On the whole, when it came to console gaming, Americans tended to have it better than Brits. Japanese games and hardware are released earlier, and usually at a better price. Occasionally, in the worst cases some games never made it to our shores – some of them “best in class” like Parasite Eve or Fire Pro Returns – despite having an existing English localization.
Sometimes, in rare circumstances, the UK received a Japanese translation that never made it to the US. In this article, Dan W — RH’s European correspondent — picks what he thinks are the 5 best games to have “Skipped America”
American gamers will never understand the frustration of being a European Console gamer in the 90s & 00s. I remember researching and then modding my PS2 in 2006, in order to play imports because I couldn’t handle the FIVE MONTH WAIT for Final Fantasy 12 to make its way across the Atlantic.
On balance, while we never got the full rub of the green, we Europeans occasionally did get access to titles that never made it over the pond. Usually, these were gems like Stunt Car Racing (officially one of TechDweeb’s favorites) on local systems like the Amiga. However, upon that rare occasion, a Japanese game would be given an English localization, but not get released in America.
I’m here to collect 5 of my favorites that this happened to share. In order to qualify, a game has to have received an official English language translation, and have been released in Europe but not America, including any remakes or remasters.
5. Vib Ribbon (Playstation 1)
Vib Ribbon is at the bottom of this list, not because it’s worse than the others — this is the game from the list I had the most fun playing at the time, but because (like all other rhythm games) it doesn’t emulate as well as other games, and because creating the required m3u file can be a real pain.
Vib Ribbon was the third game from NanaOn-Sha after Parappa the Rappa and Un Jammie Lammie. Unlike the previous two games, where each level had a set song to mash buttons along to, Vib Ribbon would create an obstacle track for your wire rabbit avatar to cross, out of any given CD.
It was able to do this since the game fully loaded into the PS1’s RAM, allowing the disc to be ejected and replaced with any audio CD. Vib Ribbon’s release launched a search among fans to find the toughest song to play along to, with the assumption that it would likely be an unknown Grindcore band or something. When the dust had settled, the true winner turned out to be Pure Shores by All Saints.
4. Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (Nintendo DS)
One Nintendo DS game that I fondly remember from its original launch, and which occasionally turns up on “Hidden Gems” lists is “Hotel Dusk: Room 215”. The game had glorious artwork which reminded me of the video of A-ha’s Take on Me, but required the DS to be rotated 90 degrees and held by the hinge. While in the US it was effectively a one-off game, players in Europe and Japan had access to the sequel — Last Window.
Last Window is set a year after the first game and again follows Kyle Hyde, dealing with a new cast of characters and a new building – this game’s location again is a hotel, but this one has a mysteriously sealed off 4th floor Spooky. Sticking to the format of the first game, the aim is to solve a mystery related to someone from Kyle’s past.
Much like you might expect, the game retains the glorious artwork style, gameplay mechanics, and narrative of the original — although as you would expect with a sequel, some mechanics have been improved to the benefit of the player.
Last Window retains the charm of Hotel Dust with the story alternating adeptly between warmth and sadness. Like the original it will need a configuration when played on a Retro Handheld since it was designed to be played with the DS held at the hinge, meaning that in emulators like Drastic, the screen orientation needs to be changed in-game.
3. Bishi Bashi Special (Playstation 1)
Before WarioWare, there was Bishi Bashi Special.
At the time of release, Bishi Bashi Special was unlike anything I’d played before. Each mini-game would start with a voice saying “ATTENTION” and then explaining the increasingly more bizarre rules. Unlike WarioWare, Bishi Bashi Special is best played along with friends as a Local Multiplayer, with many of the games turning into a 1-8 player “verses mode” where 2 or 3 players share the screen at any one time.
Maybe it should be considered the West’s first “party game”. Either way, the sheer dumfounding stupid fun of the whole experience, alongside the unashamedly over-the-top hypercolors, means that, while less unique, it remains as much fun to play now as it did at the time of release.
Bishi Bashi Special was a European-only release compiling Japan’s Bishi Bashi Special 1 & 2 (known in-game as “Super Bishi Bashi” and “Hyper Bishi Bashi”). One of the mini-games – Bomb – where you have to decide whether a plate has food or a bomb on it and serve either to yourself or your opponent as quickly as possible, remains a personal favorite.
2. The Gregory Horror Show (Playstation 2)
Few games of the era were genuinely creepy without being in the least bit gory, Gregory Horror Show managed the feat despite being technically a Survival Horror game. In Gregory Horror Show you play a character trapped in a mysterious hotel who is tasked with stealing the souls of the other guests in order to escape.
Each guest will only part with their soul when you get them at a moment of vulnerability and, once soul-less will perpetually try to destroy you by subjecting you to a “Horror Show”. There is no way to kill any of the characters, you just have to run, and they’re faster than you.
Gregory Horror show introduces one of the most macabre characters I’ve ever encountered in gaming — Nekko Zombie. Nekko Zombie is maybe a reanimated dead cat locked in a prison cell, who has had its eyes, mouth, and ears sewn up while it was asleep.
Throughout the game, the player will be able to overhear other characters discussing the punishments that were inflicted on Neko. Despite this, Neko is, in a way, your only friend in the game, acting as the guide for the tutorial section and offering hits in the main game. Gregory Horror Show, and Neko Zombie specifically, are every bit as harrowing as they sound.
1. Terranigma (SNES)
Terranigma was one of the RH Discord’s Games of the Month in July 2022, not long after I started playing along every month, and it remains one of the most memorable games to be selected by Discord. Much like the other famous game made by Quintet – Illusion of Gia (the game to which some people consider it a spiritual sequel) –, Terranigma is a top-down Action RPG.
You play a schoolboy, totally out of their depth after finding out they are the chosen one tasked with saving all living things on the Planet Earth. Both Terranigma and Illusion of Gia not only share the same graphical style but both base their philosophy on the worldwide incarnation of battle between light and dark.
If there is a criticism of Terranigma, it is that some combat controls aren’t too player-friendly, and I encourage people not to make the same mistake I did and try to play through it on the original Miyoo Mini, it’s not a game suited to those controls, and this became really obvious during boss fights.
Every other moment of the game is an exercise in melancholia where the player is urged to progress the story and find out more about the game world. Terranigma is very much worth its place at number one on this list.
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