What's the Difference?

[RPGillespie]

Hello!
I was just wondering:
how do you tell the difference between the UK, USA, JAPAN, etc. versions of FF7?  Do the discs look different? By the way, is the UK version rated E? I mean how much cussing/wall market material does it have in it? Thanks

--RPGillespie

[Niai]

I'm not sure about differences in the PC version (apart from differing languages in some countries, obviously), but there are some differences with the PSX versions.

Different covers. The European and Japanese covers both had a plain white background with just the FFVII logo. Simple, but better IMO. I don't know about the discs. Mine (European) are just like the front cover I described. As for the age rating, it is 11+ (in the UK anyway), and it has all the cussing and Wall Market stuff in it. A bit laxer than the American rating?

There were a lot of changes made between the original Japanese version and the American version, but the European version is exactly the same as the American since it was a direct port. Here are the changes made from the original Japanese version, from the Changes FAQ at Gamefaqs.

- All text changed from Japanese to English.
- Item names changed from the American FF7 Demo Disc.
- Of the 6 disabled Materia in the Japanese release, five were
  altered slightly (not named, either), and the other one was made
  into a real Materia (Underwater).
- In the beta version, there were two new Key Items (Ruby Fragment
  and Emerald Fragment), similar to the mementos your recieved when
  you killed Shinryu or Omega in FF5j (in other words, no real use).
  These were removed and replaced with the Desert Rose and Earth
  Harp items, below.
- Three new Items were added (Guide Book, Desert Rose, Earth Harp)
- A new weapon was added: the Rising Sun (for Yuffie).  Technically,
  this isn't a new weapon, as it was in the Japanese version, but
  wasn't normally available in the game (for the life of me, I don't
  know why--but I'd bet anything it was an oversight.)
- One of the Weapon Monsters was turned into a boss (Diamond Weapon).
- Two optional Weapon Monsters were added to the game (Emerald and
  Ruby).  This also resulted in small scenario/changes being built
  around these two new bosses.
- A new FMV sequence was added showcasing the new Weapon monsters.
  This isn't a seperate sequence, but was added in along with the
  FMV seen when escaping from the Whirlwind Maze in Disc 2.
- The Submarine mini-game now plays much faster.
- There's a bit after this showing Cloud's arrival in Midgar, and his
  meeting with Tifa--this part wasn't in the Japanese FF7.
- Minor graphical changes were made, clearing up exisiting areas or
  simply adding more to the background to create a more detailed game.
  However, these changes were very small and the game is not that
  graphically different from the Japanese version.
- The number of letters available for naming your character was
  changed from 6 to 9 spaces.
- Apparently, one enemy, 'Test Zero' was removed.  This enemy was simply
  a battle-testing opponent (it looks like Dark Nation), that had no
  purpose in the game and was left in by mistake (or as a joke by the
  programmers, as it gives you lots of EXP, or so I'm told).
- Some of the spells have been altered.  For instance, Chocobuckle
  does damage according to the number of times you've run away from
  a battle, instead of that _multiplied_ by the skill users' EXP
  level.
- Mr. DeLucas notes that at least one area was made easier to access;
  the Chocobo Barn.  In the Japanese version, you appeared closer to
  the outside pen than you do in the US version.
- The difficulty was altered.*
- The ability of Sephiroth, "Supernova" was completely redone.  It
  is nothing like the Japanese version (a short clip of an explosion
  in outer space), and instead shows a comet-like blast of energy
  destroying several of the outer planets, then striking the sun
  and sending it into a supernova, which destroys most of the
  inner planets and rises up behind Sephiroth and the good guys,
  causing lots of damage.  It's also at least a minute and a half
  longer than the Japanese version.
- There is a star field that appears after the credits.  The credits
  themselves are now in English (but the Japanese logo was removed!
  It looked _so_ cool in the Japanese, especially with the kanji and
  little English translations!)

*  The exact statement from Mr. Hironobu Sakaguchi was "The enemy
   encounter rates have also been adjusted so that the story line and
   battles are more balanced.  Also at certain points you'll have
   bosses with weaknesses that are hard to work out, and we've added
   hint messages to aid the player."

   This may just be me, but from my personal experience with both games,
   this doesn't seem to be true.  The enemy encounter rate is just the
   same as it was in the Japanese version.  What Mr. Sakaguchi doesn't
   mention is that several of the enemies have been made easier, in
   terms of tactics they use against you (the Bloat Floats near the
   Corel Reactor for one thing), but this isn't a widespread change.
   Furthermore, in regards to his 'hint messages' statement, this
   doesn't seem to be true.  The only message I can think of is the
   one that Reno gives when you fight him at the support pillar in
   Sector 7 about breaking his Pyramid attack.

   However, the _gameplay_ has been made considerably easier.  For
   instance the 'Guardian of Time' puzzle in the Temple of Ancients
   requires no figuring out; you just move the hour hand as you wish
   in order to enter the various rooms.  But in the Japanese version,
   there were many options that would move the hands back or
   forward in different patterns, making the puzzle extremely tough.
   Another example would be climing Gaea's Cliff in Disc 2; in the
   US version, keeping your body temperature high is easy, but in the
   Japanese version, it would begin dropping immediately if you
   weren't pounding the Square button with all your might.

The Japanese did get all these changes themselves when the International version came out over there.

[RPGillespie]

Is this the UK version?




--RPGillespie

[Radiosity]

Looks identical to my copy, so yes it appears to be the uk version.

[Lieron]

for one, jaapnese is in japanese 0.o

[RPGillespie]

So what is the difference between the UK and American versions? They're both in English right? Are there any major changes? How  much of the American version was censored in the UK version?

[Nanaki]

cool  <2005-05-05 13:21  RPGillespie>  i didnt know that the disks looked that good (damn platinum version *sob*)

[Tifa Lockheart]

I agree, they do look good, but I think I like the platinum ones anyway...after all, it's not what the discs look like, it's their content.....you can't play a game just admiring the graphics in the surface of the disc!!!!

Yeah, speaking of which, I was playing it today, and to be honest, there's everything on the UK ones.......well, everything Niai pointed out anyway, but, I do know this, there's only about half the fight sequences and battles in the UK and European versions. The Japanese version has loads more fighting..(on the world map).

[RPGillespie]

I'm trying to edit the text in FF7 to get rid of the swearwords/wall market with ficedula's COSMO...

Hmm isn't the UK version already censored like that? At least the version I have is.

Does anyone know which version this is ?  If the UK one is unsensored like the USA one, which one is this? Is there is censored version? Oh well, got to go.

--RPGillespie

[Niai]

The UK version is exactly the same as the American one. Square don't care enough about Europe to make a fuss over what gets censored specifically for us, we just get a direct port of what they have done with the American version.

[RPGillespie]

Oh.

Well, thanks anyway. I was just hoping they did somthing different for Europe. I guess I have to edit it myself with cosmo... Too bad the stupid Search & Replace tool doesn't work!! I could get it done in like an hour!
Come on ficedula... (I don't know delphi)

RPGillespie

[frig dude]

hey guys how do u put an avatar on qhimm?

[Admin impersonator]

Alright, this topic is now closed. I'm sick of all this crap.  The UK version is the same as the US version regardless of what I said earlier.  Take care.

--Qhimm (Administrator)

[Tifa Lockheart]

Jari, get a hold of yourself, gees.....

Hey, er....I'm kinda...confuzzled...how do you edit data that's already been prewritten on a disc? I'm really confused....help!

[RPGillespie]

Well, you can

A) Copy flevel.lgp from the disc, edit the text in it, and reburn the disk

or

B) Do the "full installation" on your hard drive and edit flevel.lgp.

To "edit flevel.lgp" get M4v3R's sapphire[weapon] from
http://underlab.pl/divide/mav/Sapphire.zip

or with ficedula's COSMO:
http://ficedula.warwickcompsoc.co.uk/f2k3/programs/cosmo/cosmo095c.zip

Its cool, you can do anything you want to the ingame text.

-RPGillespie

[Tifa Lockheart]

Ok, I was just going to nod, smile and say, "Why yes! Of course, I understand perfectly!" When o course I don't, but I'll try make some sense of it. Remember, I'm 15, and not necessarily a genius with a computer, but here goes:

So, I'm assuming:
 - you have to go into the data on the disc to edit it,
 - flevel.lgp being a form of data written on the disc, right?
 - And, of course, the other two are programs that will allow you to do this. Ok I think I follow you now, providing I've got the gist of it all correct......

It's all very confusing, programming, it really is..  :erm:

[RPGillespie]

Its not so much programming as it is using programs that are already made.

First off: If you go into the f77 install disc (explorer) under data --> field --> flevel.lgp (lgp is a type of file archive meaning it really has 700 files or so of all the levels in the game compressed into one 128 mb file) and make a copy (to your desktop maybe)  you can then either

a) open flevel with COSMO

or

b) decompress the lgp by getting an lgp extractor (google) &/or converting the files to txt format with sapphire.

Once you have *fixed* the in-fame text, just reburn a new install disc with the modified flevel instead of the original and do a full installation, or if you already have full install, drag it into the field folder. (Or you reburn the three discs with new flevel if you didn't do the full)

If you have any other questions just write

RPGillespie

[EmperorSteele]

I've hears that the "international" version has a crazy effed up storyline.. something about barret's sister being in the turks...?

Can anyone confirm this?

[Threesixty]

I highly doubt it.
From my understanding... FF7 international has the exact same stuff that was included in the North American version. I don't think Square started adding extra content until FFX. Then they did the exact same thing to Kingdom Hearts, and FFX-2.

[Tifa Lockheart]

Thank you!! I'm no so confused now....it all makes sense.

[RPGillespie]

Sure thing! I've practically devoted my entire schoolyear making FF7 swear-word free and with sapphire, it should be done by tommorow   .

RPGillespie