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With the release of the Final Fantasy VII Remake finally upon us, now makes a great
time to take a look at Crisis Core, which was released for the PSP back in 2008 and
is a prequel to the events of the main game.
And, with the channel’s focus on how media is changed around the world, today we’ll
be taking a look at 10 ways Crisis Core got changed when it was released in English.
Before we get into that though, first an interesting titbit surrounding Crisis Core’s Japanese
release - Most Final Fantasy games actually go through
a number of revisions and edits when they get released for Western audiences and then
later get released again in Japan, with the added bonus of these alterations plus perhaps
some new ones.
For instance, the original Final Fantasy VII had a wide range of changes when it was released
in English, which is something the channel has already taken a look at.
And this then led to Final Fantasy VII International being released in Japan, which contained these
changes, plus a special Japanese-only bonus disc full of trivia and lore called Final
Fantasy VII: Perfect Guide.
Numerous other Final Fantasy titles have then went on to have “International” versions
later released in Japan, and this is similar to how the Kingdom Hearts series has been
handled and having various “Final Mix” versions later released in Japan.
Now, back to Crisis Core, despite having numerous alterations in English and the game being
a big commercial and critical success, Square Enix for some reason never given the game
the International treatment.
Adding even more confusion to this situation is the fact that even Dirge of Cerberus would
be re-released in Japan under the International banner and featuring the North American and
European changes.
Some speculate that part of the reason for this may have something to do with copyright
and, for example, Square Enix no longer having the right to use Gackt’s likeness.
Gack is a popular real life Japanese musician and Genesis, who is one of the main characters
in the game, was modelled on, voiced by and co-created by the musician.
This however remains something that Square Enix has yet to speak about officially.
But with that out of the way, let’s delve in and take a look at -
Number 10: Removed Areas Interestingly in the overseas release of the
game, a few mission maps had their size cut down to remove parts of the map that had no
treasure, as indicated by the new no entry symbols on the English maps.
For some of these maps, the player would have to stealthy sneak past the enemy objectives
to reach them and so perhaps there was some concern of players doing this and wasting
their time.
Number 9: Goddess Statue In the Japanese version of the game, the Goddess
Statue during the final dungeon of the game resembled the Virgin Mary.
Whether this similarity was intentional in the Japanese version or whether there was
concern over religious sensitivity in the west is unknown, but the statue was redesigned
overseas, completely removing the possible resemblance.
Number 8: Save Points Time for another graphical change and this
one is something that you will see much more off during the course of the game.
This being the save point icons, which in Japan displayed the letter “S” and the
word “Save” underneath, whilst in the West this was curiously replaced with the
icon for SOLDIER, Shinra’s elite fighting force that Zack and co work for.
Number 7: Difficulty Modes Those of you who refuse to play your games
on anything but the hardest difficulty would have been out of luck if stuck with the Japanese
version, as unlike in the west, there were zero difficulty options.
Overseas however, hard mode was added and is available to pick right from the start,
which ramps up the difficulty fairly considerably.
Number 6: Game Over Conditions Now whilst the Japanese version lacked hard
mode there was still one way that it was actually more challenging than western versions and
this is what happens when you receive a game over.
In the English versions, you would return to the last save point but still keep all
of the spoils from the failed mission and this even applies to the hard difficulty.
Over in Japan, on the other hand, you simply return back to main menu with all progress
completely lost.
Furthermore, in the English version, this leaves the game open to a number of exploits,
with one popular one being to steal an infinite number of Phoenix Downs from the game’s
super boss, dying and then repeating.
These Phoenix Downs can then be used for their powerful effects, used in Materia Fusion or
sold for big profit.
Number 5: Tifa & Cloud At The Nibel Reactor When Zack and Sephiroth are investigating
Nibel Reactor, Tifa and Cloud should be waiting outside.
This event is also depicted in the main Final Fantasy VII game and their presence is an
important part of the story.
However, despite this, if you exited the reactor early in the Japanese version of the game
Tifa and Cloud would be nowhere to be found.
The devs managed to spot this oversight for the English release though and not only added
them outside but also gave them dialogue.
Number 4: Nibelheim Arrows Sticking with the Nibelheim area, numerous
signs pointing towards Nibel Reactor and Shinra Mansion had their arrows pointing the completely
wrong ways, which could have been a little confusing.
These were fixed for the English release but not completely.
Strangely these were only fixed during the daytime maps, as when visiting these locations
during the night, the Japanese versions of the signs are for some reason still used.
Number 3: Tonberry Attack The Tonberry is one of the most famous enemies
in the entire Final Fantasy franchise, having made an appearance in most Final Fantasy games
ever since way back in Final Fantasy V.
In Crisis Core the popular creature returns as one of the game’s summons, which depicts
the creature in this comical animation where it trips over as it makes its way to battle,
yet inadvertently still ends up stabbing the enemy with its powerful stab attack.
Whilst in the English version, the attack causes a speech bubble with an exclamation
mark and question mark to pop up, over in Japan it is instead Japanese text that reads
“pussu”.
This isn’t a Japanese word but the pussu sound is supposed to represent the sound that
the knife makes, and for some interesting context, this same sound has been used in
other Final Fantasy games.
For example, in Final Fantasy VIII, when the Tonberry is again used as a summon, the sound
pussu will appear in the Japanese version, whilst in English this got changed to “Doink”.
Number 2: Dialogue & Facial Animations A couple of scenes in the English release
were voiced that weren’t in the original Japanese release.
Furthermore, the devs also put in some touches throughout the game to the lip movements to
better synch up with the English voices.
And then it seems whilst the devs were fixing this up, they also played around with a few
other things, such as this pretty obscure change during Zack’s date with Aerith.
It seems that having his hair slightly obscuring his face really bothered somebody on the dev
team and so it was kept brushed back over in the west, like so.
Number 1: Camera Angles And then for our final change is the game’s
camera angles, which saw some pretty drastic changes at times when the game was released
outside of Japan.
Most missions had changes made to the camera positioning, with some having bigger changes
than others.
However, the trend is that in the Japanese version the camera faces downwards more, whilst
overseas the camera is further behind Zack.
The camera being behind the player makes it easier to see into the distance and look out
for enemies and treasure, which is possibly why it got changed when the game was shipped
out for western players.
But, what do you think of the changes mentioned in the video?
As always, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and a big thanks again
to our sponsors at NordPass.
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if that’s something you’re interested in and, until next time, thank you for watching.