(bag whooshes) (Game Sack Theme) (glass shattering) - Hello and welcome to Game Sack. You know, I could have sworn we already did a Left in
Japan 11, but I guess not. Anyway, it's time to look at more games that were never released outside of Japan. And you never saw these unless
you were into import scene back in the day. And with that said,
let's get straight to it. (sweet energetic electronic music) (cartridge clicking) (Nintendo DS creaks) (button clicks) (Nintendo DS hums with Japanese power) (adventurous music) In 2008, a little game called Soma Bringer was released for the Nintendo DS. This is an action RPG that
developed by Monolith Soft, who had previously done
the Xenosaga games. What's more is that this
game was actually published by Nintendo proper. I'm playing a fan-translated
version of the game here, so that I can get more
than 10 minutes into it. At the start, you can choose one of seven different characters
with the eighth being unlocked a couple of hours or so into the game. I of course chose the most generic one, since I like to have a
well-balanced character. The story involves Soma,
which is the energy that surrounds the planet and
it's used by its inhabitants for just about everything. Now bad guys called
Visitors are appearing, and they're bringing
nasty monsters with them. You're part of a group whose task involves defeating the Visitors. And do they mean... Visitors? Maybe. And then again, maybe not. You'll have to play to find out. Anyway, you quickly find a girl named Idea or maybe it's pronounced Edea. I don't know. She tags along of course. You control the main character that you chose in the beginning, but in fact the other seven
are actually following you. It would be really confusing if you could see everyone at once. And it's probably also asking
a little much from the DS, so you only see two
others at the same time. The combat is hack and slash
based like the Ys games. And like a lot of the Ys games, three of you are attacking
everything you see in real time and gaining items, money, and experience. There's no switching back and forth between characters here though. The AI actually does a pretty decent job of controlling the other two fighters as they will actively seek
out and destroy other monsters without you telling them to. While the combat is good,
it does feel a tad slow, especially if you've
played any of the Ys games released after the year 2000. You can get lighter weapons
that attack faster of course, but it still always feels like the game is a second or two behind me. Also, you can have one
or two-handed weapons, the former allowing you to carry a shield and the latter offering
up stronger attacks. In addition to your HP, you also have SP, which stands for Soma Points. You can assign different
moves to different buttons like a heavy attack or a shield attack, but they will eat up Soma Points. The good news though is that the Soma Points
replenish on their own. There's also towns full
of NPCs to talk to, and this is all handled pretty well. The translation here
seems to be pretty good, and it makes dealing with
all of the characters and the shops easy. Like any game of this nature, there's lots of stuff to learn,
but it's not overly complex. The game doesn't have
any touchscreen gimmicks. Or at least, I never
touched it, and I was fine. More good news is that you
can enable the skipping of the story and event scenes if you want. You can even skip the tutorials! But don't worry, your ship has a library where you can go back and
watch them if you want. The graphics are pretty
good for the system, and they zoom in when you
get close to a monster and start fighting. You can turn this feature
off if you like though. You can still zoom in
using the Select button, but the backgrounds will
get more and more blocky when you do. And I don't even know why
they let it zoom in this far. It's damn near impossible
to play like this. I'd love to see someone
1CC the game like this. Can you even 1CC an RPG? The colors are great, and the
areas can look pretty good. And thank god for map on the bottom screen showing you a wider view and also where the
enemies and treasure are. I think I'd be pretty
overwhelmed without it. The music is really
good for the most part. It's done by Yasunori Mitsuda. And it has a few standout tunes, but nothing that compares to his work on Chrono Trigger, or Xenogears, or even most Ys games for that matter. But please don't get me wrong. It fits very well, and it's enjoyable. (peaceful music) This is a good game overall,
and I'm really surprised that it never made it out of Japan. According to the rumors,
it was just too text-heavy, and they didn't wanna translate it. While it's certainly not a perfect game, I really think people outside
of Japan would enjoy this one. (suspenseful music) (sword slashes) (weapons bashing)
(imp croaking) (sword slashes) (sword quickly slashing) (weapon bashing) (ice shattering)
(imp croaking) (sword quickly slashing) (weapons bashing)
(imp croaking) (weapons bashing) (ice shattering) (ice shattering)
(imp croaking) (metal thuds) (crappy music) One very strange game
that I'm not surprised never left Japan is LSD: Dream Emulator from Asmik for the PlayStation. And I know some of you
out there hate emulators, so you've been warned. Yeah, I know that was bad. Anyway, the game starts you out
in a seemingly random place. You roam around, and you're
able to move forwards, backwards, left, right. And you can even look around a bit. If you hold the X
button, you can also run. And since most of the
weird ass environments here are pretty large, I'm
usually always running. Of course there's no rhyme or
reason here that I can see. Just like a real dream or maybe using LSD. I haven't tried LSD, so you guys tell me if this game duplicates
that experience exactly. I bet it does. Anyway, you just wonder around,
and if you touch anything, you'll be warped into a different area. If you do certain things
like fall off a cliff, your dream will end, and you'll be taken to the next day in the game. Sometimes instead of playing a dream, a video will play like the strange one that shows a VCR loading up a videotape. All you do is sit there and watch it. After each dream, a graph shows
you where that dream rated on how static or dynamic it was and also how much of an
upper or downer it was. I mean, wouldn't that be for
me to decide and not the game? I don't know. There's also an option
to turn shake on and off, which will stop the camera
from bobbing up and down as you walk. The environments can get pretty crazy, but I've got to admit, they
don't seem very dreamlike to me. I mean, come on. I've had some pretty messed up dreams, but they aren't usually completely
detached from all reality like most of the stuff here. Usually, my dreams happen
in a place that I know. It's just kind of warped
and different from reality, and of course it all seems
normal to me in the dream. And then you wake up, and you're like, "Why the hell did I dream of that?" Also, my own dreams have
way better sound effects. Just listen to your
footsteps on the grass here. (grass farting repeatedly) But this dreamland is based
on the artworks of Osamu Sato. That's right. This really isn't a game. It suppose to be more of a work of art. Good attempt, but I prefer my fine art to have a higher frame rate than this. That's right. You think it would be a lot smoother since there's hardly
any polygons on screen and the draw distance isn't that far. The textures are also extremely grainy. Sato also did the music in this game, which is just as weird as the visuals. It doesn't always play, but generally it'll make you feel pretty
uneasy when it does. (unsettling music)
(footsteps thudding) I can't imagine that
this would sell very well outside of Japan. Hell, I doubt it even
sold that well there. So I can definitely see why no one wanted to publish this one in the West. It's a strange piece of work for sure, but honestly it kinda
gets boring real fast. (funky music) (footsteps clicking) (footsteps clicking) (footsteps clicking) (air escaping) Okay, hopefully we can all agree that despite the weird ass name, Soma Bringer definitely deserved a wider release than it got. LSD: Dream Emulator, not so much. But you know I had to cover it sometime. Anyway, now let's take a
look at a mascot platformer for the Saturn because I
guess every animal character in a game is a mascot. (electronic rock music) (button clicks) (CD clicks) (lid slaps) (button clicks) (funky music) This is Willy Wombat for the Saturn, and it was released in June of 1997. It was developed by Westone or West One, or however they pronounce it. And it was published by Hudson Soft. First off, Willy Wombat was
the original name of a game that developer Naughty Dog was working on. That's right. Crash Bandicoot. Willy Wombat would be released almost a year after the first Crash game. Anyway, in this one, you're Willy Wombat as you may have guessed, and you're looking for
the six Miracle Gems. You used to be an enforcer in prison, and you escaped looking for your freedom. But your old enforcer buddies
are trying to stop you. The gimmick with this one is that you can rotate your
view around 360 degrees at any time using the shoulder
buttons, just like Grandia. And you'll need to do this to look around nooks and
crannies and what have you. My main issue with this is
that almost every single time I ended up pressing the
wrong shoulder button and the camera would spin the opposite way I wanted it to turn. Oh, well. You can also jump and attack. For the attacks, you
have a close-range attack that's fairly rapid as well
as a long-ranged attack, where you fire off two
boomerang-type attacks. But you have to wait till they come back before you can attack again. Did I mention that you can
attack because you can attack. The enemies can easily
overwhelm you sometimes, especially if your view is being
blocked by the environment, which happens more often than you'd think. It can get kinda frustrating. And if you haven't noticed, the skulls of the enemies that
you kill stay around forever. Look at all this death that
you've left in your wake. It's morbid as hell, and I love it! Along the way, you
collect lots of blue gems. The more of these you get, the more tokens you get
when you beat the stage. And you'll need these tokens because you have to pay to save your game. If you don't get at least
I think about 80% of gems in any given level, you
won't get any tokens. There's also these white orbs to collect. For every five of these that you get, your life meter extends one notch, so always be sure to grab them. (mystical rock music) The game mainly has you
wandering around finding keys to reveal more of the level, all while fighting off the enemies. Sometimes, it's even a bit
of work to get the keys. You may need to destroy statues, stand on buttons to
manipulate the environment, jump through warp tubes,
and all sorts of things. The levels can be pretty big,
and you only get one life. Again, like I said, it can
sometimes be kinda frustrating. And since there's absolutely
no perspective to graphics, and by that I mean things
far away are same size as things close to you, it
can be incredibly difficult to judge your jumps and movements. Just like any isometric game. The graphics are all right. The rotating gimmick
is kinda neat at first, but it wears off quickly,
especially since the movement in this game isn't exactly the
smoothest you've ever seen. In fact, some of the areas
can get pretty choppy. The enemy designs can be
kind of boring, honestly. Most of them just seem like the basic, first-level enemies, just
wearing different hats. The music is also rather average, but at least it improves slightly as you make it further into the game. (item softly chimes) (item hums) (adventurous music) (weapon thudding) The most curious thing though is that all of the voices are in full English. - [Black And White Wombat]
Was that worth escaping prison and risking his life? - [Blonde Wombat] There's
nothing worth leaving prison for. - [Joe] It makes you
wonder if they had planned to release it outside of Japan. They even have Dennis Falt who
voiced Master Chen in Shenmue as the dude who saves your game. - [Earthy-Colored
Wombat] Okay, I'm saving. (game hums) Saved. - [Joe] I will say that this game actually does get more interesting after you get past the
mediocre first area, but all and all the experience as a whole probably wouldn't have
set the world on fire like Crash Bandicoot did. (gems chiming) (hole humming) (jazz music) (hole humming) (key chimes) (map hums) (map hums in low pitch) - [Willy] Whoa!
(hits thudding) (boomerangs clicking) (gems chiming) (gems chiming) Whoa!
(orbs firing) (hits thudding)
(orbs firing) (metal thuds) (hella cool rock music) - [Joe] Ys vs. Sora no
Kiseki: Alternative Saga came to the PSP in 2005 and only the PSP. This is a crossover game, featuring characters
from Falcom's Ys series and also the Trails in the Sky series. There's a story mode and an
arcade mode among other things. I started the story mode first. You can choose you character and of course I'm gonna go with Adol for now. There is (laughs) lots and lots of text, but you really don't need to
know Japanese to enjoy it. Basically, it's a fighting game that can best be described
as a poor man's Power Stone. You run around an arena fighting foes, and you only have one match to do it in. Strewn throughout most of the play fields will treasure chests and breakable objects that contain items, which can help you out in some small way if you grab them. You also have special like the ability to increase your attack power,
which really comes in handy. There are also several magic attacks that you can do if you have enough power, so you don't always have to
rely on your default attack. But be careful because
there are status effects like paralyzation as well
as the dreaded confusion, which reverses your controls. Seriously, that's one of my
pet peeves when games do this, but that's a discussion for another time. As you win battles, you level up, which of course really helps out. If you get into a battle
which you can't win, you can always go back and
fight the previous ones again and again until
you're strong enough. Yeah, it's Power Stone with grinding. Each character in the game
will level up independently. Sometimes, there will
be two-on-two battles, and these can get kind of confusing. You can't hurt your allies though. So just go crazy, and
you should be victorious. As you win, you'll unlock new stages that you can go and fight in. Pretty basic stuff. The characters that you
fight in the story mode all seem to be under some sort of spell that they snap out of once you win. Eh, it's a good excuse
to pit these characters against each other, I guess. But it sure seems to be a trope in gaming that losing a fight cures
you of any mental disorder. (rock music) The arcade mode allows you
to choose any character that you've unlocked so far,
their corresponding levels. This is a good way to
get everyone leveled up. And who wouldn't wanna play
as wimpy Chester from Ys III? I mean besides everyone. There's also a shop where
you can buy more abilities and stuff for your characters as you earn money from the fights. The controls are awkward at first because of where they
have everything mapped, but it didn't take me too
long to get used to it. There's not a huge
amount of challenge here, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. It's not something that you're gonna play for hours and hours every
day for months on end, but it's still a good time. The graphics are pretty
nice for the system, though I'm definitely
cheating a little bit here by playing it on my hacked PS3, which does a nice job of
upscaling the polygons. And the music is nothing
short of outstanding. It's definitely the real star here, but what else would
you expect from Falcom? (Adol grunting)
(sword slashing) (rock music) (missile splashing)
(Adol grunting) (Adol grunting)
(water rushing) (Adol grunts) (missile splashing)
(Adol grunting) Being on the PSP, it's a
tiny bit surprising to me that this one didn't get
released outside of Japan. All of the other Ys games
on the PSP as well as the first two Trails in
the Sky games got released. I don't feel that the rest of the world missed anything groundbreaking here. But it is a good time if you're a fan of the series represented, and you'll definitely get
some enjoyment out of it. Hell, I'm glad I played it as I'd always been curious about it. - [Narrator] Ready. Fight!
(metal clangs) (Adol grunting)
(sword slashing) (woman crying)
(Adol grunting) (metal clatters) (scythe whooshing)
(woman grunting) (Adol grunting)
(sword slashing) (woman grunting)
(metal clatters) (scythe whooshing) (Adol grunting)
(woman crying) (ability hums) (wood thudding) (metal clanging)
(Adol grunting in pain) (Adol grunting)
(sword slashing) (woman grunts)
(scythe whooshes) (Adol grunting)
(sword slashing) (woman grunts)
(metal clatters) (woman grunting)
(scythe whooshing) (Adol grunting)
(metal thuds) - Okay, Willy Wombat was
decent, but not outstanding. And I was glad to finally be able to get to play that Ys versus
Trails in the Sky game. I'd like to see that one
bundled with somethin' in the future or something. Anyway, two games left
today, and one of 'em I wish I would have
played through long ago. (rock music) (button clicks) (CD clicks) (lid slaps) (button clicks) (adventurous music) How about Fantastic Pinball
Kyuutenkai for the PlayStation? Or Fantasic Pinball if you wanna go by what's said on the box. I found out that this
game existed recently. And I picked it up because
it's from TechnoSoft, which is of course the company behind the Thunder Force games. This is also on the Saturn,
but it's much more expensive. So I opted for the cheap
PlayStation version here. This is a very early game for the console. TechnoSoft had ported Devil's Crush to the Mega Drive/Genesis. And I guess they had fun, and wanted to create a pinball
game from the ground up. The game screen is set up similar to Genesis version of Devil's Crush, which is known as Dragon's
Fury in North America. The play screen is a bit
off center to the left, and all of your info and what not lives on the right-hand side. This is one of those video pinball games that can't be replicated on a real-world physical pinball table, and that always makes games
like this interesting for me. Unfortunately, there's only one table, but it's divided into three
realms: Sky, Human, and Demon. You choose between three characters, and each have their own music. They also can do certain things
more easily than the others. Like, the blue guy's ball
can turn into a sword, and that can make it easier
to break certain things. So I guess there's a little
bit of strategy here, but I'm not an amazing pinball player. I just kinda hit the ball and
hope somethin' good happens. There are some bonus
rounds here like this one, where you're trying to
score a soccer goal. I think that this is a really
cool idea, but it's tough. Or this one when you're trying to knock the girls off of the trees. It's also pretty tough. The visuals are very cartoony and generally look good
and very (laughs) silly. I also like that they
are extremely colorful. Likewise, the music is also pretty good and matches the style of the graphics. (rhythmic rock music)
(points chiming) (bumper rings) TechnoSoft is known for
their amazing music, and even though what's in here isn't bad, it's nothing really memorable either. Oh, and I can't remember if
I've mentioned this before, but I really don't care for these early Japanese
PlayStation game cases. There's no way to secure the manual, so it just has to lay there on the disk. Overall, Kyuutenkai here is
a good video pinball game, but it can't match anything
in the Crush Pinball series. However, if you like video pinball, you can certainly do
far worse than this one. (energetic music)
(ball whooshes) - [Woman] Push it! (bumper clanging) (points chiming) (ball thuds) (metal clanging) (moon thudding) (moon thuds)
(metal clanging) (metal roaring) (drums banging) (ball lightly clanging) (woman pops) (points chime) (woman cries)
(bones jingle) (ball thuds) - Huh? (points chime) (metal thuds) (Western music) - You may have heard
about Segagaga from Sega for the Dreamcast, and then
again maybe you haven't. I sure didn't know of its existence until well after its 2001 release. And it was said you could
only acquire the game directly from Sega in Japan, so even getting it back
then was pretty tough. Basically, this is an RPG
where Sega pokes fun of itself. And that right there really makes me sad that it wasn't released outside of Japan. I mean, look at this! Do you think Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft would ever make
fun of themselves like this? I would have killed for this game. Well, not literally, but, you know. The game takes place in a world where Sega has made lots of mistakes and only controls 3% of
the video game market. And their latest console
has bombed pretty hard. So, yeah, it basically
takes place in reality. (cries) Sega. In the game, they tried everything in order to save the
company, and it's all failed. So they turn to the only thing that can save Sega now, an anime kid. You and an anime girl are
recruited by Sega to save them. The game mostly take place at Sega itself, which is comprised of
several huge buildings, full of staff, programmers,
designers, and the such. As you roam around these buildings, you'll get into random battles with what appear to be monsters. The battles themselves are pretty simple as you can do a basic attack, use magic, try to run away, or use an item. You can get away with
just the basic attacks for most of the enemies. Sometimes after a battle
ends, the enemy sticks around. This is where you enter
negotiations and try to hire them. That's right. You hire your enemies, which are all basically Sega
employees anyway I think. I don't really know what's going on here, so I just select random things until I get the bar on
the left high enough to hire the damn person or monster or whatever the hell it is. Each enemy has different
things that they're skilled at like programming, designing, or whatever. Once you hire the individual,
you can give them a name. (techno music) Each R&D department
acts as a giant dungeon. You even get to visit
the disk pressing plant to get rid of the defective disks. The environment is made out of polygons, but you and other
characters are 2D sprites, which gives the game a unique look. Well, that is unless you've
played a Paper Mario game. The monster designs range
from wacky to idiotic. You can tell that everything
is crazy insane here. There's even an homage
to Thunder Force in here, which honestly brought a tear to my eye. There's been no fan translations
of this one that I know of, so you pretty much have to
use a guide to get around. I really wish that I could
understand the crazy stuff that's going on here (laughs) because I know I would love it. Though I guess maybe I could try using the Google Translate
phone app on the text, but that will really slow you down. And, well, I mean, just look
how glitchy and weird it is. This is making things worse, not better. Anyway, once you clear
an R&D department or two, you can put your best programmers to work in order to make the mega
hit game that will save Sega. Be careful though because
you don't have a ton of time and your grip on the industry
depletes even further. And if you leave a dungeon for any reason, 30 days will pass, and that
does not help your standing in the industry at all. Stupid anime kid! Can't even save Sega. Work your staff hard, but make sure they don't get burned out. Once your game is done, if you're lucky, you're reclaim some of your market share. There are tons and tons of different games that you can make. Some of the games aren't real, and they're obviously
parodies of non-Sega games. But it's pretty awesome
that they're in here. There are shops where you can buy items, and some of them have cartoony cashiers and one of them has this guy. I wonder if he worked
for Sega in real life, maybe as a janitor. There are a couple of interesting
mechanics in this game. First is that you have a
magic meter or whatever. But the higher level you are, the more points certain moves use. So healing a bit of
your life at level three may only cost four points, but healing that same amount at level 20 may be 17 points as a random example. And speaking of random, this game employs the random battle method for
its RPG turn-based battles. However, if you hold down
the B button, you can run, and as long as you're running, you won't get into any random battles. I really like this option. But this game does require some
intense grinding sometimes. Fortunately, that's something that I personally don't
mind doing, usually. I just like being at
least a few levels ahead of whatever the guide is recommending. The graphics are relatively
sharp and colorful, but they don't bring the
Dreamcast to its knees with crazy effects or anything. But they're definitely good
enough for the game I think. As far as the music and
sound go, it's good enough. The music does get better as you get further into the game though. (electronic music) (bell ringing) And once you get used to where
everything is in the menus and how they work, the
control is fine as well. Sadly, it's just not
import-friendly at all. I can see why Sega didn't
bother translating it for the Western market as
it'd clearly be a huge job and the Dreamcast was practically
dead at that point anyway. (rock music) ♪ Sega, Sega ♪ Still this was a great swan
song for Sega's final system. You can really tell that
the developers loved Sega, its history, and especially its fans. I just wish that modern
Sega would translate it and release it on modern platforms, so that everyone can enjoy it. Come on, Sega! (amazing Thunder Force-like
electronic music) (fire bursting) (fire bursting) (machine whooshing (metal clattering)
(lasers buzzing) (metal thudding) (letters whistling) (console whooshing) (metal thudding) (console humming) (metal thudding)
(letters pinging) (console whooshing) (fire bursting) (fire bursting) All right, so those are some more games that never got localized, so at least now you know what they're about
if you didn't already. And I hope Sega of Japan
didn't delete the source code for Segagaga, so that maybe
some day it can be translated. But, I'll be honest. I don't think Sega's gonna bother because they're just not the same company that they used to be back then. Anyway, what are some games that you feel should have come out of Japan but didn't? Let me know. In the meantime, thank you
for watching Game Sack. (Game Sack End Theme) Oh, hi, Cyborg 009. I'm sorry I couldn't
include you in this episode, but maybe in Left in
Japan 12 I can fit you in. (Cyborg 009 yells in high pitch) (Joe laughs) (Cyborg 009 yells in high pitch) I can't understand anything
you're saying, Cyborg 009. You're like, mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi, but then you're all muffled. And you've got a little bit
of reverb to try to hide that. (Cyborg 009 yells in high pitch) (laughs) You're so stupid. (Cyborg 009 screaming in high pitch) Ah, Gleylancer. Now, you are a game for a real system. The Super Nintendo
technically has an 8-bit CPU, while the Genesis
technically has a 32-bit CPU. And that's why the Genesis
is four times better than the Super Nintendo. What do you have to say
about that Gleylancer? (Gleylancer yells distortedly) (Gleylancer yells distortedly)
