Today's video is sponsored by Massdrop, who have just sent me their famous Sennheiser
PC37X gaming headset to show you guys.
You can only get these limited edition headphones from Massdrop and they've been created for
max audiophile quality, whilst also keeping price in mind.
They feature a smart all black design and I've been using them a lot lately and honestly
they're the most comfortable headphones I've ever tried and they're from the world renowned
Sennheiser brand.
It's going to be very hard to find a more quality headset for a better price than this,
so consider checking out the link in the description if you've been looking for a new headset and
know that you'll also be supporting the channel by doing so.
Massdrop have also just launched a whole new PC Gaming Community which you may be interested
in checking out as well.
Here you will be able to discover, learn about, talk about, see, and do more of what you love
when it comes to everything PC gaming and it has all the battlestation essentials, from
headsets and monitors to keyboards, mice, and ergonomic chairs
When the PlayStation 1's Metal Gear Solid was originally released in Japan, creator
Hideo Kojima and the rest of his team at Konami didn't just translate the game into other
languages and then ship the game to other regions around the world.
Instead, the team continued to work on the game and make improvements.
Hideo speaks about this in a Japanese interview for the Metal Gear Solid: Integral strategy
guide, which has been translated by Marc Laidlaw and hosted on the fan site metalgearsolid.net.
To quote: "Under normal circumstances, we would've broken
the team up after the game was finished and everyone would move on to new projects, but
with MGS, we also had the European versions to work on after the American version.
This was actually an industry first, but what we did was make separate English, French,
Italian, German and Spanish PAL versions.
We took the 8 hours or so of dialogue and translated that into each language, then hired
voice actors for each version and re-edited that back into the game.
We also had to fix the timing for the dialogue, though, as in certain languages the speech
will take more or less time to run through a scene.
With all that to do, we found it hard to get away from the game.
Ports like these definitely are a lot of work, but the staff still had more free time during
this process than they did while making the original game, so we ended up fixing all the
parts of it we didn't like.
But we weren't happy with just that, so we played around with various new extras to the
game as well, like more VR stages."
This led to there being various differences between the Japanese and US versions of the
game, and then a few more for the later European releases.
The US version boasted several new additions, including a new difficulty selection option
- with easy, normal and hard being available by default and then Extreme upon completing
the game.
The Japanese release actually has no difficulty options and is based on the US' easy mode.
The inclusion of new difficulties also meant there are 36 more codenames for completing
the game, with 12 for each difficulty.
Alongside this, the demo theatre was added as a reward for completing the game, which
allows you to watch cutscenes and codec conversations from the game in a manner similar to a movie.
And then another bonus for completing the game that was added is Snake's tuxedo costume,
which will replace his sneaking suit on subsequent playthroughs.
The English releases also made some changes to the already existing content.
One of these is to the camera angles during cutscenes, which had various changes in the
US release and then even more for the European versions.
For example, when Snake bends down to use the codec during the intro, the Japanese version
on the left has a completely different camera movement compared to the US version on the
right.
It was likely that these changes were the result of Hideo's vision and him feeling that
they would work better.
Another change was made to the alert modes.
When spotted by a guard in the Japanese version, the alert mode would read "danger" and this
was changed overseas to "Alert".
Following getting away, the mode would then switch to "ESCAPE" in Japan and this was changed
to "Evasion" in the English release.
The English version also changed the names of a few of the items, such as the Cigs, which
were originally spelt CIGARET in Japan.
Hideo also decided to update his credit at the start of the game.
The now famous "a Hideo Kojima game" credit actually started beginning with the US version
of Metal Gear Solid 1, with the Japanese release instead saying "a game by Hideo Kojima".
Another change made overseas was to Psycho Mantis' memory card reading section.
In one of the game's most well known sequences, Mantis will scan the player's memory card
with his 'physic powers' and then say different lines of dialogue depending on what games
are saved.
In the Japanese version though, many games that could be detected were Japanese exclusives
- meaning that they had to be replaced overseas.
For instance, one of these games was Policenauts - an earlier game by Hideo Kojima in the visual
novel genre.
This and all other Japanese-only games were replaced with Konami games that actually were
released overseas - such as Vandal Hearts and Castlevania.
This also meant that Western players missed out a special Easter egg starring none other
than Hideo Kojima himself.
In the Japanese version, if players had save data from both Policenauts and Snatcher, which
is another one of Kojima's earlier games, Mantis will say " So you like Kojima games?"
and then Kojima's actual voice will pop out of nowhere and say " Thank you for your support".
One of the more unusual changes to the English game affects Johnny, the guard who Meryl knocks
unconscious and steals her uniform from early on in the game.
The overseas versions will show Johnny with a blur effect covering his private areas.
In the original Japanese release, Johnny actually wears boxer shorts instead.
It's not known why this change was made, but it's easy to speculate that this was simply
Hideo changing his mind and thinking that the blur effect would work better.
Interestingly though, the later Japanese re-release of Metal Gear Solid, which included most other
Western changes, for some reason decided to go back and add the boxer shorts back in.
This release of the game was called Metal Gear Solid: Integral and, as well as including
the Western changes and additions, also added a whole bunch of other new content to the
game.
However, that's still not all for the English changes.
Despite its overall popularity with fans, the localization of the original MGS also
has its controversial side.
Metal Gear Solid was translated and localized by Jeremy Blaustein, who's worked on a wide
range of other titles - including Silent Hill 2-4, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and
Shadow Hearts: Covenant.
Despite previously working for Hideo on 1994's Sega CD version of Snatcher, Blaustein upset
Hideo with his overly liberal translation.
Blaustein has argued that a few changes and tweaks were necessary for bringing Hideo's
script to an English audience and have it sound natural.
When Hideo discovered that changes were being made without his consent though, he not only
didn't ever hire Blaustein again - but also clamped down on the translation of the sequel
Metal Gear Solid 2, and tried to ensure that the localizer would keep the script as close
to the Japanese version as possible.
This also led to Metal Gear Solid 1 being retranslated when it was remade for the GameCube
in 2004, a process that also required the English voice actors to come back and record
all of their lines again.
Not all of Blaustein's changes were unwanted though.
Mei Ling's proverbs, which she quotes whenever you save the game, were all Chinese proverbs
in the Japanese version of the game.
Mei Ling would say the original proverb in phonetic Chinese and then repeat the same
proverb in Japanese, essentially meaning she said the same thing twice.
Due to the difficulty in translating this, Blaustein expanded Mei Ling's quotes to include
Western-based proverbs and literature as well - a change that Hideo would later agree was
necessary.
Some other changes however, were much less appreciated.
Revolver Ocelot's popular "silver bullet" line, for example, which is now infamous amongst
fans for its seemingly innuendo-like nature...
This line was actually invented completely by Blaustein himself, as were some other lines
during this battle.
This is also the reason why the line was removed from the retranslated Gamecube version.
Some of Blaustein's changes would also subtly affect plot points, something that Hideo was
likely to be particularly bothered about.
During Psycho Mantis' death scene for example, Mantis' last words weren't "It feels kind
of nice" in the Japanese version.
Instead, they were "It feels very nostalgic."
This is because Hideo intended his final words to be a reference to his mother, who died
during giving birth to him.
Again, this line was removed for the GameCube release and a precise translation was added.
There is also one other interesting point about the English releases and this revolves
around the torture scene with Snake and Ocelot.
In the Japanese version of the game, Ocelot would speak about the French when talking
about his use of electricity for torture.
These lines were voice recorded in English and included in the US version's files, but
for whatever reason, somebody decided to leave the voice file on the disc unused and created
another one with the dialogue altered.
The original lines originally had Ocelot say: "Ocelot: If it's just for a short time, it
won't kill you."
and then "Ocelot: Did you know that it was the French
who first thought of using electrical shocks as a means of torture?"
Snake would then reply: "Snake: I've seen lots of French films, but
I never heard that before."
However, here's how the dialogue plays out in
the US version...
As you heard, the US release removed the dialogue about the French, but this now makes Snake's
comment seem rather out of place.
Due to this, the later European version would remove all of Snake's line, so that the alteration
doesn't stand out so much.
Interestingly, the GameCube release would do away with this change completely and would
include the French lines in the English versions as well.
But that's all we have time for today.
Let us know what you think about these changes in the comments below and please consider
subscribing if videos on regional differences like these are something you are interested
in.
Until next time, thank you for watching!