Doom 64... In Japan?!

Some of you might remember my Doom on Super Famicom thread from a while back. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I finally got my hands on a mint condition version of the Japanese version of Doom 64. I haven't noticed as much changed with this version story-wise, As the instruction manual follows the english one pretty much perfectly, bar a few typos (want some Health Portions? Or how about Rediation Protection?). Other than that, there are two things which have been changed with this version.

Messages are in Japanese.

This is pretty much expected, considering it is a Japanese game. I don't know how much the messages are changed though, since I don't know too much Japanese. Interestingly enough though, all intermission screens and level names are all still in English, and unaltered.

All blood splatters are now green colored.

Now here is something that really puzzles me. While all blood splatters in the game are now recolored green, all of the blood that is from an enemies death animation is still red (It is really comical to see green blood come flying off the Cyberdemon and then seeing him explode in a cloud of red blood). Even all the decorations (hanging arms, severed heads on sticks, blood puddles on the floor, etc.) are also still colored red. However, there is more that puzzles me here. On the front of the box (scans here) there seems to be some kind of warning about something to do with blood (血, or chi, is Kanji for blood I believe) on the cover. Also, all through out the instruction book, and on the back of the box, there are bullet holes with RED blood coming out of them.

Now, Gamebank (Who handled this Japanese port) also ported Hexen on the N64 to Japan. In that game, ALL blood is green. They even recolored sprites to have green blood. But, according to Gamefaqs, Gamebank released Doom 64 BEFORE Hexen 64 in Japan. Maybe Gamebank was porting both at the same time, and accidentally put green blood in Doom 64. This is just a theory however...

One more technical thing, When saving my game to the controller pak, the Japanese version picked up on my previous savegames from the US version. Does this mean that both versions maybe use the same wad (if that's how Doom 64 works, considering it's a cart) with only the data changed for the Japanese version to display the two things mentioned above? That's up to you to decide. ;)

Huh, I find it odd they recolored the blood at all. Japan doesn't really have a violence sensitivity.

Yeah, recolouring blood is usually something they do for western releases, usually it's Japan that gets the uncensored versions. Wondered what they were thinking when they did that (Or if it was just a mistake).

It seems that for the first time it was Japan that got the short straw.

At least green blood makes sense on hell knights and barons of hell.

Games that are too violent or have sex in them are censored all the time. San Andreas for example. It's kind of haphazard tho, "homegrown" releases seem to get away with a lot more crazy blood-fountain antics.

The blood warning is just that. Underneath it sez "FPS"

Maybe there was a code to show the full uncensored blood... Like in the Megadrive/Genesis version of Mortal Kombat.

Probably not. Even my censored version of GTA (no hardware stores, pimping, stomping, less blood etc etc.) has huge content warnings all over the place.

Hi guys,
I´m a big fan of Doom64 (or Absolution), and I´ve also bought a near mint complete copy of the Jap N64 version.

I´m really a hardware lover when it comes to consoles, so I play the game on the N64 hardware, even thought PC has mouse look + 1080p textures.

I play it on a 60" G9 Kuro plasma with decent settings, using an RGB modded NTSC-U N64, and a modded official gamecube scart.
And I must say: the colors in this game is purer and deeper then most N64 games and makes it looks richer, like it were in higher resolution.
And the framerate is so good that I dont feel the need for the PC.
In later games that were using expansion pak, they often have higher resolutions and lower framerate.
And one of my favourite FPS details here is that there´s "no input lag!"

One of the biggest reasons this game never got super big, is the brightness.
In the US version the default setting for brighness is on lowest value.
(Dunno about pal, but I´m gonna look into it.)
When taking it to max it feels like a normal brighness, when you can see most of the things without having to turn the light off.
But doing so the colors looks slightly more washed out, like if the local contrast is too low.

In the Japanese version the default for brightness is around 6 of 10.
And it is brighter then the same custom value for the US version. And the colors for the Jap version look less washed out.

Jap messages can be turned off.
Green external splatter blood for enemies, but enemies still have internal red guts during their death animations.
Maybe an action replay code could change the green splatter??
Everything else seems to be the same, exept no white text at startup.

This comparision makes me a little puzzled: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=456266
Here they say the Jap version looks too dark compared to pal??..
Clearly its too dark on these jap pictures.
Maybe there´s a early 1.0 version, or the result from a pal converter issue?
Dont know..

The original blood still exists in the Japanese version and a action replay code can tell the game to load the blood sprite lumps instead of the green one.

The Wadgen utility from Doom64ex recognizes the NSTC and Japan-specific lumps, but it never uses them during IWAD conversion. I did have plans to support region-specific versions for Doom64ex though.

did... What happened? :P

Kaiser said:

The original blood still exists in the Japanese version and a action replay code can tell the game to load the blood sprite lumps instead of the green one.

The Wadgen utility from Doom64ex recognizes the NSTC and Japan-specific lumps, but it never uses them during IWAD conversion. I did have plans to support region-specific versions for Doom64ex though.

Do you know the action replay code for the red blood on jap version on n64?

I just playd it through on the hardest difficulty, and grabbed the 3 demon keys.
I wish the game was longer :-(

Taxititan said:

Do you know the action replay code for the red blood on jap version on n64?

I just playd it through on the hardest difficulty, and grabbed the 3 demon keys.
I wish the game was longer :-(

Well, with Kaiser's work on Doom64 EX, being able to make Doom 64 maps is reality, though the crowd isn't too big so anything big will be a while. Only if more people have it. >.<

EDIT: Sorry, posted in wrong thread.

@Taxititan: European N64's have a notorious issue with SCART/Composite outputs, whereby the display is hideously overbright. Not much of an issue with games like D64/Q64, but for anything a bit more kid-firendly the screen is a complete washout. Fotunately my CRT TV supports 60hz via the RF cable. Mono sound, though :(

scalliano said:

@Taxititan: European N64's have a notorious issue with SCART/Composite outputs, whereby the display is hideously overbright. Not much of an issue with games like D64/Q64, but for anything a bit more kid-firendly the screen is a complete washout. Fotunately my CRT TV supports 60hz via the RF cable. Mono sound, though :(

60hz support is way better for a retrogamer than Stereo. :P
European N64 consoles shall also be possible to RGB mod.
Ive read that somewere..
I believe there was a German online shop who did that.

If anybody knows the code for red blood in jap version with action replay, please tell.

Kaiser said:

The original blood still exists in the Japanese version and a action replay code can tell the game to load the blood sprite lumps instead of the green one.

Here's a random question I didn't think of asking (until one year later lol), Do the green blood sprite lumps exist in the NTSC-U and PAL versions as well? Or were they specifically added for the Japanese version?

Mattfrie1 said:

Here's a random question I didn't think of asking (until one year later lol), Do the green blood sprite lumps exist in the NTSC-U and PAL versions as well? Or were they specifically added for the Japanese version?

It was added for the jap version cause pal and us does not have it.

Baby Bonnie Hood said:

At least green blood makes sense on hell knights and barons of hell.

Not really considering the Baron of Hell in this game has brownish blood.