Regions of aftermarket SNES releases

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piyo
Dumper
Posts: 26
Joined: 07 Jul 2020 18:03

Regions of aftermarket SNES releases

Post by piyo »

I am a bit confused about the naming scheme for SNES games, especially aftermarket releases on the Virtual Console, Steam etc, which seems to be inconsistent to me.

Some entries use the region, in which the game has been rereleased on modern platforms.
Examples:
* Donkey Kong Country (USA, Europe) (Rev 2) (Virtual Console, Classic Mini, Switch Online)
* Panel de Pon (World) (Ja) (Rev 1) (Virtual Console, Switch Online)

For other games, the region is set to whatever the ROM was originally released on the SNES:

Examples:
* Super Castlevania IV (USA) (Castlevania Anniversary Collection)
* Akumajou Dracula (Japan) (Castlevania Anniversary Collection)

Both games were part of the same collection, which was released worldwide, afaik.

A complete mess imho is the naming of the Collection of Mana ROMs:

* Trials of Mana (World) (De)
* Secret of Mana (Germany) (Switch Version)

Both games were part of the same collection. Both are ROM hacks of previously released games. So it should either be "Trials of Mana (Japan) (De)" or "Secret of Mana (World) (De) (Switch Version)". (Btw: Were the international versions of the ROMs actually released in Japan?)

Also, does the name really need to include every platform, a version has been re-released on? Isn't "(Virtual Console)" enough to name a ROM, which had its first release on the Wii Virtual Console? Should the name of a ROM really change, just because Nintendo decides to re-release it?
relax
High Council
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Joined: 27 May 2008 17:52

Re: Regions of aftermarket SNES releases

Post by relax »

I think release region is the way to go for these aftermarket releases.I already changed Secret of Mana for consistency while adding the new dumps from the Collection of Mana. Will look into Castlevania Anniversary Collection and others in due course.

As for only adding one (the first) aftermarket tag, will think about that. Could be a good idea. :)
KingMike
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Joined: 22 Sep 2012 16:36

Re: Regions of aftermarket SNES releases

Post by KingMike »

Doesn't the Castlevania Collection include regional variants of the same game?
Therefore I think it would make sense to include the original region of each ROM used.

Does Collection of Mana allow the player to choose the language, or is it based on console region settings?
I have only looked at the the Japanese version, which no, does not include multiple languages (not the least being it was produced two years earlier and the odds of an international release, especially with SD3 localized, seemed VERY unlikely). (have confirmed, playing the Japanese card on my USA-region Switch with English language setting, and I do not get English in the game)
I'd probably go with "Trials of Mana (Germany)" as an example from that. Or put (USA, Europe) as the region since that is where the multi-language package was released (or at by our broad definition of USA as the Americas and Europe as PAL regions). "Trials of Mana (USA, Europe) (De)" sounds like a good option.
I would definitely not go with "Secret of Mana (World)" since there were several distinct single-language versions previously released, and this collection is presumably modifying content of the original single-language ROMs.
When ripping the ROMs out of the collection, the ROMs become the single-language versions, therefore the context of their release within a World package for the Switch is lost.
piyo
Dumper
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Re: Regions of aftermarket SNES releases

Post by piyo »

You can select the language of the ROMs. However, only English, France, German and (in case of Trials of Mana) Spanish. The japanese ROMs are not included.

Only the language of the main menu / emulator frontend is based on the console settings.
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dreimer
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Joined: 14 Nov 2015 13:26

Re: Regions of aftermarket SNES releases

Post by dreimer »

I see not that much of a problem here. At least regarding the Collection of Mana ones.

Trials of Mana (World) (De) I interpreted as based on a massively revamped Japanese ROM Version with translations added, size increased and even though they have languages like my preferred German... they still are 60 Hz NTSC ROMs and never were released in Germany ONLY.

Secret of Mana (Germany) (Switch Version) is something different. These are clearly based on the dumped language specific ROMs like in this case Secret of Mana (Germany). They are 50 Hz PAL and only have a few text fixes. (Lindenstraße vs. Fußballspiel in the Goblin cooking scene for example). Question is now... is it relevant on what it's based or in which market these were made available in the end...

Btw, regarding naming. The newly added (Rev1) ROMs of Trials of Mana... in theory and based on the header they still are Rev0. Here is the question. Does the header information count here or which clearly is a updated version with a handful of fixes/binary diffs after release? I would have changed the name to Trials of Mana (World) (De) (Collection of Mana 1.01) but that's up to you.
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