Ok, this one I’m going at completely, totally balls-out. This game is completely untranslated. That’s right: I’m a pioneer.
That said, I seriously doubt that any dialog could possibly make this game the least bit comprehensible.
Zig Zag Cat: Ostrich Club mo Oosawagi Da (1994, DenZ)
The Game:
“Zigu! Zagu! CATTO!” Greatest intro to a game ever.
Zig Zag Cat is the story of a mentally disabled ward of the state in pajamas carrying a trampoline to bounce his cat into ostriches in order to make them explode.
I know, I know. I thought the same thing. “Greatest plotline ever. Somebody call Hollywood; we’ve got the next Casablanca on our hands.”
The game’s actually pretty good. Unlinke most Breakout clones you just look for a specific block and try to break it to win the level. In between levels you can stay at an inn (I think. It may be some kind of fucked up church. It has a nun with enormous bouncing tits.) and play little bonus levels, and make money, not that I’ve been able to figure out where, how, or on what to spend the money. You don’t make much, so I guess he uses it to pay for psychiatric bills.
Why was it never released in America?
I have no idea. The only thing I can figure is that the powers that be knew that between Super Metroid, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 3, and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, we had too many completely epic games to handle a story of Zig Zag Cat’s magnitude.
Sometimes games that were never let out of the Promised Land had a good reason to stay put. Case in point…
Bird Week (1986, EMI, Toshiba, Lenar)
The Game:
Wow. I don’t really know where to start with this one. Oh wait, yes I do: It’s a bird life simulator. I know to start there, because that’s where you can end, too. There’s nothing more to the game. Really, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a bird life simulator; more like a bird feeding simulator. I think a bird’s life would encompass more than feeding babies. For example, the game could’ve included brief minigames, where you become confrontational with humans who don’t provide you with bread, or shit on statues of Napoleon, or terrorize the English countryside, or something, fuck, I don’t know. But no, you just fly around, catching butterflies. It’s like a rumination on the futility of living. Surviving murderous predators, darting around just desperately trying to catch just enough butterflies to survive, going nowhere. And if you quit and just fly around, enjoying the beautiful day? Your children starve to death. Fucking Bird Week. Now I’m a nihilist.
Why was it never released in America?
I’m not going to waste your time telling you why a bird-feeding sim was never released in competition with Contra and Battletoads. Instead, I’m going to focus on Lenar, one of the 3 companies responsible for this game. Lenar, in cooperation with megacorps Toshiba and EMI, released Bird Week, their first game ever, in July, 1986. They followed it up 6 months later with Deadly Towers, widely reputed to be one of the worst and most confusing games made for the NES, which is really saying something.
So where is the Lenar Corportation now?
They make tractors. No, really.
(Will I actually finish something I start? Read in the next few days to see if I update again! Or, read part 1.)
In 1990, Nintendo released Startropics, a fantastic action/adventure game that plays like a mix of Zelda and the early Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior games. To this day, the game remains unreleased in Japan. bolstered. Perhaps you allow this pride to degenerate into fevered hoots of “USA! USA! USA!”stic high, but I need to inform you of something, something you may already know.
COMPLETELY FINISHED AND TRANSLATED.
Now, Earthbound’s sequel, Mother 3, has been released in Japan, thanks in part to the series’ massive, extraordinarily dedicated fanbase in America (largely located at Starmen.net). Despite the truly astonishing level of support, Nintendo STILL refuses to risk releasing another Mother game in America. The reason? “There’s not a large enough audience.” But is this belief really founded?
Ha! I had you going for a second. It’s cute when I do that.
Still, the Mother games will probably never be released here. It’s far from the first time this has happened. Many games have run into the same problem, some true classic of their genre, some incredibly creative innovations, some complete, incomprehensible shit. So what exactly causes this? Is the cultural gap between the two countries so wide that some games are completely unmarketable in America? Or are American publishers so concerned with their bottom line that they’re unwilling to take a chance?
I don’t know. Here are some dick jokes and commentary.
Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995, SquareSoft)
The Game:
Commonly known online as “Secret of Mana 2″ (although, technically, Secret of Mana was actually Secret of Mana 2, it is not referred as such because such a paradox would create a vacuum of dimension-destroying proportions), Seiken Densetsu 3 (Legend of the Holy Sword 3) took it’s predecessor’s qualities to a whole new level. A truly amazing adventure/RPG, the game featured 3 main storylines, 6 concurrent backstories for the characters, and a class system.
Why was it never released in America?
3 main storylines, 6 concurrent backstories for the characters, and a class system. The game was actually in the middle of being translated when it was decided to shift focus to Super Mario RPG, which I suppose is a point that’s pretty difficult to argue with. Some argue that the somewhat similar Secret of Evermore was released in lieu of Seiken Densetsu 3. Nobody really knows if that’s true or not, but frankly, I wouldn’t be mad if it was. Considering the common quality of games coming from America at the time, it was nice to have at least one great game to notch on our belts since Asteroids. Personally, I believe the suggestion that the game wasn’t released due to the possible need for a recall. The game had a very difficult time being debugged; many times, when a bug was fixed, it would cause two more to pop up, both worse than the last. So frankly, I’m kinda glad. I’d rather wait, potentially forever, to play a game that works rather than play a game that glitches so bad that it makes my Super Nintendo radioactive. Not causing cancer is a rather important yet understated criteria when choosing a game. That’s why I ‘m declining to pick up a PS3.
(More to come! Check back later, or I’ll eat your brains)
