November 20th, 2011

When Games are Changed → (Other Life) Azure Dreams

Many people I know have played a little game from around the 1997 era known as “Azure Dreams”. Some people will quip that it was the best game on the PSX of that genre and other will counter with “PSX? Wasn’t it on the GBC?” and both parties will be right.

I’ve played both versions of the game and enjoyed it for the most part. I do have issues with the dating part of the game and the subsequent misogyny that goes on with that aspect (damsel in distress, bathing suit scene, harem, etc.) however you can tend to ignore most of that and enjoy the monster taming mystery dungeon aspect. The GBC version has less of that as they took out most of the dating aspect and actually put in more dungeon to explore.

However the one on the PSX didn’t come to the United States intact. Many people will gloss over the changes by saying that only the voices were taken out however that wasn’t the only change made to the game. The reasons for these other changes are a bit puzzling to me, especially the Monster Book graphics. True the way it was arranged accommodated the Western text layout, but the other graphics?

From the two videos below (Lord Smapy’s Let’s Play of the game is being used for comparison) you can see that the intro was devoiced completely and cropped a little at the bottom (feet get chopped off). The title screen back ground and title font were changed completely. Other noticeable changes were the changing of the angel in the beginning a new angel was made and animated and the graphics on the Monster Book were also changed.


The US openings.


The Japanese openings

Messing with Ghosh and the changes to the Monster Book afterwards.

Azure DreamsLocalization & TranslationPSX