Games that had certain assets altered upon re-release

Video Games
#1

Today it came to my attention that Ms. Pac-Man’s sprite was altered for Pac-Land’s re-release. Due to a copyright dispute she’s no longer Ms. Pac-Man, but in fact a new character.

Before

After

Situations like these have happened in the past and will keep happening in the future, so I thought it’d be an interesting topic to discuss.

Also, let’s share some examples!

One game that immediately comes to mind is The Revenge of Shinobi. It’s notorious for being constantly revised, even way back when it made the jump from Japan to Western territories. Here’s a good summary of all the changes: The Revenge of Shinobi (Genesis) - The Cutting Room Floor

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#2

Just reading about the reason why this was changed. Quite the mess! Bad AtGames.

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#3

I’m going through my Arcade Archives and Sega Ages titles right now and there are quite a few games that have been altered:

Bomb Jack - licensed music is replaced by new arrangements of tunes from Mighty Bomb Jack.
Listen to the differences here: Bomb Jack (Arcade) - The Cutting Room Floor

Crime Fighters 2 (also known as Vendetta) - the dry humping enemy characters are removed (I can’t believe I just typed that sentence).

Frogger - licensed music is replaced by different tunes.

Out Run - the player’s car is altered so it no longer resembles a Ferrari.

Shinobi - the Spider-Man lookalike’s colours are different and the Marilyn Monroe posters are replaced by Altered Beast posters.

Super Hang-On - the billboards that featured real brand names are replaced by billboards that reference Sega titles.

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#4

There’s something about Red Cross symbols being removed from Nintendo VC games.

It really was the Wild West in what developers got away with including in their games back then.

Edit:

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#5

Good one.

It was pretty odd seeing green crosses on the medkits in the re-released classic Doom games, but I got used to it after a while.

#6

In the Capcom Arcade Stadium versions of the Street Fighter games, Fei Long’s flag was changed from Hong Kong to China.

Also, the rising sun was removed from E. Honda’s stage.

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#7

That is disgusting. Capcom sucking off Xi Jinping and pleasing the CCP. How dare they change the Hong Kong flag to China. Are they also going to do the same with Taiwan? And they removed their own countries naval flag image from e-hond’s stage? Unbelievable!

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#8

I’m afraid I have some bad news for you: it has already been done to Taiwan.

Really sad to see games being altered for stupid reasons.

#9

Oh man, that is disgusting.

#10

Reminds me of the time John Cena publicly apologized to China for calling Taiwan a country… In Mandarin!

This is sadly not a unique occurrence, actors and employees and beholden to those who pay them, and those companies often make a lot of money in China

It’s sad.

John Oliver did an excellent video on the subject, and it’s pretty crazy.

#11

Those guys and all the CCP sympathisers are a bunch of t××ts.

#12

Bubble Bobble Revolution, which had a glitch where players couldn’t get past Round 30 due to a boss not spawning.

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#13

Oh my eyes! That artwork is hideous :open_mouth:

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#14

Wait, does that bug occur in the newly designed game or in the port of the arcade game?

#15

Thankfully, the Japanese box art looks a lot less vomit-inducing.

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#16

PSP brawler Akiba’s Trip got rereleased on modern systems with all the store licenses stripped out last year. Not such a huge deal considering the low-tech nature of the original visuals and the game focusing more on the subculture vibe to Akihabara and the characters within it.

However the sequel seems to be getting new content and a Switch port, and if the same thing happens there it’ll be a huge loss. Developer Acquire did a great job at capturing the “vibe” of walking around the streets in modern Akihabara and a big part of that was the presentation and how they integrated the licensed stores into the game.

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#17

The newly designed one.

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#18

This just in: the soundtrack of the Sonic Origins version of Sonic 3 will be altered.

Ice Cap Zone’s energetic music will be sorely missed, but good riddance to Carnival Night Zone’s crummy circus tune!

#19

Well… I’ll likely skip that collection, but glad they did the right thing and are “finding a way” to make the release work. I’d prefer that to holding games back.

By the way, Waverace 64 on Wii VC had Kawasaki logos removed and Super meat boy’s modern release has a different soundtrack. Just thought I’d add those two to the list while they were top of mind.

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#20

I’ve heard mixed things about this on a technical basis because apparently Jun Senoue didn’t do a great job with the synth in Sonic 4, should be interesting to see what comes out of it nonetheless. Sonic 4 was a long time ago, after all.

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