Differences between 60 Hz PAL and NTSC releases

[Thomago]

Ico and SotC don't have prerendered cutscenes. Everything is rendered in realtime!

However:

- SotC's PAL version has behind the scenes videos only available in 50 Hz (the game changes mode if you are using 60 Hz)
- Ico has a short prerendered "appetizer" video which slightly judders / is (even more) unsharp in 50 Hz mode. I don't know if there are both 50 and 60 Hz versions of that video on the disc or if the game does a on-th-fly norm conversion.

[Thomago]

So, typically, if you set a game to 60 Hz, pre-rendered cutscenes would also run in 60 Hz?

Yes.

[nmalinoski]

I know the arrows in DDR/Dancing Stage games for PlayStation and PS2 are synced with the framerate for the target region, but the music plays back at the correct speed; so, if you play a PAL version forced to NTSC, or an NTSC version forced to PAL, the arrow timing won't match the music.

[Xer Xian]

I guess it's quite difficult/time consuming to make a list about this since in most cases differences don't fit within fixed categorizations (and of course, you need to test two versions of the same game). Two weird examples in the shmups genre: the PAL version of Gunbird 2 doesn't let you save scores, and Sengoku Aces&Blade were split into two separate games in Europe (with shitty cover art too).

Also, any list should differentiate between NTSC-J and NTSC-US as well (if I remember correctly the japanese version of ICO is fine).

[Xer Xian]

How were cutscenes even converted to 50 Hz?

Possibly by discarding one every six frames. Entire games were converted this way (Ikaruga PAL for GC, I'm looking at you).