Regional Differences in Zelda Games (Part 3)

Regional Differences Games (Part 1)

Regional Differences in Hardware (Part 2)




Regional Differences of Zelda Games

Here is a list of significant regional differences for the main Zelda games. Note that bug fixes and revisional differences aren’t included here - just purposeful changes to the game by developers for one reason or another. For the most part, I’m only really interested in Japan-US changes and not so much in the EU ones. There are no regional differences for the CDi games or BS-X games, as they were never localized, and the same goes for basically all of the spin-off games and remake games. Interestingly, it’s AoL and MM that have the most differences, being the 2nd and 6th games in the series. Almost everything outside of those games are very minor changes that really don’t alter the game in a noteworthy way. It seems as if the amount of differences per game goes has gone down quite a bit since the NES era. 




The Legend of Zelda

Sound/Music - The most notable differences are in the sound effects and the music. Because the Famicom Disk System added an extra sound channel, there were slightly different sounds for the dungeon bosses yelling, the door unlock sound, and the sword beam sound. Musically, the only two tracks that are different are the title screen and credits music, which added a ringing bell sound to the music.

Gameplay - The only gameplay change is that the Pol’s Voices can no longer be defeated by yelling into the Player 2 Controller microphone, and an arrow was made to be able to kill them in one shot instead.

Translations - Some of the hints from the old man were shuffled around, and a couple were changed to something else entirely.

Adventure of Link

This one is a case where it seems the developers put the final polish on a game that wasn’t quite ready to be released.

Sound/Music - Like the first game, there are a few differences in some of the sound effects, like the fairy sound, the door unlock sound, the shield blocking sound, the death sound, and the Great Palace barrier being removed sound effect. The title screen music also used the extra sound channel so it’s a bit different, most noticeably in the first 6 seconds. The music for the battle encounters was completely overhauled and changed, and the boss music was improved from a 3 second loop to a 9 second loop by way of a key change. Some of the bosses also emitted a roar that had to be eliminated in the non-FDS release.

Graphics - Many of the sprites were changed up, including giving Link a mouth and adding a few more townspeople to give the towns more variety. The map screen sprites of Link on the raft, the 3 types of enemy encounters, and the River Devil were all upgraded. For some reason, the sprites of the Holy Water (which was renamed to Water of Life in the manual) and the Goddess Statue (which was renamed to the Trophy in the game) were changed, and the “cage” around the captured child was removed. The water in lakes and oceans was originally animated, but not in the US version (the same goes for the “lava” around the final area). Zelda’s chamber had some renovation and raised the ceiling and added columns. The cross on a building in one town was changed, though none of them in the graveyards or Link’s shield were.

Gameplay - Inventory items like the Candle needed to be stabbed in Japan, but just touched in the US version and an animation of Link holding the item was added. King’s Tomb was changed from a fighting area into a peaceful one with a villager visiting the site. The Game Over screen was given a silhouette of Ganon instead of a black screen. The biggest gameplay change was how in Japan the levels for the life/magic/attack always reverted to the lowest of the three upon a game over but were kept intact for the US release at the cost of significantly increasing the points needed to do so.

Palaces - Temples were called Palaces in the manual and in-game text, elevators were sped up, and each one was given a unique color and brick texture. The second Helmethead fight was removed and replaced with the barbarian Gooma, and Volvagia’s name in Katakana (Barubajia) was shortened and mistranslated as Barba, as well as giving him a completely different sprite and attack pattern. The translation also explains why Japanese players recognized the Fire Temple boss's on OoT as a reference but American players did not.

Translations - the Japanese title text more clearly implied that this Zelda was different from the one who was rescued in the first game, and references to religious things (holy water, goddess statue, temple) were changed, though the term “devil” was left in the in-game text despite changing the sprite to resemble a spider instead of a demon.


A Link to the Past

Not many significant changes were made to this one. The biggest one is changing the title from Triforce of the Gods to A Link to the Past so as to not run afoul of Nintendo of America’s policies. There were a few other religion-related things like renaming the priest to be a cleric and the church to be a sanctuary, as well as a symbol that sort of resembled the Star of David was changed. Interestingly, the title change implied that the game was a prequel instead of a sequel as originally intended, and NoA changed the text on the back of the box to reinforce the implication. Along with the title change came a title screen change - instead of a black screen there was a castle next to a lake and mountains. There were a few minor translation and font changes (like changing “finger webs” to “flippers”), renaming the ocarina to a flute, and adding a wind sound effect on Death Mountain.


Link’s Awakening 

The original title in Japanese is, 'The Island of Dreaming,' which kinda gives the plot twist away, so calling it 'Link’s Awakening' is better. As with the last game, the title screen and its logo were changed as well. But the main changes are that the Hippo model in Animal Village originally had boobs and implied that the artist is doing a nude portrait, and the mermaid originally loses her seashell bra instead of a necklace. There were a few other small changes to the caves and dungeons to fix an oversight that could cause Link to be permanently stuck. Other than that, there were not any more other than some very minor differences that take eagle-eyes to spot, and they aren’t the kind of thing that really change the game.


Ocarina of Time 

This game had lots of revisional differences, but virtually no regional differences other than title screen logo. The notable version differences changed the Gerudo symbol and the Fire Temple music, various bugs, and the color of Ganon’s blood.

Majora’s Mask 

Like the previous game, this one has a lot of revisional differences, but also has many regional differences as well. Ocarina was released in Japan and the US simultaneously, but there was a 6-month localization gap in this release, and so Nintendo took the opportunity to implement a few bug fixes and put some additional polish onto the game.

The title screen had some text color change and the stars were made brighter. The names of the days were changed from First, Next, Last to be First, Second, Final, and the clock was changed from 24hr time (aka military time) to 12hr time. The Japanese version could only be saved by playing the Song of Time, but “owl saves” were added at the cost of losing the third save file. The save file screen in Japan shows a death counter (standard up until this point for a Zelda game) but was changed to a rupee/heart/mask counter for the US version.

Audio - Many small changes were made, like having music play in the US version where there wasn’t any in the Japan version, or changing the location of where the audio originated from. There were also a lot of small audio bugs that were corrected.

Gameplay - Zora Link’s physics were changed quite a bit, and the ability to grab onto Mikau was added to make getting him to shore easier. The waterwheel puzzle elements in the Great Bay Temple were changed to automatically stop at convenient points to make it easier. The 10-second mailman game was made easier by only having tenths of second and not hundredths, and the town shooting gallery was given more time. The Marine research lab was given a ledge that is easy to climb onto instead of needing to dolphin-jump onto the platform. The bean salesman under the Deku Palace was originally reached by going through several grottos, but was given a more direct path in the US version. The Japanese version of the Pirate’s hideout had a direct path from where Link causes bees to attack to the location of the hookshot, while the US version added a wall necessitating leaving the room and entering through a different door.

Many of the cutscenes were altered in some way for one reason or another. The Skull kid was changed to have a wood texture face making it look less racist. The scarecrow was made to automatically tell the player about the Inverted and Double songs of Time.

There were also many little tiny things that aren’t worth mentioning, like moving a chest a smidge, slightly changing the layout of a room, or changing where text appears on screen so as to not obscure something.



Oracle of Seasons/Ages 

The titles in Japan translated roughly to, “Mystical Seed of Earth/Space-time”, various text differences, the Kanji symbols for present/past or the seasons were replaced with picture icons, a room in the first dungeon was changed slightly to teach players to push jars, the drawers in the mailman’s house were changed, the Clairvoyant Goron was added to give additional hints for a 4th-dimensional puzzle, and a “To be continued in [the other game]” screen was added to help entice players to buy the second game as well.

Four Swords

None


The Wind Waker 

The “Sploosh” game changed the target from a battleship to squids, all of the kanji symbols were removed, and some of the treasure chest contents were shuffled around.






Four Sword Adventures

The only change is that outside of Japan and Korea, the secondary game mode called Navi Trackers isn’t included on the disc.


Minish Cap and Twilight Princess 

None


Phantom Hourglass

Just a couple of minor animations


Spirit Tracks

The only significant change is that a puzzle on the 6th floor of the Tower of Spirits was made slightly harder for the US version.



Skyward Sword  and A Link Between Worlds

None

Tri-Force Heroes 

The only change is that the “sorry” icon changed so it looks like Link is shrugging instead of praying.



Breath of the Wild

Home menu screen icon is different depending on the region, the title logo in Japan looks more similar to the original Legend of Zelda FDS logo, the US temperature gauge is in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.

There are also various translation things (like the Japanese apparently uses the same descriptor for the Master Sword as the one given in Triforce of the Gods, which until recently was translated as, “the blade of evil’s bane,” but has been called in the West, “the sword that seals the darkness” in a few games now). But it’s to be expected as any text or dialogue-heavy script will find numerous slight changes because of translation issues. That being said, I do have an issue with the localizers taking some creative liberties and injecting personal/political bias into things, since it sometimes ruins future things if the same localization team isn't used. An example of this is that Proxim Bridge should have been called "Aboda Bridge." In Japanese, it was a direct reference to the starting village in Spirit Tracks, but since the localization teams for these games were different, it wasn't caught. 

Regional Differences in Hardware (Part 2)

Regional Differences in Games (Part 1)




The Famicom and the NES

Though they played many of the same games, the Famicom and the NES were very different consoles for a variety of reasons. The Famicom was first released in Japan in 1983 as Nintendo’s first console that wasn’t a Pong clone console. It was fairly small in size and featured a maroon and white color scheme. The controller cords were short and hardwired to the rear of the system, and could be stored on the side of the console when not in use. The second controller had a microphone and volume slider instead of a set of Start and Select buttons. The power button slid forward and back, and the cartridge slot had a small flap to cover it which needed to be manually moved. There was a serial port on the front which was used for attaching the light gun and other accessories. Cartridges were plugged into the top of the system, just like the Atari and all consoles had been up till that point, and the carts came in many colors. The Famicom also had an Eject slider that popped the cartridges up.

The Disk System add-on was released in Japan just as the American NES was barely hitting shelves in the West. Though disk-based games added loading times, it also included the ability to save files and have bigger games with more content. It plugged into the cartridge slot of the Famicom and actually added an additional sound channel.

By contrast, the American version came out over 2 years later, so Nintendo redesigned the system to appeal to American consumers and made a few changes to the hardware. For starters, the whole system was changed to be a front-loading console to resemble a VCR in order to make it seem less like a video game machine (which included making the cover flap angled) and changing the color scheme to grey and black. The cartridges were also uniformly grey (except for unlicensed games and both Zelda games). The redesign also entailed reconfiguring the motherboard and making a few convenient upgrades. A lockout chip was added to combat piracy, composite video and audio ports were added to the RF Switch A/V port, and the controllers were made to be removable and their cords lengthened. The power switch was changed to a push-click button and an LED was added. An expansion port was built into the motherboard and could be accessed from the bottom of the system, but it was never used. Instead of having a disk-based peripheral, cartridges with expanded memory capabilities and battery backups were used instead.



The Super Famicom and the SNES

In late 1990, the 16-bit successor to the Famicom was released in Japan – the Super Famicom. And only 9 months later, North America was basking in the 16-bit graphical glory of the SNES, which was a much smaller span of time than the Famicom-NES gap. The regional differences make a rather short list. Internally, the motherboards were identical, and all of the differences were purely cosmetic changes to the outer shell of the system. In fact, the only thing stopping American and Japanese players from using each other’s games (besides the inability to read

a foreign language and the difficulty of obtaining them via mail in a pre-internet era) was the physical shape of the cartridge. Games from other regions could be played by either removing the ROM board from the cartridge and inserting it directly, or by removing the small plastic bumps surrounding the cartridge port.

The Super Famicom’s four controller buttons were all convex and colored with red, blue, green, and yellow. By contrast, the SNES featured two lavender and two purple buttons, with the lavender ones being concave to have a different tactile feel. The rest of the differences in the systems were just the particular shape and coloring in the hunk of plastic surrounding the main board.

The Nintendo 64

Finally, by 1996, the Nintendo 64 was released in North America only 3 months behind the Japanese date, and the only difference between the consoles was the position of two pieces of plastic that straddled the cartridge slot. This form of physical region locking was easily defeated by pliers back in the day, and now can be overcome with a $7 tray ordered from eBay that replaces the stock version in a 5-minute mod job. From this point onward, there have been basically no regional differences and the only thing preventing cross-region gaming is a software lock.

Regional Differences in Zelda Games (Part 3)

Regional Differences in Games (Part 1)

 

Ever since I found out that the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was very different from what Japan got, I have been curious about the difference in experiences that I got versus someone who grew up in Japan, and the ‘compare and contrast’ type of essay we sometimes have to do for English class was always my favorite assignment. 

During the NES and SNES days, information on this type of thing was scant. The internet wasn’t around to easily spread the details, and the only sources were monthly magazines and (even more rarely) the occasional newspaper blurb. I only found out about the SMB2 thing because of a small allusion to it in an issue of Nintendo Power. Since having access to Japanese games either through emulation, collections (like the Mega Man Legacy Collection or Castlevania Collection), or from the Nintendo Switch Online Famicom games, I have really enjoyed finding all the little tiny differences between versions.

There are many reasons for such changes. Sometimes it’s because there was a several month gap between the Japan release and the international release to give them time to translate/localize the game, and the developers were able to get some feedback from players to make some improvements. Other times it’s because the developers ran out of time before the game shipped, so they used the localization time to put the final polish on it. What follows is a list of types of changes with some examples. 

Different Media

The most obvious changes are ones where the physical medium had an effect. Kid Icarus and Metroid were on disks and had save files in Japan, while they were on cartridges and had password systems in the US. The Zelda games were on cartridges and had save files (getting the best of both worlds), so the loading and waiting times as well as having to change sides of the disc were eliminated for the US audience. The FDS games also often utilized the extra sound channel to enhance the music or sound effects which had to be cut out for the cartridge release. This type of change isn’t limited to regional differences, though, as it can also apply to any kind of port. Ports from an Arcade machine won’t need quarters to run, but also will come with a downgrade in graphics. Ports from PCs won’t have a whole keyboard to use, so a lot of adjustments will need to be made to be able to play it with a controller. 

Small Improvements (usually)

Often there are tiny bug fixes or slight changes to correct oversights, such as putting a small 1-block notch in the back of one of the ships in Super Mario Bros. 3 that makes it possible to get back on the ship without being “stuck.” Sometimes the sprites got garbled in the process of finalizing the game or a math error was found that causes unwanted behavior in enemy AI. Occasionally there’s a palette change due to unforeseen problems with sprites clashing or something. 

Cultural Issues

Sometimes it comes down to the differences in cultures that compels the changes. Capcom changed Phoenix Wright’s base of operations from Tokyo to LA in the text, even though the graphics weren’t changed at all. Also, references to ‘ramen’ were changed to ‘hamburgers’ as being the default fast food option. Many games that were steeped in Japanese culture were just not released internationally, as it would take too much effort to explain why kids were wearing uniforms to school or why the whole family bathes together in a game. However, since the popularity of manga and anime has exploded, many aspects of Japanese culture are more well known to the world and so games that wouldn’t have gotten an international release now can do so.  

Difficulty Change

Some of these regional differences are simple things, like Mega Man 2 having an option to select either a normal or hard difficulty, while Japanese players only got to play the hard mode. Super Mario Bros. 3 in Japan was also harder because getting hit always made Mario revert to Small Mario, whereas the US version would let Mario go back to being just Super Mario. For some reason the transition between the map screen and the level starting was also sped up. It was also clear in this game that the Princess’s name is Peach, something we didn’t learn in the West until Super Mario 64. Ironically, the US release of Ninja Gaiden 3 was made more difficult so that the game couldn’t be rented and finished over a weekend, forcing players to purchase the game and “get gud” if they wanted to complete it. In fact, it was the perceived difficulty of the original Super Mario Bros. 2 that inspired Nintendo to completely overhaul Doki Doki Panic into the western release that we know and love. 

Title Rename

Another oddity is that sometimes games are called by completely different titles, so games that are obviously from the same series in Japan don’t always appear as such in the US. For example, the games Final Fantasy Adventure and Secret of Mana were intended to be parts 1 and 2 of a trilogy (one where the third game never got released in the US) called the Seiken Densetsu (Legend of Sacred Sword). Nintendo of America thought it would sell better under the Final Fantasy name, so it renamed the first one and called the second one Secret of Mana. (Earthbound and Mother is another example of this). Square also didn’t release the 2nd, 3rd, or 5th Final Fantasy game in the US, so 4 was renamed to 2, and 6 was renamed to 3 so we Americans didn’t feel like we skipped a game. It just so happens that when Final Fantasy VII was switching teams to the Sony Playstation was when the internet started to take off, and we could find out why the games were numbered 1→ 2→ 3→ 7. 

A non-video game example is how the Transformers franchise came into being. There were two separate companies in Japan making toys that turned into robots. One was mostly cars and planes that changed into robots, while the other was made up of everyday objects like cassette tape players, microscopes, and guns. Japanese kids could play with these toys as is, but American audiences needed a backstory. So the American toy company gave them team names (Autobots and Decepticons) and wrote a story and created an animated series out of it. Voltron and Power Rangers kinda got the same treatment, where separate animated series were linked together under the same name in the US creating a connection unintended by the original creators in Japan. 

Translation Issues

Occasionally the translation changes the meaning of the original intent of the Japanese authors. In the case of the Final Fantasy games, the Japanese developers didn’t leave enough memory for text in other languages because Japanese is such a compact language when written down. As such, Ted Woolsey had to try and compress it down and make it fit and the result is that some of the story beats are simplified or changed entirely. Nintendo of America renamed The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods into A Link to the Past to avoid religious connotations, and decided that this game was a prequel (at least according to the back of the box) instead of the sequel that Miyamoto had intended. Some things were translated more literally, such as the infamous, "It is a secret to everybody" quote, and some were just really bad Engrish. 

Censorship

Many of the differences can be chalked up to censorship and cultural reasons. Nintendo of America had a fairly strict policy against religious things (as previously noted) and anything considered not family-friendly. The spell called “Holy” was changed to “White” in Final Fantasy 4, and to “Pearl” in Final Fantasy VI, while 'priests' were changed to 'clerics' or 'shamans,' and ‘prayers’ into ‘wishes’ in several instances. Castlevania had some background statues that resembled the Venus de Milo changed to look less nude and more covered up, many crosses were taken out, and Medusa was changed to look like a male. Several sprites were more covered up in Final Fantasy VI as well. The cigar-chomping gorilla’s stogie was taken out of Little Nemo, and the wording of the hint to call Edna in Maniac Mansion had the suggestive connotations removed. Many games had words like, ‘dead,’ or, ‘killed’ replaced by softer euphemisms like, ‘eliminated.’ Blood was removed from some games (Mortal Kombat) or had it changed to green (Ocarina of Time) or to look like sweat or vomit (Street Fighter 2). Wine was changed to Grape Juice, and bars (called cafes) serve milk for some reason. 

What’s interesting is how certain things got let through, like the cross on the shields and the graves for the first two Zeldas, even though the “Temples” were changed to “Palaces” in Zelda 2.

Regional Differences in Hardware (Part 2)

Regional Differences in Zelda Games (Part 3)