Left in Japan 15

Episode 357 - Time to look at some more games that were never released outside of Japan. Once again we'll be looking at games that featured Western IPs that for some reason stayed in Japan.
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[@dominicrinaldi8241]

Why sleep when you can watch a new Game Sack video?

[@Xsinister51X]

Yup my thoughts all the time lol

[@topiary8218]

Lol...k was actually fixing to go to sleep while final scrolling thru facey The I saw this now I have to watch it😎

[@alex64gaming]

I agree

[@ryanpeck3377]

Sleep is so overrated, Game sack is underrated.

[@Falcnuts]

Snug as a bug in a rug gang

[@starlightwitch12]

The Wacky Races games released by Future Pirates on 3DO only in Japan are because of Iwao Takamoto, who created some of the Hanna-Barbera characters, in fact some of the Hanna Barbera cartoons that he was involved were popular in Japan. It did come out in English but on PC and Mac.

[@MrJonathonRobert]

One of the best

[@reeyees50]

THE BEST OF DA BEST

[@thebest12700]

had i known about that game i would of got it lol i loved wacky races. they need a modern version.

[@randalabra3852]

@@thebest12700 there was one in 2017

[@BoboZimbabwe]

"If this game were better then it would suck less than it does." True words of wisdom from Joe.

[@TheJarrodAnderson]

Clever writing, clever response

[@hazy33]

Another gem was, about Peanuts "I wonder if Charles Schultz played this before he died?". It'd be very difficult for him to play it AFTER he died.

[@geldofpunk32]

He said it was a quote

[@CuteLesbo69]

Fun fact, I was actually an extra in King Kong Lives. It was shot in Tennessee and a friend of mine's mom was dating someone on the crew (can't remember his title) and he got my friend and I in one scene with a bunch of other people all of us "running in fear" from Kong.

[@hi_tech_reptiles]

That is a very Tennessee kinda story lol.

[@ScottBeck79]

You should make a video talking about the experience and post it. That would be pretty wild to have that experience! You could also tag Joe if he ever talks about "King Kong" again in another video. 😁

[@JohnathanMahones]

The Snoopy/Peanuts franchise is HUGE in Japan. There's a Snoopy attraction in Universal Studios Japan, a Snoopy museum and a ton of official Snoopy store. They were even used in advertisements for MetLife in Japan until 2016. Thunderbirds also still has a following too, since it got manga and the animated series Thunderbirds Are Go is brodcasted on TV there. Thunderbirds: The Anniversary Episodes got a Japanese TV release being supervised by Hideki Anno of Evangelion fame. Fun fact: The late Thunderbirds creator Garry Anderson wrote for an anime series called Firestorm in 2003 that lasted 26 episodes. It failed to gain a huge audience, but Gary's son Jamie made a pilot for a Firestorm reboot on KZbin in 2019. Also, Terrahawks was originally supposed to be a Japanese anime in association with Tohokushinsha Film Corporation (the Japanese film company who would own the Japanese rights to Thunderbirds since 2015), due to the success of Thunderbirds in Japan. Thunderbirds 2086 is just an edited English dub of the anime Scientific Rescue Team Technoboyger and is not canon since Garry and his wife Sylvia Anderson were not involved.

[@Nathan_H1gg3rz]

Lol 👍🏿

[@GOGOAKUMAN]

Lol, that "Hello You" killed me 🤣 Larry, get out of that body!

[@Konarcoffee]

Very much enjoy the “BLOW ME DOWN” screen transition in the popeye board game

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

The fan translation is highly recommended too. Has all the Popeye talk, speech impediminks, stuff like that.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

3:15 NEW Ghostbusters II also came out in Europe and there's a North American prototype too.

[@kof98se]

I remember playing this on the NES in the U.K. it would be more accurate to say licensing issues stopped it from being released in the US rather than stopping it from being released outside Japan.

[@bigbangbot-SuperSqank]

I remember when Game Sack included games released in Europe all the way back in Games Left In Japan 2. They seemed to avoid doing that again for the next bunch of episodes but it’s 10 years? later and they did it again. It’s interesting.

[@QF_Dan72]

The lady name is Bonnie Barstow and the elder man is Devon Miles. They both worked for the Foundations in the Knight Rider tv series. As for the game itself, i quite enjoyed it. Better than the NES and Ocean version during that era. You don't have to constantly hold down the d pad to accelerate as it drives on its own (As what KITT usually do) and you have to only worry about steering it. Fun Fact. When you reach Stage 5, you have to lose on purpose because the boss is too powerful for you to beat. Then , your car is upgraded which allows you to fight the final boss.

[@GameSack]

Right, Road Blasters is the same way in regards to pressing and holding up. Just accelerate to the speed you want and let go.

[@gabrieldias3479]

Batman cleaning paintings is... Oddly fitting for nowadays. He was trying to warn us from the future!

[@jeremybowers3181]

Ha haaaaaaa! Eco terrorism ?

[@Vulpas]

Them using paint, made of oil, to fight...oil companies and such. Dummies.

[@subtledemisefox]

@@Vulpas not to mention the actual canvases aren't exposed so it's just a matter of replacing the frame at worst to fix their attempted defacing

[@icelandicbanks6473]

@@jeremybowers3181 hehe, yeah, I care about exotic cars and old paintings, too. Sincerely, sincerely care a lot. Like every good American should!

[@Godsgood111]

@UC2oppPvN28zwZh9OsFXqySA the point is to gain support for their cause. This causes us to despise them and their cause.

[@Larry]

If you ever run out of Japanese exclusive, there's an entire plethora of American properties turned into UK exclusive games too!

[@adamf1980]

Well heeeeeeeeeello yooooooooou!

[@supernintendochalmers3811]

Larry Bundy, you have the most annoying voice that has ever been recorded.

[@Larry]

@@supernintendochalmers3811 I suppose that's one thing, I wasn't even in the top ten last time I checked!

[@KainDrake]

@@adamf1980 your comment gave the option to translate to English. All it did was remove the "u."

[@teusaurus]

Could name the series 'Games Yanks Can't Wank'.

[@niXity9000]

The idea of using Woodstock as the mouse pointer in that Peanuts game is super cute.

[@HeavenlyKnight96]

Thought so too.

[@clarafedde8674]

And there is a fan English translation...from 15 years ago, when I played it. Love the art and music.

[@keithmichael112]

I thought the animation style was very cool

[@DGR_Dave]

Very nice to see the Peanuts game covered! I bought it a few years back for cheap because the music is great and I believe composed by the same person that did the music for Earthbound 😄

[@VivaLaGiygas]

The music sounded really familiar, makes sense as I am a huge Mother series fan!

[@adamf1980]

The female mechanic in Knight Rider is named Bonnie Bairstow and was played by Patricia McPherson.

[@Protoman85]

Lenar is an author, ie game developer. They didn't make many good games, but Gunple Gunman's Proof was a great one at least

[@moogleboy]

I am absolutely incensed over your review of Super Back to the Future II, a game I had no idea existed.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

I imported that back in the 1990s. It's not a great game, but a million times better than all of the BTTF games that came out in America.

[@RetroJaro]

I found it via dos based snes emulation. It was the best back to the future game for years ( sadly ) until telltale brought out back to the future.

[@the-NightStar]

His opinion is also objectively wrong.

[@theblessedhope1]

This is an instant classic episode! The combination of familiar IPs with rarely seen games makes it a winner.

[@wraithcadmus]

Thunderbirds had a renaissance here in the UK after a well publicised and high-quality repeat from 1992, which would fit with a 1993 game. Of course the question why a Japanese dev and why not a release in the West are beyond me. It was definitely a phenomenon at that time though, a run on toys lead to a special of children's magazine show Blue Peter detailing how to make your own Tracy Island.

[@Renwoxing13]

Canada had Thunderbirds as well!¡!

[@flygonbreloom]

Hell, in Australia, Thunderbirds was endlessly reran until... 2017 or so? Every day at 6AM. It got a surprisingly large audience because of this. I'm part of it. :D It was also rerun fodder in general to fill scheduling gaps.

[@medes5597]

We had a second renaissance and toy run when the original series was remastered to remove the strings in the early 2000s. The UK apparently can't get enough of that show.

[@Real_The_Goof]

Even the Japanese version of the SNES PopEye game has that weird mosaic effect.. it's the Sea Hag casting a curse or some such nonsense..

[@tron.44]

Man, Joe has some good taste in music. I caught that rare cut from the sf3 new generation soundtrack, the ibuki bonus AST.

[@TooBokoo]

Pepsi Man would've made a great mail away game in the USA. They should've done something like cut the Pepsi points off your 12 packs. Mail, like 10 of them in for a copy of the game. It is definitely an above average title for a mail away title. Probably would've boosted Pepsi sales, too.

[@MASHDAT]

5:03 Damn, Joe dishing out the spooks.

[@vallaurianv6024]

New Ghostbusters 2 was also released in Europe for the NES. Great game.

[@titantim]

One thing I noticed that was strange on the Snoopy game is that it was produced by Mitsui Fudosan (三井不動産) and Dentsu. Mitsui is a real estate company here, and Dentsu is a marketing company. Seems like an odd combination to make a game. And yeah, Snoopy is somewhat popular here in Japan. Not extremely, but enough to keep a following.

[@goemon74]

New ghostbusters II saw a european release so it was not left in Japan entirely. It just didn't see a US release😉

[@dluxx7283]

I love these left in Japan episodes. Good work!.

[@ZeroTransformVR]

Always love me some game sack. This indie game studio thanks you :D

[@raphaelturtle4146]

Spiderman swings with the L & R buttons. If I remember correctly you have to hold them down. It's still bad though. No boshi

[@iquayle3k]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that. I've not played it for a while but I was SOOOO sure you could web swing 🤣

[@raphaelturtle4146]

@@iquayle3k Joe's a sega guy like me. Not his fault. Dave would have caught it though 😉 That wad one of those games that was a neat idea but was poorly executed. With a few tweaks it might have been a really good game

[@MannyCakes1984]

It really looked like it had a lot of potential. What a shame.

[@GuestZer0]

I am constantly surprised what western franchises even make it to Japan. Some just seem too… "native" to bother exporting. But hey, you never know…

[@grongy6122]

Well, you can compare it to some Western music artists who became REALLY popular exclusively in Japan for some unknown reason, so I guess that's why.

[@Rockjesu]

We got that Ghostbusters II in Europe too. I had that game and I LOVE IT.

[@SAVAGE-GAMER-]

Id love to see an "obscure Batman games" retrospective compilation, maybe showcasing all the plug and play Batman games, the lesser known ones out there etc...that would be an awesome episode for Gamesack to cover..just an idea

[@allluckyseven]

That was thoroughly enjoyable, Joe. Thank you.

[@theblessedhope1]

The greatest channel ever!

[@jiujester5717]

Perfect timing! Just when I'm about to sleep! Boom! Best episode yet!

[@gryphonofmight]

I love this series

[@StormsparkPegasus]

I remember Thunderbirds being common in the US in the 80's. Reruns were on various channels like Showtime, and in video rental places.

[@PAINNN666]

OMG you old)

[@cartmann94]

I remember their reruns when they aired them on G4.

[@cainmarchenoir4986]

Thank you for all those awesome sundays Joe !

[@gstein86]

Great video as always! I never knew about some of these movie tie ins for famicom. thanks for all you do!

[@PScoopYT]

You definitely need to read a guide or manual for the Popeye SNES game. As the game does not tell you anything whatsoever unfortunately. Anyway you got stuck because enemies on the board can steal the heart from the stages as well. So if you collect all the hearts you saw and nothing happened, that mean one or more enemies got a heart or two. And you need to fight them get those back. Bluto/Brutus will appear somewhere on the board if you got all the hearts on the board and serve as a boss fight. The items also has a use on the board! like "Fly" item will make you able to move anywhere, "Axle" double the amount of the dice roll number (or a roulette in this case) "Frog" make you only move 1 or 2 spaces. And items like "Bomb" and "Zap!" will deal damage to a random enemy on the board so it'll be quicker to take them down when you fought them. It's an interesting game. Board game nonsense aside, I think there's fun to be have. Though Popeye fans will probably get the most out of it.

[@butterman0007]

Woah. I haven't seen this channel in almost a decade. What a trip. Mad respect for you man, and I wish you well.

[@butterman0007]

I hope the algorithm fucks in your favor

[@RomuloEllery]

In Spider-Man Lethal Foes, you need to use L and R buttons for web swinging

[@stravellwood]

Kudos to Game Sack and Joe Redifer. I really enjoy this channel. Your ever growing body of work is amazing. Long live the Sack! 🤘🎮🤘

[@skins4thewin]

King Kong 2 for the MSX has always been a game that intrigued me. Hlave always wanted to try it. & yeah, that Django guy did a ton of basic translation jobs for many MSX games, thank god for him. I actually bought an old Panasonic MSX2 unit a while back that I haven't really messed with yet along with a Carnivore2 cart. One of these days I'll break it out & give it a try.

[@StitchJones]

Excellent video. Thank you!

[@ZBR_ProXP]

Best game channel hands down!

[@terencehill2320]

Joe, Wacky Races got a European PS1 release (SLES-02468), released October 19, 2000. Good but pretty darn hard to find. Source: The Sony PlayStation 1 Sanctuary Channel & Museum (Willow Grove, PA)

[@jbfarley]

not the same game

[@James-fo8rf]

Great episode! Thanks Joe 😊

[@robintst]

I mean Super Back to the Future is still better than any of the ones we got but that was already a low bar.

[@GameSack]

Yep, agreed.

[@infinity2z3r07]

Popeye: Tale of the Teasing Witch Sea Hag This is why we love you Japan 😂

[@BlownMacTruck]

I spent an entire summer overseas when I was young, and lucky for me, had access to a Family Computer, which when I heard about, was not very exciting. I freaked out when I realized that a Famicom was a freakin' Japanese NES… but "weird" to my American sensibilities (the mic, the wired in controllers, the cart shapes). I played the hell out of King Kong 2 despite not knowing what the hell the story was about. It's a great game, and the sometimes eerie soundtrack plus the language barrier made it all very mysterious. I also got to play all sorts of things that didn't make sense to me, like the original Super Mario Bros 2 (not the Americanized version), and the Japanese version of Star Wars, which was even more insane to my brain. I came back to the US and no one understood what the hell I was talking about when I tried to explain this stuff to them…

[@juanmartinstehle5047]

I need another 'Left in Arcade' episode.

[@brothercannon]

Great vid as always.

[@edwilliamson8327]

" Big spider swallows the different types of cows" - I want that on a T shirt

[@ixiahj]

8:56 So this was the character that you played in the Konami Wai Wai World game on the famicom. For the longest time, I thought it was Donkey Kong but that was impossible because he's Nintendo, not Konami.

[@KaskelotenZebbe]

That air plane dropping bombs in Knight Rider Special is certainly a reference to the After Burner easter egg/cameo in OutRun, a game Knight Rider Special already seemed very inspired by graphically.

[@fearanarchy]

Nice Guru Larry homage. I think Wrestling With Games did a stream where they played Pepsi Man. It is just a running game with some quirk

[@erikcarrizales4491]

Great stuff!

[@OfficialiGamer]

Am I the only one that automatically thumbs up the video because I already know its gonna be good?

[@ens0246]

Imagining an excited Japanese game voice over saying Peanuts characters names is great. Peppaminto Pattiiiii!

[@dwood78part23]

Thank God many of the games featured in this ep stayed in Japan. Happy Halloween Game Sack et all.

[@bernie2237]

You killed me with the batteries joke 😂

[@noble_wine2051]

Woot! A new episode just before Halloween.

[@SirJonSoda]

You showed some very interesting games I didn't know about

[@Videogamelover58]

Glad to see that mcdonald's game on the game gear. It's a pretty good game

[@dan_loup]

MSX2 can do scrolling, even horizontal scrolling if you jank a bit with the screen adjust register. But for some reason, the developers were mostly allergic to it.

[@Chicomite]

Popeye 2 is some dumb fun, I like it for a quick playthrough. Upgrading your fist to get all huge and eventually shoot cans of spinach is fun, the breakable blocks, it's a nice little Game Boy platformer ppl don't usually talk about. As always, I wanna see you go through the 3 Ganbare Goemon PS1 games that are 2D platformers, I really love those games(there's a fourth 3D platformer as well).

[@mana_beast_beats1114]

22:52 --- Bonnie Barstow. KITT's personal Maintenance Technician. She was kidnapped by KARR in the episode Trust Doesn't Rust and he forced her to give him a laser that was meant for KITT.

[@AcornElectron]

30:04 Spot on Guru Larry there!

[@willienelson9019]

I appreciate your content and hope you never retire. Adhd approved 💯💯💯

[@vinnieg007]

Popeye is still a big thing in Japan, they even have Men's magazines named after him 18:57 Rambo picking up flowers is so movie accurate LOL

[@DuelingDragonAdventures]

Thumbs up to the Guru Larry ref at 30:08

[@5ushiBoy]

I look forward to your videos every time Red!

[@redwolflancer3051]

Great channel, I've binge watched the hell out of it, Another good channel to binge is NES Friend

[@robbvanderstoel7725]

Updated 15 minutes ago. Being awake at this hour has its privileges.

[@ninjapants7688]

Snoopy/Peanuts is big in Japan, I saw lots of merch, toys, books and such while I lived there.

[@ksysinf]

Wow the PC Engine batman has the best track from the NES version. Straight to playlist

[@JustinLeeper]

A big reason Google Translate doesn’t work great for old games is that they often can’t use kanji due to resolution. So the word meanings rely more on context - something Google Translate struggles with even more than usual.

[@CasperEgas]

Thunderbirds was still popular and on tv in the early nineties here in the Netherlands. There were also action figures.

[@Chaos89P]

Now I wanna know how many games based off of Japanese IPs were left here in the States or "across The Pond."

[@TMS9918A]

Thunderbirds also had a Japanese exclusive Gameboy game, and there was a 2nd Snoopy game on Gameboy in japan: Snoopy no Hajimete no Otsukai (snoopy's errand adventures), which made good use of the Super Gameboy.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

I think there was a Snoopy Olympics game that was a Donald Duck Olympics game in other regions. (I don't remember which game came first or which country had which version.)

[@capeman29]

Im just here for the 2 second long Guru Larry impression. HELLO YOU!

[@GenesHand]

5:54 lol how relevant nowadays. Could you imagine Batman coming out to beat up the punks that threw the tomato soup to the paintings and then proceeding to clean them up.

[@akun50]

I could swear I'd seen a few of these in old Nintendo Power issues I read at a library.

[@musickid43]

There is a fan translation patch for Snoopy Concert. I recommend it as point and click games are near impossible without dialog.

[@thomaspleacher2735]

17:56 Peanuts has a massive following in Japan. They love Snoopy over there.

[@Shiftygism]

Those are some fancy transitions, nice.

[@rebeccathumb9584]

i will never stop watching game sack

[@Soynereh]

Tingle Balloon Trip on the DS is a really good one.

[@audiovisual51]

"You remember being British back in 1965 and watching Thunderbirds on TV?" No, but I remember being British in 2002 and watching Thunderbirds. It was popular for a long time

[@halo6six6]

Ooo a bedtime treat!

[@This-country-sucks-4]

I always hated when people say the old Gameboy was black and white. It was green and gross green lol

[@GoodGamingMemories]

In fact, having lived in Japan for over 3 years, I can confirm that every known platform has tons of great Japanese games released only for the domestic market. They were not released outside of the country due to the fact that they could potentially be unsuccessful for Western audiences (as my Japanese friends explained to me).

[@KasumiKenshirou]

And there were several games based on TV shows, movies, etc., that couldn't be released in America because another company had licensed the video game rights here. I think that's why Japan had a "New" Ghosbusters II and America had a completely different (and inferior) Ghostbusters II game. That's probably the case with nearly all instances where two countries have completely different games based on the same IP that the other didn't have.

[@maniacaldude]

It really is a shame that a lot of these games don't get released outside of Japan. I bet they could find an audience somehow. Fire Emblem did, after all, thanks to being featured in the Super Smash Bros. games.

[@FoxeroVA]

In Spider-man you can swing with L and R triggers. I think the game is fine, you can skip the stages easily with the swinging. XD

[@akiradkcn]

Ikr

[@LobsterPuncher]

It's weird that Popeye Volleyball never came to the states, but we did get the sequel DOAX Volleyball. Funny how life works.

[@fiatiine____9293]

I love this series so much! thanks Joe! been a fan since the beginning!

[@adultmoshifan87]

Why not consider that Batman PC Engine game for a “Better on 8 bit than 16 bit” episode? Such an episode could also include: Donkey Kong (Atari 2600 vs Intellivision) Blaster Master (NES vs Genesis) Darkwing Duck (NES vs Turbo Grafx 16) Talespin (NES vs Genesis) Ultima (Master System vs SNES) Aleste (Master System vs SNES) Race Drivin’ (Game Boy vs SNES) Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues (Game Boy vs SNES)

[@ztoxtube]

The Game Boy capture on Popeye looks more authentic than anything I've seen aside from a camera shot. Very cool!

[@maxmulder]

Love the Shadow Dancer T-shirt, Joe!

[@RichRetr0]

"If this was better, it would suck less than it does." Truer words of wisdom have never been uttered.

[@maddog187killa]

As a Canadian living in Tokyo for the past 5 years, peanuts but mostly Snoopy is huge here.