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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 25, 2015 19:46:49 GMT -5
No, I wasn't mad in the 90's.
I'm mad now.
Trying to collect NES/SNES/MD/N64/whatever games is a bitch because oftentimes developers couldn't be bothered with making them run the correct speed (although for some reason with SNES I'm not really bothered by it, except for Super Metroid which is awkward in PAL, and Starfox, which is just unplayable).
Boy was I mad when I ran a PAL Mega Man 2 cart for the first time. I am probably one of the younger members here, so I first played many classic console games through emulation, which is usally the NTSC versions.
As someone who likes to play games on their original consoles, this really pisses me off since I'm poor and now I have to import them most of the time.
At least our SNES doesn't look retarded.
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Post by kingmike on Feb 25, 2015 21:05:20 GMT -5
At least our SNES doesn't look retarded. Best tissue box ever!
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Post by Scylla on Feb 26, 2015 14:16:38 GMT -5
I don't really have any place in this topic, seeing as I'm an American, haha, but one thing I've never understood about the complaints about 90s PAL gaming is that it's usually in regard to what didn't come out in the 16-bit generation, most often citing stuff like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. And while, yes, we did get a small number of Japanese RPGs on SNES that PAL regions didn't, you guys do realize that the extreme vast majority of Super Famicom RPGs went unlocalized, right? We were all in the same boat as Western gamers, even if the US came out marginally ahead. If I was a PAL gamer, I'd be far more inclined to complain about how games ran or about what wasn't released in the latter half of the '90s, when the US was getting a lot more localizations of niche games with many of those never reaching PAL countries (or in some cases, not all of them, like how the only PAL country Tail Concerto came out in was France).
And for what it's worth, there are quite a few games that have come out in PAL regions but not the US, and that's not even considering the oft-named Terranigma. A lot of good Konami games for one. Granted, these are mostly games that aren't text-heavy, so it's not a big problem to import them from Japan but still. And some games I wanted that didn't come out in the US were on handhelds with no regional lockout, so I simply imported them from Europe and was good to go. Still wish I could figure out a way to get my PAL Doshin the Giant to work on my American GameCube or Wii, though...
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Post by caoslayer on Feb 26, 2015 14:42:18 GMT -5
Still wish I could figure out a way to get my PAL Doshin the Giant to work on my American GameCube or Wii, though... Homebrew channel.
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Post by starscream on Feb 27, 2015 9:00:21 GMT -5
I don't really have any place in this topic, seeing as I'm an American, haha, but one thing I've never understood about the complaints about 90s PAL gaming is that it's usually in regard to what didn't come out in the 16-bit generation, most often citing stuff like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. And while, yes, we did get a small number of Japanese RPGs on SNES that PAL regions didn't, you guys do realize that the extreme vast majority of Super Famicom RPGs went unlocalized, right? We were all in the same boat as Western gamers, even if the US came out marginally ahead. If I was a PAL gamer, I'd be far more inclined to complain about how games ran or about what wasn't released in the latter half of the '90s, when the US was getting a lot more localizations of niche games with many of those never reaching PAL countries (or in some cases, not all of them, like how the only PAL country Tail Concerto came out in was France). It's the difference between getting a taste, a meal, and the whole buffet...When I walked into my local video rental store during the SNES-era, there were barely any PAL-choices when it came to (non-Action) SNES RPGs. No Final Fantasy, no Earthbound, nor the first Lufia and Breath of Fire. I also had an affection for turn-based strategy, I don't think any of the console Koei games were released in PAL territories at that time. So I made often use of an import adapter. The Sega situation was better, but the Turbografx...wasn't even released officially in most PAL countries. So there it's the difference between nothing and something.
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Post by Scylla on Feb 27, 2015 12:05:39 GMT -5
See that's the thing, I think it's a stretch to characterize the US selection of turn-based Japanese RPGs as a "meal". Naming the Final Fantasy games (although we didn't get V back then either, and Mystic Quest did get a PAL release), Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, the Lufia games (and you guys didn't miss out on much with the first Lufia; it's a very dull and generic RPG that pales in comparison to Lufia 2), and the Breath of Fire games virtually... covers the entire library of US-released turn-based RPGs, minus just a few more, most of the remaining being so-so (unless you guys really want to mourn the loss of, like, Tecmo Secret of the Stars). Trust me, as someone who was a fan of Japanese RPGs when the SNES was alive and active, we had barely any choices too, and reading Nintendo Power and hearing about all the great RPGs that weren't leaving Japan was a depressing experience.
But you're right, something is better than nothing, and I feel fortunate that the US did get some really good ones, and my sympathies to PAL gamers who had no official release of games like Chrono Trigger until many years later. And that's a shame about the TG-16 too, although the situation was pretty pitiful here also. HuCards and Turbo CDs combined, the US only got about 150 games, meanwhile Japan had nearly 700 I think? Europe only got around 60. But worse than the numbers was the fact that a lot of the Turbo games in the US were crap. We were getting abysmal Western-developed US exclusives like Yo' Bro, and even when they were localizing Japanese games, instead of the good stuff we were getting junk like JJ & Jeff. And add on top of that poor distribution in the US. Depending on what region you lived in and/or what stores you frequented, it was honestly possible to not even be aware of the system's existence and coming across someone who owned one was like finding a unicorn. I know for myself I knew about the NES, Genesis, SNES, etc., but I was completely oblivious to the existence of the TG-16 when it was alive. I don't think I had ever heard of it until the late 90s when I was getting serious about collecting retro games and talking to other collectors online a lot.
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Post by kingmike on Feb 27, 2015 12:57:30 GMT -5
I believe the total HuCard library was 94 games, and about 40 CD games, going by Wikipedia (and counting actual games, so not counting the unlicensed porn slideshows). I MIGHT've seen it at Babbagee's back in the day (yeah, remember before GameStop bought out literally every game store?) but I only heard of the TG16 from reading magazines (and even then only as it was dying. So just in time for the horrific Johnny Turbo ads. And also just slapping "CD" arbitrarily in their ads didn't really help to take the system seriously. I mean, Lords of Thunder is pretty amazing but telling me about "seven of the most ruthless, graphically intense CD bosses" is not how you sell. )
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Post by acidonia on Feb 27, 2015 19:06:51 GMT -5
It was annoying reading magazines and seeing all these US (pre region locked) Genesis only and Japanese megadrive games begin reviewed and never seeing them in stores and just saying import instead of a price.
I will say Europe in the long run on PS2 got more games than US some good some really bad. Due to Sony of americas silly guidelines which prevented games like Metal Slug 3 and all of the localized simple series 2000 games reaching America. Well one PS2 simple series game reached America the Pikmin clone about cavemen called Darwin under the new name The adventures of Darwin and was published by D3 themselves which makes you wonder why only that one for US?
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Post by 320x240 on Feb 28, 2015 11:55:00 GMT -5
I never bought a console until the Amiga CD32 but remember looking through Computer and Video Games every month drooling over the ads from import shops, especially the two-page spreads showing Pc Engine covers.
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Post by Colonel Kurtz on Feb 28, 2015 12:38:23 GMT -5
Were you also disappointed by the meager localization in Europe? I understand why they would not risk certain games or, even entire genres. But was it for the better? On the other hand, many companies could've taken risk as video games were booming again. No we were not "mad", you cutie pie, you! (Do you have a sister? Mwwrraaw!). We bought modified consoles and bought NTSC US games, you silly goose! What passionate video game afficionado would have accepted using 50Hrz hardware anyway? Oh, you! PS:Cute hairdo. I mean it. PS: BTW the 2 last sentences of your post don't really mean anything? Are they questions or assertions?
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Post by Colonel Kurtz on Feb 28, 2015 12:48:41 GMT -5
I never bought a console until the Amiga CD32 but remember looking through Computer and Video Games every month drooling over the ads from import shops, especially the two-page spreads showing Pc Engine covers. The Amiga CD32? Shoot, you have my sincere condolences, really. Well, at least you could play the famous masterpiece "Akira". Impressive how they could develop such a great game from a movie so unimportant and lacking in action, really. I mean, it's a movie that starts with the total annihilation of Tokyo, and the end is more explosive. And in between it's bike gang warfare, monstrous mutations versus giant lasers, and Tetsuo's brutal overtaking of Neo-Tokyo. How dull. More impressive is that you sticked with consoles after such a difficult start, actually. You're truly ONE OF US! ONE OF US! Welcome home.
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Post by kingmike on Mar 1, 2015 3:28:16 GMT -5
An American CD32 has to be one of the rarest and most obscure consoles. (I mean, I've heard people talk about the LaserActive, and that was like triple the price of the infamously-expensive 3DO.) I think it was actually released? I don't know if more than one game (James Pond: Robocod) was even reviewed in magazines back in the day.
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Post by retr0gamer on Mar 1, 2015 5:22:16 GMT -5
See that's the thing, I think it's a stretch to characterize the US selection of turn-based Japanese RPGs as a "meal". Naming the Final Fantasy games (although we didn't get V back then either, and Mystic Quest did get a PAL release), Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, the Lufia games (and you guys didn't miss out on much with the first Lufia; it's a very dull and generic RPG that pales in comparison to Lufia 2), and the Breath of Fire games virtually... covers the entire library of US-released turn-based RPGs, minus just a few more, most of the remaining being so-so (unless you guys really want to mourn the loss of, like, Tecmo Secret of the Stars). Trust me, as someone who was a fan of Japanese RPGs when the SNES was alive and active, we had barely any choices too, and reading Nintendo Power and hearing about all the great RPGs that weren't leaving Japan was a depressing experience. See it wasn't just RPGs though, there were plenty of action games etc that never got a release. I think the whole Operation Rainfall thing summed up how bad Europe has had it compared to the U.S. People went bonkers over those games only getting a PAL release. If it was the other way around Europeans would have shrugged in a 'business as normal' kind of way and just imported because we are so used to this happening. Sega treated Europe decently since it was the only market keeping the master system alive but Nintendo had a real contempt (it seemed) for Europe, especially outside of Germany. Their headquarters was in Germany and that was their biggest market so would do crazy things like a limited release of a game outside Germany and a much bigger shipment of German only copies. Then there was the clusterfuck N64 launch were nobody knew the real release date and Nintendo confused everyone by releasing the system in Germany first about a month before anywhere else.
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Post by Scylla on Mar 1, 2015 11:18:34 GMT -5
Yeah, I know lots of different games were passed on, it's just bizarre to me that modern day complaining is so often centered around Japanese SNES RPGs when the US got so few as well.
Operation Rainfall was strange across the board. I'll never understand why such a big deal was made of those particular three games when countless games of their sort never leave Japan. Maybe it was because of the staff behind them, maybe because there were English versions available, maybe just because so much attention was drawn to Operation Rainfall that US gamers were basically told "you should care about these games". I don't know, maybe I'm just being contrary, but when I think of those games I just shrug and think of all the other games that I'd much rather have been released in the US. But making a big stink about those games worked and they all did get picked up for US release, so all's well that ends well, I suppose. But when it comes to games of that generation that were first localized for Europe and it was a little questionable if they'd ever come out in the US, I'm far more grateful for Solatorobo.
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Post by kaoru on Mar 1, 2015 12:28:33 GMT -5
I wonder how the Operation Rainfall games did. While Xenoblade was hyped to hell and back, it seemed like people stoped talking about The Last Story right around that one's release, and no one cared for Pandora's Tower when it was turn for it. Both in Europe and the US. Just seemed so odd that the three games were so much talked about pre-release, yet the two non-Xenos seem to have been fallen by the wayside once they actually came out. But that's just my insulated viewpoint.
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