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Japanese DS Game Substantially Different Than US?
Eurogamer has the story that the Nintendo DS title Mr. Driller may have a very different feature set in the US and Japan. From the article: "According to widespread reports - which we've been unable to confirm as we haven't got a copy of either version - the Japanese version allows players to engage in various multiplayer battles in groups of up to four players using just one of the DS's game cards, whereas the US version requires multiple copies to achieve the same result." Interesting, if cynical, decision.
Would this be based on comparison of economies int he wto countries? I know that I would be slightly annoyed if it was available in japan and not here as a feature, as thats a pretty darn cool feature...
that's not a DS thing, that's a game thing.
I have a DS, and YES it is capable of playing four player games with just one gamecard. if its not available in the US version, that's the game publisher's intention, its not a DS difference.
all DSs can play 4 player games with one game card, if the game supports it.
In the Japanese version there is "download play" with a single cart (so only one person needs to have the game and the rest of the people download a copy to their DS to play along in multi-play). Whereas with the US version each player needs their own copy of the game to join into a multi-play session.
The Japanese version also includes Dristone Mode, which isn't in the US version either (it's a modified version of single player with slightly different rules). Given that DS games are region-free, if anyone is seriously interested in the game, it might be better to import it.
But a bad thing I don't read Japanese. I'll own both so that i can have the US version on standby for translation and everyone else can crowd over it so we know what's going on... Or maybe I'll just skip Mr. Driller for the likes of Metroid Prime:First Hunt.
Damn this is no surprise. U.S have always lagged behind. Look at gran turismo all the cars are in Japanese names. So many Japanese version of the games are better than the American counterparts with more secrets etc. They got cooler stereo parts, cars, cellphones. I heard some part of Japan even have fibre-channel connections at home.
This is what happens in a country where we spend all our money on ludicrous taxes, mortgages, insurance bills. We're left to buy everything we need at walmart.
...but also, apparently an entire mode.
Dristone/Drillstone mode is a sort of RPG mode, and I guess the US version doesn't have it--Namco did reply to an inquiry about the exclusion of some features here.
"We didn't have the time to implement the some elements/features in order to make the DS launch date in North America,"
Which is kind of funny, as they launched simultaneously.
Kids these days. They don't know the difference between classic, and just plain old.
Does the import Drill Spirits have such abysmal audio, or is this just a really crummy translation/dub? The voice acting is quite bad, and the ending song is an absolute disaster.
Good thing I've already got Mr. Driller Ace for the GBA, which has Drill Stone ("Wonderful Pacteria" in that version), single cart multiplayer, and not-sucky audio. Heh.
Don't get me wrong, Drill Sprits isn't a bad game. It's just got a couple flaws that will keep it from being a best-seller.
So what's this saying? Americans are suckers and would pay extra for "functionality" while its rubbed in our face that the functionality is not only possible but available to other people.
I'm sick of getting screwed over for games and technologies. If this is the greatest country in the world, why does our technology suck so hard? Why do we let companies screw us?
Please look up what fibre-channel is before you post again
...for the GBA, even if the gameplay was limited.
Two examples would be Super Mario Cart (limited set of tracks with one cart) and any of the Super Mario Advance games (Mario Bros. VS single cart, could play it co-op with multiple carts...)
I was very surprised to see so many of the first wave of DS releases requiring multiple carts, I figured they would have had a few games multi-play with a single cart to entice people to buy into the system early (and to show off the DS's multiplayer capibilities.)
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
The Gameboy Advance can do one-cart multiplayer (it was a selling point at one point IIRC), but it only has a small amount of memory (128kb IIRC) to store the game, so big games can't use it, unless they cut down features. (Mario Kart only has a few tracks available for example).
The DS apparently has more RAM to use for one-cart multiplayer, but I'd imagine that could be filled up by games.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
The GBA has a number of titles that can be link-played with only one cartridge. Usually, you can only play mini-games or other small features this way.
For instance, in my Kirby & the Amazing Mirror game (which rocks by the way), there are 3 mini-games that can be played up to 4 player with only one cart.
You can also play the main game with 4 players, but for that each player needs a cart, which makes sense, as each player can explore the whole game world simultaneously. The slave GBAs would need to load pretty much the whole game world off of the master, or at least a sub-world at a time.
I can't think of any other games that can link without more carts, but I know I've read about some in the past. I believe some of the Mario ones, and perhaps the Zelda one.
-Grant
My stupid web site
Is this a real post or an advertisement for slashdotemail@gmail.com?
Does it still go "Mistah Drilah!" when you turn it on like the Dreamcast one did? If not, I'm not buying, whatever region. ;)
The GBA has 256k of EWRAM available for multibooting games. Maybe a game could try to sqeeze a tad more content into the other memory regions, but it's not likely.
There have been a couple times where US and Europe get a superior game while Japan gets shafted with an inferior version. See Maniac Mansion and Battletoads.
The Japanese version of battletoads had the difficulty level toned down by a large factor, while the US version of Maniac Mansion was a superior rewrite.
Both of the games you mention were anomalies, due to the fact that they were both Western-developed. They were then localized for Japan, so the dev stage for the Japanese was longer. That implies that all of the changes were more likely the result of deliberation than time constraints. To think about it going in the reverse direction (as it affects Western gamers), Capcom's Dreamcast fighting games with online vs. mode in the Japanese versions all lacked online vs. mode in the U.S. versions. That decision was deliberate.
With Drill Spirits, time constraints reportedly forced the release that had to be finalized first (U.S.) to lack features included in the release that had a longer development stage (JP). Was this decision deliberate? Namco Hometek claims that it wasn't, although there are compelling reasons that would explain if it was. I'll leave these reasons as an exercise for the reader.
Actually, while I was on vacation in Tokyo I picked up Mr. Driller Ace for the GBA (GBA has no territory lock. Yay!) and it allows you to download the game to connected GBAs as well. Several GBA games do this.
Wow. Japanese game has prominently Japanese car licenses? STOP THE PRESSES.
"ludicrous taxes" ?
Perhaps you should visit, um, Japan or Canada or pretty much all of Europe.
It is a real post. Do you know what fibre channel is and what it is used for?
Hint - it ain't a last mile solution.
Also, the initial stock of the mr driller carts for the US version is split between the US and europe. Namco has said that they dont plan on making a second stock if this first English language one runs out.
sort of a catch-22, limited stock yet more carts are required to play multiplayer. I'm now sold on buying the import version....
Damn this is no surprise. U.S have always lagged behind. Look at gran turismo all the cars are in Japanese names. So many Japanese version of the games are better than the American counterparts with more secrets etc.
Er... you mean the US lags behind because they drive different cars in Japan or what? The cars in GT have Japanese names generally because they're not available here (the Mazda Demio and Nissan Skyline GTR, for two examples). The game itself is the same as the Japanese release, though.
Many games these days are actually improved when they're brought over here - a big switch from the old days of just a few years ago. For example, every Final Fantasy game since VII has had extra monsters and side-quests in the US release (the US release then later being re-released in Japan as "FF(n) International").
Japanese game development in general isn't what it used to be, though, so the days when you'd have all these deserving little niche titles either left in Japan or brought over here in bastardized form are pretty much over. Today, games are usually produced for a worldwide audience and most deserving games are brought over either intact or with new additions and improvements.
So to me, it seems like this Mr. Driller thing is just an abberation. We'll see if it's some sort of nefarious plot by Nintendo to get Americans to buy more games, but if so they'll be kicking themselves for not region locking the system because it'll turn into an importer's dream. There hasn't been a real major must-import-for system since the Saturn (and to a lesser extent the PS1), but if Nintendo starts pressuring developers to make alterations like this in the name of profits, the DS will become the next importer system pretty quickly.
This is what happens in a country where we spend all our money on ludicrous taxes, mortgages, insurance bills.
I don't even know where to start with this one! Taxes are higher in Japan, having a mortage means you're putting money into a home (which is generally a good thing, and btw, they have mortgages in Japan too), and insurance is more expensive in Japan as well. (If you mean health insurance, they pay for it just like we do, the difference is that it's required to have by law and it only covers about 70% of hospital expenses. Imagine if that were true here! Unemployed or poor people do get cheap rates through the government, though.)
I heard some part of Japan even have fibre-channel connections at home.
Got it here too.
Honestly, the weird thing about Japan's internet access is that while they supposedly have this huge broadband penetration, it's tough to find anybody that actually uses it. All the statistics I've seen talk about the number of "lines", not the number of subscribers... I've always wondered if they just call an ADSL-capable phone line a "broadband line" and then count that in to pad the stats. I know probably 30 people over there and not one of them uses broadband - in fact most of them access the net exclusively from their cell phones.
Anyway, this is all by way of saying that there's this perception of Japan in some parts of the west as this mythical place of Star Trek-like electronic toys that we don't get to have or that cost a lot more here (the opposite is usually true). And this DS story sort of just perpetuates that myth. It's just one game, after all. I mean they get pissed off too that they have to wait a year after our Final Fantasy releases to play the final version of the game. The grass is always greener on the other side.
(Notwithstanding my sig homage to Puffy...)
Well, no, but it might be substantially different from...
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I had no problem sourcing one from Tronix at the end of last week, while Videogamesplus told me they weren't expecting any. Being in the UK, I don't know - did US people find it hard to get a copy?
Adding "Version" to the end of the sentence would resolve that little ambiguity.
You have every right to make your own web site where Slashcode is reconfigured to permit longer article titles.