Game Version Comparsion

The purpose of this thread is to list any differences between versions of games.
There are usually a lot of little differences between versions, like name changes, cover art, etc. But I want to focus on the big stuff, mainly gameplay changes like difficulties, cut content, censorship, voice options, and I guess if gameplay related, exclusive DLC/unlockables.

I don't care where you get the info, just be sure it's accurate. Feel free to post videos of any of these changes in action. You do not need to know the difference between ALL possible versions. If you only know EU and US, but not JP, that's fine.

One thing about language options, the EU versions usually have a ton of languages, but not Japanese. I don't care whether you add the EU languages or not, but Japanese is the one everyone goes on about and is usually missing, so just saying whether it's there or not is fine.

I'm not to concerned with the way you lay out the info at this point.

You can request info. In the past I've found a lot of info isn't available online, so you might have to find someone who's played the games. There's not many of us on here, but the option is there.

I'm not sure about the versions available in Asia. These days the Asian designated versions have English options, though this doesn't seem to be the case for older games like on PS2 where Asia just got the standard JP version. I have versions of Death by Degrees and Ico for the Chinese market (or more likely Taiwan, will have to check the cases), but I've forgotten if they have any exclusive options, so just go for the usual EU, US and JP versions unless you have info on any others.

I'll start with one I know very well and to serve as an example.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2)

US version
*Japanese voice available.
*Features an item duplication cheat. It can only be done in two places.


EU
*No Japanese voice.
*No item duplication cheat.

JP
*Unknown.

I have the JP version, but haven't played it enough to be able to compare. Once I have, I'll update this post.

Almost forgot, you can also add PSN or remastered versions, though remakes should be their own entries. Castlevania was released on the PS3 store but I forgot which region. Will update when I confirm.

What do you guys think?

I'm working on getting some info on Curse of Darkness. I don't have all the details but the gist of it is, you can summon monsters (called Innocent Devils), and they can evolve when you get enough crystal/exp. Now and then they drop an egg which houses their base form, so you can get multiple of the same one.

The baby that was dropped will carry a certain percentage of the parent's stats, so what you want to do is get your ID to level 99, wait for it to drop an egg, then start over with better stats.

But there's something to do with exp and crystals where you can get to a higher form without leveling up, and to do this, you fight some skeletons in an early part of the game. But in some versions of the game,the exp they give varies.

I used to play the EU version so I know they give exp, and I've read that the Japanese PS2 version and Xbox version give exp for these skeletons too. The US version does not, which means you would be able to raise slightly more powerful IDs in that version.

I found some old posts of mine from 10 years ago, though I barely remember writing them, where I claim that the EU version gives 2 exp per skeleton. I don't have the EU version anymore but I'm going to find a copy so I can confirm this.

I got the PAL version today.

Starting up you get the option for the following languages.

English
Francais
Espanol
Deutsch
Italiano

Most EU games come up with this screen, which is why I said don't bother mentioning them, but now that I think about it, we might as well for completeness. You can change the text for these in the options menu under 'language'.

US versions, even if they have the option for Japanese, never come up with a screen like this (not in my exp anyway). It's usually in the options menu.

After the language options, you get the display options.

PAL 50Hz (default setting)
NTSC 60Hz (with option to test)

Display options are important to mention. I hate playing the slower PAL versions, but sometimes there are differences. Like in ICO on 50Hz, you can do this insane super jump glitch and skip huge segments of the game.

Regarding skeleton exp in the castle, they give 1 in the PAL version. No idea why I thought it was 2 back then.

This means your IDs will level up a little when you don't want them to, though even then a 4th gen PAL ID will be insanely strong.

There IS a way to level up without exp though, but it's a pain in the ass.
You only need to watch the first minute. Basically, you take a powerful ID back to the skeleton room and let it kill them. Return it and summon the ID you want to evolve without exp, then collect the crystals.


I would never bother doing this. Too much going in and out of the menu. If you don't have the US or JP version, at least you have a method though.

There are other enemies that give only 1 exp, and it's possible there might be exp differences with others. I'll search online for a list and do some comparisons at some point.

Chaos Legion

Japanese version
*Less enemies in general.
*Enemies have less attack power and health.
*Bosses have less health.
*Ranking requirements are different.
*No metal zombie types.
*Legions require far less exp to upgrade.

The EU and US versions are identical as far as I know.