'Minus World: New Game Plus' — A Successful Philips SNES-CD Timeline

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Nivek

CourtlyHades296 said:
Kaoru Moriyama translated the NES version of Final Fantasy II, and the translation was very rough, with lots of typos and Engrish. This resulted in Ted Woolsey being hired a year earlier than OTL/P2S, and his first translation job was the NES version of Final Fantasy III, which released in North America in March 1991. Despite only having a month to localize III, he did a good enough job that Woolsey was hired to be the main translator for Square, being responsible for widely acclaimed translations of FFIV and V for cartridge SNES and FFVI as a dual format title.
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That might make FF2 a true black sheep on both sides of the Pacific now. At least the localization could fix the bug in Ultima and other bugs make the game a mess even for fan translators.

Having All Three FF already on NES might impact Mystic Quest even more. depending on how the drop 2 to and how much 3 sells too. Could make MQ plays even more conventionally or even more Action-ish with more SaGa Elements to generate interest.

Another game to the list of TBD. Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana...the game could be released earlier, as OTL or butterflied away as the need to fix SoM mistakes would be far different. Again the success of SD3 OTL led to the be very different Legend of Mana...
 
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RandomDSdevel

CourtlyHades296 said:
Since Final Fantasy II and III get localized NES releases ITTL, FF1 gets its US NES version in 1989 rather than 1990 of OTL/P2S.
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As I believe I've commented before, I've been assuming that international release dates for games that get localized in our timeline (and Player Two Start's) stay the same in this timeline, for the most part, at least not without good reason. The feeling here is that there aren't enough butterflies yet to change many international release dates yet. Localization should take about the same amount of time in this timeline as it does in ours and Player Two Start's, right? What could push the first three Final Fantasy games' releases earlier instead of having the localizations for Final Fantasy Ⅱ and Ⅲ release internationally with the same delay from their original Japanese release as in our timeline and Player Two Start's?
CourtlyHades296 said:
Kaoru Moriyama translated the NES version of Final Fantasy II, and the translation was very rough, with lots of typos and Engrish.
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…Would that be consistent with any of her other work, perhaps particularly with regard to early on? If not, then I don't approve of disparaging a localizer's or localization team's talent like this unless the effects were particularly noticeably egregious even in our timeline. Game localization wasn't handled quite as well back in the day and didn't have as many resources dedicated to in terms of staff members or time, but I doubt the results weren't perfectly serviceable overall, even if they could still be better.

(Edit: Also, if we're improving on the quantity of games that get international releases in this timeline, their localizations are going to be good, doggone it — especially for landmark titles; they deserve no less.)

CourtlyHades296 said:
This resulted in Ted Woolsey being hired a year earlier than OTL/P2S
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It's hard to say whether he'd be in the market looking for a job offering at that point. I can't find when he was born or when he finished post-secondary education online. (Let me know if anyone finds a source for this.)
Nivek said:
Another game to the list of TBD. Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana...the game could be released earlier, as OTL or butterflied away as the need to fix SoM mistakes would be far different. Again the success of SD3 OTL led to a very different Legend of Mana...
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I'm still cataloguing CD-i games for SNES-CD release in this timeline at the moment; I'll revisit handling this later.
 
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CourtlyHades296

Maybe it's a good idea to leave FF1's release date the same as OTL/P2S. Also, the Famicom versions of FFII and FFIII could remain Japan-only, and get a localized updated rerelease later down the line. The PAL release of FFIV is a launch title for the cartridge-based SNES, launching in English, French and German. The PAL NES version of FF1 launches in 1991 in English only.
 

RandomDSdevel

CourtlyHades296 said:
the Famicom versions of FFII and FFIII could remain Japan-only, and get a localized updated rerelease later down the line.
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I wasn't thinking that Final Fantasy Ⅱ and Ⅲ wouldn't see international release following not too far behind their original Japanese launches. Remember:

RandomDSdevel said:
check Wikipedia's article listing every NES game, and you'll find that the last one was released in the US on December 10th, 1994 (it was Wario's Woods.)
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Similarly, consulting that same source, the same goes for Europe, where the last game released for the NES there was Disney's The Lion King, developed by Dark Technologies and published by Virgin Interactive, with a release date of May 25th, 1995. That still leaves international releases for Final Fantasy Ⅱ and Ⅲ well within the window of the NES's lifespan and when games were still getting released for the system, even with a two-and-a-half–year delay in the release due to localization lag similarly to the original Final Fantasy.
 

CourtlyHades296

ITTL, Active Enterprises figured out that the SNES-CD doesn't check if a program is run on CD-Rs, and released an SNES-CD version of Action 52. This version is an improvement over the NES version, but still not a good game.
 
CrashBandicam

CrashBandicam

RandomDSdevel said:
(Hmm… — ah, here's an idea: in our timeline, Namco based their System 11 arcade system board on PlayStation hardware. One way to still have Sony make a video game console might be to flip that on its head, instead having Namco make the System 11 board first, then want to make a home console out of it and come to Sony for assistance developing its hardware. Konami also joined in on supporting Sony's PlayStation efforts very early on, but the former also later went on to create a handful of arcade games based around the hardware of the Panasonic M2. Given how that system's heritage traces back to the failed 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, perhaps things could get interesting here? Some members of the 3DO team funnel their frustration with the mistakes made with it into a joint follow-up venture involving themselves, Namco, Konami, and Sony, anyone?)
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That sounds like a very interesting idea. A joint Namco-Konami-Sony console sounds well like a intriguing idea.
 

Nivek

RandomDSdevel said:
  • (Note: Given this SNES cartridge release comparable to the one in our timeline, this game doesn't need an SNES-CD release comparable to the CD-i one in our timeline later — unless there's additional content for the game later, maybe? Then I could see that getting a dual release as an expansion disc and a complete SNES-CD edition containing all content.)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_No!_More_Lemmings The CD version can add the expansion pack as part of an updated Rerelease in CD Format, i can see psygonsis doing it. or we can start the CD Lemming with Lemmings 2 straight.
 

CourtlyHades296

With EA suffering a major defeat and likely bankruptcy, the microtransactions and "service games" concepts are butterflied away, as EA wouldn't survive to ruin many franchises.
 

CourtlyHades296

I'm pretty sure at this point the Mass Effect series is butterflied away due to the saga between EA and Sega, as are a lot of other EA games.
 

Nivek

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TheFaultsofAlts said:
But why would it? Couldn't the Mass Effect series be a Sega-produced game franchise ITTL?
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plus that's very far ahead the TL point we are. Plus Bioware was a third party and OTL it was Microsoft who published the original title to begin with. ITTL with no EA(or a weaker one) Bioware would publish the game themselves or with a new publisher, or the game might not exist at all(Bioware hasn't even be funded, maybe ITTL the Doctors of Bioware become full time physicians instead)
 

TheFaultsofAlts

Nivek said:
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plus that's very far ahead the TL point we are. Plus Bioware was a third party and OTL it was Microsoft who published the original title to begin with. ITTL with no EA(or a weaker one) Bioware would publish the game themselves or with a new publisher, or the game might not exist at all(Bioware hasn't even be funded, maybe ITTL the Doctors of Bioware become full time physicians instead)
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You're right. Bioware self-publishing the game, or finding someone else to publish it, sounds better. I was just confused on why Mass Effect wouldn't be a thing due to the EA/Sega split. I wasn't sure how that chain of events would happen.
 

Nivek

CourtlyHades296 said:
I think that with EA being weakened, Nintendo might be able to retain the license for MLB video games ITTL.
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TheFaultsofAlts said:
Mario Baseball, but with actual baseball?
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https://www.ign.com/games/nintendo-pennant-chase-baseball https://lostmediawiki.com/Nintendo_...Chase Baseball is,to be published by Nintendo. this one, I remember this one, Nintendo send the press kits, they were even preparing to have a version exclusive for the Seattle market with Ichiro at the cover(the same for Ohio one with Ken Griffith Jr) all was set for an april 4th 2005 debut..yet it never happened, legends say that EA that hold a MLB license at the time throw a fit and Nintendo wanting to avoid a fight with a third party just cancelled it all together
 
CrashBandicam

CrashBandicam

Would a 1988 PoD of a earlier Nintendo/Philips partnership allow for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to be a bigger game than OTL, consisting of about 14 zones?
 

Nivek

TripleToad333 said:
Would a 1988 PoD of a earlier Nintendo/Philips partnership allow for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to be a bigger game than OTL, consisting of about 14 zones?
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With the POD itself Sonic could easily be butterflied away, he was just the last of the ideas they scratched the bottom of the barrel once Naka programmed a high-speed ball on the 68K, and he and an armadillo, SEGA could easily ask for something else and Sonic is butterflied away so... it doesn't matter
 
CrashBandicam

CrashBandicam

Nivek said:
With the POD itself Sonic could easily be butterflied away, he was just the last of the ideas they scratched the bottom of the barrel once Naka programmed a high-speed ball on the 68K, and he and an armadillo, SEGA could easily ask for something else and Sonic is butterflied away so... it doesn't matter
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Are butterflies entirely up to the creator or do they have to be based on the PoD?
 

Nivek

TripleToad333 said:
Are butterflies entirely up to the creator or do they have to be based on the PoD?
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YES. Butterflies start once the POD is set on motion, that's called butterflies, plus very chaotic scenarios OTL are very butterfly prone, as they only happened by very hard to replicated opportunities, Sonic is a marketing product, if he wasn't create, some other creature will take his place
 
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