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Whilst most in the West will know Parasite Eve as the PlayStation action role playing
series, developed by Final Fantasy creators Square, during the late 90s - for a lot of
people in Japan it's different.
Parasite Eve's origin was actually a bestselling Japanese novel published in 1995.
This novel, alongside the Ring series, helped create a big resurgence in the J-Horror genre
and it was the first winner of the Japan Horror Novel Award.
Like most successful media, this then led to a range of adaptations and new works.
Parasite Eve was turned into a manga series, as well as a successful Japanese movie - and
all of this was before the video game's eventual release.
In fact, the first game in the series wouldn't even be released in Europe at all.
It's not known why this was and the game was a huge hit in both Japan and the US - with
it even going on to be re-released under the PlayStation's "Greatest Hits" label in North
America.
As for the versions received in the US and Japan, whilst most of the game is the same
between regions, there actually do exist a few interesting differences.
The Japanese title screen for instance is notably brighter and more vibrant than the
US release, with the whites popping out much more.
The font is also slightly changed and there is the inclusion of katakana text reading
the game's name over in Japan.
In the tutorial menu there's been another graphic change, but this time to the image
that's displayed in the background.
The Japanese version originally used this piece of official art for the game, which
shows the game's protagonist in quite a revealing depiction.
The US version for some reason completely changed this background image, as shown.
One of the biggest changes made overseas is the renaming of chapters 5 and, the final
chapter, chapter 6.
You see, in the English release chapter 5 is named "Evolution" and chapter 6 "Liberation".
Over in the Japanese release, the names are the other way around, with chapter 5 being
"Liberation" and the final chapter being "Evolution".
Due to the story's themes in these chapters, many fans feel that the Western version swapping
them around works better with the concepts of "Evolution" and "Liberation" - which may
be why Square made this change.
It's also interesting taking a look at the box art between the Japanese and US release
- as the Japanese version features no pictures at all and just has the game's name over a
plain white background.
Japan also has the writing "Square USA Presents The Cinematic RPG" across the front in English
letters.
The US release has "The Cinematic RPG" written alongside the back, but not on the front in
such a bold and attention grabbing way.
The game's intro also has a pretty big difference between regions, although this isn't to the
FMV clips that are shown but the text that is displayed over them.
In the Japanese version are around a dozen sentences that will pop up during the intro
wrote in Japanese text.
This text says a range of cryptic or foreshadowing sentences about the game's story and, rather
than translating these, the English version removes the animated text completely.
Parasite Eve 2 also has a few changes made overseas and, this time, the game was released
in Europe as well.
One of the first changes that you'll notice is that the game's difficulty modes have been
renamed in the West, with the Japanese "Supportless" and "Deadly" modes being renamed "Scavenger"
and "Nightmare" respectively.
The circle symbols indicating the effects the difficulty option has on things like enemy
level and supply level were also strangely changed, with them originally being star symbols.
The "Sick" category was also originally labelled "Sickness" in Japan.
An interesting change was made to the computer puzzle found in the Shelter.
The puzzle requires you to answer various trivia questions about the game's world, with
there being 11 possible questions and the game asking you 3 chosen at random for each
new game.
In the English release of the game though, one of these questions was changed.
It is only in the English version where a question will ask you "Who was declared responsible
for the Manhattan incident".
In Japan, this question instead revolved around a character from the novel and movie called
Kiyomi Nagashima, who was the host of the first Eve.
Due to the novel's and movie's Japan-only status, this would have gone over the heads
of most Western players, which is likely why it was changed.
Several item's graphics were also changed when the game was brought overseas.
One of these was to fix a spelling error on the level 1 health recovery item, which had
"Pain Reliever" misspelt in the Japanese version.
Conversely the level 2 MP recovery item was changed outside of Japan to remove the Perrier
product placement - Perrier being the world famous bottled water brand.
The bottle of Perrier was changed to just a generic bottle of water in the west and
this is despite the English version not removing the many different product placements for
the coca-cola brand, with there being things like coca-cola signs, coca-cola vending machines
and even a coca-cola item, which is commonly found and heals both HP and MP.
For some reason, the Penicillin's graphic was changed from a full medkit in the Japanese
version to just 2 bottles of medicine in the west.
And the graphics for the purchasable spells also resembled a medkit in the Japanese version
and all spells used the same image.
In the English release, the graphic is a glass vial with a colour coded liquid inside for
the different spells.
There was also a change made to the name of the secret underground laboratory "Neo Ark",
which is named "Shambala" over in Japan and this name difference will be reflected in
some graphics such as the Neo Ark map.
The name's Japanese origins are a reference to the fabled Buddhist paradise of the same
name.
Its English name, however, is possibly a reference to Noah's Ark, with perhaps it being felt
that Christian theology would be more recognisable to Western players.
Interestingly, despite not being the location's name, the Japanese version still contains
graphics saying "Ark" - such as the logo on the floor here.
What do you think about the changes made to Parasite Eve overseas?
And did you know about the Parasite Eve book, manga and movie?
Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and consider subscribing to the channel
to see more videos on how video games and other media are changed around the world.
Until next time, thank you for watching!