Help for Japanese translation. Sega Saturn obscure games

[guigui]

Hello all,

I have been kind of obsessed with the Sega Saturn Gundam Side Story games those last few years. They are quite hard to find in their jewel case version (cardboard case version is very common).

On their spine cards they have some small texts and what seem to be cuttable buy proofs. I took a picture of those, hopefully resolution is high enough for a nice fellow shmupper to translate the text for me (click for higher if needed) :



Thanks to anyone who can help.

[Gamer707b]

I'm sure you can scan it and translate it. I did that for the instruction manual for N64 Sin And Punishment.

[Koa Zo]

I used Google Lens app on my phone to rough translate it to English.

The one on the left says:
"This is an application ticket. Keep it safe, all 3. If you send them in, you'll get a nice gift. For details, see Volume 2 and Volume 3 instruction manuals."

On the right, basically says the same thing. Under the character image it says "For Twin Stick gift"

I wonder if they were giving away a twin stick controller to people who purchased all three games?
It did seem like there was a boat load of new-old-stock Saturn twin sticks floating around ebay in the early 2000s. Wouldn't be surprising to learn they were literally giving them away at the end.

[guigui]

Oh thank you people. I tried the translator from picture but only got poor results.
So those are "collect all 3 buy proof and get a gift", the gift certainly being the twin-stick controller going with this series of game.

I thought those may have been "collect this proof and send it to get the next game in the series" (the series has 3 games), which would have explained why Side Story II is rarer than Side Story I, and why Side Story III is way way rarer than I and II.

In any case, thank you for your replies and let the Gundam Side Story III quest continue : I cannot find this game anywhere (jewel case version code T-13313G).

[Sengoku Strider]

It's a little hard to make out a couple of the characters from the photo, but what I'm pretty sure it says:

First red circle:

これは応募券です。大切に保管し、全３巻集めて送ると、ステキなプレゼントが当たります。くわしくは、２巻および３巻の取扱説明書で告知いたします。

This is an entry voucher. Keep it in a safe place, collect all three volumes and send them in and you will win a fantastic gift. Details will be announced in the instruction manuals for volumes 2 and 3.

Second red circle:

3巻共通キャンペーン用券（大切に保管して下さい。）

Campaign voucher for volume 3 (Please keep it in a safe place.)

Third red circle:

ツインスティックプレゼント用券

Twin stick gift voucher

[guigui]

Thank you for detailed answer Sengoku Strider.

One line you wrote raises another question, this is written on volume 2 :

Second red circle:

3巻共通キャンペーン用券（大切に保管して下さい。）

Campaign voucher for volume 3 (Please keep it in a safe place.)

But then I wonder what is written on volume 3 (there is no volume 4). Unfortunately I dont own volume 3 myself, and the best I can find is this picture from Satakore.com (greeting to Madroms if he reads us, the only owner of this game worldwide ?), where it looks like the same thing is written on volume 3. But why would you have "campaign voucher for volume 3" written on volume 3 itself ?

[Sengoku Strider]

Looking at the other photo, I think there's a better translation. 共通 translates more directly as 'common, shared, mutual.' It's also used in the sense that we say '___wide' in English - ie. nationwide blackout, storewide sale, worldwide trade, etc.

There was odd punctuation in the spine card's text formatting other photo, so I had to guess at sentence structure. If I read these as two separate sentences, which comes across more clearly in the picture of the 3rd game's spine card, it looks like:

3巻共通

3 volume-wide / Shared across 3 volumes

キャンペーン応募券

Campaign voucher

So, saying that the campaign is occurring across the three volumes in the Gaiden series.

I own all three, though the limited editions, not the jewel case versions, and I don't have the spine cards. But both versions were released on the same dates. The instructions say the contest is a giveaway of a bunch of different things - a Gundam garage kit model, a Zeon badge, Gundam telephone cards, Gundam comics from Kodansha Haō magazine, as well as 300 Saturn Twin Sticks, which volumes II & III are compatible with.

Sega Retro says there was no jewel case version of the third game, and online I only see people selling the book-style cardboard cover version as '通常版' - tsūjō-ban, or 'regular version.' So I'm not sure what the provenance of the Satakore/Madroms photo is.

[guigui]

Oh great, thanks a lot for the explanation Sengoku Strider. Everything makes perfect sense now.

I can confirm that the spine cards on the limited (cardboard case) versions say the same thing than on the jewel case versions pictured here. Which makes sense since you say they were released at the same time, and they give access to the same bunch of goodies.

So it seems that here we simply see an exemple of Sega printing way way more limited version (cardboard) than standard version (jewel case).

Madroms and I confirm that, contrarily to what is stated on Sega Retro, the volume 3 exists in jewel case. He found his on ebay (pictured above), and I found mine on a forum (no spine, pictured below as spoiler with the whole jewel case family).

Spoiler

As for why volume 3 is rarer than 1 and 2 let's guess it is because the sales were not as high as expected when the game came out one by one and they decided to lower the standard version print number.