As Censored Gaming has covered numerous times in the past, Japanese localizations of Western
games can sometimes have some interesting changes.
One of the most curious of these is the practise of taking popular Western characters and giving
them a new lick of paint to redesign them for the Japanese market.
Feeling that these new appearances will appeal more to the Japanese market, we have seen
this with titles like Crash Bandicoot, for instance, who was presented much more cute
in Japan, believing it will help the game sell better.
On the flip side, we sometimes see this sort of thing in the West too.
One example of this is the box art for the Kirby games, which has often been presented
more aggressive and determined for its English releases - whereas over in Japan it is generally
kept much more cute and lovable.
And with that notion, today we'll be taking a look at the Ratchet & Clank series and how
it itself has been changed for the Japanese market.
Ratchet & Clank is of course the hugely successful action platformer franchise by Insomniac Games,
creators of Spyro The Dragon, another classic platformer series.
Debuting in 2002 for the PlayStation 2, the franchise has since seen more than a dozen
games and even a full feature film based on the lovable cast of characters.
Whilst the first game was released in Japan with minimal changes, with even the cover
art being kept in a pretty similar style as the West - the same can't be said for the
next game - Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando.
Starting with the 2nd game, huge changes were made to Ratchet's appearance - giving him
super thick eyebrows as shown here.
That's not all though, if you pay attention to the size of his head, as well as the way
his eyes look, you'll notice that his head is now bigger and his eyes are much more anime-like.
It's likely that these changes were implemented trying to boost the Japanese sales and they
were also accompanied by the box art being made much more cartoony and vibrant.
The new look was also carried over to the Japanese commercials, which show him with
the bushy brows and anime eyes.
The Western marketing for Going Commando, on the other hand, featured multiple commercials
showing a bunch of college kids using weapons from the game.
As for some other Japanese commercials for those interested, here's one for Ratchet & Clank
3...
And here's another one for Ratchet & Clank 4...
These design changes proved to be a huge success and would even lead to the 2nd game having
a "PlayStation 2 The Best" version released, which is the Japanese equivalent to PlayStation's
"Greatest Hits" in the US.
Ratchet's new look would be applied to all Japanese games for a long time, with the last
game for Japan to get a different version being 2009's Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack
in Time for PlayStation 3.
This also includes side games, such as the Clank-inspired Secret Agent Clank, which also
shows Ratchet with his different appearance in Japan.
For some more cover art differences, take a look at the difference in style between
the English and Japanese versions of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal...
Ratchet: Deadlocked... and Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters.
As you may have noticed, another interesting difference in Japan is that most games are
numbered, such as the spin off game Size Matters being called Ratchet & Clank 5.
Another curious naming change can be found in the latest release, which is a PlayStation
4 reboot titled simply Ratchet & Clank.
Over in Japan, though, it is called Ratchet & Clank: The Game - likely to tie it in with
the 2016 movie adaption it is based on.
As for some more of the changes made actually in-game, one pretty big difference can be
found in Ratchet: Deadlocked which had new sequences added when Ratchet upgrades his
armour.
For instance, for his first set of armour, nothing happens in the English version and
it just goes from one scene to the next...
Over in Japan though...
Next up, for a curious change made to the first game, the Gadgetron vendors were for
some reason renamed to Galactron, although this change wasn't made to later games.
A few other pieces of text have been altered too, such as the writing on Big Al's shirt,
which was changed to Japanese.
And for Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, there was actually an interesting change made
to the camera, so that it now moves much slower.
This is due to believing that Japanese people are more likely to suffer from motion sickness
and similar changes have also been made to other games, like Insomniac's first two Spyro
The Dragon titles.
Up Your Arsenal also had extra costumes in Japan that weren't available in the West until
the much later HD version.
These Japanese exclusive costumes were the Sumo, Ninja, Santa and Ape Escape Monkey costumes.
Deadlocked also had extra costumes over in Japan, but unlike Up Your Arsenal, these wouldn't
be made available in the HD version.
The new costumes were a Genome and Saurus costume and, again, a Santa and Ape Escape
Monkey costume.
Also, in case you wondering, here's how Ratchet sounds in the Japanese versions....
And here's the same scene
but in English...
There was another interesting point about the Japanese version of Deadlocked and this
can be seen on the game's box art.
You may have noticed that the cover shows Merc and Green with legs, however, in the
actual game, they instead hover legless.
This discrepancy can also be seen in some of the game's promotional footage and so it
is likely that the decision to make them legless was made pretty late in development.
Like mentioned, starting with the Japanese version of All 4 One, Ratchet's appearance
was for some reason kept the same worldwide.
This is despite the games' large popularity over in Japan, with most games prior to this
going on to have Greatest Hits copies released.
Later games would still do well though, with the most recent debuting in 3rd place on the
Japanese sales chart.
Japan would also get an exclusive triple pack that wasn't released in the West, which included
Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, and Ratchet
& Clank: Into the Nexus.
Furthermore, Japan also got a Ratchet & Clank manga that was called Ratchet & Clank: Bang
Bang Bang!
Critical Danger of the Galaxy Legend.
The manga was published starting February 2004 in the bi-monthly edition of the Japanese
magazine CoroCoro Comic.
The last issue was finally finished in February 2008, 4 years after starting, and to-date
the manga is still only available in Japan.
The latest game was also released in a special edition in Japan which contained the game,
a blu-ray disk of the movie, as well as a special tie-in manga.
By the way, if you are interested in checking out any of the Japanese versions - then the
import specialists Play-Asia.com still have copies of many of the Japanese games left
available and there will be link in the description if you want to go check them out.
It's also worth pointing out that this isn't a sponsored video but the affiliate link will
show that you support what Censored Gaming is doing and at no extra cost to you.
Anyway, that's all we have time for this time but hopefully you have learnt a few new things
about Ratchet & Clank in Japan.
If this is something that interests you, the channel also has videos on other games like
the Japanese versions of Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter and more.
There will be links to those videos in the description, so please go check them out if
you haven't already.
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to the channel and, until next time, thank you for watching.