The Japanese Version of Police Quest 2

Back in the late 80s, Ken Williams, president of Sierra Online, made a trip to Japan to license some of their PC games for North American release. He brought back the likes of Zeliard, Sorcerian, Silpheed, and Thexder. Around the same time, a handful of the companies adventure titles were ported to Japanese PCs, including King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, Quest for Glory I (the original version, not the remake), and Police Quest II. King's Quest and Space Quest suffered the most because they needed to be downgraded from 256 VGA graphics to the 16-color (but higher resolution) Japanese PC display. However, other than the technical issues and the translations, most of these games were identical to their American counterparts.

Except Police Quest II:






Yup, in the usual fear that the realistic-ish graphics of the original version would be off putting to Japanese games, this port redraws the characters in a manga style. Sonny Bond, previously a milquetoast clean cut blond guy, now has ridiculous green hair.





There aren't many close-ups, but you can plainly see the larger, rounder eyes in most of the characters too. These are especially amusing in the mugshot profiles you find in the computer and are used for copy protection. Jesse Bains, the villain, now has blue hair!





The character sprites have been slightly altered, but not by much. You can see Sonny has a few extra pixels of hair.





My favorite one is that the sterotypical hardass police sergeant now has a purple afro for some reason.





I love how they even turned the pin-up girl poster into an anime chick.





I'm at a loss to explain this one. If you start randomly firing your pistol, you'll get this newspaper showing Sonny gone crazy. Except they didn't redraw Sonny the same way in the Japanese version, they just gave him extra kooky eyes and a Joker grin.

Incidentally, you can see it to understand instructions in English. You can also play the game entirely in English, with subtitled Japanese text displayed beneath it. The higher resolution makes it possible to show crisp Japanese characters but doesn't affect the rest of the game at all. This version I found only displays 8 colors, but apparently there are some versions which show the full 16 colors too.

These sort of changes are not entirely unprecendented. The Japanese release of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders made the character's eyes slightly larger in an attempt to manga-fy them, although it's a pretty minor change compared to these redesigns. (They also got a full 256 color version that was, strangely enough, never released anywhere else.) Still, it's strange that this is the one they picked to give a redesign. It is unquestionably the grittest of the titles that Sierra localized and maybe needed a lighter tone, but perhaps brighter anime-style designs would've worked better in the adventure-RPG hybrid Quest for Glory.

At any rate, thanks to OmerMor in the SCUMMVM forums for stumbling upon these. There's this video on Youtube, too.



Back in the late 80s, Ken Williams, president of Sierra Online, made a trip to Japan to license some of their PC games for North American release. He brought back the likes of Zeliard, Sorcerian, Silpheed, and Thexder. Around the same time, a handful of the companies adventure titles were ported to Japanese PCs, including King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, Quest for Glory I (the original version, not the remake), and Police Quest II. King's Quest and Space Quest suffered the most because they needed to be downgraded from 256 VGA graphics to the 16-color (but higher resolution) Japanese PC display. However, other than the technical issues and the translations, most of these games were identical to their American counterparts.<br /> <br /> Except Police Quest II:<br /> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-us3.png"><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-jp3.png"><br /> <br /> Yup, in the usual fear that the realistic-ish graphics of the original version would be off putting to Japanese games, this port redraws the characters in a manga style. Sonny Bond, previously a milquetoast clean cut blond guy, now has ridiculous green hair. <br /> <span class="fullpost"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-us6.png"><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-jp6.png"><br /> <br /> There aren't many close-ups, but you can plainly see the larger, rounder eyes in most of the characters too. These are especially amusing in the mugshot profiles you find in the computer and are used for copy protection. Jesse Bains, the villain, now has blue hair!<br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-us4.png"><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-jp4.png"><br /> <br /> The character sprites have been slightly altered, but not by much. You can see Sonny has a few extra pixels of hair.<br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-us1.png"><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-jp1.png"><br /> <br /> My favorite one is that the sterotypical hardass police sergeant now has a purple afro for some reason.<br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-us2.png"><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-jp2.png"><br /> <br /> I love how they even turned the pin-up girl poster into an anime chick.<br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-us8.png"><br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/policequest/pq2-jp8.png"><br /> <br /> I'm at a loss to explain this one. If you start randomly firing your pistol, you'll get this newspaper showing Sonny gone crazy. Except they didn't redraw Sonny the same way in the Japanese version, they just gave him extra kooky eyes and a Joker grin.<br /> <br /> Incidentally, you can see it to understand instructions in English. You can also play the game entirely in English, with subtitled Japanese text displayed beneath it. The higher resolution makes it possible to show crisp Japanese characters but doesn't affect the rest of the game at all. This version I found only displays 8 colors, but apparently there are some versions which show the full 16 colors too.<br /> <br /> These sort of changes are not entirely unprecendented. The Japanese release of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders made the character's eyes slightly larger in an attempt to manga-fy them, although it's a pretty minor change compared to these redesigns. (They also got a full 256 color version that was, strangely enough, never released anywhere else.) Still, it's strange that this is the one they picked to give a redesign. It is unquestionably the grittest of the titles that Sierra localized and maybe needed a lighter tone, but perhaps brighter anime-style designs would've worked better in the adventure-RPG hybrid <a href="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/questforglory/questforglory.htm">Quest for Glory</a>.<br /> <br /> At any rate, thanks to OmerMor in the <a href="http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=9304">SCUMMVM forums</a> for stumbling upon these. There's this video on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJbeTlARA4">Youtube,</a> too.<br /> <br /> <br /> </span>

An Interview with Al Lowe

Lately, I've been talking with some classic adventure game designers and interviewing them for various articles. The first one up is Al Lowe, who still maintans a large Internet presence thanks to his excellent web page. In addition to the humor database, there's tons upon tons of design documents, trivia, downloads, and links to other interviews that detail some of the inner workings of Sierra, both from a corporate and a technical level.

My questions mostly focused on a lot of small, specific inquiries I'd built up over time, and there's some interesting answers to all of those. But, as someone who spends way too much time analyzing design techniques, the biggest realization is that, when the time these games were made in the 80s, they really had no idea what they doing. That's not to say their products weren't fun, but nothing was set in stone for what were generally agreed on as "good" design. It was mostly just stuff they thought themselves and their friends would enjoy. There was practically no user feedback, and all they had were sales data. And even then, they still had no proper idea how to market them, so they just keep trying different stuff to see what worked.

All of this might seem obvious, but it's something that tends to get lost when criticizing something from a modern perspective. As a designer, Roberta Williams takes a lot of heat for crafting some incredibly difficult scenarios, hence the whole "Roberta Williams Dream Logic" thing, but her and her company were some of the first ones on the block to handle these games.

This obviously goes way beyond merely Sierra's history, of course, which makes some of the successes all the more fascinating, when you think about. The NES/FC version of Bionic Commando, developed more than 20 years ago in 1988, is still held to be the pinnacle of game design RE: grappling hook mechanics. Did they have any idea how brilliant that idea was, that people would still be gushing about it for two decades? Do they know now? There's so much that wasn't set in stone back then, leaving so much room to experiment, something that, by nature, is missing from a lot of games today. At this point, even the most brazen, innovative indie game is inspired by something from the past.

But enough with the heedless romanticism -- check out the interview itself. The Leisure Suit Larry article has also been slightly revised to make some updates, most notably a stupid mobile pinball game that had been recently discovered.
<center><img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/lsl/allowe.jpg"></center><br /> <br /> Lately, I've been talking with some classic adventure game designers and interviewing them for various articles. The first one up is <a href="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/lsl/allowe-interview.htm">Al Lowe</a>, who still maintans a large Internet presence thanks to <a href="http://www.allowe.com">his excellent web page</a>. In addition to the humor database, there's tons upon tons of design documents, trivia, downloads, and links to other interviews that detail some of the inner workings of Sierra, both from a corporate and a technical level.<br /> <br /> My questions mostly focused on a lot of small, specific inquiries I'd built up over time, and there's some interesting answers to all of those. But, as someone who spends way too much time analyzing design techniques, the biggest realization is that, when the time these games were made in the 80s, they really had no idea what they doing. That's not to say their products weren't fun, but nothing was set in stone for what were generally agreed on as "good" design. It was mostly just stuff they thought themselves and their friends would enjoy. There was practically no user feedback, and all they had were sales data. And even then, they still had no proper idea how to market them, so they just keep trying different stuff to see what worked.<br /> <br /> All of this might seem obvious, but it's something that tends to get lost when criticizing something from a modern perspective. As a designer, Roberta Williams takes a lot of heat for crafting some incredibly difficult scenarios, hence the whole "Roberta Williams Dream Logic" thing, but her and her company were some of the first ones on the block to handle these games. <br /> <br /> This obviously goes way beyond merely Sierra's history, of course, which makes some of the successes all the more fascinating, when you think about. The NES/FC version of Bionic Commando, developed more than 20 years ago in 1988, is still held to be the pinnacle of game design RE: grappling hook mechanics. Did they have any idea how brilliant that idea was, that people would still be gushing about it for two decades? Do they know now? There's so much that wasn't set in stone back then, leaving so much room to experiment, something that, by nature, is missing from a lot of games today. At this point, even the most brazen, innovative indie game is inspired by something from the past.<br /> <br /> But enough with the heedless romanticism -- check out the interview itself. The <a href="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/lsl/lsl.htm">Leisure Suit Larry</a> article has also been slightly revised to make some updates, most notably a stupid mobile pinball game that had been recently discovered.

The Mystery of the Japanese Mystery House

I've been playing Sierra's Laura Bow games to cover for the site, and I figured I should probably cover Mystery House, Sierra's very first game, and the first text adventure game to implement graphics. During my searches, I found a "Mystery House" for the MSX...as well as a "Mystery House II". WHOA. Was there a secret sequel or something only in Japan?

Well, not quite...and I'm still a bit sketchy on the story, but I've been trying to interpret this based off the Japanese Wikipedia entry, as well as this fan site.


So, Sierra OnLine published Mystery House in 1980 for the Apple II. Two years later, a Japanese company called Microcabin released their own game inspired by Sierra's title, also called Mystery House, for several Japanese computer platforms. I haven't been able to get any versions I have properly working, but according to this site, it's pretty simplistic - you're just a dude in a house trying to find a diamond, so it's completely missing the whole "Ten Little Indians" thing that Sierra's game had going on for it. It also had a very simplistic parser - it couldn't understand even simple sentences, so you had to enter verb, hit Enter, then enter the noun, all entirely in English. This game was also ported to some Japanese cell phones more recently.

A year later, another Japanese company called Starcraft (no relation to the Korean national sport) ported Sierra's Mystery House to Japanese computers...also calling it Mystery House. This version is fantastically faithful to the Apple II version, except that all of the graphics have actually been improved and redrawn. It still uses the simplistic black and white line drawings, but all of the characters how have vaguely realistic proportions, despite not having any faces, and overall the visuals look far less rough. Part of this may have had to do with better technology, but the Japanese PCs also ran at a higher resolution than the Apple II, allowing for more screen real estate. See some of the below pictures, with the Apple II version on top and the PC6001 version on bottom.


Outside the house



Nothing terribly different here, other than the different angle of the house.


Inside the foyer



Here's where the obvious difference comes in. Look how much better the characters look! They look much more stylized and less like the notebook doodles of a first grader. The fact that they have no faces looks really creepy, which was for the better. The facial expressions in the original version just look silly.


Outside



One of the dead people. Note the blood by their head in the Japanese version, rather than the Looney Tunes-style lump in the English one.


The graveyard



This scene is a bit disturbing in both versions. The gravedigger in the Japanese version has his arms at his side, like, yeah, so, these graves are for you and your pals, what of it? In the English version, he seems awkwardly misplaced. Note how much less sketchy some of the items like the shovel look.


The seamstress' death



Look how much more dramatically she's posed in the Japanese version. There's also a strange little detail that's found in a few other rooms - note how the window in the Japanese version is boarded up, further establishing the fact that you can't leave. There's also a small change in events in the room next door. In the English version, someone offscreen throws a knife at you, and it lands on the bed, allowing you to pick it up. In the Japanese version, the knife is there for the taking, with no one having thrown it. It doesn't really matter, it's just a small detail.


The fireplace



Note just how much more detail everything has in the Japanese version, although they missed the cobweb in the left corner.

You can actually check out this site for a walkthrough. Note that the very second set of instructions lies to you - it says to "naka hairu" ("enter inside", literally) when the game only understands "doa iku" ("go door"), like the English version. Note that if you're playing in M88 like I am, you need to set the keyboard to kana mode by hitting the Scroll Lock key. You will also need to know the Japanese keyboard layout.

The Mystery House II is actually a sequel to Microcabin's Mystery House, so the premise is more or less the same, just with new layouts. I couldn't get this working either, sadly enough. I'm packing up the images together so other people can try them - this includes the cassette image files for the MSX version of the Microcabin Mystery House I and II, as well as the PC88 versions of the Sierra/Starcraft Mystery House and Microcabin Mystery House. You can download it here

<center><img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mys001.GIF"></center><br /> I've been playing Sierra's Laura Bow games to cover for the site, and I figured I should probably cover Mystery House, Sierra's very first game, and the first text adventure game to implement graphics. During my searches, I found a "Mystery House" for the MSX...as well as a "Mystery House II". WHOA. Was there a secret sequel or something only in Japan?<br /> <br /> Well, not quite...and I'm still a bit sketchy on the story, but I've been trying to interpret this based off the <a href="http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9F%E3%82%B9%E3%83%86%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8F%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B9#.E3.82.B7.E3.82.A8.E3.83.A9.E3.82.AA.E3.83.B3.E3.83.A9.E3.82.A4.E3.83.B3.E7.89.88">Japanese Wikipedia entry</a>, as well as <a href="http://homepage2.nifty.com/furuiotoko/room06/mystery1.htm">this fan site</a>.<br /> <span class="fullpost"><br /> <center><img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mys004.GIF"></center><br /> So, Sierra OnLine published Mystery House in 1980 for the Apple II. Two years later, a Japanese company called Microcabin released their own game inspired by Sierra's title, also called Mystery House, for several Japanese computer platforms. I haven't been able to get any versions I have properly working, but according to <a href="http://www2.plala.or.jp/yasinoue/oldgame/mys_p1.html">this site</a>, it's pretty simplistic - you're just a dude in a house trying to find a diamond, so it's completely missing the whole "Ten Little Indians" thing that Sierra's game had going on for it. It also had a very simplistic parser - it couldn't understand even simple sentences, so you had to enter verb, hit Enter, then enter the noun, all entirely in English. This game was also ported to some Japanese cell phones more recently.<br /> <br /> A year later, another Japanese company called Starcraft (no relation to the Korean national sport) ported Sierra's Mystery House to Japanese computers...also calling it Mystery House. This version is fantastically faithful to the Apple II version, except that all of the graphics have actually been improved and redrawn. It still uses the simplistic black and white line drawings, but all of the characters how have vaguely realistic proportions, despite not having any faces, and overall the visuals look far less rough. Part of this may have had to do with better technology, but the Japanese PCs also ran at a higher resolution than the Apple II, allowing for more screen real estate. See some of the below pictures, with the Apple II version on top and the PC6001 version on bottom. <br /> <br /> <center><br /> Outside the house<br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-1.png"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-1j.png"><br /> </center><br /> Nothing terribly different here, other than the different angle of the house.<br /> <br /> <center><br /> Inside the foyer<br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-2.png"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-2j.png"><br /> </center><br /> Here's where the obvious difference comes in. Look how much better the characters look! They look much more stylized and less like the notebook doodles of a first grader. The fact that they have no faces looks really creepy, which was for the better. The facial expressions in the original version just look silly.<br /> <br /> <center><br /> Outside<br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-3.png"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-3j.png"><br /> </center><br /> One of the dead people. Note the blood by their head in the Japanese version, rather than the Looney Tunes-style lump in the English one.<br /> <br /> <center><br /> The graveyard<br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-4.png"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-4j.png"><br /> </center><br /> This scene is a bit disturbing in both versions. The gravedigger in the Japanese version has his arms at his side, like, yeah, so, these graves are for you and your pals, what of it? In the English version, he seems awkwardly misplaced. Note how much less sketchy some of the items like the shovel look.<br /> <br /> <center><br /> The seamstress' death<br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-5.png"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-5j.png"><br /> </center><br /> Look how much more dramatically she's posed in the Japanese version. There's also a strange little detail that's found in a few other rooms - note how the window in the Japanese version is boarded up, further establishing the fact that you can't leave. There's also a small change in events in the room next door. In the English version, someone offscreen throws a knife at you, and it lands on the bed, allowing you to pick it up. In the Japanese version, the knife is there for the taking, with no one having thrown it. It doesn't really matter, it's just a small detail.<br /> <br /> <center><br /> The fireplace<br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-6.png"><br /> <img src="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse-6j.png"><br /> </center><br /> Note just how much more detail everything has in the Japanese version, although they missed the cobweb in the left corner.<br /> <br /> You can actually check out <a href="http://www3.airnet.ne.jp/ashen/oldgame/myst_e.htm">this site</a> for a walkthrough. Note that the very second set of instructions lies to you - it says to "naka hairu" ("enter inside", literally) when the game only understands "doa iku" ("go door"), like the English version. Note that if you're playing in M88 like I am, you need to set the keyboard to kana mode by hitting the Scroll Lock key. You will also need to know the <a href="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/japanesekeyboard.gif">Japanese keyboard layout</a>.<br /> <br /> The Mystery House II is actually a sequel to Microcabin's Mystery House, so the premise is more or less the same, just with new layouts. I couldn't get this working either, sadly enough. I'm packing up the images together so other people can try them - this includes the cassette image files for the MSX version of the Microcabin Mystery House I and II, as well as the PC88 versions of the Sierra/Starcraft Mystery House and Microcabin Mystery House. You can download it <a href="http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/laurabow/mysteryhouse.zip">here</a><br /> </span>