When games come over the ocean from Japan to the United States (or the other way around), you expect a few things to change. The language of the game and materials will be different, and the format of the disc might be different depending on the system (like NTSC or PAL). However, because of blogs and hyping announcements of games overseas, people are becoming much more sensitive and vocal about cover art changes that are made. While the companies doing the localization may think they're improving on the marketability of the game (or something, who knows), a lot of the time it may actually be working against them.
I have a PSP, I enjoy puzzle games, and I like picking up cheap PSP games on eBay. I found a listing for a Japanese game,
Kuru Kuru Chameleon, for a measly $10 total, so I picked it up.
Four sisters: little kid, sexy older sister with whip, bookworm, and general cute girl-next-door. All your favorite stereotypes in one game!
You play the game as one of the four girls, each with their own special moves to use when you're in a puzzle battle. The name actually makes sense, as
kuru kuru means something akin to spinning, which is how you move your tiles, and there's a lot of chameleon imagery and changing colors. I like playing it when I'm traveling or stuck being an otherwise captive audience. There's so many puzzle games for the PSP, so this probably wasn't brought over to the US, right?
Two weeks later, I was in GameStop, looking at the cheap PSP games they had. I saw the following:
Looks like a generic junky American puzzle game that's not worth my time. Next!
Is this thing the English version of Kuru Kuru Chamelon? Yes.
While the cover tells you slightly more about the gameplay, it has nothing to pull you in. I realized that I've actually seen this game many times, but never even bothered to pick it up and look at it due to the boring cover. While this game isn't the type that would become a hit, the American cover really does it a disservice. The Japanese cover at least would pull in the anime fan PSP owner to take a glance at it; the American cover makes it look like a cheap puzzle game that the PSP has far too many of. I'm not saying it isn't a cheap puzzle game, but it's a fun time waster. While the American cover has "FUN!" written on the cover, it doesn't really give it any personality.
Have you run into things like this? What are some box art changes that have annoyed you?
Four sisters: little kid, sexy older sister with whip, bookworm, and general cute girl-next-door. All your favorite stereotypes in one game!
Looks like a generic junky American puzzle game that's not worth my time. Next!
Comments (9)
I guess the publisher figured anime doesn't sell well unless it's an RPG. Which is somewhat true, but then anime RPGs don't sell that well either unless you've got Final Fantasy or Persona or some such other in the name... =P
The American ICO cover is a suck-tastic mash-up presenting the main characters at really unattractive angles. The Japanese cover is very artsy, eyecatching even for someone who wouldn't "get" it. It's part of the reason Ico didn't sell as well as it should have.
Spot on. I look right over generic covers like that too, but anime covers tend to draw my attention, as often Japanese ports are more well thought out games.
@Altair_Specineff@xanga - I just checked out ICO to see what you were taking about, and yeah, that is pretty bad. >_< I don't understand why localization companies feel the need to do these things. Just change the language of the text and be done with it.
The Left 4 Dead 2 cover had to be changed for the UK since the American version was basically flipping them off.
lmao! this is hilarious. I can't believe they would change it to the point where it looked like generic CRAP. I could understand converting the title to English. but changing the entire picture? Japan does so many things better than we do.
Aaah, that irks me to no end! You know what the worst case was? Mobile Light Force 1 (Gunbird) and 2 (Shikigami no Shiro)! Not really sure what was going on in the marketing team's noggins when they were releasing those games in the US!
Back in the day, when they translated a SNES Ranma 1/2 fighting game for an American market of which 99% had no idea what Ranma 1/2 was, the American company completely tormented the 1% that DID know with some truly, truly lame box art.
It wasn't really anime style.
Why bring over a game based on a manga and anime series and then use box art that isn't really anime style? wtf?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VDPJ76TZL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
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