*In hindsight I should have made the comparison be North America vs JP rather than NTSC vs JP since they are both technically NTSC (NTSC-U & NTSC-J). NTSC is usually NA by default, I just didn't want to say NTSC-J every single time so I switched it to JP. So it's still technically correct to say NTSC & JP, but is more confusing, and I'll just use NA/JP/PAL for next video.
"I should've compared region to region rather than television standard to region. For the next video, I'll just use region/region/television standard to avoid confusion."
Yeah I probably could do that. I thought PAL would be more correct since it also includes parts of Asia and Australia as well. Or are all PAL releases just considered EU?
If you do a vid on the differences between Pal and NTSC, rac1 and 3 have multiple differences between them that make different versions multiple minutes slower
I missed Metroid Prime which is one of the cases with an early broken NA version and also know for sequence breaks which have been removed in later versions.
Well a simple "Its faster" answer is usually not enough a lot of people will want to know why its faster and the reasoning instead of just being told "its faster do this"
I finally learned today after like 1 week of research why it’s faster to clip into the shrines in BOTW. 1. It’s faster 2. You don’t activate the tower, which means you can’t access the shrines normally.
2:07 I actually know the answer to this question. Shinji Mikami purposely made the North American version of Dino Crisis more difficult. In an interview with Next Generation Magazine #54 (June 1999) on page 44, he said the following: Next Gen: "Will the level of difficulty change when the game is localized for the U.S.?" Mikami: "Yes, the puzzles will be a lot tougher." Next Gen: "Why do you think U.S. gamers like their games more difficult than Japanese gamers?" Mikami: "I think the difference between Japanese players and American players is that Japanese players get bored with a game more easily. If they get too frustrated, they'll quit the game, so I just have to keep the players concentrated on the game and instruct them about what they're suppose to do next - otherwise, they won't complete the game. But U.S. players will always try to feel like they have achieved something themselves, on their own power, or of their own effort. That's completely opposite to the way of playing video games in our nation. So right now, we design the game for a Japanese level of difficulty, with plenty of hints, then we modify it for the American market afterward." An interesting point of view, considering just a few years prior, most Japanese developers would dumb down western releases of games in the late 80s and early 90s because they thought they were too difficult for Americans. Like Final Fantasy IV becoming much easier, or Super Mario Bros. 2 just getting a different game entirely.
That and rental places were a thing too if the game was too easy people would beat the game in a day or 3 and return them for a refund. And going from a cartridge console which either had passwords or battery saves and going to PlayStation you might not think to buy a memory card so you'll have to leave the console on or make another trip to kbtoys, Target or Walmart unless it's crash bandicoot then all you had to do is get a tips & tricks magazine.
Interestingly, for Breath of the Wild, speedrunners use French or German language because their cutscenes / dialogue sections are shorter. Kind of funny how the WR holder is a Japanese guy playing the game on French. Sort of a reverse of what this video is about I suppose
@@velvetbutterfly I remember googling that myself, years ago. I was watching I think scottfalco's animated about the wind waker Speedrun and was confused as to why when he used the pause buffering it said "pausa"
"I want to begin with this obscure game that I'm not sure a lot of people have heard of before..." "It's called Super Mario 64." Ah, of course, I know of this title. It's the sequel to the acritically acclaimed Super Mario 63, correct?
Man, the jump to 3D was astounding and kind of unexpected, but sadly FLUDD and Luigi as well as the level designer were cut. That might be the reason, it's so obscure and unknown nowadays.
There was a time when the LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga speedrun community was testing different languages for time saves. The problem being is that the game has game had no talking at all. Oh yeah. They also tested the Arabic language on that game.
@@foxyxcalibur2.081 It's not about giving up, it's just that i don't have any real interest in it But a friend is learning and... holy shit, they have like 1000+ symbols that they use like miniature drawings and somehow expect you to memorize them AND difirentiate them all when written and somehow they still lack some sounds in their alphabet I mean it was a nice advancement when compared to other languages of when it was created, but it's obsolete nowadays
@@rompevuevitos222 Actually 2100+, if we're gonna talk about all kanji taught all the way up to high school, and therefore used all the time in everyday use. And if you think japanese has one too many characters to work with, rest assured that chinese, the language they took those characters from, is even worse; chinese children already know more characters than the japanese will even need to learn in their whole life. Though it's kind of true that kanji is an obsolete writting system; japanese doesn't really need these characters to funtion in written form, and while they cover some of the weaknesses of kana, help with readability and generally look cool, the syllabaries are still just enough to support the whole language, and the japanese seem to be well aware of this. The main reasons they keep using them are mostly cultural; for the longest time it was their main writting system, and over the years these characters have garnered their own meanings and nuances specific of their culture, clever use of them makes for good writting, and they even use them to spell their own names, among many other things. They give the language depth and hold a huge cultural significance that they'd rather keep. Did I already mention they also look cool? And while in these discussions people often cite korean as an example of a language that used to use chinese characters then moved to a syllabary, apparently that transition wasn't easy; in fact, in korean schools they still teach some chinese characters just to make sense out of the language (long story made short, both japanese and korean have a huge chunk of their vocabulary influenced by chinese and you need to know the spelling of these words in chinese characters to make sense out of them). I guess reality is not as simple as saying that they're using an obsolete writting system. Lastly, I wouldn't say japanese lacks any sounds, because "lack" implies they are a missing necessity when in reality the language doesn't need them to work. Think about it this way: there's plenty of sounds out there other languages use that don't exist in english (that includes the japanese R, which is its own sound that has nothing to do with the R in english); does english really lack those sounds, or rather it just doesn't need them?
@@inendlesspain4724 ofc obsolete was an exageration, but compared to other modern languages it really suffers, even braille seems more useful My main issue is how every character is a collection of strokes that amounts to various letters, it's just my opinion ofc, but that system doesn't work as well in digital form and is way harder to read and write. With "traditional" characters, even if your grammar sucks, you can still make out what each letter is, with japanesse characters everything is so cluttered and precise that you can make it unreadable with the slightest of fuck-ups Also you don't have to program a system to write their characters, since "normal" letters can just be put one after the other whereas japanesse characters require a combination of strokes wich you just can't make with a keyboard (ofc you can thanks to extra work on developers part, but everytime there's a need to implement it on something, the devs have to deal with the complexity of the writing)
Twilight Princess is one of the few games I know where all 3 versions (NTSC-U, NTSC-J and PAL) have speedrunning uses. German is the fastest for any%, english the fastest for 100% and JP the fastest for the glitchless category.
I just said JP so I didn't have to say NTSC-J everytime. I thought NTSC would make more sense in case some of those games were released outside of the US, but JP would always be exclusive to Japan.
NTSC wasnt\isnt used in all regions either (for modern games NTSC isn't really a thing now either), PAL/SECAM exists too, and probably more. The reason the NTSC versions are run instead of PAL usually is that there is about a 17% speed difference.
@@GameUKShow Not all PAL releases are slower. Older PAL region games are slower because the AC electricity used in Europe alternates slower, so TVs refresh slower and thus the framerate is lower. However, Auatralia is part of the PAL region and uses electricity that alternates at the same rate as the US grid, so TVs support the same framerate as the US and we sometimes have the NTSC release and sometimes have a unique release with the NTSC framerate and the PAL game, although our TVs also support europe's normal framerate and we sometimes get unaltered PAL releases. It should also be noted that modern PAL region TVs support the same framerate as NTSC devices, so this difference is mostly only found in older games. It should also be noted that some platforms, like the DS family and the Gameboy family, never used the cycling of incoming AC electricity to time their screen refreshes or set their clock speed, and so are exempt from this rule.
Fun Fact: The way Spyro The Dragon is characterized in JP writing along with the style of the logo is the actual inspiration for the name of the villain Ripto. Insomniac noticed it and apparently went back to it when making concepts for a new villain for the second game
That's true. I didn't mean to convey it as JP wasn't NTSC, but saying US for a North American release may not be entirely accurate either. JP was easier than saying NTSC-J. I think PAL is also Australia so idk if EU is accurate either. This was the main issue when it came to be deciding labels, but I think everyone at least knows what I mean when I say NTSC vs JP
Yes! Kinda. Pal TVs all ran at 5 0hz until very recently so all games were 1/6th slower on PAL TVs compared to the ones in the rest of the world. However, on a few games like Mario Kart, they will just multiply your time because it's not based on real time scoring, but in game. That means that PAL is superior for those few games because you can get the same in-game speed with a slower game, allowing more precision
If you've ever seen the really upsetting documentary "The Cove" about Japanese fisherman in this one village slaughtering and selling dolphin meat against international protest it becomes a very dark joke.
You should consider Undertale for part 2. The version with a Japanese language option was released several years after the original release and it not only includes Japanese text, but also a fundamental change in how keyboard inputs were handled, which causes some major time loss throughout the run. This means that the older English version ends up being faster for many people even though the Japanese text saves time.
Yeah FE Fates western version had poor translation. Mostly on purpose because I really wouldn’t know, all I know is Tree House was a crappy choice to localize the game.
Funfact for Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, the German/French Version is the fastest... i think? atleast all the top runners use the French/German version that has to mean something right?
>Talks about how some things get changed in localization to make them easier to understand >Shows 2 examples of unneeded censorship/unfaithful translation for the sake of trying to be funny, ruining characters and scenes at worst and just being stupid or annoying at best
I figured I'd mention another game with version differences, that being smash 64. Smash 64 has several different version differences between every version, from game mechanics, to character specific differences, to even AI behaviour. While all versions are different in different ways, I'll just explain some differences between NA and Japanese for simplicity. First is the AI. Japanese's AI is so poor that the difficulty feels like it's reduced by nearly 2 stages (i.e. Very Hard J is about the equivalent of Normal NA, and Very Easy J is easier than any NA difficulty). This obviously saves time in nearly every single stage, and makes Very Hard difficulty in J basically just another run without much fear of game overing, compared to Very Hard NA where game overing is a legitimate worry. Second, hitlag. When an attack hits something (whether either the source or target is a character, item, hazard, anything), both the attack source and the attack target enter "hitlag". This is a certain number of frames where both the source and target are in a "frozen" state, with the number of frames dependent on the percent dealt. The key thing to note is that in the Japanese version, the number of frames of hitlag is one fewer than the NA version for every single hit that occurs. So for example, using all 14 hits of Yoshi's Dair is 14 frames faster on the Japanese version compared to the NA version. Electric attacks have a different calculation than regular attacks, so their hitlag is either 1 or 2 frames faster on Japanese per hit depending on certain factors, but it is still faster on the Japanese version. The only somewhat exception to this is projectiles, where the attacking character does not enter a hitlag state, and is the same for both versions. Third is DI, or Directional Influence (also known as "Smash DI" in future smash games, as "regular DI" doesn't exist in smash 64). This is done by repeatedly pressing the control stick in a direction during hitlag frames when you are being attacked to physically move your character during those frozen frames. In the Japanese version, since there is one frame less of hitlag usually when you are hit, that means you have one fewer frame of hitlag to DI with. On top of that, DI distance is about half the distance on Japanese compared to the NA version. Therefore, the amount you can DI on the Japanese version is significantly less than the NA version. This is one of the few disadvantages the Japanese version has compared to the NA version, but it's not often that you will get hit, let alone have a way to take advantage of DI in a run. Fourth is game mechanics. In general, I have noticed that attacks deal less knockback at lower percents on Japanese, while dealing more knockback at higher percents on Japanese (I don't know if this is true for all moves, but for several it seems to be true). Many other game mechanics are different, but that is the main one I can think of, and the one that is probably most relevant for speedrun purposes. On top of that, character specific differences exist between the versions. Some characters run faster in certain versions, jump higher, have different attack properties and trajectories, among many other differences. The majority of these differences are an advantage to the Japanese version, though a few are an advantage to the NA version (e.g. Jigglypuff/Purin rest having more knockback on NA). Fifth is handicap. The handicap of a stage is dependent on two factors: The stage itself, and the difficulty of the run. The harder the difficulty, the worse the handicap, meaning the AI knocks you farther away, while you don't knock them as far. The stage depends usually on whether or not it's a multiman stage or not. Multiman stages have an increased handicap, making you able to knock the AI away much easier. To me, it seems like some stages have an increased handicap on the Japanese version, making them easier on that version. A good example is Link Very Hard on Polygon Team, where using Down Air on the Japanese version KOs the polygons off the side of the stage immediately, while on the NA version they are not KO'd, and usually recover. That said, this could be a result of Link's Down Air potentially having higher knockback on Japanese, so it is hard to tell if this is actually a handicap thing, or is actually a result of differences in the mechanics between the games. However, I feel like the handicap is different between the two games on certain stages. Finally, text is an obvious difference between the two, but as far as I'm aware, has no difference in time, so text doesn't have an effect on a speedrun. Other differences may exist, but I can't think of any right now, so I'll just leave it at those. Putting this all together, the Japanese version is significantly faster than the NA version for all characters. Using the example in the handicap section and generalizing it with everything, Very Hard Polygon Team with Link on the NA version is a fight to simply try to survive and not game over. Your best KO move is your grab, which is super slow, and if you miss, you're a sitting duck for an eternity. Many runs game over on Polygon Team simply due to how difficult the AI is, as well as how bad the strat is on that stage. The Japanese version in comparison, Down Air KOs the polygons. It's a safe move, it's fast, and you can KO several at a time. On top of that, the AI being weaker (around the equivalent of "Normal" on NA) means you can go all-out aggressive and have very little fear of Game Overing. Many more examples exist, but this is the most obvious one. The decreased difficulty of the Japanese version saves time on basically every stage, and the reduced hitlag means every "hit" of an attack will save one frame in the run (this alone adds up to several seconds saved in the run depending on the character). The differences between the Japanese and NA version are so severe that the smash 64 speedrunning community actually considers both games completely separate categories, neither of which is comparable to the other. I personally consider them effectively two separate speed games. The NA version is by far the most popular version to run, as almost all runners live in NA, as well as the AI behaviour on NA is considered more fun to run on compared to Japanese, so the NA version is considered the main version to run, and is the primary one appearing on the leaderboards. However, the Japanese version is still ran by some runners, and has its own separate spot on the leaderboards. Sorry for the long message, I just felt like I could provide information on another game that has significant differences between versions.
In the Megaman Battle Network series, some areas of the game were removed entirely, ostensibly for being judged too difficult, and items located in them were relocated to other areas. Off the top of my head, Ship Comp 3 in BN5 was removed and Ship Comp 4 became 3. That would definitely affect a speedrun.
Pacman World 2. A game where the JP version had some levels abridged or just flat out made easier for some reason in that release. There is a reason the leaderboards split that version in its own category.
Majora's Mask is my favorite example of game with JP/NTSC differences, but they are so huge there are whole videos dedicated to it already. Look some up if you haven't.
There is also the notorious case of Devil May Cry 3, in which the original PS2 version was harder (as in, the "normal" difficulty was actually the "hard" in JP releases) because of...rental! They pumped up the difficulty so the western audiences would buy the game instead of renting it until beating the game. They reverted the change in the re-releases.
1:08 I really don't understand why the triforce heroes quote garnered such a bad backlash. Like, for one, it's literally a harmless dialogue box that didn't hurt anything in the game whatsoever. Second off, Classic Doge is still a appreciated and respected meme, even to this day. Third of all, why is it so wrong for a game to pull a pop-culture reference? shows like South Park and Family Guy do this ALL the time, and it's the main reason why people still enjoy those shows. referencing a cute meme in a harmless venture shouldn't have caused that big of a deal; yet it had.
1:58 Around that time a lot of games were still made intentionally harder for western (north american) versions. This was due to a misbelief by the japanese that the americans preferred it that way, when in actuality it was a leftover of arcades making games harder to suck more coins out of kids.
Interestingly they had believed the opposite about Americans at some point too, making games easier for us, and even just substituting in a different game for SMB2
And then when Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix arrived in 2.5 the US completely overtook the other versions because of how powerful Duck Flare is on that version.
Heres a case where NTSC text is MUCH faster than Japanese text: In Illusion of Gaia, a lot of the text boxes in NTSC display ALL of their text per page in one frame, while the japanese have a lot fewer, which do the character by character one. In an Action RPG/Zelda-like, this alone saves quite a lot of time.
1:09 I prefer the right screenshot; I don't want stupid memes I most likely won't get in my game. At least it was Tri-Force Heroes, a multiplayer game with piss-poor ingame player-to-player communications and a tacked-on singleplayer, and not a better game. Fuck memes in games.
One rare care where Japanese would be slower in a speedrun is Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles. They cut out a lot of content in the American version to rush the game out over here, so the Japanese version is pretty much the definitive version with a few extra missions and bosses that make it a slower version to speedrun overall.
Another reason for japanese is that, if the game plays the same, most of the time the games/cardridges are much cheaper (at least for snes). As a european importing games from USA is just to expensive
All youtubers “I hope you’ve enjoyed the video” Most youtubers “I hope you have an amazing day” EZscape “I hope you have an amazing life”, bro so humble I love it
Man that Ape Escape 2 difference still annoys me to this day. It was gonna be the first game I speedran but hearing the Quick Item Switch like removed all the wind in my sail.
I've read stuff and watched stuff from the Spyro developers. They were told they had to do all of those changes to get Japanese people to play it. They were told he looked too aggressive, and they found that they got sick more often from it, so they modded the game.
The reason for the box puzzle being different in the JPN release of DC1 is because Capcom will make games more difficult in the West. Here's a few notable examples -Removal of auto-aim in RE1 for the original American release -no ink ribbons as Jill in the PC version of RE1 in Japan -Removal of the Easy/Hard indicators over the characters in RE1 -Less enemies overall in RE2 -Very Easy and Easy are only available in the Japanese release of CODE:Veronica X
DMC 1 and 3 were made significantly harder for the international versions of their original release. I forget the details for 1 beyond altered controls but 3 was brutal. All difficulty levels were equivalent to one level higher in JP. Only the highest difficulty, DMD was the same. NA Easy was JP Normal, NA Normal was JP Hard, NA Hard had no equivalent in JP and was named Very Hard in later versions. All later versions of 3 use the JP difficulties rather than the NA ones.
@@zeroattentiongaming820 Very strange how that seems to happen. Could be a lot of things really behind the scenes. Maybe after testing they felt it would be better harder, so they patched it before international copies were printed. Could be down to a simple programming error changing one integer to another. Lots of other possibilities, even down to just straight messing around and getting away with it.
Another game with many changes is Donkey Kong Country. The JP release was made a lot easier, with less enemies and more DK barrels. Each individual change is actually close to the amount of changes in Paper Mario TTYD.
Fun fact: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is slower on JP. This is because the gamecube release is faster and the JP gamecube release patched a glitch that saved around 20 minutes. The German version also has some wierd text boxes as some unskippable ones are skipable on German, so that's why runners run that
Regarding the accessibility comment, it's most likely because back then it wasn't really seen as an accessibility feature specific for certain developers but more a generalized concern that could potentially pull away some players. Most accessibility from this period is to meet generalized needs like this, so specifically trying to adapt for motion sickness is just not contextualized in the project the same way something like blind accessibility would. Also, modern games are way worse tbh. I get severe motion sickness with them and I can't play them but have no issue with Spyro.
Secret of Mana - nobody wants to run the Japanese version, since it's very easy to softlock on almost every single boss, unless you ake specific precautions not to. It's... Not a good version, to the extent where the communiy hasn't even bothered timing it, even though it may be faster
*In hindsight I should have made the comparison be North America vs JP rather than NTSC vs JP since they are both technically NTSC (NTSC-U & NTSC-J). NTSC is usually NA by default, I just didn't want to say NTSC-J every single time so I switched it to JP. So it's still technically correct to say NTSC & JP, but is more confusing, and I'll just use NA/JP/PAL for next video.
"I should've compared region to region rather than television standard to region.
For the next video, I'll just use region/region/television standard to avoid confusion."
@@FakYuhGoogel Tbf, television standards are relevant when talking about framerates. But region/region/region does seem like a good way to do it haha
Yeah I probably could do that. I thought PAL would be more correct since it also includes parts of Asia and Australia as well. Or are all PAL releases just considered EU?
Umos that’s a cool idea. I’m not sure if anyone has ever covered that before.
If you do a vid on the differences between Pal and NTSC, rac1 and 3 have multiple differences between them that make different versions multiple minutes slower
you heard it here first folks. dino crisis is a worse speedrun than icarly 2
tbh every game is a worse speedrun than iCarly 2
EZScape have you tried the Japanese version of Icarly 2?
Moonbox Films I-yha Car Re
how u been mr. angus
@@EZScape came here to say exactly this
First we had to deal with Coronavirus, and now COVID-19?? This is gettin’ way outta hand!! :)
.... Am I the only one not getting the joke here.
@Squant n0o0o0! U nEEd t0 bE scArEd! U cAnt jUst mAkE sEnsE 0f thE sItUAtI0n!
You teased me with the T.R.A.G. only to hit me with the SM64.
Well done, EZscape
These days we call regional changes in game releases "patches"....
I'm really glad you talked about bomberman hero. I wish the game was talked about more :(
I missed Metroid Prime which is one of the cases with an early broken NA version and also know for sequence breaks which have been removed in later versions.
Woah super Mario 64 looks super cool. More people should play it
Japanese release: Unintended bugs and glitches
Speedrunner Community: its free real estate
“...that im not sure that a lot of people have heard of before. the game is called Super Mario 64.”
BRUH I BET WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THAT LEGENDARY GAME
I didn’t think I was seeing the legend of the dragoon’s
Japan is also NTSC. The correct nomenclature would be “NA”, or North America.
0:39 Twitch being a Kangaroo Court
I love how he says JP instead of Japanese.. epic timesave, wr pace honestly
epic gamer
epic gamer
Epic gamer
Saying jp speedrun
Except its not faster
The answer to every "why?" question about speedrunning?
Its faster.
The answer to every other question about speedrunning?
Just do it faster.
Well a simple "Its faster" answer is usually not enough a lot of people will want to know why its faster and the reasoning instead of just being told "its faster do this"
The secret ingredient is japanese
I feel like this video could have ended in the first minute, it’s faster because Japanese text pops up faster
I finally learned today after like 1 week of research why it’s faster to clip into the shrines in BOTW.
1. It’s faster
2. You don’t activate the tower, which means you can’t access the shrines normally.
The reason: s p e e d
kachow
Crappy
*_S P E E D_*
they're different games so they fall under different category anyway...
mgs5: are you sure about that?
@@zpan1741 saves a bit of time reading by not counting one of those letters, could be a new speedrunning strat soon
2:07 I actually know the answer to this question.
Shinji Mikami purposely made the North American version of Dino Crisis more difficult. In an interview with Next Generation Magazine #54 (June 1999) on page 44, he said the following:
Next Gen: "Will the level of difficulty change when the game is localized for the U.S.?"
Mikami: "Yes, the puzzles will be a lot tougher."
Next Gen: "Why do you think U.S. gamers like their games more difficult than Japanese gamers?"
Mikami: "I think the difference between Japanese players and American players is that Japanese players get bored with a game more easily. If they get too frustrated, they'll quit the game, so I just have to keep the players concentrated on the game and instruct them about what they're suppose to do next - otherwise, they won't complete the game. But U.S. players will always try to feel like they have achieved something themselves, on their own power, or of their own effort. That's completely opposite to the way of playing video games in our nation. So right now, we design the game for a Japanese level of difficulty, with plenty of hints, then we modify it for the American market afterward."
An interesting point of view, considering just a few years prior, most Japanese developers would dumb down western releases of games in the late 80s and early 90s because they thought they were too difficult for Americans. Like Final Fantasy IV becoming much easier, or Super Mario Bros. 2 just getting a different game entirely.
Huh, that's a fascinating reversal.
That and rental places were a thing too if the game was too easy people would beat the game in a day or 3 and return them for a refund. And going from a cartridge console which either had passwords or battery saves and going to PlayStation you might not think to buy a memory card so you'll have to leave the console on or make another trip to kbtoys, Target or Walmart unless it's crash bandicoot then all you had to do is get a tips & tricks magazine.
Fascinating.
Now let's see how the US handle 2 nukes
@@plague6566 prob the same,but not like they didn't bomb us first eith Pearl harbor. So suck it up you get what ya get.
Castlevania III got a harder release in North America too
Interestingly, for Breath of the Wild, speedrunners use French or German language because their cutscenes / dialogue sections are shorter. Kind of funny how the WR holder is a Japanese guy playing the game on French. Sort of a reverse of what this video is about I suppose
In WindWaker HD Itallian is fastest because JP text scrolls at 30fps instead of 60fps
@@velvetbutterfly I remember googling that myself, years ago. I was watching I think scottfalco's animated about the wind waker Speedrun and was confused as to why when he used the pause buffering it said "pausa"
"I want to begin with this obscure game that I'm not sure a lot of people have heard of before..."
"It's called Super Mario 64."
Ah, of course, I know of this title. It's the sequel to the acritically acclaimed Super Mario 63, correct?
62 was best!
Man, the jump to 3D was astounding and kind of unexpected, but sadly FLUDD and Luigi as well as the level designer were cut. That might be the reason, it's so obscure and unknown nowadays.
It is actually very popular in the speedrun community still thought.
63 was a Flash fangame that was basically Mario 64 but in 2D
@@chainsawpl6189 wrong, 64 is a remake of 63 but in 3d
Super Mario 64? Is that some kind of ripoff of the early platforming masterpiece, Bubsy 3D?
Pilot's license? What for?
No it’s a dumb ripoff of Banjo Kazooie. Literally copied Banjo and just took away Tooie.
@@bagels0628 Whoever developed the these Mario games started very early by riping of giana sisters. Someone should sue them.
Jin kisaragi nah its a ripoff of sonic adventure
It just stole super mario 63, total ripoff and scam, 0/10
Top 3 questions science can't answer:
Is there a God?
What's the meaning of life?
Why was the box not there?
1: there isn't due to many inconsistency within the bible
2: there is none its what you make of it
3: because solid snake needed it.
@@TheBronf yes, you r the answers we need
1: no
2: survival, eating, pooping, procreation
3: unknown - maybe the box was too wet/moist.
@@ghostbuddy3106 1.yes
2.also breathing
3.it got recycled
@@hxtchybk1 what evidence do you have for the existence of gods?
There was a time when the LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga speedrun community was testing different languages for time saves. The problem being is that the game has game had no talking at all.
Oh yeah. They also tested the Arabic language on that game.
@Retendo people don't SPEAK in lego star wars complete saga, like at all
they NEVER talk, no talking to npcs or anything it's all silent
@Retendo all text basically loads instantly regardless of version
@Retendo Hints don't pause the game in Complete Saga though. They're just popups
Is there actually a speed community for this game?
Version Differences today: *Have less Nudity*
EzScape: *Absolutely Unspeedrunnable*
And less gore. Particularly on Japanese versions.
Kg to hjhj
The censored/less nudity version is probably better for speedruns so you don't get distracted while doing the run. Massive time save.
"Diamond Ruby and Emerald"
Me: Dialga Groudon and Rayquaza
2:39 "Japanese and NTSC"
"Alcohol and drugs"
personally I would use jp because it would make me feel like i didnt give up on every language ive ever tried learning
I feel like if you're gonna give up on a language, giving up on Japanesse is more than fair
NANCOK don’t give up
@@foxyxcalibur2.081 It's not about giving up, it's just that i don't have any real interest in it
But a friend is learning and...
holy shit, they have like 1000+ symbols that they use like miniature drawings and somehow expect you to memorize them AND difirentiate them all when written and somehow they still lack some sounds in their alphabet
I mean it was a nice advancement when compared to other languages of when it was created, but it's obsolete nowadays
@@rompevuevitos222 Actually 2100+, if we're gonna talk about all kanji taught all the way up to high school, and therefore used all the time in everyday use. And if you think japanese has one too many characters to work with, rest assured that chinese, the language they took those characters from, is even worse; chinese children already know more characters than the japanese will even need to learn in their whole life.
Though it's kind of true that kanji is an obsolete writting system; japanese doesn't really need these characters to funtion in written form, and while they cover some of the weaknesses of kana, help with readability and generally look cool, the syllabaries are still just enough to support the whole language, and the japanese seem to be well aware of this. The main reasons they keep using them are mostly cultural; for the longest time it was their main writting system, and over the years these characters have garnered their own meanings and nuances specific of their culture, clever use of them makes for good writting, and they even use them to spell their own names, among many other things. They give the language depth and hold a huge cultural significance that they'd rather keep. Did I already mention they also look cool?
And while in these discussions people often cite korean as an example of a language that used to use chinese characters then moved to a syllabary, apparently that transition wasn't easy; in fact, in korean schools they still teach some chinese characters just to make sense out of the language (long story made short, both japanese and korean have a huge chunk of their vocabulary influenced by chinese and you need to know the spelling of these words in chinese characters to make sense out of them).
I guess reality is not as simple as saying that they're using an obsolete writting system.
Lastly, I wouldn't say japanese lacks any sounds, because "lack" implies they are a missing necessity when in reality the language doesn't need them to work. Think about it this way: there's plenty of sounds out there other languages use that don't exist in english (that includes the japanese R, which is its own sound that has nothing to do with the R in english); does english really lack those sounds, or rather it just doesn't need them?
@@inendlesspain4724 ofc obsolete was an exageration, but compared to other modern languages it really suffers, even braille seems more useful
My main issue is how every character is a collection of strokes that amounts to various letters, it's just my opinion ofc, but that system doesn't work as well in digital form and is way harder to read and write.
With "traditional" characters, even if your grammar sucks, you can still make out what each letter is, with japanesse characters everything is so cluttered and precise that you can make it unreadable with the slightest of fuck-ups
Also you don't have to program a system to write their characters, since "normal" letters can just be put one after the other whereas japanesse characters require a combination of strokes wich you just can't make with a keyboard (ofc you can thanks to extra work on developers part, but everytime there's a need to implement it on something, the devs have to deal with the complexity of the writing)
1:07 "western culture"
dude i remember when i asked my coworker how his day was and he said It was super dupity fabulantastic.
Twilight Princess is one of the few games I know where all 3 versions (NTSC-U, NTSC-J and PAL) have speedrunning uses. German is the fastest for any%, english the fastest for 100% and JP the fastest for the glitchless category.
Where is TeamFortress2 speedrun EZ ?
I remember that stream.
I remember that video.
"Japanese and NTSC"
You know, the japanese versions are also NTSC...
I just said JP so I didn't have to say NTSC-J everytime. I thought NTSC would make more sense in case some of those games were released outside of the US, but JP would always be exclusive to Japan.
NTSC wasnt\isnt used in all regions either (for modern games NTSC isn't really a thing now either), PAL/SECAM exists too, and probably more. The reason the NTSC versions are run instead of PAL usually is that there is about a 17% speed difference.
@@GameUKShow Not all PAL releases are slower. Older PAL region games are slower because the AC electricity used in Europe alternates slower, so TVs refresh slower and thus the framerate is lower. However, Auatralia is part of the PAL region and uses electricity that alternates at the same rate as the US grid, so TVs support the same framerate as the US and we sometimes have the NTSC release and sometimes have a unique release with the NTSC framerate and the PAL game, although our TVs also support europe's normal framerate and we sometimes get unaltered PAL releases.
It should also be noted that modern PAL region TVs support the same framerate as NTSC devices, so this difference is mostly only found in older games. It should also be noted that some platforms, like the DS family and the Gameboy family, never used the cycling of incoming AC electricity to time their screen refreshes or set their clock speed, and so are exempt from this rule.
speedrunning strats
@@EZScape You could've just used "North America" and "Japan" if you wanted to avoid confusion with NTSC-J/U
Fun Fact: The way Spyro The Dragon is characterized in JP writing along with the style of the logo is the actual inspiration for the name of the villain Ripto. Insomniac noticed it and apparently went back to it when making concepts for a new villain for the second game
This is the first time of me hearing “super-double-digity”
Yeah, Fire Emblem: Fates may be NoA's worst localization ever.
Cpt Obvious1994 it has some genuinely good parts, it's just the bad areas stick out like a sore thumb
Your terminology for differentiating the regions could be improved, as JP is still NTSC. Simply saying JP/US/EU would be better.
That's true. I didn't mean to convey it as JP wasn't NTSC, but saying US for a North American release may not be entirely accurate either. JP was easier than saying NTSC-J. I think PAL is also Australia so idk if EU is accurate either. This was the main issue when it came to be deciding labels, but I think everyone at least knows what I mean when I say NTSC vs JP
0:39 Twitch was jealous of him having already played the game. lmao
Are there any games where the PAL version is the best one to play?
I like how nobody even answered
Depends what metric you use to gauge best... For speedrunning, I wouldn't have thought so (except if it's a PAL exclusive).
But, hello youuuuu
Whats PAL?
Lemontarts01 it means European servers
Yes! Kinda. Pal TVs all ran at 5 0hz until very recently so all games were 1/6th slower on PAL TVs compared to the ones in the rest of the world. However, on a few games like Mario Kart, they will just multiply your time because it's not based on real time scoring, but in game. That means that PAL is superior for those few games because you can get the same in-game speed with a slower game, allowing more precision
8:10 WHAAAAAATTT????!!!
I'VE PLAYED THIS GAME FOR LIKE 10 YEARS AND NEVER KNEW THAT, NOW I AM MEGA ANGERY
@Heavy Metal Collector And I work in a haberdashery... wait.
I remember seeing it in preview videos before release, and being very confused when it wasn’t in the game I bought.
6:11 This part had me dying. To be fairly honest, I'd be like "ok." as well because.. you know, Japanese Yoshi likes to eat dolphins.
If you've ever seen the really upsetting documentary "The Cove" about Japanese fisherman in this one village slaughtering and selling dolphin meat against international protest it becomes a very dark joke.
I would like this but it has the perfect number of likes
@@pickles3128 we need to sell guns to the dolphins and make another proxy war to fuel our weapons industry
Carlos Leon Just strap laser beans to their friggin heads.
@@Christian-rn1ur
I think it would be a challenge to find those legumes.
You should consider Undertale for part 2. The version with a Japanese language option was released several years after the original release and it not only includes Japanese text, but also a fundamental change in how keyboard inputs were handled, which causes some major time loss throughout the run. This means that the older English version ends up being faster for many people even though the Japanese text saves time.
"daddy said that its super-dupity dangerous in his world" XD 1:05
Yeah FE Fates western version had poor translation. Mostly on purpose because I really wouldn’t know, all I know is Tree House was a crappy choice to localize the game.
Funfact for Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, the German/French Version is the fastest... i think? atleast all the top runners use the French/German version that has to mean something right?
>Talks about how some things get changed in localization to make them easier to understand
>Shows 2 examples of unneeded censorship/unfaithful translation for the sake of trying to be funny, ruining characters and scenes at worst and just being stupid or annoying at best
I figured I'd mention another game with version differences, that being smash 64. Smash 64 has several different version differences between every version, from game mechanics, to character specific differences, to even AI behaviour. While all versions are different in different ways, I'll just explain some differences between NA and Japanese for simplicity.
First is the AI. Japanese's AI is so poor that the difficulty feels like it's reduced by nearly 2 stages (i.e. Very Hard J is about the equivalent of Normal NA, and Very Easy J is easier than any NA difficulty). This obviously saves time in nearly every single stage, and makes Very Hard difficulty in J basically just another run without much fear of game overing, compared to Very Hard NA where game overing is a legitimate worry.
Second, hitlag. When an attack hits something (whether either the source or target is a character, item, hazard, anything), both the attack source and the attack target enter "hitlag". This is a certain number of frames where both the source and target are in a "frozen" state, with the number of frames dependent on the percent dealt. The key thing to note is that in the Japanese version, the number of frames of hitlag is one fewer than the NA version for every single hit that occurs. So for example, using all 14 hits of Yoshi's Dair is 14 frames faster on the Japanese version compared to the NA version. Electric attacks have a different calculation than regular attacks, so their hitlag is either 1 or 2 frames faster on Japanese per hit depending on certain factors, but it is still faster on the Japanese version. The only somewhat exception to this is projectiles, where the attacking character does not enter a hitlag state, and is the same for both versions.
Third is DI, or Directional Influence (also known as "Smash DI" in future smash games, as "regular DI" doesn't exist in smash 64). This is done by repeatedly pressing the control stick in a direction during hitlag frames when you are being attacked to physically move your character during those frozen frames. In the Japanese version, since there is one frame less of hitlag usually when you are hit, that means you have one fewer frame of hitlag to DI with. On top of that, DI distance is about half the distance on Japanese compared to the NA version. Therefore, the amount you can DI on the Japanese version is significantly less than the NA version. This is one of the few disadvantages the Japanese version has compared to the NA version, but it's not often that you will get hit, let alone have a way to take advantage of DI in a run.
Fourth is game mechanics. In general, I have noticed that attacks deal less knockback at lower percents on Japanese, while dealing more knockback at higher percents on Japanese (I don't know if this is true for all moves, but for several it seems to be true). Many other game mechanics are different, but that is the main one I can think of, and the one that is probably most relevant for speedrun purposes. On top of that, character specific differences exist between the versions. Some characters run faster in certain versions, jump higher, have different attack properties and trajectories, among many other differences. The majority of these differences are an advantage to the Japanese version, though a few are an advantage to the NA version (e.g. Jigglypuff/Purin rest having more knockback on NA).
Fifth is handicap. The handicap of a stage is dependent on two factors: The stage itself, and the difficulty of the run. The harder the difficulty, the worse the handicap, meaning the AI knocks you farther away, while you don't knock them as far. The stage depends usually on whether or not it's a multiman stage or not. Multiman stages have an increased handicap, making you able to knock the AI away much easier. To me, it seems like some stages have an increased handicap on the Japanese version, making them easier on that version. A good example is Link Very Hard on Polygon Team, where using Down Air on the Japanese version KOs the polygons off the side of the stage immediately, while on the NA version they are not KO'd, and usually recover. That said, this could be a result of Link's Down Air potentially having higher knockback on Japanese, so it is hard to tell if this is actually a handicap thing, or is actually a result of differences in the mechanics between the games. However, I feel like the handicap is different between the two games on certain stages.
Finally, text is an obvious difference between the two, but as far as I'm aware, has no difference in time, so text doesn't have an effect on a speedrun. Other differences may exist, but I can't think of any right now, so I'll just leave it at those.
Putting this all together, the Japanese version is significantly faster than the NA version for all characters. Using the example in the handicap section and generalizing it with everything, Very Hard Polygon Team with Link on the NA version is a fight to simply try to survive and not game over. Your best KO move is your grab, which is super slow, and if you miss, you're a sitting duck for an eternity. Many runs game over on Polygon Team simply due to how difficult the AI is, as well as how bad the strat is on that stage. The Japanese version in comparison, Down Air KOs the polygons. It's a safe move, it's fast, and you can KO several at a time. On top of that, the AI being weaker (around the equivalent of "Normal" on NA) means you can go all-out aggressive and have very little fear of Game Overing. Many more examples exist, but this is the most obvious one. The decreased difficulty of the Japanese version saves time on basically every stage, and the reduced hitlag means every "hit" of an attack will save one frame in the run (this alone adds up to several seconds saved in the run depending on the character).
The differences between the Japanese and NA version are so severe that the smash 64 speedrunning community actually considers both games completely separate categories, neither of which is comparable to the other. I personally consider them effectively two separate speed games. The NA version is by far the most popular version to run, as almost all runners live in NA, as well as the AI behaviour on NA is considered more fun to run on compared to Japanese, so the NA version is considered the main version to run, and is the primary one appearing on the leaderboards. However, the Japanese version is still ran by some runners, and has its own separate spot on the leaderboards.
Sorry for the long message, I just felt like I could provide information on another game that has significant differences between versions.
My main question is since these speed differences between languages exist, why not categorize the speedruns by language.
In the Megaman Battle Network series, some areas of the game were removed entirely, ostensibly for being judged too difficult, and items located in them were relocated to other areas. Off the top of my head, Ship Comp 3 in BN5 was removed and Ship Comp 4 became 3. That would definitely affect a speedrun.
Most KH1.5 HD runners play on JPN but on ENG there's an exclusive glitch where you can skip the Red Trinity in the Traverse Town alley.
Always love your content. I'd love to see some content about speedruns of horror games. People going fast on games designed to make you go slow
Any major version differences for PAL? Maybe on 6th gen consoles?
I've seen that fallout nv is played in Italian because it's faster in the first unskippable dialogue
Glitches hadn’t been patched, text speed is faster, etc.
KH2FM duck flare is actually stronger on English which makes it about 4 seconds faster if i remember correctly. That is for PS4 atleast.
Damn EZScape, I got a lot of midroll ads. I hope RUclips is giving you some of that dosh.
Block every single add you see
RUclips is just an Ad watching simulator now.
Sometimes Japanese text isn't even the fastest! When speedrunning a link between worlds, Italian was the fastest!
I thought English was the fastest and Italian or portagise was the fastest for Wind waker HD
Legend of Dragoon!?! God I've missed that gem of a game
Pacman World 2. A game where the JP version had some levels abridged or just flat out made easier for some reason in that release. There is a reason the leaderboards split that version in its own category.
then why are there no ''japanese'' speedruns and ''international'' speedruns instead of only one of them depending on the game?
Majora's Mask is my favorite example of game with JP/NTSC differences, but they are so huge there are whole videos dedicated to it already. Look some up if you haven't.
There is also the notorious case of Devil May Cry 3, in which the original PS2 version was harder (as in, the "normal" difficulty was actually the "hard" in JP releases) because of...rental! They pumped up the difficulty so the western audiences would buy the game instead of renting it until beating the game. They reverted the change in the re-releases.
1:08 I really don't understand why the triforce heroes quote garnered such a bad backlash. Like, for one, it's literally a harmless dialogue box that didn't hurt anything in the game whatsoever. Second off, Classic Doge is still a appreciated and respected meme, even to this day. Third of all, why is it so wrong for a game to pull a pop-culture reference? shows like South Park and Family Guy do this ALL the time, and it's the main reason why people still enjoy those shows. referencing a cute meme in a harmless venture shouldn't have caused that big of a deal; yet it had.
1:58 Around that time a lot of games were still made intentionally harder for western (north american) versions.
This was due to a misbelief by the japanese that the americans preferred it that way, when in actuality it was a leftover of arcades making games harder to suck more coins out of kids.
Interestingly they had believed the opposite about Americans at some point too, making games easier for us, and even just substituting in a different game for SMB2
@@revenevan11 in early 90s some JP release game are easier, and US vice versa. Take Castlevania III/Akumajou Densetsu for example
And then when Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix arrived in 2.5 the US completely overtook the other versions because of how powerful Duck Flare is on that version.
1:05
Nobody:
Localization Team: sUpEr dOuBlE dUpITy
Stuff like that right there is why I prefer subs, they tend to not be as "localized" into oblivion as dubs are
I went to school with the guy at 0:22 small world huh XD
I always thought it was because the japanese text, thanks mainly to kanji, is much smaller.
Legend of Dragoon footage? Yep, gonna have to stop and drop a like on this video real quick.
I second that notion.
I third this!
Can't believe the version differences in Super Metroid weren't covered SMDH
shout outs to anyone else who was at the 22 hour speedrun of final fintasy ix on ESA Winter 2020
3:55 So that's where "Ripto" came from...neat.
Heres a case where NTSC text is MUCH faster than Japanese text:
In Illusion of Gaia, a lot of the text boxes in NTSC display ALL of their text per page in one frame, while the japanese have a lot fewer, which do the character by character one.
In an Action RPG/Zelda-like, this alone saves quite a lot of time.
Bizkit be like
"I heard you were talking KH2."
1:09 I prefer the right screenshot; I don't want stupid memes I most likely won't get in my game.
At least it was Tri-Force Heroes, a multiplayer game with piss-poor ingame player-to-player communications and a tacked-on singleplayer, and not a better game.
Fuck memes in games.
One rare care where Japanese would be slower in a speedrun is Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles. They cut out a lot of content in the American version to rush the game out over here, so the Japanese version is pretty much the definitive version with a few extra missions and bosses that make it a slower version to speedrun overall.
You know Japan also uses NTSC, right?
TLDW: It's because we're a bunch of weebs.
/s
My time is valuable plays video on 1.75x speed
Ayyyyyy, my Ape Escape 2 reccomendation made it in! This was a fun video to watch. Glad to see there are more benefits than just "text is faster"
Another reason for japanese is that, if the game plays the same, most of the time the games/cardridges are much cheaper (at least for snes).
As a european importing games from USA is just to expensive
Him: Speedrunner plays SMW on japanese because they could eat dolphines
Me: Dolphin wasn't even a single dolphin in the current wr
Hey man it's Elliot. I got my copy of icarly by the way! Thanks, cool video!
0:52 I did not expect Legend of Dragoon.
God I miss that game
I wish it would get remastered.
It warms my heart when he hopes I have a beautiful life
All youtubers “I hope you’ve enjoyed the video”
Most youtubers “I hope you have an amazing day”
EZscape “I hope you have an amazing life”, bro so humble I love it
2:33 Oh, look, it's T.R.A.G.--
"Super Mario 64"
Congratulations, you got about a half-dozen people with that bait.
Man that Ape Escape 2 difference still annoys me to this day. It was gonna be the first game I speedran but hearing the Quick Item Switch like removed all the wind in my sail.
Video: *Shows Yu Yu Hakusho clip*
Intervención: *Liked this*
2:15 "They put it in by the time the NTSC and PAL versions were released" .. so.. all of them?
Japan is NTSC btw
Wow, and no wonder the boss fights in Bomberman Hero feel long and drawn out, it's actually more difficult.
I thought this was obvious, but thank you for showing a ton of examples of why it’s true.
Waifus and uncensored.
If we are going to play for so long, at least we have to have a visual motivation, am I right?
I've read stuff and watched stuff from the Spyro developers. They were told they had to do all of those changes to get Japanese people to play it. They were told he looked too aggressive, and they found that they got sick more often from it, so they modded the game.
Ultra Hammer Early isn’t Japanese exclusive. It can be performed with Jump Storage, though you need a second save file to store the jump.
I think he meant that specific method.
R. P. Genocraft probably
The reason for the box puzzle being different in the JPN release of DC1 is because Capcom will make games more difficult in the West. Here's a few notable examples
-Removal of auto-aim in RE1 for the original American release
-no ink ribbons as Jill in the PC version of RE1 in Japan
-Removal of the Easy/Hard indicators over the characters in RE1
-Less enemies overall in RE2
-Very Easy and Easy are only available in the Japanese release of CODE:Veronica X
"First of all, why does he look like that?"
You mean not pissed for some reason?
0:52 LEGEND OF DRAGOON HYYYPE. my favorite RPG of all time lol
Nah bro I think they're just weebs.
The hell? Why does the NTSC version of Bomberman Hero add more difficulty? Usually it's the other way around.
DMC 1 and 3 were made significantly harder for the international versions of their original release. I forget the details for 1 beyond altered controls but 3 was brutal. All difficulty levels were equivalent to one level higher in JP. Only the highest difficulty, DMD was the same.
NA Easy was JP Normal, NA Normal was JP Hard, NA Hard had no equivalent in JP and was named Very Hard in later versions. All later versions of 3 use the JP difficulties rather than the NA ones.
@@zeroattentiongaming820 Very strange how that seems to happen. Could be a lot of things really behind the scenes. Maybe after testing they felt it would be better harder, so they patched it before international copies were printed. Could be down to a simple programming error changing one integer to another. Lots of other possibilities, even down to just straight messing around and getting away with it.
What's that anime in the beginning called?
Another game with many changes is Donkey Kong Country. The JP release was made a lot easier, with less enemies and more DK barrels. Each individual change is actually close to the amount of changes in Paper Mario TTYD.
Fun fact: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is slower on JP. This is because the gamecube release is faster and the JP gamecube release patched a glitch that saved around 20 minutes. The German version also has some wierd text boxes as some unskippable ones are skipable on German, so that's why runners run that
Regarding the accessibility comment, it's most likely because back then it wasn't really seen as an accessibility feature specific for certain developers but more a generalized concern that could potentially pull away some players. Most accessibility from this period is to meet generalized needs like this, so specifically trying to adapt for motion sickness is just not contextualized in the project the same way something like blind accessibility would.
Also, modern games are way worse tbh. I get severe motion sickness with them and I can't play them but have no issue with Spyro.
Secret of Mana - nobody wants to run the Japanese version, since it's very easy to softlock on almost every single boss, unless you ake specific precautions not to. It's... Not a good version, to the extent where the communiy hasn't even bothered timing it, even though it may be faster