The Story of JRPG's in the UK BEFORE FFVII: Super Play Magazine | Kim Justice
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- Did we really know nothing about JRPG's in the UK and Europe before the PlayStation and Final Fantasy VII came along? Well, some folks did! Super Play was the SNES magazine that championed games like FF6 and Chrono Trigger and encouraged folks to go out and find them. Enjoy!
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Special Thanks to the Out-of-Print Archive for their high quality magazine preservation: www.outofprintarchive.com/
Special Thanks to Wil Overton and his wonderful artwork in the magazine: www.wiloverton.com/
0:00 Intro: Before Final Fantasy VII, There Was Nothing! (Except There Was)
1:49 MD and SNES JRPG's We Got Officially
4:30 Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest - The Failed Attempt to Introduce JRPG's to Europe
7:07 Why was Super Play Magazine So Important? JRPG and Import Champions
12:30 Final Fantasy III/VI: Super Play's Most Covered Game
16:24 The Real Reason the Big JRPG's Didn't Come Out in Europe
21:09 How Super Play Helped Lay the Groundwork for FFVII's Success
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What are your memories of Super Play, and the big old SNES Import market? Do please share them here :) Thanks for watching!
I went to the Super Play and Nintendo Magazine offices in Bath when I was 9 or 10 on a day trip with my parents. They were convinced I wouldn't be able to get in as it is a place of work obviously. But I did. The receptionist took me across the road to the offices (it was split between a few different adjacent buildings) and I got to chat to all of the staff there. The offices were very, very small and very little working space. They were testing the Virtual Boy and Hagane at the time. They also gave me a Heberekes Popoito t-shirt and signed magazine. Happy memories :)
It's just such a well written mag. Back in an era of "attitude". Got me into anime back as a teen (can't stand it now though) and into RPGs on the whole.
I loved how harsh they were. If something was shit, by god they let it out on the page.
I still have every issue of Super Play, it made it down to Australia and was a real lifeline here. We were into anime in those early days so their coverage of it was also very welcome. My favourite mag was Amiga Power so SP being a sister mag helped too.
I'm in Sweden and we had our own version of Super Play/Power by the same name. SoM I remember being hyped in one issue, but I also remember fairly negative comments about earlier FF games, saying they were ugly and boring or something along those lines, and that it was basically for the better that we didn't get them haha. There were a lot of hot takes in mags back then, both praising and dissing. At some point I remember DKC1 getting a 100% score, then it being lowered in a later issue to about 97% and both the writers and readers who mailed in making a big deal out of it, it's very silly in retrospect.
A cousin around my own age had imported FF6 (or maybe their older brother had), which I tried briefly in 1995 or so but it was a poor introduction to the game where they made me fight a mid-game boss and I just died immediately. They were the only ones I knew who knew about FF at the time. Instead my first proper Square game introduction was Secret of Evermore, which I loved at the time.
A couple of years later there was a lot of hype for FF7, I don't recall if it was in that same mag or in PS Magazine (subscribed to it for the demo discs) but I remember thinking I had to have it just from seeing some screenshots and artwork, it was that striking to me at the time.
While at first I had some flashbacks to my alienating FF6 experience and thought it was gonna suck, it grew on me and is still my fave FF. Discovering the earlier games for myself didn't really happen until years later through emulation, I just wasn't that interested in old 2D games in the late '90s with so many new and exciting releases on consoles and PC.
I was more of a 'Console XS' sort of kid (i know, how boring LOL) but I did enjoy flicking through the pages of Super Play at the local newsagents as a young kids in South Wales.
It's fair to say that Super Play had a really significant influence on my life. I still watch anime, still play Square JRPGs. Eventually, I went to live in Japan as an adult and even learned (a little!) Japanese. And I can trace it all back to that magazine. Thank you for such a touching testimonial, it's genuinely left me feeling rather moved.
I never get tired of learning about the difference between the us and UK markets, thanks man
Amazing magazine back in the day. I remember reading issue 47 ( the final issue, ‘Sayonara’ on the cover spine ) and it was at a point in my life where everything was changing - leaving college, leaving behind friends, going out to work in the big wide world.
The last issue was the end of an era in many ways for me. I used to look on eBay and pick up a few issues to read for old times sake but as a 47 year old that kind of stuff just breaks my heart these days.
So glad to have lived through that period of gaming, despite what others say I absolutely believe it was the true golden age…..you can’t even go into WHSmith and pick up a gaming magazine these days ( apart from Retro Gamer ).
Great video.
Practically no gaming mags left now but retro gamer and online blogs... it's a time we're never getting back, but it was one hell of a time to live through.
It was the best time for sure.
Exactly the same! I felt bereft - almost as though I was grieving! - when SP ended as it had really been a very big part of my teenage years. But it introduced me to so many gaming and anime gems that it was worth the heartache.
The best times indeed. Very relatable comment this mate. All ended for me when I was a kid when PS1 mags and demo discs stopped.
@@jordanbenson2980 At least there was a steady decline in the quality of the demos on the official ps magazine for example. Super play bit the dust in the uk almost as abruptly as Calvin & Hobbes.
I am one of those people that only got into JRPGs after FFVII! The 8 bit and 16 bit eras i was mainly playing platformers or beat em ups!
scrub.
Loved Super Play as a teen, it also cemeneted my love for imported SNES RPGs, and got me in to anime and manga - even got my name in the mag a couple of times, once for some Final Fantasy 6 shenanigans 🤣
Got my name in there once too! Can’t remember which issue, had them all but all gone now 😞
Super Play was one of my favorite mags in the early nineties. It is almost singlehandedly responsible for giving me an appreciation for the anime aesthetic of Japanese games. I had an issue that had a big feature on the super disc add on. I wish I kept it because that kinda stuff is really hard to find online.
I got FF7 for christmas in '97 and it blew me away as my first jrpg. I then went back and played every
16-bit rpg that I could find.
Can't beat a Zy Nicholson review. RIP Jason!
As an American, hearing about how JRPGs were released in other countries is very interesting. I'm very glad that I stuck with this channel.
I agree. Usually we're miffed at what we missed in the US, but it's nowhere near as bad as how hard Europe gets the shaft on gaming.
However! Sometimes the delay works in their favor. Due to lagging behind in gaming, sometimes they get games that the Japanese get, but the US didn't... Terranigma stands out in my mind.
Super Play was always one of my favourites, even though I couldn't afford any imports they weren't afraid to call a bad game bad and it felt grown up without being dull. We were on a family holiday to Blackpool when I bought what I was upset to find was the final ever issue. You can tell how exciting that trip was by the fact the magazine was the most memorable part. I still have that exact copy as well, which I think is worth a fair bit these days.
Pit fighter was voted the absolute worst, right?
@@HYPERMASCULINE yes it was at 14%, then Jeopardy, Time Cop and American Gladiators
Did you buy it from the Whsmith on bank hey street?
I fondly remember the magazines that introduced me to JRPGs in the UK. But it was 'S' magazine, as there were several Sega Master System 8-bit JRPGs that me and my friends were into. One classmate was into Ys on Master System so much that he taught himself to play its soundtrack on piano, around 1989. With no region lock and plenty of importers, JRPGs on GameBoy were pretty easy to get also.
The idea that nobody in the UK knew of JRPGs before FFVII isn't true at all, but with the Master System selling well in the UK, for lots of us it certainly didn't start as late as the SNES and Super Play either.
Swedish Super Play/Super Power served a similar purpose over here, introducing a lot of us to JRPGs and Japanese media in general. Here the magazine survived all the way to 2009 but it became a more standard video game magazine over time. Those early years though, they really helped to form a lot of us 90s nerds.
Old-school reader who started reading Super Power when old Nintendomagasinet ended and subscribers got a Super Power subscription instead... and yeah, you're certainly not wrong. That magazine and it's many tantalizing previews of games I'd never be able to play got the hunger for games and JRPG's and Japan in general started in me. The bright colors, the humor (even if going back can be painful) and the personalities and their likes... Couldn't have a better guide to use when I learned of emulation and decided I was gonna have every experience my parents tight wallets had denied me at the time :)
My friend had a subscription to Super Play right at the start and it came bundled with a VHS copy of Akira. Had it not been for this mag I wouldn’t have a love of anime I have.
A bit off topic, but Super Play introduced me to the fantastic Dragon Ball Z beat em ups. My brain exploded at the concept of fighters not being on the same screen - you got the split screen effect when one fighter was miles up in the sky fireballing the other guy on the ground. Amazing at the time 👍
Thank you, Kim. This is so well researched and written. It reflects my experience of the time perfectly, spelling it out better than could have articulated, even if I was asked! I was lucky enough to import FF3 and Chrono on SNES back then, and it was all thanks to those tantalising Super Play editions featuring little teasers to those games.
Kim, thank you so much for this video!! Super Play informed my whole teenage years, I ADORED it and it was unquestionably what put me towards imports and getting Secret of Mana, FF6 and Chrono Trigger as soon as they came out. The rest is history, these games, a "little secret" to us in the UK who could get them, formed my game tastes for life.
I still can remember me running down to the newsagents every month to get my copy, right until that very sudden last issue. Thank you again for this video, it was really special to those of us who lived for Super Play.
Man, do I love videos on topics like that. Thank you for making them!
Back in my days ( not in UK, I’m from Russia, so sorry for grammar and wording) gaming press was incredible to read and great place to find out many interesting things!
In fact, my love for gaming in general, came from these articles, that were about Japanese exclusive PSP games, VN’s that were translated (and literally went under everyone radar) and amazingly foreshadowing news about were industry going.
Sadly, best magazine was closed as 2013, editors went to ign… and now we have almost nothing.
So thank you, once again, for these kind of videos! They help to see the world in all possible ways.
Also these magazines are gorgeous!
I wish someone would do a video like this about DieHard GameFan in the US. That mag was insane and apparently even more nuts behind the scenes. God, I miss some of those 90's game magazines.
A friend of mine won a copy of The Haunting and a year's subscription to Die Hard GameFan in a competition. We're in the UK so how he won a sub to a US mag I have no idea, but I digress. He loved the game but had no interest in the mag so ever month when it dropped on his mat he'd skim read it then give it to me. I used to pore over all those shots of JRPGs that I knew we'd never get here, imagining what they were like, and I made sure to play FFVII as soon as it came out here just because of how much that mag had primed me to want to play an FF game.
@@craigcharlesworth1538 GameFan was nuts. They were like a fanzine that somehow made it to the newstands across the USA. They were obsessive about Japanese games but could also be very unprofessional (one review was accidentally published with filler text including racist terms for Japanese people). Legend has it their publisher once spent all his money on a giant statue of Sonic the Hedgehog for the office and couldn't afford to pay the employees the next payday as a result.
I don't have any of those memories but I did plough hours into Phantasy Star III instead of getting stuck into my GCSE's way back in 1992.
One of thise things resulted in getting lots of work done and it wasn't the exams. I had maps drawn all over graph paper and wrote down the dialogue for NPC's. Totally messed up my exams but I did get into RPG's 😃.
I jumped ship to a NTSC SNES after seeing SFII on a friend's console. The JRPG dearth didn't impact me as a result of importing all my SNES games. Good on Super Play for promoting the genre though. Great mag, great times.
Awwww that Treasure of the Rudras theme at the end
This was just very slightly before my time as a 91 baby, but I came to adore JRPGs in my teen years. I remember pressing my nose up against the window of the local Gamestation, gawking at a copy of The Secret of Mana… for £200!
Y's was released in the UK on the Master System.
Ahhh fond memories of this era. I recall convincing my mother into ordering the FF6 US cart import, as well as the adapter needed from the back of one of these super play mags as an Xmas present. It arrived a couple weeks before I was allowed to have access to said present. When my mother was out the house I would go looking for it and eventually found it hidden under some clothes in a bag in her wardrobe. And while she was out, I would on several occasions carefully open the box, as not to leave any trace of my rummaging and look through the manual and big fold out double sided map and just be in awe of the artwork and adventure that lie ahead of me. And when I finally did get to play it.... I fell in love, its characters its story, the music, the villain (kefka) the Japanese art style, the combat... was unlike anything I had experienced in a video game. Still to this day it is my top game of all time after all these years and playing hundreds of other highly regarded games.
I too had to deal with the black screen ending, which honestly never actually bothered me THAT much, as the journey was such a joy to experience. Kind of like the Sopranos ending in a way heh.... There was also some bug that would mean the menu screen was partially blacked out when trying to access it on the world of ruin world map... that actually annoyed me far more as it made item use and such a real pain. I thought I just had some defective adapter, wasn't aware that many others were also suffering in the same way lol. Fortunately Chrono Trigger which was my next import worked flawlessly.
Definitely regret not keeping my collection of this glorious magazine, I think I owned a good 20 or so issues. Also then became a subscriber of N64 magazine and eagerly awaited each monthly delivery of that, which I would read from cover to cover each time it was delivered through my door.
I wonder if the "North American SNES via SCART" method I read about in an archived issue (The 1993 issue of "SUPER PLAY GOLD") would have triggered the "black screen ending" in FINAL FANTASY VI/III. I'm an American RPG enthusiast born in 1999, so I don't know how common or otherwise televisions with SCART sockets were in that era. I'm glad CHRONO TRIGGER worked for you without a hitch, though!
Cheers Kim. I am always confident of a thumbs up for your videos even before watching them :)
That's one damn fascinating magazine, I'm glad you wanted to share this with us Kim
It's always an amazing story adventure when Kim drops a video. Thank you my friend! See ya on a live stream!
JRPGs cost too much in the cartridge era so I mostly rented them. Of course many were completable in 12 hours so this was a viable option.
Well done on putting a train Suplex in there! Great video, some good points I had never considered!
I would just like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Aeon Genesis, RPGOne, MIJET and all of the other fanlation teams that have made so many of these games finally playable for us humble gaijins. Your work is essential and long may it continue.
The October 1993 issue was my introduction to Super Play. My uncle bought it for me in a news agents and the introduction to manga and Japanese exclusive games was utterly mind-blowing. A cracking magazine with brilliant journalists that still holds up almost three decades later.
Lovely stuff Kim enjoyed that greatly a nice way to take a look at things! Another birthday stream later to look forward to and the next ff6 stream I can't wait for!
Top content! You can’t go wrong with anything Super Play related.
Mean Machines - the original 24 issues was where it was at in 90-92.
Didn't know good old Molly dabbled in the gaming journalism, let alone writing articles about games for otakus.
Future magazines back then were among the best, but Super Play took the crown. Sad when they went out, and n64 magazine unfortunately just wasn't the same
I sometimes say, half jokingly and half seriously, that they took the crown because they had the foresight - it was the weebiest of them all and they saw it all coming.
If anyone ever played COBRA MISSIONS and KNIGHTS OF XENTAR on pc back in the day, managed to find IRON BLOOD or ZYClunt also, they u sir are a legend.
We actually did get the first Ys on the Master System here in the UK, apparently. I never KNEW that back then as I never saw it on the shelves but now, as a big JRPG fan, it makes me sad that not even the main character’s name was translated correctly back then.
Oh man! What a surprise.
I still have every single issue.
Kim, you suplexed the train with this one
I got my first Gameboy in 1990 and I had various games for it. But I always remember having a JRPG and I eventually found the one I had and it is called The Final Fantasy Legend. Not really related to the main Final Fantasy series. I did finish it too, although I was glad I had the magnifier with light.
Thank you for the video. Really nice to hear and learn more about a magazine I adored.
I discovered Superplay as an import magazine in ‘96 and loved it on sight. It was issue 45 and I was gutted to see it end with issue 47. The tone and diversity of games and features really drew me in.
I knew a fair bit of jrpgs from dutch magazines but this was on another level.
Finally I learned about Panel de Pon and Super Puyo Puyo 2 remix from it, which have become two of my favourite games of all time.
Excellent work as always Kim.
I love the international appreciation for JRPGs- even though the overwhelming amount of translation and marketing efforts have been USA-centric (and being American myself), I really enjoyed this window into how UK audiences experienced them.
Terranigma is one of my favorites of the SNES generation (thanks to emulation) and the only person I'd ever had a real-life chat about it was an exchange student from Spain back when I was in high school. I was even more excited because I had played the Spanish version and I thought it was hysterical when Ark drinks bad wine and the text says "¡Vomitivo!"
Even in more recent years, when I'd visited SE's flagship store, Western visitors were largely not-American. This reinforced impressions I'd gotten from those early internet days of mIRC, which was a fairly international bunch as well.
Getting slightly off topic, I've always wondered how UK fans respond when there's a standard English (or just some British dialect) voice in FF games. Like O'aka, or the Archadian empire, or even the randomized mess of American/English voicing in 15. Is it cringey? Hilarious?
The ONLY magazine I read and it was during my secondary school era. It was basically my childhood. Was really pleased to pick up that special one-off issue to celebrate the SNES mini.
My experience with JRPG's was other kids were somewhat aware things like that existed but it was seen as for nerds as even back then it was all about the big name at the time, I.e Mortal Kombat and yearly Fifa games. If you count them I got Illusion Of Time from Beatties and Terranigma from Game of all places, and if you count Shining Force 3 I got it from Cash Converters, pre 2000 it always got a lot of import games in that they sold for £6.50 I got some games there that now are worth hundreds, later in the 16 bit life and at least for Mega Drive games if they had a Genesis version they just charged high prices for it. it was the highlight of the trip to the big town (it was the next big town over) to rush straight to the Cash Converters and see what games they had in. Once they had a mint CIB Phantasy Star 4 Genesis version for £20, I got PS2 and 3 UK versions for about £7 each, I bought a CIB Secret Of Mana US Snes version for £6.50
There were a few VHS rental stores that sold JPN imported games for MD and SNES where I lived in Bath - I remember them selling a little adapter for MD. I knew a few people at future publishing back then too, great times
The sega master system got YS, phantasy star and miracle warriors. They didn't make much of an impact?
Happy Birthday Kim!
great episode kim
Brilliant video. Can tell a lot of research and time went into this and I always love seeing a British perspective into gaming history.
Only really started reading Super Play towards the end before the migrated over the N64 Magazine. Compared to so many other magazines on the self though they had so much more detailed information and reviews and the import reviews were clearly labelled that so you knew what was actually available. I recall a few times with magazines such as NMS that they didn't always state they were not being released in the UK in some of the reviews or were sketchy on details. Still because of even the later days of Super Play I discovered far more Jrpgs than I would have otherwise.
Thank you for this. I was an avid reader of Super Play and it was my introduction to importing both consoles and games through Super Play classifieds and the original CEX off Tottenham Court Road, largely for the JRPGs but also because of the issues with the speed and cropping of PAL games. I traded in my PAL SNES, bought a Japanese Super Famicon and imported many games including Final Fantasy IV, VI, Chrono Trigger, Mario RPG and Secret of Mana. This is probably why my favourite Final Fantasy game isn’t VII because unlike many people it wasn’t my first. This led to me importing all consoles until the Xbox 360 era and I was even invoked with dedicated import site NTSC-UK, writing reviews and guides on how to import. All of this was due to the mighty Super Play.
Another amazing video. Learned absolutely loads from this one. I had no idea about Super Play magazine … I typically fell into JRPGs after experiencing FFVII. This magazine would have totally appealed to the gamer I would eventually become. I’m happy to say that I spend most of my late 30s experiencing these gems.
The thing I often say to people who count Snes as better than Mega Drive/Genesis is for one they often count fan translated RPG's and that good RPG's just existed not that they weren't mainstream whilst most Sega 16 bit greats were very mainstream.
Mystic Quest was my first rpg. Good times.
The FF3\6 ending crash, bittersweet memories. Amazing game, importing it back in the day and following the forum tips in SuperPlay
Crusader of Centy didn’t get a big release in the US. For one, it was published by Atlus and not Sega. And it was given a very limited release. It’s one of the most rarest games for the system
When I were a lad, I found a magazine at my local news agents called "The A-Z of SNES Games" that had reviews of FF3 and Mario RPG in it and didn't realise they were US-only and spent a lot of time trying to hunt them down. It wasn't until I discovered emulation when we got our computer in 1998 that I found out, and I went on a download spree of every JRPG I could find.
Also, not enough people talk about Secret of Evermore.
Peter Moleneux? Pah, James Leach was alway the guy associated with my gaming journalism back in the day.
Mean machines was another good magazine, i still have the first 4 episodes of those.
Super Power here in the Nordic countries had a partnership with Super Play for a while, with various articles (including the FFVI/III review or at least parts of it), guides and features being translated (later, I would find out that all the funny writing in Super Power at the time was *also* from Super Play), so we learned about JRPGs and anime that way. I didn't dabble in the import market or play any RPGs back then (being a kid and not knowing any English at the time didn't exactly help matters), but I was definitely aware of them.
Utterly fantastic video, I honestly had no idea this magazine existed and now I wish I had.
Seiken Dentestu 3 is such an important title when it comes fan translations; as whilst they were not the first to do fan translations of games, 'Secret of Mana 2' was the first big important one. For many people during the mid 2000s emulator boom, SD2 was the game that made them realize that there was so many amazing games that they never got and began an entire subculture of fan translations that hasn't really ended.
Maybe one day we will have ever FAMICOM game translated in someway.
We will never get every PS1 game though...
Super Play..the best game mag there's ever been.
Yup.
I grew up with N64 Magazine. Their coverage of Japan lit a fire in me. I eventually ended up moving here and starting a family. The Goemon games were an influence too! They also reviewed many Japanese exclusive games that other magazines around the world did not bother with. Despite not having a great understanding of Japanese their reviews were generally right on the money. I'm playing through the Japanese N64 library now so I can confirm that! Wil Overton hosted a monthly RPG feature dressed as Fu So Ya! But there wasn't much to report. Nintendo did them and Sony dirty. N64 Magazine should stand alongside Amiga Power and Super Play as some of the most well loved, accurate and amusing video game journalism of all time.
Awesome to see a Zonk cameo at 1:13!😀
I've grown to love watching your stream. I can't watch many people for extended amounts of time because their language habits begin to grate on me. But your love of hearing your own voice for hours straight is quite exemplary, and I love that you don't take yourself seriously and genuinely enjoy everything with a child like sense of humor. Great stream, and in depth docu-like videos are two very different things and you do them both well.
Yesss, loved Super Play, it was the whole package, some kind of lifestyle guide, almost. Great artwork too.
I remember getting a super famicom on import about a year before uk launch, it introduced me to the benefits of NTSC gaming, I got Mario , castlevania and actraiser as a console plus games deal. Actraiser had ALOT of Japanese text but thankfully a gaming magazine - I think CV&G did an article on how to navigate menus and progress in the populous style elements. Super play was my go to mag to see what games I could import in.
In the Netherlands, FF6 got a review in the biggest game magazine (Power Unlimited) with a low score. I remember wondering why, because the game looked cool to me. Chrono Trigger also got a review and I really wanted to buy it, but was disappointed when it never came out. Lufia 2, the quintet games and the Mana series were the big ones that I had, and I only got to play the other ones when emulators became available. "Import stores" were something exotic that I never saw in my region.
The story is, it was a bloody nightmare. We had Secret of Mana.... that was it. Slight exaggeration but I think that's how squaresoft looked at it. They've got Secret of Mana, that'll do them. Chipping your playstation in the 90s was essential. Come to think of it, it was gash after ff7 too, FF tactics, Xenogears, Parasite Eve. All missing from the Uk. If you weren't importing during the 90s, you were doing something wrong.
Also... Super Play.... It was fuckin' brilliant. Loved that mag.
Thank you so much for this video :) So much appreciated. Super Play Was amazing, So much info on Japanese imports we would never get but loved looking at!!, Moving from Scotland to New Zealand in the 80's. This magazines and EGM and Mean Machines were a staple of my youth. Its really sad being in PAL Territories we missed out on so many awesome games, and the 50Hrtz thing was horrible when you see how the game was programmed to be played
Thanks again, you did Super Play a great Justice :)
I remember being enthralled with Japanese games on the SNES as they were so rare and looked so different, I never had any jrpgs but geomon and twin bee 1 and 2 come to mind, the art style seemed so alien and surreal at the time.
I'm a little curious about what happened on the continent during this time now. What magazines were like Super Play? What other circumstances contributed to the growth on the mainland?
I've read that certain anime was popular in France or Spain, I think it was DBZ. Here in Sweden we could rent Cobra, Macross, Starzinger and some other stuff I don't remember, placed alongside western cartoon movies and series, so that was my introduction to anime as a kid. I guess I also recognized the aesthetics in some Master System and Mega Drive games.
N64 Magazine was translated into French and Spanish I believe. It has some of the same staff and sense of humour.
Great video as usual, although I dont think I ever bought an issue of super play and I never had any import games on 16 bit era.
Now with my Switch I have games from Germany, Spain, US and various Asian markets. Gotta love how easy the switch is to have imports running and it's a necessity as STILL Europe don't get all JRPGs. SquareEnix still hate us.
As someone from the US, and someone who's been an RPG enthusiast since a young age, I had never heard of Super Play, but I sure as heck do appreciate everything they were doing!
I also never knew that Breath of Fire II and Lufia II got EU releases, that's awesome!
Super play had some NICE covers!
I loved Super Play, the magazine also introduced me to Anime.
I was lucky as there was a game rental shop near me that had import Snes games and adapters to rent. I couldn't afford those steep import prices when I was 10...probably still can't now.
This was before blockbuster started renting games.
I had this thought awhile back and I came back to post it: In FINAL FANTASY VI, Gogo is an optional character; the player is not required to recruit them in order to clear the game. If a character is not recruited in the World of Ruin, their portrait will be displayed in the upper left of the screen, while the camera shows an overhead view of their area (where they are from or where you can recruit them). It's been reported that the converters at the time couldn't handle the "eyeball shot", which only occurs if you recruited Gogo. I wonder, if one were to beat the game without having recruited Gogo, would that black screen glitch even trigger?
I was well aware of JRPG's before FF7. Mario RPG shoulda been my first JRPG but, didn't happen
I think all I played in that era was illusion of time and Secret of mana, though not completely JRPGs, I think my first was Grandia on PS1.
Thank you for this video. I miss video game magazines so much, I probably spent more of my paper round money on these than actual games! Super Play was the best of the era, maybe all time but I also miss NOM, TOTAL, ZZAP, COMMODORE FORMAT & MEAN MACHINES along with countless others that where stacked high in my bedroom
Super Mario RPG not getting an EU release is a particular shame, because like Mystic Quest it was kind of positioned as an "entry level" RPG, just not being so obvious about it this time. The basic mechanics are easy to get (but there's still depth to it), there's an element of twitch/action in the timed button presses and all, and it's Mario! Everyone knows Mario! That probably would have gotten it some attention if the timing hadn't worked against it.
Ff7 was my first ever rpg bought day 1 and since then I play all sorts, blue dragon nino kuni all ff games ys etc etc and few stranger ones lol
8:23 Oooh, Kim's used a video from my TH-cam channel! I'm honoured! 😊 th-cam.com/video/yi4f08sB6j0/w-d-xo.html
In all seriousness, Super Play remains my all time favourite gaming magazine. Even if they gave the rancid Kick Off 3 91%. Yes, really. I suppose reviewer Tony Mott had an off day that day.
Should point out that Tony Mott reviewed two other footy games in that issue for a World Cup related feature (Issue 20, June 1994). He gave World Cup Striker 91% and the first FIFA 89%. US Gold/Tiertex's officially licensed effort would be reviewed in the following month's issue.
I think my first one was either Sword of Vermillion (which is a bit bordeline as a JRPG) or Phantasy Star III which I still maintain was completely awesome:) For the SNES I was pretty much all imports.
The one I remember from Super Play that was particularly mouth watering and was a big preview they did on Secret of Mana 2. I desperately wanted to play that game!
Loved SuperPlay! Still have a few bundled away somewhere
Superplay was very important to me discovering jrpgs. Got most of them in import, sadly Mario rpg did not work back in the day, glad I eventually did get to play it.
I'm a little surprised Falcom stuff didn't get microcomputer releases in Europe. There was a small push by them in the late-80's/early-90's to get their games on computers outside of Japan and a few of them saw release outside of Japan on IBM compatibles. I would have thought that a few MSX games like that would have made it. I guess that just never came together.
Four years of watching your vids and still laughing at your lisp in the most inoffensive way, lol. Seriously one of the all time best youtube channels.
FF7 was my first exposure to RPG's. I remember reading in a Gamemaster or something about it and it said 'Familiar characters return from FF6', so when I fell in love with FF7 I was desperate to find FF6 and was really confused as to why none of the characters were in it.
You guys got Terranigma
Great video, I always thought that I had played FF6 on a Snes as a young lad, but just assumed I was making it up in my head for a fair while given that it didn't get a release here on the system.
Must have played an import without realizing.
Great video Kim! It grinds my gears when TH-camrs imply the final word on these games is that us Brits didn't even know they existed. Thanks to my friend's converter cart, the rich kid who's parents owned the store up the street, and of course Super Play, my memory of the era is very much filled with these games. It even applies to the PS1 era (FF7 aside), the American channels going on about 'oh you didn't get these games, you missed out, you poor peasant' re: the likes of Xenogears etc. No! The PS1 era was entirely dominated by piracy by everyone I knew, so what was released officially in the UK was completely irrelevant. We certainly knew more about JRPGs than the Yanks know about our beloved Speccy... ;)
surprised you didn't mention Ys on the Master System.
Awesome video! I’ve always been aware of the PAL region’s lack of JRPGs, and as a huge fan of the genre I can say I’m glad I grew up in the U.S. It’s definitely interesting hearing what led to your region eventually getting better support.
On a side note, towards the end you mention magazines that got Americans into JRPGs. For me it would’ve been PSM. They had whole sections dedicated to Japanese games, regardless of if they were confirmed to be coming to the west or not, and I loved looking through them (literally for years after the magazines came out.)
Die Hard Gamefan was at least earlier the best (US) source for info and screenshots from Japan. It's perhaps hard to understand how important screenshots and basic info on hot new games were before the internet, but Game Fan was the best IMHO
@@3dfxguy Yeah, I’m aware of that magazine and its importance. I was mainly talking about my personal experience and just wanted to share a magazine that had a big impact on me as an American in regards to JRPGs and imports (I wasn’t trying to argue about one being more important than the other.)
Ah, what a joy to see the late, great, Rik Mayall! Thanks Kim for once again lifting the lid on an area of gaming I just wasn't into during the era, I might be...let's just say "a little late", but I do find it interesting too see the aspects of gaming history that didn't register with me at the time.
Great content! As an American fan of SNES JRPGs (born in 1999, no less), I was always upset when I found out that European gamers missed out on such gems. Though most of SQUARE's greats would eventually land on the European Wii Virtual Console, it's nice to know that there was a relatively simple way to import them back during their original run. I wonder if anyone successfully saw the entire ending to FINAL FANTASY VI back then, as the issue was reportedly related to the adapter being used. (Before I came to this video, I had been reading an archived copy of a 1993 issue of "Superplay Gold" that mentioned various ways to get the consoles running on UK televisions.)
I loved Super Play, imports were basically unaccessible to me at the time though, but how I would go through every page and dream.
You're totally wrong about FFVII though.
That game sold because of the pre-rendered cutscenes and then a large enough portion of the purchasers realised that this could be a really engaging, emotional and enjoyable way to play a game, so it endured.
Julian Rignall with that haircut.... Holy crap😂😂