Crisis Core Research Thread

[Shademp]

- One of my biggest weaknesses with Crisis Core is the obsessive need to perform as much as somewhat-reasonably possible before moving on in the story. I suffered greatly trying to get Doc's Code from the Magic Pot. Mission 10-2-3: After pleasing the Magic Pot for the first time and adding Magic Pot to the DMW, you will get either a Feather's Cap or Doc's Code when performing the correct attacks on it later on. Feather's Cap is almost definitely more common than Doc's Code. I ended up only getting it by abusing save states, which I normally want to avoid.

Now when I finally have both Feather's Cap and Doc's Code in both versions, I can move on to Banora. 10% mission completion already.


- I could almost swear I saw the Magic Pot appear in mission 10-2-2, but Absolute Steve's guide says nothing about it......

- This bit from Absolute Steve's guide doesn't seem true for any version.

Mission 8-2-1 through 8-2-6 can now be done, and you'll get different Mako
Stones as reward. These Mako Stones can be brought back to one of the
scientists in the Materia Room who will reward you for every Mako Stone. Just
select the first(!) option when talking, or you can NOT get the reward anymore

There is no situation here, other than avoiding the Materia Room, that will make a reward unavailable to you. Not sure what's going on here in Steve's guide.


- Many more observations were made in regards to the English text in both games.

Just like "Map Information" was changed to "Zone Information", the same is true for the text that shows up at an exit/entrance.

Spoiler

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

Main Menu observations.

Spoiler

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

JP -> ENG
MAIN MENU -> Main Menu
Shin - Ra -> Shinra
LOCATION -> Zone
GIL -> Gil
TIME -> Time
D.M.W. -> DMW
HELP -> Help

The change from upper case to lower case is generally true in JP -> ENG, but not always.

Also what's up with this Location/Zone/Map obsession? Map changed to Zone and Location changed to Zone. Oh well.

Spoiler: Mission Start - Activating Combat Mode - Modulating Phase - Conflict Resolved

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

Mission Start!! changed to Begin Mission! ...Alright, whatever.
You will see here also that although the mission (10-2-3) is the same, the starting camera angle is different. This difference stayed the same after more tests.

With "Activating Combat Mode" and "Conflict Resolved" there is only a change in font, no change in upper- and lower case letters. One exclamation point was removed from "Modulation Phase".


JAPANESE

ENGLISH

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

Will check "Mission Complete" later.

- Due to spending so much time in the Tonberry Missions (10-2-x) in search for the Magic Pot, I ended up having the Tonberry DMW triggered against other Tonberries. I find that humorous.

Spoiler: Murderous Thrust reaction

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

Japanese text changed to exclamation point and question mark. Can somebody transcribe the Japanese for me? Does it represent a sound or is it exactly like the English "!?" ?

 

[Strangelove]

the japanese text is ぷっす, which is a sound. it's the sound of a small stab or puncture.

 

[ForceStealer]

I don't like doing very many side missions until I beat it, as going through all the missions will rob the plot of ANY challenge.
Obviously your research playthrough is different.

 

[Shademp]

- Normally, on forums and in Absolute Steve's guide, the first playable section of Crisis Core is referred to as "Chapter 1". However, I noticed now that in the Crisis Core Ultimania and in the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania (Revised Edition), the chapter numbering does not begin until the Wutai chapter. A quick google translate shows that the symbols 序章 mean Prologue or "Introductory Chapter".
-- CCU Photo (page 100)
-- FFVII 10th AU Photo (page 166)

I will henceforth be using chapter numbers in accordance with the Ultimanias. The Banora chapter is thusly Chapter 2, not 3.

- You can't see it in normal PSP resolution here, but Zack's mouth is still moving when Tseng is talking in this scene. Just another example of what wouldn't fly in an HD release.

- Camera rotation speed is super fast in Banora (the outside), both versions. Weird.

- In my headcanon, the computer screen here is a dump of somebody's desktop in the Crisis Core development staff.

- The section with the incoming shells/missiles, apparently being fired by Genesis's minions, is silly in many ways. Before this section where Zack destroys the shells there is a long-ass tutorial you can't skip. GAH. I also find it silly how the shells all follow the exact same trajectory. Intuitively I would think that the shell would explode if you try to split it in half. I don't know how explosive shells are usually designed, but I find it curious that when Zack splits a shell in a cutscene, the two parts explode behind him. So...the shell is essentially two shells in one? BAH. Stop thinking.


- VERSION DIFFERENCE: When stepping on the lifestream spots on your way to (or deliberately not going straight to) Angeal's house, the timer...
JP: ...continues counting down when Zack steps on the spot and says "I'll check what I got later".
ENG: ...freezes when Zack steps on the spot and says "I'll check what I got later".

So in the Japanese version you just have to press the OK button really quick to try and lose as little time as possible from Zack's script window. You will inevitably lose some time though.

Keep in mind I'm playing Normal Mode in Crisis Core. On Hard Mode the timer *might* be the same as in the Japanese version. Yes, I will do a Hard Mode playthrough eventually. I think I only played through a short bit on Hard Mode, years ago...



- Tried out the scenario if you don't race to Angeal's house in time. Nothing changes. Zack gets teleported to Angeal's house, Tseng then calls to say that he has delayed the airstrike. This is the same as the scene for when you reach the house on your own, except now there are no rewards.


- If you've destroyed the shells fired by Genesis's minions, Tseng will say
"You'll be rewarded for destroying evidence of Shinra's involvement in this matter."
......Well I better hope that the Shinra company cleaned up Banora with great precision afterwards, because the bomb shells they drop have the Shinra logo on them on multiple places. If they don't pick up every piece of shrapnel, you risk leaving behind a bomb shell piece with the Shinra logo on it. Then again these guys manage to perfectly recreate Nibelheim so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.


- "Summons aren't meant to be used like this. What happened to dreams and honor?"
HOW THE F*CK ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE USED, ZACK?! For the love of god game, tell us exactly what you mean by SOLDIER honor.


- One thing to keep in mind for when taking snapshots. If you play from the start in 1x (PSP) resolution, the character models look smooth. But if you switch to higher than 1x and then go back to 1x, the models look very pixelated and edgy. Not sure how to properly describe it, but this explains why the quality of my snapshots sometimes varied even when capturing the exact same thing.

 

[Shademp]

- Fighting Bahamut in the missions. After Mega Flare, Zack's MP and AP were depleted to zero. I then noticed... I could not dodge or block! Turns out one dodge costs 1 AP and one block costs 1 AP! I NEVER noticed this before (or maybe I did and simply forgot)! I never use up AP (due to most Command Materia being useless) so I never paid attention to the AP consumption through dodging and blocking. Continuously blocking will keep the AP counter going down.

Similarly it is easy to forget/miss that the DMW reel runs on SP (Soldier Points).


- Zack picks up a summon materia in a brief cutscene after the obligatory story battle against Bahamut, but afterwards there is no new summon materia in the inventory. You only get the materia in a mission. Crisis Core, you can be odd sometimes.


- Mission Complete!! (JP) versus Mission Accomplished! (ENG)

Spoiler

- It just occurred to me that Crisis Core has no "Tent" item. This is felt now when my MP and AP are low. ...Cool. Your best bet is of course to drink the super potion on the first floor of Shinra HQ.


- When a chapter ends you get the option to save. When this save is made, the name of the save game reflects the chapter that was just played. So far they look like they could work as Chapter Titles. Upon comparing the English and the Japanese "chapter names" though, I'm surprised at how much more long-winded the Japanese text looks. Can somebody transcribe and translate to confirm if the save game names are vastly different?

Spoiler: Prologue Chapter Name

Spoiler: Chapter 1 Name

Wutai chapter. Angeal's betrayal.

Spoiler: Chapter 2 Name

The Banora Chapter. Ends with Zack saying "SOLDIER doesn't mean monster".

- If anybody has copies of Crisis Core they'd like to sell to me for cheap, let me know. I'm looking for a complete set of both black label and ultimate hits/greatest hits/platinum boxes. Currently own Japanese Ultimate Hits copy and European English Platinum copy.

 

[Tetsujin]

Chapter 2 looks to me like "tachi wa monstaa janai" (shouldn't it be boku tachi...? Is the question mark symbol a kanji that couldn't be displayed?)

which I think means "We are not monsters"

My basic Japanese is rusty. Hito, please tell me I was right.

 

[Shademp]

(shouldn't it be boku tachi...? Is the question mark symbol a kanji that couldn't be displayed?)

Good question. I transferred the Japanese emulator saves to my memory stick now and booted up the Japanese game on my physical PSP.

The saves work and you are indeed correct. The emulator did not display a kanji here. Even when I changed the language of the PSP emulator to Japanese, this kanji was not displayed.

Here are photos I took of the game save names as they were on my physical PSP.

- Chapter 1: A | B

- Chapter 2: A | B

The same kanji in both cases. To my recollection I have not seen question marks that represent missing kanji symbols in actual gameplay.

 

[Strangelove]

Chapter 2 looks to me like "tachi wa monstaa janai" (shouldn't it be boku tachi...? Is the question mark symbol a kanji that couldn't be displayed?)

which I think means "We are not monsters"

My basic Japanese is rusty. Hito, please tell me I was right.

正解です('ω')ノ

there seems to be something off about the font, and it isn't able to render that one character for some reason and you end up with that weird question mark thing. without checking it, i would say that it should be 俺? (edit; post made while i was writing confirms this was the case)

the japanese titles are lines from the game iirc, or at least reworded versions.

Prologue:
夢を持て (have/hold a dream) - angeal's line to zack
Embrace Your Dreams

Chapter 1
？を裏切ったりはしない ([he] wouldn't betray me or anything [like that]) - zack's line to sephiroth?
Betrayal?

Chapter 2
？たちはモンスターじゃない (we aren't monsters) - zack's line to genesis?
Monster

 

[Airling]

Similarly it is easy to forget/miss that the DMW reel runs on SP (Soldier Points).

Hm, somehow I always thought of SP as Spirit Points. I blame Legend of Dragoon. Soldier Points makes more sense.

 

[Shademp]

Legend of Dragoon

Spoiler

Extremely flawed game but oh so fun if you want to indulge yourself in J-RPG tropes.

Hm, somehow I always thought of SP as Spirit Points. I blame Legend of Dragoon. Soldier Points makes more sense.

Spirit Points make sense and I thought this was the abbreviation too until I looked in the game's Tutorial mail.

Spoiler

Honestly I think it should have been an abbreviation for Spirit Points because in my mind Limit Breaks are an extra powerful manifestation of spirit energy. Just to confirm, the Japanese mail also spells out the abbreviation as being SOLDIER Points. My friend Dipsiel confirmed this.

Spoiler

 

[The G'randiest' Daddy]

Airling has never played the game, dammit. She just watched me play it. It's my absolute favourite game evaaaar!

Extremely flawed game but oh so fun if you want to indulge yourself in J-RPG tropes.

You're probably right, but I just love it so damn much I can't see the flaws

Spoiler

Fantastic music!!

Spirit Points make sense and I thought this was the abbreviation too until I looked in the game's Tutorial mail.

Yeah I also thought it was Spirit Points. It does make sense, considering they chart on the same thingie as your mood iirc.

Honestly I think it should have been an abbreviation for Spirit Points because in my mind Limit Breaks are an extra powerful manifestation of spirit energy. Just to confirm, the Japanese mail also spells out the abbreviation as being SOLDIER Points. My friend Dipsiel confirmed this.

Or, you know, that

 

[Shademp]

- Absolute Steve's guide says:

Head into LOVELESS Avenue (north from the fountain) and speak with the first woman and select the first option. She is talking about Joe, with his Black Chocobo TEIOH

No matter which option you select, the same mission is still unlocked. This is true for both the Japanese and English game.


- Barely worth noting, but the mail background color in the Japanese game has a lot more white in.

Spoiler

This mail, where Angeal and Genesis have no last names in the Japanese game, was brought up in Squall_of_SeeD's article about Crisis Core surnames. Fun version differences.


- Inconsistency.

Spoiler: Zack in elevator

Spoiler: Zack moving out of elevator

The inside of the elevator changes completely!


- In a successful Modulation Phase you get a "Power Surge".
JP: Power Surge!!
ENG: Power Surge!

Yup, merely a difference in font and one exclamation point.


- On page 572 of the Crisis Core Ultimania, you can see a partial storyboard for the Angeal-Genesis-Sephiroth cutscene. In the storyboard, in the portion where Genesis starts using magic against Sephiroth, Genesis fires single shots that Sephiroth dodges while flying down. He gets hit, but then bursts through the smoke, diving with Masamune first. Angeal jumps inbetween, almost gets hit by a projectile from Genesis, grabs Genesis, asks him something and says something about SOLDIER 1st Class.


- Page 571, in the Banora scene with Zack, Tseng and Genesis, the storyboard artwork makes it look like Rude was to be present here instead of Tseng. But looking at the character names, it is still meant to be Tseng. At least I think that's what is going on here.


- Looking further in the CCU, I find some neat things.
Page 550: Unused Banora Genesis copy, disguised as a farmer, wielding a small scythe.
Page 552: An unused medic Wutai enemy

 

[Shademp]

Version Difference: Another mission where a border was changed.

Spoiler: Mission 8-3-2

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

The area has/had enemy encounters, but no treasure. Removing it for the English game was welcome.

 

[Shademp]

Mission 3-1-4: Difference in starting camera angle. The mission is to defeat three death machines. Mission available from the start of Chapter 4 (inside Aerith's church).

Spoiler

JAPANESE: One death machine visible.

ENGLISH: Two death machines visible.

It is very likely that a ton of missions begin with different initial camera settings but I don't notice it for the most part.

Very low on observations right now. Just clearing mission after mission, first in the English and then in the Japanese, actually comparing with a fair amount of attention for the most part. Mostly keeping an eye out for map and treasure differences.


EDIT: In other missions the camera difference is way more subtle. You wonder why they even bothered changing the initial camera settings. Mission 3-1-5.

Spoiler

JAPANESE

ENGLISH: Camera lowered yet again.

By comparing the maps, I also noticed that Zack's starting position is one or two steps more to the west in the Japanese game, but only according to the game map's arrow. Zack is clearly standing on the same spot in both the snapshots above.

EDIT #2: Same type of camera difference in Mission 7-2-6. I'm just going to assume from now on that in most cases, if not all, the camera was lowered for the English game (to varying degrees).

 

[Shademp]

VERSION DIFFERENCE:

JP: Clearing Mission 6-3-6 will unlock mission 6-4-1.

ENG: Clearing Mission 6-3-6 will, alone, not unlock mission 6-4-1.

Very excited to spot this. I have cleared the exact same missions in both versions. According to Absolute Steve's guide, it is required to complete both 6-2-6 and 6-3-6 in order to unlock 6-4-1. However, the 6-2-x batch is not available until Chapter 6 (unlocked by talking to the right NPCs in Shinra HQ). 6-3-1 is made available in Chapter 2 (before heading to Banora). This means that the Japanese game allows you to play the 6-4-x missions four chapters earlier than in the English game. Not only that but with 6-4-x available, you can technically fight your way through to unlock the 6-5-x and 6-6-x missions.

Take into account though that even on high level (Level 36 currently and on Chapter 4), with great equipment, the 6-3-6 mission requires you to be fast yet careful or you'll easily be obliterated. 6-4-1 up to 6-6-6 would most definitely be a momentous challenge as early as Chapter 2.


Btw mission 6-3-6 is this one:
Seeking Precious Items -> Zack, the Treasure Hunter -> Items in the Wasteland

 

[Shademp]

- Now that I think more about the difference in camera angles, the Japanese camera perspective (where you don't see as far into the distance) is way annoying.

- Because of playing the parts in the English game first and the Japanese second, I make mistakes in the former but not the latter. I only have one Phoenix Down left in the English game, but three in the Japanese. This bothers me slightly.

MORE ENGLISH DIFFERENCES

- JP: Level Up!! -> ENG: Level Up!

Yup, yet another case where an exclamation point was removed for the English game.

- When Cactuar is close to getting summoned, the screen that pops up before the DMW roll resumes will read (in English letters) "SABOTENDER" in the Japanese game. In the English game it reads "CACTUAR".

 

[Shademp]

- Follow-up on the Cactuar thing. I only took brief snapshots when the window was in 2x mode.

Spoiler: Japanese

Spoiler: English

EDIT: Notice how the letters for "CACTUAR" became wider than the corresponding letters in "SABOTENDER".


When the DMW gets into "Chocobo Mode", the DMW may summon (or fail to do so) a Chocobo, Cactuar/Sabotender, Tonberry, Cait Sith, Moogle or Magic Pot. As we can see, this mode is subtitled "Change Character" in the Japanese game, compared to "Character Change" in the English game.


- In some of the Yuffie missions, Zack ends up giving money or items to Yuffie after the mission is completed.

Spoiler

I have no idea if this affects the one-time bonus for completing that mission.

Tested now to complete this mission (7-5-3) but without any potion in my inventory.

Spoiler

This is all that happened. The rest of the scene script remains exactly the same, minus the "You give the voice a potion!" bit.

In mission 7-5-2 Yuffie wants you to give her 100 gil, which Zack willingly does for Wutai's restoration. I used up all my gil and triggered the "not enough money" scenario.

Spoiler

That's all there is to it, minus the "You give the voice 100 gil" bit.

I just like to test out these "Not Enough Items/Gil" scenarios in the FFVII games I research. Just think of the dozens of "your materia inventory is full" dialogue branches in the original game that you never triggered!

EDIT: Post updated with better Cactuar image from the English game. Not sure if the "Cactuar speeding by" effect in the English game isn't there in the Japanese snapshot because of different timing or because the animation was changed.
EDIT#2: Confirmed that the speeding-by animation is in the Japanese game as well.

 

[Shademp]

Crisis Core and its addictive missions... *sigh*

At the start of Chapter 4 (in Aerith's church) Zack was on Lv.31/32 (JP/ENG) with 22% mission completion. Now he is on Lv.44 with 33% mission completion. Normally I'd want to continue beating missions until there are only "Very Hard" missions left, then possibly take on one or two of those, but I have to call a break before I go mad. Going to move on with the story now instead.


BUT FIRST! I decided to finally play around with G's extractor and the RINOA software to view the models and text. So far only ripped from the English PAL version. I do not know what differences, if any, this might have from the English NTSC version. All I figure is that save files and cheat codes will only work for one and not both.


Looking at Skan's post, second spoiler tag, I can see that the file numbers and file content for English NTSC does not match up perfectly with the file numbering for the PAL version. Junon for example is 2085 in Skan's list, but in the PAL version 2085 is the Sector 1 Train Station. Junon is 2093 in the PAL version.

When Skan extracted the game files there were 8725 files. However in the PAL version there are 8734, which almost matches with the location number offset when comparing ENG NTSC and ENG PAL.


Looking at Angeal's House (2020.raw in ENG NTSC, 2028 in ENG PAL), a hidden area is revealed. Well, it was obvious in-game that the metal plates hid something, but the game never lets you open it as far as I can tell.

What do you call these metal plates? Metal floor doors? *English fails*

Spoiler: Prnt Scrn

Does the RINOA CC model viewer inherently have the problem that textures are not properly displayed and end up looking all corrupt? Or is this perhaps because I am viewing PAL files and not ENG NTSC?

Spoiler: Example

- I have noticed before that the Sector 8 Fountain area clock is perpetually stuck at 02:28, but never that the roman numeral for 4 is written as IIII and not IV.

Spoiler: Yup

I wonder if this is a conscious reference to the clock room error (assuming most will agree that this way of writing 4 in roman numerals is an error) in the original game.

Spoiler

EDIT: Just saw several clocks online that writes 4 as IIII (by coincidence this example popped up in my playlist). It looks like this wiki page on roman numerals is correct:

The "standard" forms described above reflect typical modern usage rather than a universally accepted convention. Usage in ancient Rome varied greatly and remained inconsistent in medieval and modern times

 

[Shademp]

- Ripped the following text from 01474.raw.

Spoiler: Chapter 1: Wutai Mission - Anti-SOLDIER Monsters

<TEXT>You must be the anti-SOLDIER monsters I've been
hearing about.
<END>

<TEXT>SOLDIER 2nd Class Zack,
victorious once again!
<END>

<TEXT>Good work. Now, get out of there quickly.
There's only 5 minutes until detonation.
<END>

<TEXT>Understood!
<END>

<TEXT>
Director Lazard, are you watching?
<END>

<TEXT>
Gotta move!
<END>

<TEXT>
No time to play!
<END>

<TEXT>????????????
<END>

<TEXT>
Not good...
<END>

<TEXT>
That's one more you owe me.
<END>

<TEXT>
You lost your focus.
<END>

<TEXT>
Uh, yeah?
<END>

<TEXT>Oh, sorry if your sword got any wear,
tear, or rust on it.
<END>

<TEXT>
You're a little more important than my sword.
<END>

<TEXT>
...But just a little.
<END>

<TEXT>
Thanks!
<END>

Notice the

<TEXT>????????????
<END>

in the middle. This subtitle is never called in this scene. This is true for both the Japanese and English game. Naturally I don't know if the game calls for this MBD (that's what the text sections are called in the .raw files) segment of 01474.raw. Either it does, or there is an almost identical file elsewhere in the script data but possibly without the twelve question marks. Either way I'm sure this counts as a bit of "unused text". Nevermind of course how mundane this example of unused text is.


Also noticed now that while the character lines are present in these MBD sections, their speaker name headers (Angeal, Zack, etc) are not in the MBD even though they are present in-game. They are clearly called from a different file, perhaps the 01447 file as mentioned in Skan's post. In-game, speaker headers only appear when the player is in control of the dialogue boxes. In voice acted cutscenes, there are no speaker headers/names.


- Extracted files from the Japanese discimg.fse and discimg.pkg

JP: 8788 files
ENG NTSC: 8725 files
ENG PAL: 8734 files

 

[The G'randiest' Daddy]

Wow. I have no words

Well okay, I have one - trapdoors

 

[Shademp]

The Crisis Core Ultimania says nothing about any secrets in Angeal's House. The only reward in there is the treasure chest that gives you measly 5 gil. Damn it, I want there to be SOMETHING there! At least a way to open the "trapdoor". What a waste. It should have been something like...if you don't open the treasure chest and then proceed to talk to Gillian twenty times, you get rewards from the hidden cabinet. *sigh of disappointment*

 

[The G'randiest' Daddy]

That would have been cool. I felt so bad when I opened the chest and got 5 gil, and I thought, oh man, this was all the poor lady had left, shame, now I stole it...

Maybe the rewards could have included secret information re: Project G, stuff that might not make sense at first but after learning more later you figure it out...brb calling Square

 

[Shademp]

- Really Crisis Core? You had to make the Cinderella story into a part of FFVII canon? That feels a bit off to me. Oh well.

Spoiler: Big Snapshots

&#12471;&#12531;&#12487;&#12524;&#12521; = Cinderella

- Tiny door is slightly too tiny.

Spoiler: Another big image

- VERSION DIFFERENCE! When Zack buys the pink ribbon for Aerith, a small bit is voice acted in the English game. In the Japanese game it is not voice acted! Just like the intro sequence of the prologue, the Japanese game has you toggle through these silent text boxes at your pace, but due to them being voice acted in the English game you don't get a choice of pacing there. Also, just like the intro sequence has full, complex facial animations, Aerith's face and mouth are well animated for her line "Thank you, Zack! I'll always wear it from now on!" in the Japanese game, even though this bit isn't voiced.

Spoiler: Comparing

The voice acted bit is this:

Spoiler

*camera pans over the market*

Aerith
Okay...this one.

Zack
All right, I'll go buy it.
I'll be right back.
​

*fade to black*

Zack
How's that?

Aerith
Did you put it on right?
Will it stay on?

Zack
It should be fine.
Yeah, it looks great!
​

*shows the pink ribbon from behind, then Aerith turns to the camera*

Aerith
Thank you, Zack!
I'll always wear it from now on!
​

Naturally, because the player chooses the pacing themselves in the Japanese game, one can watch the full camera panning view before deciding to cut to black.


- A small difference: Sounds like in the Japanese game Aerith says "Some SOLDIER guy fell from the sky" compared to the English game where she simply says "Some guy fell from the sky". I think the Japanese line is better because in the context of this conversation (watch the whole scene to get it) it better establishes that Aerith is fine with Zack being in SOLDIER.

Spoiler: Comparing

 

[Shademp]

- Shinra HQ Floor 67 feels so different from the Crisis Core perspective compared to the original game, because you can't see into rooms you are not inside.

- The Floor 68 area is called "The Fusion Chamber". To me this further verifies that the chamber can fuse multiple creatures into one, as Hojo intended to do with Aerith and Red XIII. At least that's what I assume the game meant. He can't have meant for Red XIII to breed with Aerith and create a monstruous spawn. Really. He can't...have?

- The prison cells on floor 67 are given wooden planks for its floor. I think it looks more like metal "planks" in the original game.

- Small version difference: Signs on the Sector 0 Highway. Big images ahead.

Spoiler: From afar

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

Spoiler: Up close

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

The instantly obvious change...
JP: "Shin-raCompany"
ENG: "Shin-RaCompany"

But we also see that the smaller sign that clearly says "Sector 6 City" in the English game is more difficult to read. I'm pretty convinced that the number is still supposed to be a six in the Japanese game, but with the font they chose and how it was downgraded in this texture, it looks a bit ambiguous. I'm pretty convinced that they changed to a better font for the English game.

The red text that slides by above the "Shin-RaCompany" sign is the same in both versions. I do not know what the message reads as.

Ripping these textures with RINOA doesn't help much, due to the textures being dirty and corrupt. (See 2049.raw in the PAL game and 2123.raw in the JP game, TEX 36)

Spoiler

JAPANESE

ENGLISH

JAPANESE, ENLARGED

ENGLISH, ENLARGED

The upper row of text is the only one used in the snapshots I took. The lower row is used elsewhere in the background, not in the snapshots. But it's so far away that you'd only ever see it in an emulator with enhanced screen size. Still too small to read though, so I would count this as "unseen/hidden" environment text.

Spoiler

 

[Strangelove]

A small difference: Sounds like in the Japanese game Aerith says "Some SOLDIER guy fell from the sky" compared to the English game where she simply says "Some guy fell from the sky". I think the Japanese line is better because in the context of this conversation (watch the whole scene to get it) it better establishes that Aerith is fine with Zack being in SOLDIER.

that's just '[a] SOLDIER fell from the sky' but yeah

The red text that slides by above the "Shin-RaCompany" sign is the same in both versions. I do not know what the message reads as.

&#38750;&#24120;&#20107;&#24907;&#30330;&#29983; (state of emergency in effect)
&#20840;&#32218;&#38281;&#37782;&#20013; (all lines [trains, etc.] currently closed)

the japanese sign looks like 'sector 8 city' to me, but maybe it's just compression artefacts. 'city' feels like it's a direct/literal translation of the japanese name for the sectors (&#30058;&#34903;, [number]-city).