Espgaluda II on 360 is region free, right?

[EverEndingStory]

First off, hello. I'm new. I've only recently gotten into shmups, but in an effort to dive deeper into the genre I ran into a problem.

I just bought a (used, refurbished) 250GB Xbox 360 S, NTSC-U, and the first game I bought was Espgaluda II. I did research online, and everyone said the regular and platinum editions were region free, but the imited edition is region locked. I made sure this was the standard edition — it came with the first print bonus soundtrack, but the cover and disc art were for the standard edition. But my 360 wouldn't read the disc. I cleaned it, still wouldn't read. It had barely any scratches but I got it resurfaced too, still wouldn't read. I tried it in two of my friend's 360s, and it didn't work in either of theirs. I borrowed 10 games from my friends, and it had no problem reading those games.

Am I (and apparently the rest of the internet) just completely mistaken about this game being region free, or is there something seriously (but undetectably) wrong with this particularly disc?

I can take the disk back to get my money back, so no problem with that. But one of the reasons I decided to get a 360 was to play some of the exclusive shmups, particularly from Cave, who I fell in love with after importing Ketsui on PSN. Stuff like this, DoDonPochi and Mushihime-sama Futari. All of which are non-US releases, but which are allegedly region free. So I'd want to try to buy this game again online, but. . .

Can anyone here with a U.S. Xbox 360 confirm that these games are region free and you've had no trouble playing them. Thanks so much for any replies.

[BulletMagnet]

From what you say it sounds like it should work, but off the cuff you might want to check one or two other things: 1) When you put the disc in the 360 and tried to play it, did it give you some kind of error message? I seem to recall seeing "your console does not support games from this region" or something like that when putting a region-locked game into a system that wouldn't play it; and 2) Is there some kind of serial number on the disc that might be compared with others, just to make sure it's really the edition you think it is? Hopefully someone can help you figure this out.

[EverEndingStory]

From what you say it sounds like it should work, but off the cuff you might want to check one or two other things: 1) When you put the disc in the 360 and tried to play it, did it give you some kind of error message? I seem to recall seeing "your console does not support games from this region" or something like that when putting a region-locked game into a system that wouldn't play it; and 2) Is there some kind of serial number on the disc that might be compared with others, just to make sure it's really the edition you think it is? Hopefully someone can help you figure this out.

No, I don't get that error message, actually. I jut get an "Unrecognized Disc" error message, but it doesn't specifically mention anything about region. I just checked to be exact: the error code is 03-80-00 and the message is just "the disc is unreadable". That's what I get most of the time. A few times it just doesn't read anything, like it acts like no disc is in there. The weirdest thing is when I try it on my sister's old fat 360— the system won't even allow the tray to be closed with the disc in the system.

I didn't know putting in a disc from another region gets its own special error message. That helps a bunch, in meaning that there must be something specifically wrong with this disc. Thank you so much!!

[Kiken]

Have you tried playing any other disc-based games in the console? Unrecognized Disc can be triggered by a drive laser error.

[EverEndingStory]

Have you tried playing any other disc-based games in the console? Unrecognized Disc can be triggered by a drive laser error.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about too, so I borrowed a bunch of random games from my sister to play them, and they all were read fine.

[Kiken]

Have you tried playing any other disc-based games in the console? Unrecognized Disc can be triggered by a drive laser error.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about too, so I borrowed a bunch of random games from my sister to play them, and they all were read fine.

So the game was a used copy, right (you mentioned that the disc surface had some scratches)? Is there another 360 that you can try the game on? Cause it sounding more and more like the disc was bad.

[EverEndingStory]

Have you tried playing any other disc-based games in the console? Unrecognized Disc can be triggered by a drive laser error.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about too, so I borrowed a bunch of random games from my sister to play them, and they all were read fine.

So the game was a used copy, right (you mentioned that the disc surface had some scratches)? Is there another 360 that you can try the game on? Cause it sounding more and more like the disc was bad.

The disk only had a few scratches on it (so little in fact that the store I went to to get it resurfaced did it for free, cause they didn't think the resurfacing would do much), but yes, it was used. And yeah, I tried it on two other 360s, neither of them worked. One of them was a 360 Slim, like mine, and it popped up the same error message I got of "disc not recognized". The other was my sister's, an old fat first-gen model 360, and the disc tray refused to even close with the game disc in it. It would close and then immediately pop back out again. So you think that means its a bad disc?

[theclaw]

The region is a completely separate error message from difficulty reading the disc.

[IseeThings]

Sounds like the disc is no good.

I've got several hundred xbox games, and you get this sometimes. Twice over the course of building the collection I've seen cases where 100% scratch free discs (front and back) simply refuse to work on anything, must have been badly pressed or something.

Remember scratches on the front are often worse than ones on the back tho, the number of times I've received items that don't work because they're heavily scratched on the front is quite silly, some shops / sellers still only seem to check the back, or are intentionally trying to scam. Obviously resurfacing does nothing for those cases.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've seen cases where 100% scratch free discs (front and back) simply refuse to work on anything, must have been badly pressed or something.

Yeah, there's got to be rare disc writing errors when DVDs are produced that mean a brand new, totally unscratched disc simply won't work because it's defective. I once bought a brand new copy of Silent Hill 3 that had this issue on my PS2. Went back to the store, explained what was going on, gave me a new one, worked just fine.

Your best bet is to go back to the seller and say that the copy you bought for the game is no good, and isn't playing. They should then ask you to ship it back and then will send you another working copy (preferably tested at their end).

[EverEndingStory]

Ok. See I've gone through quite a big collection of games across PS1, PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, PS3, Wii and Wii U, and I've NEVER run into that before where a seemingly perfectly good disc just doesn't work. But I guess there's a first time for anything. Thank you all so much for the reply. I'm going to order another copy than online, and I just wanted to make sure before going ahead with that. ^_^

[2dvertical]

I have come across this with ps2 of course, dusty lens; most would work and a few wouldnt read. I opened it up to clean it but maybe u could get one of those lens cleaning discs? Looks like a normal disc with little brushes and a solution to apply. It could have come from a dusty arse house etc..

[davyK]

I have the platinum release and it runs fine on my PAL 360.

[poodude]

I have the 1st print release with the soundtrack and it works perfectly on my US 360. Sounds like a bad disc or maybe bootleg?

[Zombi 6]

I have the platinum release and runs fine on my PAL360 also

[EverEndingStory]

Some phantom thieves stole my money, but Imma be buying the game again brand new this next check and Ill let you guys know. Thank you everyone for replying. I was very scared for a minute.