Before we get into today's video, first a big thanks to our faithful sponsor NordVPN.
Get a huge 81% off plus an extra 4 months free by going to NordVPN.com/censoredgaming
or checking out the link in the description.
NordVPN allows you to change your IP address to almost any location around the world and
keeps all of your internet data safe and private.
Now you may have seen NordVPN in the news lately due to a “security breach”.
And of course the channel wouldn’t want to promote something that wasn’t top notch
for you guys to enjoy.
That’s why I felt I should mention that now and the cool thing is that Nord actually
also wanted it brought up themselves to you guys, rather than pretending nothing happened
or anything.
The incident affected a single server back in March 2018.
But no user data was exposed or anything and nothing like this would have even been possible
due to this not existing, since Nord is one of the very few companies that has a strict
no data logging policy.
In response, Nord is now making a number of improvements including no longer using any
3rd party servers and are being very open about the incident and are committed to making
the best VPN service and industry standards even better.
You will be able to find a link with more info on this in the description below, as
well as again a link to the huge 81% discount by going NordVPN.com/censoredgaming.
This offer is a limited holiday season special and by using the code CENSOREDGAMING at checkout
it also comes with 4 extra months for completely free, as well as a subscription to NordPass,
which should cost $199, for again completely free.
Today we’ll be taking a look at Street Fighter II and ways that it and its many different
versions were changed between the Japanese and English regions.
For a game with as many different ports and versions as Street Fighter II, there are quite
a lot of different regional differences between versions.
And so this video will be list-styled video taking a look at 10 of the bigger, more interesting
ones.
And so, without further ado, number 1: Character Profiles
Some of the games would show profiles for each of the characters when booting up the
game.
This can be found in the SNES games for example.
However, over in Japan, these profiles were much more detailed and provided info such
as the fighters’ likes and dislikes, as well as various background info.
Ryu’s likes for instance are 1: martial arts and then 2: Mizu Youkan, which is a Japanese
food that’s a sweet jelly made from red bean paste.
His dislike on the other hand is said to be spiders, which is interestingly something
that will occasionally be brought up again in the franchise, including in the English
version of Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Here Ryu will speak about his hatred of spiders at the start of rounds whenever facing off
against Spider-man.
Conversely, when beating Spider-man he will proclaim that that wasn’t so scary after
all.
The other section of the bio speaks about how we wants to become a true martial artist,
as well as wanting to follow Ken abroad.
And you can find detailed character profiles like this for each of the characters.
The English bios however cut all of these details out.
They also change the various units of measurement and also covert the birth year from the Japanese
imperial calendar system to the Western system.
Number 2: Continue Screen Tips In the arcade versions during the continue
screen, it is only in Japan where tips will pop up at the bottom of the screen to try
and help the player become better at the game.
These messages advise players on different strategies they can use and can also give
information on things like how to perform the characters’ different moves.
The English versions however display no messages at all, whilst over in Japan, there are multiple
different messages for each of the characters.
Number 3: Move Names When Cammy and Dee Jay debuted in Super Street
Fighter II: The New Challengers, they for some reason had some of their moves renamed
outside of Japan.
This affected Dee Jay’s “Slash!” attack… which was renamed overseas to “Max Out!”
For Cammy, two moves were affected.
One being the Japanese version’s “Cannon Spike”… which was changed in English to
“Thrust Kick”.
The other was “Spiral Arrow”… which was changed in the west to “”Cannon Drill”.
These name changes would be used in multiple games in the franchise.
Nowadays however, the Japanese names are used worldwide.
Number 4: Ken’s Stage A change was made to the background of Ken’s
stage, Battle Harbor.
This stage, which is set in the US, shows a port with a crowd of characters cheering
the fighters on from a boat.
However, for the SNES release of the original game, one of these background characters had
his animation changed.
In the Japanese SNES release, his arm gesture could perhaps be misinterpreted for doing
something rude.
In the English version, released only a month later, this was changed to remove any confusion
over what he is doing.
The Japanese animation wasn’t included in any other versions, including the earlier
arcade release where he instead sticks his arm up right into the air.
And then for the next SNES game, Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, he again sticks
his arm right up in the air in all versions, like in arcades.
Number 5: The Music Speaking of the SNES versions, the final game
released on SNES had some interesting differences in music between regions.
For some reason, Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers has lots of differences
in the music – ranging from new instrument samples, different pitches and changes in
loudness.
Most of the music was changed, with some being more subtle than others, but for a brief comparison,
here’s a clip from the Japanese version’s Guile’s Theme...
And then the English releases…
Number 6: Akuma There are number of differences between regions
in relation to the secret playable character Akuma.
In the Japanese versions, he has multiple different win quotes that he can say.
In the English versions though, all of these were removed and he says nothing at all.
Comparably, similar changes were made to Akuma’s endings.
There are 2 different endings, one when you beat the game by beating Bison and then the
secret ending when you fight Akuma instead.
When beating the game with Akuma, both of these endings are a bit longer in Japan due
to the English versions removing all of Akuma’s dialogue from the scenes.
Number 7: Win Quotes Another case of Capcom cutting down on the
translation overseas, the win quotes were drastically reduced outside of Japan.
In Japan, characters could have many different things that they would say when winning, including
in the arcade and SNES games.
Some characters could have nearly 10 different quotes.
In the English versions though, there would be only 1 or 2 quotes for each of the characters.
Number 8: Game Names The names of some of the Street Fighter II
games are also a little different over in Japan.
The dash symbol after “Street Fighter II” in some of the games’ names actually stands
for a word in the Japanese versions.
Over in Japan, this symbol stands for the word “dash” and is spoken out loud when
saying the games’ full names.
Alongside this, “Super Street Fighter II Turbo” is instead called “Super Street
Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge” in Japan.
These differences led to some other changes in 2003’s Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary
Edition, the last version of the game released for arcades.
Here, you could select different play types when starting the game – with each being
based on the previous games.
Over in Japan, two of these play types have different names due to the game name changes,
with the English version’s “Super T” and “Champ” being called “Super X”
and “Dash” respectively.
Number 9: The Intro Street Fighter II’s original intro, which
shows two fighters squaring off in front of a tall building, would be changed in the English
versions of Street Fighter II - Special Champion Edition for the Sega Genesis.
Special Champion Edition was the first game released for the Genesis and, in the Japanese
version, the fighter that gets punched was black like in all previous games in both Japan
and the west.
Capcom USA’s director of marketing John Gillin explained in a 2014 interview with
Polygon that he had received a letter from a fan distressed at possible racial overtones.
He explained that this is something he hadn’t previously noticed, but he agreed, and thus
the fighter was redesigned for the English versions.
Number 10: Character Names And then for perhaps the biggest change that
was made to Street Fighter II overseas and one that has gone on to affect all later games
in the series.
All boss characters, with the exception of Sagat, were renamed outside of Japan.
Balrog is instead M. Bison, Vega is Balrog and M. Bison is Vega.
Like mentioned this would go on to be made to all future games in the franchise and is
said to be due to 2 reasons.
The first of these is due to similarities between M. Bison and the famous real life
boxer Mike Tyson.
Capcom USA were worried about running into legal troubles over in the West if the name
was kept the same, which led to it being swapped around.
Alongside this, Capcom USA felt that the name “Vega” would be a weak name for the game’s
main villain and so swapped that around too, leading to the names that we still use today.
What do you think about the changes mentioned in the video and what video game regional
differences would you like to see covered next?
As always, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and a big thanks again
to our sponsors at NordVPN.
There will be a link in the description if you want to go check their big discount out
and, until next time, thank you for watching.