American-exclusives that Japan never got?

[PigInTheMud]

A friend and I were recently talking about buying games in Japan, and we were wondering if you can find American games in some Japanese stores like how you can find Japanese games in some American stores. That brought us to wondering if there were even any American exclusives worth importing over to Japan. So do any of you know of any American exclusive games worth purchasing?

[D.D.D.]

Off the top of my head, uncensored games are what come to mind. Like RE4 in Japan when the chainsaw dude kills you the chainsaw merely touches you and fades to red "You are dead". But the US version you see Leon's head lopped off.
I believe Uniracers on SNES is one though... I know there are many, many more from American or European companies that never came out in Japan but too tired n can't recall.

[theclaw]

I believe One Piece for the American GBA is an entirely different game Japan didn't see.

[Breetai]

I found a few cool foreign items while living in Japan.

A European Mega Drive once in a Hard-Off. I think it was about 500 or 1000yen.

CIB US Sega Saturn at a Hard-Off in Kawagoe. It was around the 20,000 or 30,000yen mark ($250-350), I believe. That same Hard-Off also had a boxed US SNES for a price higher than I would ever pay. The odd copy of John Madden Football on the Genesis in junk bins in Hard-Off. Also, I found a Saturn Pro Action Replay 4-in-1 cart, boxed, for 1000yen at a Hard-Off. I guess someone wanted to play US games on their JP Saturn???

Think I liked Hard-Off much?

Super Potato, and other mainline retro gaming shops, in Akihabara have foreign games sections. Super Potato sometimes has TG-16 stuff, Jaguar and Lynx, Atari 2600/5200/7800 stuff, Genesis games, SMS games, etc.


As for exclusives that never made it to Japan, I know there are actually quite a few, but I can't think of many.

Earthworm Jim games never came out in Japan. The N64 Crusin' games never made it to Japan. Some Mortal Kombat games didn't. A LOT of sports games never did (ie. NHL '94 was on the SFC, but none of the other ones). The NES Lolo games were different than the Famicom one(s); basically remixed and new levels. There are actually TONS of games that never made it to Japan (lots being shovelware crap, of course).

[Hobie-wan]

I swear there's a fairly surprising 16 or 32 bit title that was made by a Japanese company that was only released in the west. I can't remember off the top of my head though.

Power Strike II for SMS was only released in PAL territories (and perhaps Brazil) even though it was made by Compile in Japan as well. Unfortunately we didn't get a release in the US as it is an excellent game.

[hashiriya1]

When I was living in Japan a lot of people asked me to get Call of Duty: World at War for them. So I asked friends back home in the US to send 12 copies of the game. All of the other COD games were released there but according to one of my Japanese friends who requested a copy Square-Enix (The game's distributor in Japan) didn't want to release the game because the Japanese were the 'bad guys' and they didn't feel it was appropriate to release a game in Japan where you have to kill Japanese. That game was widely imported to Japan at a hefty price. I think it died down though. Anyway this thread reminded me of that.

[aaron]

Earthworm Jim games never came out in Japan.

[theclaw]

Some SNES games didn't get standard cartridge form in Japan. Wario's Woods, Tetris Attack, and I think Super Punch Out.

[D.D.D.]

Earthworm Jim games never came out in Japan.

And SFC IIRC.

And yes Breetai, Hard-Off is awesome.

[BoringSupreez]

Sam and Max Hit the Road, Fallout, Jazz Jackrabbit, and many other classic western 90's PC games.