Alex/Sora presents: a personal message about the localization of video games (6) +1

This time, my latest upload acts as a mere excuse to talk a bit rather than a snapshot itself.

(I start by saying, I've put such a huge amount of tags due to the snapshot's relevance to an equivalent amount of topics - more than usual, that is.)

Sonic and the CDs are supposed to reference "Sonic [the Hedgehog] CD", where our debate starts from.

You all should know what this means in term of localization history, but if you don't, I'll do it for ya. When "Sonic CD" came out, its soundtrack has been kept unchanged in Japan and Europe but since America, according to SEGA itself (see Wikipedia article), "wasn't ready for techno", the whole OST has been altered for the release in that region, as well as the speed of each FMV in the game in order to fit the background music. Though in my opinion "Sonic Boom" is still an awesome song, this change alone lead GameFan Magazine into giving a 100% score to the J/EU version and a 70% score to the US version, and according to an editor, "it was the biggest injustice in localization history".

I agree with this statement, but... what about today?

You should know I'm European, and therefore I got used to "injustices in localisation history" that I think to be a lot worse than a "simple" change in a game's soundtrack.
I'm talking about exaggeratedly delayed games, or as in worse cases, even cancelled releases.
All this, just because I live in Europe, the same Europe in which Kirby Super Star Ultra, as well as Kingdom Hearts REChain Of Memories, still has to be released; the same Europe in which Dissidia Final Fantasy will be released just-a-little-less-than-a-whole-year after its Japanese release; the same Europe in which WarioWare Twisted, Drill Dozer and Chibi-Robo Park Patrol, just to name a few, have never been released, and never will; the same Europe in which Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG have first been released, for DS and Wii respectively, more-than-TEN-years after anywhere else; and yes, of course, the same Europe in which Brawl has been released around the same time the rest of the world was already entering the second organized tournament (it's not just a complaint, go and check the "Brawl Central" site).

In the snapshot, Charizard is shown as a dragon, referencing the Spyro the Dragon series (though Charizard is actually orange, adult and even bipedal) with its first two titles being available in the US Playstation Store while here only a glitched version has come out, and even just for about 4 days. Oh, and Crash 2 is out in the US, too. It's been a year since its US re-release, but in Europe there's still no trace of it.

I know there are a few exceptions like Trackmania DS, released in Europe before its US release, or CTR - Crash Team Racing, which is (as for now) an exclusive to our PSN, but these are just two pearls lost in a polluted sea known as game localization.

That's all I had to say. Many can say it's just a childish complaint, but I just had to tell what I'm feeling, so I did.

Now I'd just like to see your comments about this: what you think about localization, about my whims... you can even shout "get a life" or flag my snapshot, I won't complain.
I encourage everyone who has read this stuff I've just written to comment, whether you're in agreement with me or not, or you're either European, American or (why not?) Japanese.

Discuss.

(DISCLAIMER: this complaint wasn't meant to offend anyone in the Brawl Snapshots community, nor to anyone else. This is meant to talk about game localization itself.)