Sega Saturn games with major region and version changes.

You might be surprised to learn that often games in the 90s could differ wildly depending on which region you where playing the game in. While it’s a bit of a mute point due to 50hz, usually the PAL release as it was normally the final release of the game would often have bug fixes not present in the NTSC versions of a game.

Sometimes however these changes are more than just a quick bug fix or even the odd bit of censorship. Some games have had whole sections or characters removed for one reason or another and this has happened on just about every major system released.

With Randomised Gaming’s detailed knowledge of the Sega Saturn we look at some of the games that had major changes or cuts between versions. This isn’t a comprehensive guide, but it should serve as a good starting point.

3D Lemmings
Only saw a PAL and Japanese NTSC release on the Saturn, however the Japanese build is a number of revisions up on the PAL version. As a result the Japanese build also includes Saturn mouse support which wasn’t in the PAL release.

Athlete Kings / DecAthlete
The NTSC Japanese version includes a hidden character called Mankichi Kazami who is actually taken from the Decathlon manga written by Yoshihiro Yamada. 

Most likely down to licensing issues he was removed from all versions released outside of Japan, but his sound effects are still included in the sound test. To add insult to injury the North American version had Jef Jansens removed, meaning it only had seven player characters out of the possible nine.

Baku Baku
The Japanese NTSC version includes chat scenes before each battle, that where removed from the North American and PAL releases. The league mode is also accessible from the start and doesn’t require a cheat code to unlock. The option menus also got a layout change for the western release, the Japanese version also shows the name of every music track as you select it in the audio test.

Clockwork Knight 1 & 2
Both games started life as one title that got split into two games as Sega rushed to get titles out on the Saturn. As with Baku Baku many of the in-game chat scenes before each stage where cut so Sega didn’t have to translate them. In late 1995 Sega of Japan reissued both games on a single disc, packed with additional games, extras and bug fixes this release was called Clockwork Knight: Pepperouchau no Fukubukuro. As a result it is the definitive release of both games and the original single releases should be ignored in favour of this complete double pack version. As the North American version of Clockwork Knight 2 came out in 1996 it includes some of the content from Pepperouchau no Fukubukuro but not all. On the other hand the PAL release of Clockwork Knight 2 came out first before either NTSC versions and contains no extra content what so ever.

Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition
The original PAL and North American NTSC release of CCE where rushed out the door for Christmas 1996. As a result both versions had missing graphics and content from the final game. The Japanese NTSC version was renamed to Daytona USA Circuit Edition and includes improved graphics (no missing rocket boosters on the space shuttle) has improved handling, a better two player mode and day and night driving via cheat codes. All in all a much better version and one if we did a comparison video on this, you would be shocked at the amount of changes.  The American Net Link Edition of the game is also said to have all these changes, but is very uncommon to find.

Exhumed / PowerSlave / A.D. 1999: Pharaoh’s Revival
The PAL release of the game came out early and before the Japan and American NTSC versions. Due to this the PAL release does not include the bonus game Death Tanks and should be avoided in favour of the NTSC versions.

F1 Challenge
Called F-1 Live Information in Japan, which was hacked apart for the western release, as the core racing mode was taken out. For the western release Grand Prix mode was totally removed and original mode was renamed arcade, a rock and roll sound track was also added to the races for the western version. Where as the Japanese version went for a realistic audio to give you a more serious F1 feel. It also featured full voiced over commentary for each and every race in Grand Prix and a chase camera mini window that gave you real time updates on what was happening during the race. This is our video of the mode removed from the western version:

Fighters Megamix
There’s a hidden matching card mini games in the PAL and Japanese release of the game, which was removed from the North American release. Probable down to the fact, that each time you finished the game you got a picture of Janet Marshall from Virtua Cop wearing less clothing, till she ends up in just a sports bra and underpants. The omake files which are a selection of bonus artwork hidden on the CD as a LZH compressed files also got removed from game outside of Japan. However you can see the missing art on our blog pages just click here or here.  The western version however does fix a number of bugs with the game. As with Fighting Vipers two of the ending artworks, got changed in North America only, which had Candy and Tokio wearing less clothes than normal. One last changed to the western release is Rent a Hero, had a full on theme song complete with vocals. As you might expect the vocals got pulled from the western version as did the song credit which was seen in Rent a Hero’s ending artwork.

Fighting Vipers
The Japanese version included a number of extras not present in the western release. The most important extra being the secret character Pepsi Man who can be unlocked. Honey / Candy also had two bonus outfits and a hidden full armour break move, the art gallery mode was also taken out of the North American version and some of the more raunchy art was changed in the American release.

The PAL version kept the gallery and the art intact, but is still missing Pepsi Man and the Candy extras.

Last Bronx
The Japanese NTSC release came on two discs, the first disc was the main game, the second disc was a full on training mode, complete with voice acting tutorials and step by step training guides for how to fight, this version also had a more balanced difficulty. All of this was removed from the western version which had a heavily cut down training mode instead stuck on the main game disc and the difficulty was also increased greatly.

Marvel Super Heroes
The Japanese NTSC version allows Anita from Darkstalkers to be selected via a cheat code. Which got pulled from the western release, some suggestion Marvel weren’t that happy about their heroes beating up a little girl. However that might just be rumour as Anita was playable in the later 2012 Marvel vs. Capcom Origins re-release of the game.

While the 1MB Saturn RAM expansion was never released n the west, the western versions still support it. Which make Capcom’s reason for removing Anita all the more odd.

Mr. Bones
For a North American developed game, you wouldn’t expect the Japanese release to be better but it is. The resolution for the cutscenes is fixed so all scenes now use the same size and the game doesn’t have to keep swapping resolution. A continue feature is added so you don’t have to access the level select after dying. The difficulty has been made far easier, with Mr. Bones taking far less damage, bosses take less hits, stage 3 “The Valley” has the horrible end jumping section removed. All in all it’s a better game as a result, however, the last, but one stage “Funny Bones” is in Japanese and if you don’t know how the stage work it is almost impossible to clear. Hint, you have to tell a joke, by pressing the joypad buttons in the right sequence order, to get the crowd to laugh. With some patience you can get though it, we did, but had already finished the English version before hand.

Pandemonium! / Magical Hoppers
The game got quite a facelift for the Japanese release and renamed to Magical Hoppers, with new intros and character designs. This is our comparison video of the two.

Road & Track Presents The Need For Speed /
Nissan Presents Over Drivin’ GT-R
Another game that got a big make over for the Japanese version renamed to Nissan Presents Over Drivin’ GT-R. This version includes different cars an all new soundtrack, along with changes to the gameplay.

Sega Rally Championship Plus
Similar to Daytona the NTSC version of Sega Rally Japan and North America were rushed out for release. When the PAL version arrived it included bonus content and graphics missing from the NTSC version. To address this issue Sega re-released the game in Japan as Sega Rally Championship Plus which also added in analogue controller support, this version also got a North American release as the Net Link edition.

Sega Ages Volume 1
The PAL release of Sega Ages, butchered all three games included on the collection. Removing core songs from the games and the extra arranged sound track. This may have even happened with the North American release but we don’t have a copy to test. In Japan, Out Run, Space Harrier and After Burner II all got single disc releases with some extra content, so go for them over this collection. Just be sure to track down later print copies of the the Japanese versions of Outrun and Space Harrier as the first print run of CDs don’t run on Model 2 Sega Saturn. You can do this by checking the CD matrix number on the disc’s inner ring, website like www.satakore.com list the CD revision number for the different versions.

Shining Force III - Scenario 1: The Colossus of Aspia
Only the first part of Shining Force III got a western released and you might be surprised to learn that one battle had a change to it. In the Japanese version after destroying the two arms of the Colossus in the final battle, you can use Kahn’s Elbesem Orb on it and fight it to the death. This doesn’t work in the western version. However if you do this on the Japanese version, then save it and load that savefile with the English release the game will let you defeat the Colossus, complete with a message from the villain Arrawnt after killing it. Suggesting this might be more a bug in the English version. There’s also a much later uncommon Japanese reprint build of the game with a revision number of 2.005 over the first print of 1.006, which looks to use a much later build of the game engine. The English script was also heavily altered to hide mention of the plot for scenarios 2 & 3.

Skeleton Warriors
The only reason for Skeleton Warriors entry into this list is due to Virgin Interactive’s blunder with the PAL version and the lack of information about it on the internet. However, due to a manufacturing error half the music tracks are missing from the PAL version CD and play a rather unpleasant static noise instead when a missing music track is played in game. The first few levels in game are fine and the problem doesn’t start appearing until the first bike stage, in total about one third of the levels have this problem. It’s not clear if the PAL version was recalled or not, but as it shows up on sites like ebay and Amazon all the time, it likely wasn’t. The only fix for this issue is to grab yourself a North American NTSC Saturn copy or go to the dark side and pick up a PlayStation copy.

Winter Heat
As with Athlete Kings the Japanese NTSC release includes a hidden character removed from the overseas releases. In this case Jef Jansens from the original game makes a return via cheat code.

The Japanese version also includes an extra event menus which details each event in the game, this was also removed from other versions.

X-Men: Children of the Atom
Both the North American & Japanese NTSC releases allow the player to select the character Juggernaut in versus mode. This feature is not present in the PAL version of the game.

The Japanese NTSC version also includes a cheat to revert the game back to the original arcade release including having to insert credits via the L trigger. To do this you have to have two controllers plugged into the console and press and hold Start + A + C on controller two as the game boots. If done correctly the arcade revision number screen will appear followed by the Capcom arcade logo which has the shadow of Ryu next to it. This cheat is often incorrect listed on cheat websites as a “Marvel Super Heroes advert” which is incorrect. You only get one chance to input this cheat on boot and if the intro starts playing without the arcade revision screen having appeared you will have to reset the Sega Saturn and start over. Once activated this cheat also can’t be turned off till you reset the console either.

Working Designs games.

Yes, the North American publisher and developer Working Designs gets a special mention. As while they did release a number of games in the North America that would never have got a release otherwise. They had a nasty habit of altering elements of the game sometimes for the better but often for the worse. So any game that Working Designs released will have extras and gameplay elements not found in the Japanese version. On the bright side most of the changes weren’t that bad for the Saturn games they did, where as the less said about how they messed up the PlayStation versions of Thunder Force V and Silhouette Mirage the better, however.

CD Revisions changes

Added to this many games also got bug fixes and revision changes, that were never advertised. Unlike cartridge games where it was almost to impossible to tell the revision, without reading the data on the ROM image. Saturn games have their revision number printed on the inner CD matrix ring and if you know what you are looking for you can spot the build of the game.

Sites like www.satakore.com are perfect for this as they list the known revisions of many games and you can also check the header information on any game using a Hex Editor or the Saturn Region Patcher v3.0 Gold Edition.

As a general rule of thumb the last region the game was released in usually has the most updated revision of the game but not always. This also applies for the Japanese Satakore Saturn releases, many people may dislike the white and red packaging, but the Satakore versions often have bug fixes and imrovements not included in the original release.

For example Shining Wisdom in Japan got three versions one of which fixed the intro boot issue the first Japanese release, fortunately the western versions included all these fixes. It also got two different English translations as Sega did the PAL version which stuck with the Shining series lore, where as the North American version by Working Design incorrectly translated much of the series lore in game.

While a huge number of games got revision fixes some of the more noticeable games with fixes are as follows. Super Adventure Rockman is one of the most well known as the game was recalled in Japan due to a game breaking bug and reissued with slightly altered packaging and a new product number. Other Japanese games with bug fix releases indicated by a newer CD Matrix number include: Sonic Jam, Baku Baku, The House of the Dead, DecAthlete, Out Run, Space Harrier, Princess Crown, Dragon Force II, Metal Slug, Tetris S, Silhouette Mirage and Shining Force III Scenario 2 which changed some of the character face art.

Also both Super Robot Taisen F & F Final, have bug revision fixes the first print of Taisen F had a nasty bug where selecting the options menu before creating a save would erase the Saturn system memory. Make sure you use a memory cartridge to save too to help avoid that problem. This is just a quick run down there are plenty of other Japanese games with revision changes also out there.

Western releases tended to have a lot less revision changes, but many may just be undocumented. Two known revision changes are the PAL version of Virtua Fighter 2 which had a number of fixes to correct issues in the first PAL release. The North American release of Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean also has a few bug fixes, the updated version also has a new disc design which only has Gryzz the dragon man on the cover.

That’s is by no means a complete list and there are likely unlisted revisions not on Satakore, but you get the idea by now.

Be sure to drop us a message if you know of a game with either a region or revision change and what was changed or fixed if possible. Let us know if you like this feature and if you want us to cover other systems like the SNES or Mega Drive. This feature will also be updated as we find more changes between versions and Randomised Gaming will add in more screenshots and videos as we go.

Feature by Random Gamer Riven.

Twitter: RDGamerRiven