs be useless cause they killed the servers for the version we're stuck on
Then DDR X 1 and 2's American cabinets were produced by raw thrills and were nigh unusable cause the pads used a physical spring-loaded button that you had to depress with your feet instead of a weight sensor
And now Konami isn't offering DDR A3 upgrade kits to arcades unless they give them royalties for every credit spent on the machine. Round 1 agreed to it, Dave and busters didn't, so 5 years from now we're gonna have about 300+ DDR cabs be useless cause they killed the servers for the version we're stuck on
All added, thank you both very much!
Happy to get the deets on all the bullshit they did with DDR cabs. :u
Happy to get the deets on all the bullshit they did with DDR cabs. :u
Some of these truths I didn't even know. It's amazing to me to know, but now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
In the case of the Castlevania games, I honestly think the difficulty changes weren't that bad, except for Castlevania III, it was a terrible change.
The change of the cross for the axe in Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge seems good to me since usually the axe is more useful for allowing you to attack upwards, while the cross is only straight, maybe it was for the best, although I couldn't really say, I haven't analyzed it in depth.
In the case of Contra III, the limited continues don't make the game impossible on normal difficulty, but I never imagined that it was something absent in the Japanese version, since the previous games handled limited continues.
Contra Hardcorps is a strange case because the original version is the hardest. That's a strange revelation to me.
Good list.
In the case of the Castlevania games, I honestly think the difficulty changes weren't that bad, except for Castlevania III, it was a terrible change.
The change of the cross for the axe in Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge seems good to me since usually the axe is more useful for allowing you to attack upwards, while the cross is only straight, maybe it was for the best, although I couldn't really say, I haven't analyzed it in depth.
In the case of Contra III, the limited continues don't make the game impossible on normal difficulty, but I never imagined that it was something absent in the Japanese version, since the previous games handled limited continues.
Contra Hardcorps is a strange case because the original version is the hardest. That's a strange revelation to me.
Good list.
@Maurith Only a few of these are super egregious cases like CVIII, Thunder Cross, and Bayou Billy I'd say. I actually need to play the Tiny Toon games to see how much the difficulty changes impact it for something that should be geared more towards kids, granted I don't think Konami cared much for where the target audience was lol. Love the company, but goddamn.
The western release of MGS1's "easy" difficulty was the only difficulty in the original Japanese release.
@LarryDavis oh huh, I didn't know that actually. fucked up, even if they did give us more options over here.
curse
6 months ago
version of CVIII we got sucks shit and I'll never understand how anyone thinks otherwise