Konami Difficulty Balance by Region

[Anonymous No.9875254]

I just want to mention the trend with Konami difficulty rebalances. So far, I have seen that its ALMOST always the later release which is harder. So, for example, Contra in the US is easier, but that's because that was the original release of the game. Super C released in Japan before US, and so the Japanese version is easier (mainly, gives 30 lives if you do the konami code and has a stage select) because its the first release of the game. I have yet to find a game by retro-Konami that tones down the difficulty of the second chronological release EXCEPT for arcade Simpsons in Japan, which was made easier maybe because the Japanese machine was 2-player only? (I can't find a rom of a 4-player, Japan-version of Simpsons).

Its just strange. On top of this, they have versions of some games made specifically for the PAL market, so as in not just the visuals have been changed but the gameplay has been subtly rebalanced as well, like with Castlevania 3 in PAL territories it has slightly different balancing from the US version, which is balanced differently from the original Japanese release. Some stuff follows reason, some stuff just doesn't, even factoring things into account like "oh, well, in the US there were rentals so they were taking that into account" doesn't really add up if you really look into it.

[Anonymous No.9875308]

>>9875254
US localizations were done by incompetent retards, almost always just arbitrarily adding difficulty by modding the game somehow. This applies to pretty much all old console games, not just konami ones. Konami japan probably wasn’t always even aware of the retarded changes being made to their games.

The definitive version of a game is pretty much always the japanese release.

[Anonymous No.9875328]

>>9875308
>The definitive version of a game is pretty much always the japanese release.
Noteworthy exception: Gradius III asia/world is a much better playing experience than the default release. Unless you're really, really into masochism.

[Anonymous No.9875536]

>>9875254
Mission Impossible (NES) is easier in Europe, version which was master date and release follow the US version. However, there are a couple of glitches present in the PAL versions which weren't present in the US version, the kind of ones that scream "by all logic this version should predate the other one".

>"in the US there were rentals so they were taking that into account" doesn't really add up if you really look into it.

That is correct though. The rental excuse is completely overblown out of proportion by people, like they apply it to everything with no proof. It's just an excuse people use so they can tell themselves "things aren't as they should be so it's okay for me to suck and cheat". That and people like to take one simple explanation and believe it's the answer to everything, it makes them feel like they understand and control the world. Rentals are the jews of video games: it's always their fault.

One thing of note are western games made easier for the Japanese market, like Battletoads or Crash Bandicoot, which shows the general trend for action games.

[Anonymous No.9875542]

>>9875254
>One thing of note are western games made easier for the Japanese market, like Battletoads or Crash Bandicoot
What did they change in Crash? It's really not that hard of a game

[Anonymous No.9875545]

>>9875536
>One thing of note are western games made easier for the Japanese market, like Battletoads or Crash Bandicoot
What did they change in Crash? It's really not that hard of a game

[Anonymous No.9875561]

>>9875254
Pic related, add to the fact that the rental industry was massive in the USA due to their economic situation of the 80s and 90s, so localizations made changes to difficulty in order to prevent a game's value from hitting rock bottom and getting beaten in a single rental period. Consequently this actually caused American players to believe this increased difficulty was normal for video games and magazines would applaud a game for having challenge.

[Anonymous No.9875581]

The west praised challenge, it was all over marketing and magazines, magazines having scores dependant on a game's difficulty (difficult = good score, too easy = "this game would have scored higher if it was harder"). The older the game, the more true this is, and with each generation it became a little less true (though you can still find magazines doing that in the 5th gen, even Nintendo ones) until it started becoming untrue during the 7th gen.

People don't know this or have forgotten it because they've been used to a completely different paradigm since then. When a game was difficult, the average western player didn't mind (they didn't come crying about it), or he was glad, it was a good purchase with a good bang for its buck.

Now, while this mentality was proeminent in the western markets, it wasn't in Japan: you will not find magazines and marketing praising difficulty that easily.

>>9875561
>Devs were good at the games

According to an interview by Mikami, Resident Evil devs couldn't even beat the prototype versions of RE1 and were struggling with the controls. They made it harder anyway for the final release. And then they made it even harder for the western version.
There is an interview of the same person explaining the regional difficulty difference on rentals; and then there is another interview explaining it by what I just said (the difference of mentality between west and Japan), though admitedly I've lost the source to that one (I read so many back to back and I can't find it anymore).

[Anonymous No.9875594]

Culture Brain was a company that had a habit of updating games for their US release. A lot of their games are bizarre and janky either way, so I'm not really sure why they bothered.