Import Tax: Best Games Never Released in Europe

The United Kingdom is the third largest market for video games in the world; us Brits guzzle down games like they’re tea and crumpets. Yet, being stuck with the rest of Europe means smaller games and less important projects rarely make it across the Atlantic – games have to be translated into no less than 50 billion languages before they’ll see light of day in this continent.

So, until British Gaming Blog can convince every agitated gamer to stand around the perimeter of England and pick up the country, move it next to Florida and call ourselves the 51st state, we’re bound to miss out.

This article is all about games that made their mark on American soil, but were obviously too good for us lowly Euros. The state of the industry is much better nowadays (Rock Band’s price and everything Nintendo of Europe does ever not included), but once upon a time, we never saw these ten important releases…

10.Hey You, Pikachu! – Nintendo 64, 2000

Being the poster boy for a worldwide phenomenon can’t be easy; Pikachu’s face is slapped on every Pokémon game, toy, waffle maker and plane as the once insignificant yellow mouse was cherry picked to headline the franchise.

Hey You came with a microphone adapter for the N64 that let you talk to Pikachu and give him instructions. Despite only having roughly 200 voice commands, the game had various secret words like “Fry the garden!” (which made Pikachu burn down his corn field with a thunderbolt like the police had a tip off about his weed field) and slurring “Goodbye” into “Go Away” will make Pikachu miffed.

The game never saw light of day in Europe for obvious reasons; not only translating the game but accommodating the recognition software for more languages and plenty of British dialects and accents. I doubt Pikachu would be able to understand a machine gun-esque Glaswegian or an “alroight Pikachoe, run into the woild now, loik” Brummie.

9.Virtual Boy – Virtual Boy, 1995

Ok, it’s not the best console in the world – heck, all things considered its one of the worst; Nintendo’s Virtual Boy gave players headaches, only had 22 games before it was canned and was as ugly as sin. However, VB is an important step in Nintendo’s history – up until 2004, Nintendo was the king of innovative ideas… which fell flat on their face; ROB was a useless peripheral designed only to help gaming succeed in the states, the E-Card reader needed a deck of individually scanned cards to play Donkey Kong and the Virtual Boy was discontinued a year after release. Luckily, Nintendo’s weird dual screen, touch panel handheld and motion sensing controller with last generation graphics, have done slightly better for the company.

Virtual-Boy.org – Every released and unreleased Virtual Boy game chronicled »

Virtual Boy has gained new levels of rarity as rabid Nintendo fans attempt to gobble up the tiny amount of systems that left Nintendo’s warehouse before the console was canned. Also, with a delicate stand and flimsy “eyeshade”, finding a Virtual Boy in mint condition is increasingly tough. Retro havens such as Gamestation take advantage and charge extortionate prices, while lucky American gamers find the system regularly at flea markets and garage sales

8.Mega Man Soccer – Super NES, 1994

Wait, which country damn near invented the sport? Which continent has millions of fans, thugs and hooligans obsessed with men kicking around a football? Mega Man may have tried his hand at “The Beautiful Game” (and then received a penalty – *whistle* Hand Ball!), but then attempted to sell the game to people obsessed with basketball, baseball and… handguns?

Despite Mega Man receiving a Guinness World Record for “Most Number of Games in a Single Series”, the Blue Bombers’ career has been mostly pure with deviations only for a round of soccer, a touch of kart racing and a board game. At least we can fight back with Mega Man Battle & Chase (PS1, 1997), which was released in Europe, but not the States.

7.Seaman – Dreamcast, 2000

You thought talking to Pikachu was weird? How about a fish, with the face of a man, narrated by Leonard Nimoy?

Your only goal is Seaman is to evolve your creepy friend into a “frogman” as you activate his complicated fish tank, feed him, help him breed and chat to him with a Dreamcast microphone.

Seaman, like Pikachu, has plenty of responses to your sayings including some hidden ones; say Nintendo and he’ll say “Yes I have heard of that company”, Sony will respond with “Let us never utter that name ever again” and say Nintendo Wii and he says “waggle for the lose”.

Game designer Yoot Saito proved to the world that he is not insane in 2006 with Odama, a game combining feudal Japanese conflict with pinball.

6.Final Fantasy III – Super NES, 1994

Final Fantasy 3, or 6, or “the one with Kefka” is quite literally heralded as the best of the entire series, and a touchstone for the RPG genre.
One of the games’ defining features is the changing face of the entire overworld, in accordance to elements in the plot. Initially, the unnamed world is split into two major continents (one which receives Square RPGS, and one which doesn’t), and later in the game the planet is fractured into many smaller islands as humanity is in ruins.

Final Fantasy III has so much in it; a veritable treasure trove of role playing goodness for fans. The active time battle system (introduced in the previous Fantasy) is expanded and evolved, characters can customised to no end with weapons, armour and relics, as well as a massive magic based system with summons and espers.

Don’t worry Euro fans! After Final Fantasy III’s SNES version was denied a release in Europe, the Playstation (2002) and Gameboy Advance (2007) versions did come across the Atlantic.

5.Super Mario RPG – Super NES, 1996

Super Mario RPG is a dream team of game designers all working on one epic title; supervised by Final Fantasy’s Sakaguchi and Mario’s Miyamoto, the game was created by Square’s best designers with the audio produced by Shimomura (Legend of Mana), Kondo (Mario and Zelda) and Uematsu (Final Fantasy).

What they ended up with was a glorious combination of Square’s immersive and intelligent role playing systems plus the whimsical world of goombas, toads and clouds with eyes.
Alongside Mario, Bowser and Peach, Square introduced a cavalcade of memorable characters including Geno (a wooden puppet, personified by a cosmic traveller) and Mallow (a cute walking cloud who figures out his amphibian Grandfather, Frogfucius, might not be his biological grandparent).

The humongous world, charming script and action orientated combat paved the way for Mario’s next role playing adventures; Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, more incredible games that manage to ensnare hardcore role players and Super Mario platforming fans alike.

4.Typing of the Dead – Dreamcast, 2001

At one point in your life, you’ve probably asked yourself how you will prepare for the inevitable zombie invasion. Buy a gun and go to target practice? Useless. Stockpile on food? Waste of time. Improve your typing speed? Perfect.

Typing of the Dead was SEGA’s way of persuading console players to pick up the Dreamcast Keyboard. No longer is a keyboard merely for boring stuff like homework and spreadsheets; you can play House of the Dead II with it!

In Typing of the Dead, zombies are linked to letters, words, sentences and eventually the Islamic Qur’an, which must be typed out perfectly to return them to the crypt. The agents replacing guns with Dreamcast back-packs (and huge Duracell batteries) is par for the course with the ludicrous voice acting and less than serious storyline. The House of the Dead is even returning on DS with “English of the Dead”, helping Japanese students learn English while vanquishing the undead.

If you’re craving some typing action, Typing of the Dead is available on GameTap… Oh wait… “GameTap is only available to users in USA and Canada”… NOO! – Foiled Again! – Suffer like G Did!

3.Wario Ware Twisted! – Gameboy Advance, 2005

The absolute most tragic thing about Europe’s loss is that Twisted is without a doubt the best game in the series. Twisted’s instinctual motion sensing removes a layer of abstraction, while never asking you to blow into a microphone or drop your brand new Wii Remote onto the ground (we told you to wear the wrist strap, dummy!)
9 volt, the series’ token video game nerd, transfers his NES levels to the gyrosensor with style as you line up a putt in Open Tournament Golf and Super Mario Bros’ iconic levels turn into giant circular stages, requiring movement of the GBA, and the Italian plumber, at the same time.
The little unlockable souvenirs are also filled with retro love or bizarre charm with collapsible figures and Mewtroid; classic alien hunting action, with a kitten.

The game never saw a release over here in Europe thanks to the LGA still testing and approving the game. Maybe it’s because kids could crack open the game’s tilt switch, drink the mercury and die (or gain super powers, I can never remember) – or maybe it’s because Twisted is so damn addictive, it could put the entire continent into an economical stand still.

2.Chrono Trigger – Super NES, 1995

What do you get when you put a swordsman from the present day, a cavewoman from the prehistoric past, a sentient robot from the far future and all of their friends together in a time-travelling spaceship? Two possible answers: a) A weekend party at Jon’s house, or b) Chrono Trigger, one of the best RPGs on the SNES. An epic story takes your party not just through diverse environments, but also through various time periods in an attempt to stop the resurrection of a sleeping beast that spells doom for humanity.

From the RPG fanatic’s point of view, Chrono Trigger has just about everything going for it: Memorable characters abound, side-quests up the wazoo, a killer soundtrack and cool boss fights. And how often do you get a game with 12 possible endings? How often do you play a game where the main character dies – and you can continue on without him? Chrono Trigger is so good, a few dedicated European gamers decided to travel back to 1995 and convince Square to release it overseas.
But… the future refused to change.

1.Earthbound – Super NES, 1995

Earthbound is magical, it’s a beautiful story that truly resonates with everyone who plays it, on so many levels. It’s funny; a bubble gum obsessed monkey will be added to your party for a while, a man falls from the sky at certain intervals to take your photo. It’s heartfelt; some of the choices in the game, the characters you leave behind will echo throughout the rest of the adventure. It’s even filled with satirical views on American culture and funny subtext, word plays and running jokes tied to the creative characterisation.

Earthbound is a game about four chosen children on a quest to save humanity from the apocalypse initiated by the embodiment of evil, Giygas. And not in the lame anime “we can only save the world with the power of friendship” kind of way, but in the awesome pixelated SNES RPG “we can only save the world with the power of friendship” kind of way – there’s a fine line, but one has spiky hair and teenage angst while the other depicts your mother telling you to change out of your pyjamas before you investigate a meteor that just hit earth.

When I think back to the many times I’ve played Earthbound, there is no one defining moment, and no coherent whole that delineates the entire game, Earthbound is a massive collection of unforgettable events, moments, characters, songs and feelings in a cartridge. The world may seem wacky at times, the developers might seem like they’re on drugs, but the memories that Earthbound holds and how every event, no matter how bizarre it may have seemed at the time, led up to the game’s completion means any criticism that the game is purely a madcap, disorganised anthology of the peculiar is nothing but obtuse.

And there they are; the 10 games that I feel Europe missed out on most. Sure, we’re missing a few, but to truly complete the list, the article would need to be renamed “The Top 10 Square Soft Games (and Earthbound) which were never released in Europe”.
Before Final Fantasy 7 came out and sold like Golden Chocobo droppings, Square Soft ignored Europe at every opportunity. Disregarding Europe was probably an office game for Square’s bosses – an office game that was never released in Europe!
Games like Parasite Eve, Front Mission and various Final Fantasy games were never released over here, but in the 21st century, Square has shown initiative and results with games seeing smaller and smaller interruptions between releases.

The real spanner in the works is Namco Bandai; despite owning massive franchises like Soul Calibur and Time Crisis, the Japanese conglomerate still fails to have its own presence in Europe. We missed out on Katamari Damacy, EA picked up the slack on the sequel and Atari on the 360 version. Even Soul Calibur IV is getting pressed by Ubisoft.

Even in 2008, Europe is still behind the curve on almost every release. While most companies, from Nintendo to Microsoft and from Konami to SEGA have European divisions, archaic companies like Namco are still finding it hard to keep up. There are no secrets with the Internet and the business of games is more worldwide than ever – European gamers might have never realised that “Earthbound” even existed back in 1995, but you can’t pull the wool over our eyes any longer.