What Is The Focus of This Guide? The goal with this guide is to help you understand and see how the Japanese version differs so much from the USA and European versions.
Any Questions? If there are any issues with this guide, whether something is misspelled or explained poorly, do notify me and I’ll fix that. Furthermore if you feel there is something that should be added or expanded upon, don’t hesitate to let me know.
I’m open for questions from anyone, regardless what you may have troubles with I will try my best to help you!
**[big][section=Damage Differences][/big]**In this section I will test and find out how damage dealt can fluctuate depending on the version of the game.
[big]Arm Cannon Damage Test[/big] I will use Arm Cannon as my form of testing. This is because it will always deal a consistent amount of damage which makes it easy to see the difference between difficulties. I will also test it on the first boss "Job" because of his easy access. Below you see the differences in damage dealt throughout the higher difficulties.
I have also included Very Easy and Very Hard difficulties from the Japanese version for more comparisons even if there is no such difficulties on the other versions. •** [big]https://imgur.com/a/rFEuh[/big]**
[big]Results[/big] When I write "decrease" I refer to the decreased damage dealt and increased is obviously the opposite.
•** Easy - Huge Decrease** It's a massive difference between the version as seen on this one. It's quite easy to tell why it's much better to speedrun on the Japanese version.
•** Normal - Decent Decrease** Once again a decrease, although not quite as massive as the previous one. Also the EUR versions seems to have a small increase over the USA version.
•** Hard - Small Increase** This might be unexpected to some, there is actually an increase in damage on the USA version. Furthermore the EUR version has an additional decrease in damage which is a bit worse that all other versions. Still not a huge deal but it might make a difference.
[big]Conclusion[/big] There is a incredible inconsistency issue with all three versions in terms of damage dealt. There are major differences and no difficulty is like the others. Keep in mind the damage can vary slightly.
USA = Europe = Japanese •** Easy = Easy = Normal** •** Normal = Hard ≈ Hard** •** Hard = Normal = Very Hard**
All Attacks Are Affected Everything seems to be affected, not only attacks but equipments as well. However I will only used Arm Cannon to keep the testing simple and understandable.
**[big][section=Other Differences][/big]**Here I will list all additional changes and differences that are not related to damage dealt.
[big]Berserk Gain[/big] The below test is done on Easy for all versions. Keep in mind it might not be a consistent test as different attacks might do different berserk gain and it can vary from try to try. This is just a overview in general how versions affect it. •** [big]https://imgur.com/a/8HcEE[/big]**
Results It's quite easy to tell the difference between the versions in terms of Berserk Gain. It seems that on the Japanese version you gain much more Berserk Meter easily than the USA/EUR version. What the exact cause for this I don't know. It may depend if you get hit in succession or different attacks do different amounts of gain. What I do know is you usually won't get up to full meter without dying before on the USA/EUR version. I think perhaps certain attacks deals more damage and less Berserk gain that other attacks but it's clear the different from Japanese version at least.
•** Japanese**: Full Berserk with around 20-30% Health left. •** USA**: Died even before reaching full Berserk. •** Europe**: Died even before reaching full Berserk.
[big]Continues[/big] A major difference is being that the USA/EUR version features a “Credit” system upon dying. This means you have a limited amounts of retries upon dying. The amount of continues depends on the difficulties. However after using a continue your equipment is reseted to the maximum capacity.
The Japanese version has no “Credit” whatsoever, infinite retries for everyone. Although you will not get full capacity of equipments and only start with 1/1/3.
Easy/Normal/Hard •** Japanese**: Infinite •** USA/Europe**: 7/10/13
[big]Item capacity[/big] I will refer to equipments in the form of Fairy Dust/Arm Cannon/Bombs (X/Y/Z).
Another big difference is that in the USA/EUR version you have less max capacity of your equipments. In the USA/EUR version your maxes are depending on what difficulty, more max the higher difficulty. The huge difference is that in the USA/EUR version you will always spawn with full capacity of equipments as opposed to Japanese version where you will start with 1/1/3.
Fairy Dust/Arm Cannon/Bombs •** Japanese**: 5/2/9 (All Difficulties) •** USA/Europe**: 2/1/3 (Easy), 2/2/5 (Normal), 3/3/7 (Hard)
[big]Quit & Save[/big] In the Japanese version you can practically quit and save pretty much anywhere on any stage and almost always start where you left. This seems not to be the case of the USA/EUR version where you will usually have to redo many stages to get back where you initially left off. This means the USA/EUR version has very few "checkpoints" throughout the game, this can pose a problem if you play the harder difficulties and happen to die which will kill your run.
[big]Unlocks For Each Difficulty Clear[/big] Japanese = USA/EUR
Puck's Mini Game • Very Easy = Easy
Battle Arena • Easy = Normal
Stage Select • Normal/Hard = Hard
