# Better in japan



## drakorex (Jun 3, 2014)

I'm interested in knowing the various games that have had their content altered upon North American release. For instance, the Earthbound games had a couple localization such as omitting references to death, and Ness running around in the nude. Another example would be the game Evil Zone, in which the music was changed, along with one of the female fighter's costumes. I started this topic a while back, but it appears to have been lost in oblivion.


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## Nah3DS (Jun 3, 2014)

First one that comes to mind is Final Fight


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## Vipera (Jun 3, 2014)

I forgot which one (maybe SNES one), but they removed all the religious stuff from Castlevania.
There are many games where religious stuff and nudity got removed, as it was NoA's policy during the NES era. YouTube is full of videos about the subject, but I wouldn't say it's "better" that way. It's "better" if the stuff removed had an important point during the game, like if they changed an important discussion between characters or levels and such.
Stuff like removing a cross or changing "DAMN" to "NO" (Metroid Corruption > Trilogy) should not make you change idea about the game, imho.


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## drakorex (Jun 3, 2014)

Yes, I have seen this Video

And I use the term "better" in a loose sense. Just the fact that these games were altered at all from their original design is a curiosity, and one that can be very interesting. I'd be interested to know if there is some kind of list detailing which games have their content altered on localization.


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## FAST6191 (Jun 3, 2014)

Countless games had little things fiddled with to match Nintendo's various policies over the years (also many other devs/publishers/system makers), how much actually was made truly worse for it is up for debate. It is a reasonably popular thing to hack back into games as well with http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1386/ being one of the more noted examples.

If you wanted to narrow it down to things that demonstrably lacked something we have more to talk about. Mr. Driller Drill Spirits (the DS Mr Driller) lacks a fair bit of content vs the Japanese and European releases for instance.

You have, possibly inadvertently, asked for a massive list though so I will leave it there for now.


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## Arras (Jun 3, 2014)

While it's not censorship Megaman Battle Network 6 had quite a bunch of stuff taken out such as:
a bunch of chips
one whole area IIRC
area maps
a boktai crossover thing


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## drakorex (Jun 3, 2014)

FAST6191 said:


> You have, possibly inadvertently, asked for a massive list though so I will leave it there for now.


 Not necessarily, just anything that comes to mind, that players prefer one over the other.


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## Foxi4 (Jun 3, 2014)

It depends on what you consider to be _"better"_. If you think that a little boy running around naked in Earthbound is entertaining, well, that's your prerogative.  The only thing that was annoying in that localization was cigarettes replaced with lollypops. Children are young, but they're not stupid, c'mon people.


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## FAST6191 (Jun 3, 2014)

The trouble there is I have often encountered a "the original form was the best form, no arguments to the contrary will be accepted" mindset and I am not a fan of that. There certainly have been things that were changed for the worse but many others have largely got by unscathed.


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## Veho (Jun 3, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> Children are young, but they're not stupid, c'mon people.


Yes they are. They can be quite astute but they are also naive, gullible, impressionable, easily influenced little morons.


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## Foxi4 (Jun 3, 2014)

Veho said:


> Yes they are. They can be quite astute but they are also naive, gullible, impressionable, easily influenced little morons.


That's partially true, but you'd be surprised how many of those features can be effectively counteracted by simple curiosity and great observation skills that children have.


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## migles (Jun 3, 2014)

pokemon heartgold\soulsiver had their casinos replaced on the us\eu version with a minigame which you dont use coins to play it

this was because censorship, i am not sure if this is true for platinum\diamond\pearl


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## lampdemon (Jun 3, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> It depends on what you consider to be _"better"_. If you think that a little boy running around naked in Earthbound is entertaining, well, that's your prerogative.  The only thing that was annoying in that localization was cigarettes replaced with lollypops. Children are young, but they're not stupid, c'mon people.


Not a game but...:


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## Vipera (Jun 3, 2014)

If we want to talk about games that have been ruined because of stupidity I shall mention Marble Madness GBA because of size cartridge. They removed half the levels. What a pathetic excuse for a game that was. At least Klaxx was fun.


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## Foxi4 (Jun 3, 2014)

lampdemon said:


> Not a game but...


This is equally dumb. Also, bad anime. _;O;_


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## drakorex (Jun 3, 2014)

This illustrates my point a bit

Very well, in fact


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## Vipera (Jun 3, 2014)

Oh man, Heart Gold and Soul Silver casino...I will never get why they censored that and allowed the last Pokémon Mystery Dungeon to include lotteries and scratch cards.


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## Katsumi San (Jun 3, 2014)

N64 Ocarina of Time red blood when Ganomdorf is cough in final battle... gamecube-3DS version is have green blood when cough...


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## spotanjo3 (Jun 3, 2014)

NahuelDS said:


> First one that comes to mind is Final Fight


 
To be honest with you, on the left looks ridiculous. Thats not what punks look like. She looks like she was a hooker fighter, nonsense. On the far right, better appearance because thats what punks are supposed to be a fighters. Just saying.


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## FAST6191 (Jun 3, 2014)

bearmon2010 said:


> To be honest with you, on the left looks ridiculous. Thats not what punks look like. She looks like she was a hooker fighter, nonsense. On the far right, better appearance because thats what punks are supposed to be a fighters. Just saying.



Forgive me if I am misremembering but I thought there was no overall punk dress code.

Edit. Forgot to say I also watched that video. Some games thoroughly ruined there, I had no idea it was so bad.


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## drakorex (Jun 3, 2014)

bearmon2010 said:


> To be honest with you, on the left looks ridiculous. Thats not what punks look like. She looks like she was a hooker fighter, nonsense. On the far right, better appearance because thats what punks are supposed to be a fighters. Just saying.


Be honest though, Who doesn't enjoy smacking around hookers?


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## spotanjo3 (Jun 3, 2014)

FAST6191 said:


> Forgive me if I am misremembering but I thought there was no overall punk dress code.
> 
> Edit. Forgot to say I also watched that video. Some games thoroughly ruined there, I had no idea it was so bad.


 

Well, about the punk dress code on the left was correct for one thing: A short, yes. The half naked t-shirt for fighing was nonsense.



drakorex said:


> Be honest though, Who doesn't enjoy smacking around hookers?


 
LOL! Sure!


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## Nah3DS (Jun 3, 2014)

bearmon2010 said:


> To be honest with you, on the left looks ridiculous. Thats not what punks look like. She looks like she was a hooker fighter, nonsense


it makes sense when you read the manual and it says "she is a he"


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## Sakitoshi (Jun 3, 2014)

NahuelDS said:


> it makes sense when you read the manual and it says "she is a he"


 
IIRC that was a (very)bad move to try to NOT change the graphics but I guess that "no no no, isn't a she, is a travesty so is ok to show some under boobs" wasn't enough for NOA.

EDIT: this


> Originally conceived as a female thug in Final Fight and part of the game's antagonist group, Mad Gear, concerns during the game's development about reactions from North American audiences to fighting women, resulted in the character being re-imagined as a futanari. However, that was not considered satisfactory and both Poison and her palette swap Roxy were replaced by the male characters "Billy" and "Sid", and have been for every subsequent North American port of the title on Nintendo consoles and handhelds.


source

EDIT2: fuck that for giving me tons of futa rule34.


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## GameWinner (Jun 3, 2014)

The first Persona game on PS1. Japan became America, the names were localized, one of the Japanese characters was changed to a black character and many other edits. What a mess, fortunately, Atlus released a PSP version uncensored.


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## Blebleman (Jun 3, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> It depends on what you consider to be _"better"_. If you think that a little boy running around naked in Earthbound is entertaining, well, that's your prerogative.  The only thing that was annoying in that localization was cigarettes replaced with lollypops. Children are young, but they're not stupid, c'mon people.


 

I also remember how they had changed Bars to 'Cafes'....the insides of which were all super shady and filled with weird people....all drinking coffee!


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## Foxi4 (Jun 3, 2014)

Blebleman said:


> I also remember how they had changed Bars to 'Cafes'....the insides of which were all super shady and filled with weird people....all drinking coffee!


Oh yeah, absolutely! I also remembered that they removed the cross from the hospital in the American version because it's a symbol associated with religion... despite the fact that hospitals all around the world use the red cross symbol.


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## the_randomizer (Jun 4, 2014)

Katsumi San said:


> N64 Ocarina of Time red blood when Ganomdorf is cough in final battle... gamecube-3DS version is have green blood when cough...


 

Actually version 1.0 on the US release had red blood as well, but 1.1 and 1.2 changed that, among other aspects.



Foxi4 said:


> Oh yeah, absolutely! I also remembered that they removed the cross from the hospital in the American version because it's a symbol associated with religion... despite the fact that hospitals all around the world use the red cross symbol.


 
I thought it was also to avoid problems from Red Cross, oddly enough, if you go to Twoson to Burglin Park, you can see the red cross in the American version.


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## FAST6191 (Jun 4, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> Oh yeah, absolutely! I also remembered that they removed the cross from the hospital in the American version because it's a symbol associated with religion... despite the fact that hospitals all around the world use the red cross symbol.



I thought that was a fairly well documented thing with trademarks needing to be enforced.
http://boingboing.net/2006/02/09/canadian-red-cross-w.html

Edit. That is a somewhat later timeframe, not sure what happened here.


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## Hyro-Sama (Jun 4, 2014)

A more recent censorship from Fire Emblem: Awakening









Bravely Default






Final Fantasy VI












There's ton out there but cba to find/post them all. Plus, I'm sure there are enough videos out there that cover this exact topic.


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## drakorex (Jun 4, 2014)

Yes, I've seen that one.


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## Nah3DS (Jun 4, 2014)

Sakitoshi said:


> IIRC that was a (very)bad move to try to NOT change the graphics but I guess that "no no no, isn't a she, is a travesty so is ok to show some under boobs" wasn't enough for NOA.
> EDIT2: fuck that for giving me tons of futa rule34.


actually, she was conceived as a "new-half" from the very beginning


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## Sakitoshi (Jun 4, 2014)

NahuelDS said:


> actually, she was conceived as a "new-half" from the very beginning
> *video*


 
after digging some more I come up with the conclusion that not even Capcom know.
in the original "Final Fight" Poison creator Akira Yasuda states that was designed as a female and during game development was changes to futa for "fighting females is bad" reasons thanks to the planned release of the game in USA, still that wasn't enough and was replaced in the US version of the game, remained with minor censoring as a cross-dresser in EUR regions, and thus she was a female in Japan and a male in the rest of the world.
in "Final Fight: Revenge" s/he was a playable character and Capcom stated that "might have gotten a sex change" and the profiles in the 2005 "Capcom classics compilation" confirmed that was a transgender.
later in an interview with "Final Fight" producer and Akira Nishitani stated that "the viewer to decide."
in another interview to Street Fighter 4 producer, Yoshinori Ono, he was asked about it and added to the mix "Let's set the record straight: in North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female.". later the asked about what *female* characters could be added to Street Fighter 4 he said that would be confusing due to region-specific genders.
during the development of Street Fighter X Tekken he addressed what he said and said that Poison was a post-op transsexual but later he simply stuck to what Akira Nishitani said that was up to the player to decide.

Conclusion: nobody knows and everybody win(?) 
as for me, is a she because I like it that way and nobody can say I'm wrong 

info from here

EDIT: I'm still angry by the rule34 images


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## Guild McCommunist (Jun 4, 2014)

On the flipside, you can't detonate the nuke in Megaton in the Japanese version of Fallout 3.


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## spiral6 (Jun 5, 2014)

One thing I remember is Zero Suit Samus from SSBB. Her appearance changed in all 3 versions, but the U.S. version turned out to have the most "suggestive" model.


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## dxplay2128 (Jun 9, 2014)

Well, in Um Jammer Lammy (sequel of PaRappa the Rapper) the stage 6 have a totally different intro cutscene. Here is a video of it

JAPANESE


AMERICAN


I don't know if you can call it better, since an opinion is subjective, personally I like the japanese cutscene.


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## the_randomizer (Jun 9, 2014)

spiral6 said:


> One thing I remember is Zero Suit Samus from SSBB. Her appearance changed in all 3 versions, but the U.S. version turned out to have the most "suggestive" model.


 

Not that there's anything wrong with that


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## drakorex (Jun 9, 2014)

spiral6 said:


> One thing I remember is Zero Suit Samus from SSBB. Her appearance changed in all 3 versions, but the U.S. version turned out to have the most "suggestive" model.


Go on...

Just found out that in the Jap version of Top Gear for SNES, sometimes your racer will say "What the Hell?" lol


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## Psionic Roshambo (Jul 5, 2014)

Guild McCommunist said:


> On the flipside, you can't detonate the nuke in Megaton in the Japanese version of Fallout 3.


 

I wish I had... I decided to do it the old fashioned way. That Sheriff can seriously suck a giant cock... 

I think I died like 30 times killing that town off. (Was an alternate save I was doing for reasons.)


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## Vulpes Abnocto (Jul 5, 2014)

I'm just gonna leave this here.


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## Hop2089 (Jul 6, 2014)

Mugen Souls series is better in Japan, The Puritanical States doesn't want you bathing a loli much less seeing one nude.

Criminal Girls will be better in Japan, the Puritanical States of America doesn't want you having your way with lolis and the feminazis don't want you spanking females, NISA please think next time before localizing something like this. Want this, import, it's a decent RPG.

Bravely Default is better in Japan for some but not for most gamers. It's no big deal for me.

Monster Monpiece is a disaster in the US, import it and you get the full experience, but I don't recommend it, it's the most imbalanced and boring game I've played in years.

How about the upcoming title Neptunia U? If it gets localized version it will be better in Japan, no way in hell Censor Factory will let the localized keep the Rom and Ram fanservice. Import and tell censorship to go screw itself.

Never ever buy a fanservice game localized unless you are 100% sure the tits, ass, and possibly loli isn't censored or unless it's Senran Kagura.

Others

Cotton Fantastic Night Dreams is better in Japan as it 1. has the story intact and 2. has English and several other languages for the text and 3. It's cheaper to buy ($60 for JP over $300-800 for US version).

ST-V arcade boards are better in Japan as if you play ST-V games on US boards, you miss out on vital features, think about that before wanting to play Radiant Silvergun on the ST-V.

Yu-Gi-Oh games are better in Japan as the earlier card art is better and uncensored.

Puyo Puyo was better in Japan well until around the GBA days, those dolled up installments we got are a slap to the face and bad marketing, the localization teams should've went to Japan and watched the commercials because the best idea was to market the game to women and girls.

Castlevania (NES-PS1) are better in Japan, less or no censoring at all.

DDR arcade cabinets are better in Japan and that goes for many other rhythm arcade titles.

I wouldn't say better but DJ Boy has everything in it's entirety in Japan (including the racial stereotypes).

Breath of Fire 2 and 4 are better in Japan due to the localization teams removing abilities, the censorship didn't bother me much.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 6, 2014)

Hop2089 said:


> Mugen Souls series is better in Japan, The Puritanical States doesn't want you bathing a loli much less seeing one nude.



The one I reviewed invariably ended each mission with a hot springs scene.


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## FailName (Jul 6, 2014)

Megaman Zero replaced instances of "die" or "kill" into "retire"













Later on in the series they seem to use "perish" or "meet your end" instead, which at least is less jarring.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 6, 2014)

FailName said:


> Megaman Zero replaced instances of "die" or "kill" into "retire"
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Despite it being easier to replace with kill if I edited that I would probably put retire in quotes.


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## Vipera (Jul 6, 2014)

In the last Pokémon Mystery Dungeon they decided to remove the gender outside Japan. It's weird because you still get a definition of Virizion, Emolga, Dunsparce and all the other characters in the story. The only confused genre in the whole story now is your partner.


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## Arras (Jul 6, 2014)

Hop2089 said:


> DDR arcade cabinets are better in Japan and that goes for many other rhythm arcade titles.


To be fair arcades are all but dead in the west. It's not even that they're better, it's that they often don't even leave Japan in the first place. Try finding something like DDR 2014, Jubeat Saucer or IIDX Spada within a 200 mile radius. Unless you live near one of the few arcades in the non-japanese world that have these games (I think there's one in Sunnyvale, other than that idk) you're pretty much fucked.


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## FailName (Jul 6, 2014)

FAST6191 said:


> Despite it being easier to replace with kill if I edited that I would probably put retire in quotes.


They did seem to do that in the second game. 

video

It's been a while since I played them, so I don't remember whether "retiring" is used less as the series progressed, or if I just simply stopped noticing it.


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## Veho (Jul 6, 2014)

FAST6191 said:


> Despite it being easier to replace with kill if I edited that I would probably put retire in quotes.


I would use "dispose of". You can always claim it means "fire" if anyone complains.


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## BORTZ (Jul 7, 2014)

Monster Monpiece is the only one I really know off the top of my head, and Hop took that one from me


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## drakorex (Sep 14, 2014)

Sonic the Hedgehog has scrolling clouds in japan. US missed out on that. Contra in japan has moving backgrounds. Gamesack did a video recently about this.


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## EZ-Megaman (Sep 14, 2014)

http://legendsoflocalization.com/

This site is/will be a gold mine for these type of questions, I think. The full comparisons are detailed regarding the changes anyway. The Cutting Room Floor also highlights regional differences pretty well.


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## TecXero (Sep 15, 2014)

The guy that blocks your path at the beginning of Pokémon Red and Blue.


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## GameWinner (Sep 15, 2014)

TecXero said:


> The guy that blocks your path at the beginning of Pokémon Red and Blue.


There are lots of guys that block your path in Red and Blue!


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## TecXero (Sep 15, 2014)

GameWinner said:


> There are lots of guys that block your path in Red and Blue!


 
The indecent gentleman that shows you how to catch Pokémon slightly later.


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## YayMii (Sep 15, 2014)

Arras said:


> To be fair arcades are all but dead in the west. It's not even that they're better, it's that they often don't even leave Japan in the first place. Try finding something like DDR 2014, Jubeat Saucer or IIDX Spada within a 200 mile radius. Unless you live near one of the few arcades in the non-japanese world that have these games (I think there's one in Sunnyvale, other than that idk) you're pretty much fucked.


 
They've also pretty much blocked the exportation of most of their arcade games... quite a few arcade games are internet-enabled nowadays, and so most (if not all) of the machines for, say, the latest DDR and IIDX in the west will be connected to a community-run private server. And good luck finding a Sound Voltex machine outside of Japan; Konami only offers them for lease, which makes exportation of said machines problematic and causes complications with connectivity to the servers.


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## drakorex (Sep 27, 2014)

Parlor Games - Master System: In Japan the girls have bunny ears. USA had them taken away. I find this disappointing.


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## matpower (Sep 28, 2014)

drakorex said:


> Sonic the Hedgehog has scrolling clouds in japan. US missed out on that. Contra in japan has moving backgrounds. Gamesack did a video recently about this.




Both of these happened because of later release dates, similar stuff happened with "broken" games when they were released on the USA too. (I saw one but right now, I can't remember :|)


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## Hop2089 (Sep 28, 2014)

Arras said:


> To be fair arcades are all but dead in the west. It's not even that they're better, it's that they often don't even leave Japan in the first place. Try finding something like DDR 2014, Jubeat Saucer or IIDX Spada within a 200 mile radius. Unless you live near one of the few arcades in the non-japanese world that have these games (I think there's one in Sunnyvale, other than that idk) you're pretty much fucked.


 
Even worse Arcades have a Steam-like service now to download the games, which pretty much makes MAME useless for those games.


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## Arras (Sep 28, 2014)

Hop2089 said:


> Even worse Arcades have a Steam-like service now to download the games, which pretty much makes MAME useless for those games.


Most of those games run on some version of Windows on a regular PC now anyway. The problem is they're encrypted and protected to hell (especially SEGA's stuff from what I've heard) AND many modern ones need to be connected to a custom online network.


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## Hop2089 (Sep 28, 2014)

Arras said:


> Most of those games run on some version of Windows on a regular PC now anyway. The problem is they're encrypted and protected to hell (especially SEGA's stuff from what I've heard) AND many modern ones need to be connected to a custom online network.


 
The later Gundam Vs titles (Extreme Vs, Full Boost, and Maxi Boost) have the custom network which makes them impossible to run outside of Asia, thank goodness they end up being ported to consoles because they are excellent games.  I also think of Raiden DX, while it was ported to consoles, it isn't playable on MAME due to the encryption being so tight on it.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Sep 28, 2014)

Do I have to take Iwata as a hostage so they'll fucking release Fatal Frame for the Wii U over here in the west?


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## matpower (Sep 28, 2014)

Man, it is a shame arcades are dying and even MAME can't save them. 
At least most good arcades titles are being ported to consoles.


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