DreamFactory brawlers/dungeon crawlers

[Obiwanshinobi]

Crimson Tears being pretty good, I've got a couple of questions regarding its predecessors: Tobal 1&2 and Ehrgeiz with their Quest Modes as well as The Bouncer.
1) Are the US versions of those PSX games in some way inferior to the Japanese originals? Awful US dubs would be awful, but come to think of it, Brave Fencer Musashi US was perfectly bearable to my ears (Bushido Blade was more of a mixed bag). I'd like to know even about differences as subtle as the arm's speed in Einhänder.
2) Do both NTSC versions of The Bouncer have Japanese voice acting and English captions alike as seen in this vid? PAL version seems obsolete (I can live with 50 Hz if done well, but Square used to piss onto PAL territories in the early days of PS2 from the top of their ivory tower).

[Nico87]

No clue about voice acting. There might be a japanese track but Square isn't exactly known for dual voice tracks.

Also, PAL releases are in most cases the 3rd release of a game, so from my experience PAL games are the definite versions. This is why Square usually released International versions of their games, 'cause so much got fixed in the NTSC/U and the PAL versions. Not that there's likely to be any notable changes from the NTSC/U version of a game to a PAL version, but this was indeed a fact with Odin Sphere, the PAL version being superior to the NTSC/U version.

Also, with the whole 50/60hz thing, the PAL versions should be the "true" versions graphically speaking.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The most delayed PAL games by Square are based on the Final Mix type Japanese reissues, that's all. PAL versions of Square games released around 2001 are notoriously unoptimised too. In FFIX PAL, rumour has it, even the LOADINGS are longer. Things got slightly better near the end of the PS2's lifecycle, but Odin Sphere's extra optimisation is the only case of a PAL game released by Square being undeniably the best version out there (although if you ask me, Valyrie Profile 2: Silmeria PAL looks better than NTSC - the 50 Hz job is well done this time around and I like whatever they did to the colours).

[Mortificator]

The U.S. version of The Bouncer lets you choose between English and Japanese for the voice acting, as well as for the subtitling and even the menus. This info probably makes you more likely to pick the game up, which is too bad, because it's incredibly shitty.

I'm almost certain that Ehrgeiz uses the same audio regardless of region.

I've never played the Tobal games, but I know Tobal 2 was never localized.

[ZOM]

In FFIX PAL, rumour has it, even the LOADINGS are longer.

Nah... Now, I wasn't standing there with both versions running and a stopwatch in hand, but I played both German and US versions and technically they play identical.
Just that the German version has a miles better translation than the English/US one, it's more sophisticated.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Well, I guess The Bouncer sank into oblivion for a reason, but according to my hunch I'm gonna enjoy it to an extent.

[Ganelon]

I enjoyed The Bouncer enough to unlock everything when it came out. In fact, I think it's still one of the best 3D interpretations of the 2D beat-em-up even though the controls are less than ideal.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Man, the boss rush near the end of Crimson Tears is a tough cookie. Nevertheless, I recommend it to those who like real time combat in their dungeon crawlers (or dungeon crawling in their fighting games). It certainly is compulsive and some of the mecha/monster designs are among Capcom's finest (nailing the fantasy Red Army looks in later stages better than The Red Star if you ask me).
Could somebody explain to me why Ehrgeiz is so infamous? Nothing about it seems particulary broken and it's got some nice production values.

[Ruldra]

Could somebody explain to me why Ehrgeiz is so infamous? Nothing about it seems particulary broken and it's got some nice production values.

Probably because it plays very differently from other fighting games. No one at my arcade knew how to play the game so the cab was left unused for most of the time. When I played it (I owned the PSX version so I knew what I was doing) a lot of people came to ask me how to do this and that. One guy even asked me how to jump.

[Skykid]

I bought The Bouncer because the character designs and models look so damn good. It's amazing what they could pull off at the PS2's genesis compared to the shit characters they come up with now.
The game is pretty god-awful though. Controls feel messy and there's loading between every fight (which are really all the same.)

But boy, I love the style.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Even as more of a tech demo than a timeless looker, The Bouncer indeed exploits the hardware impressively. Tobal 2 already had stunning animations; The Bouncer brought higher polygon count and all those funky filters and light sourcing to the table. It deals with aliasing and flickering better than FFX too.
Oddly enough, I don't find Ehrgeiz tricky to control even in the arcade mode. It just plays like boss battles in some action adventure game (with analogue stick to boot). Then again, I never played the likes of Tekken extensively.