Gaming Heartbreaks - What game did you love/want that never hit your country's shores?

[Tyrant_Valvatorez]

Mostly Atlus games that take forever to get released in PAL regions, especially the region locked ones. Looking at you, SMTIV and Persona 4 Arena.

Also, a whole bunch of games that never left Japan, like The Idolm@ster.

Several VNs I really want to play that will never be translated... or are currently being translated only slow as fuck.

Oh, I feel your pain. Dies Irae, White Album 2, Sayonara wo Oshiete... one day you'll be translated or I'll get competent at Japanese. One day.

Fully agreed on the Atlus part, to add to your point I would like to point out the biggest annoyance with it is Atlus USA and its blatant not caring. A good example of the exact problem is a comment they made on one of the Playstation blogs about Persona 5, pretty much confirming they have no idea who will localize for Europe and have not sought anyone out yet.
So I think they pretty much answered what the hell has been going on with PAL releases... essentially we are an afterthought like we suspected, ranting aside they supposedly have a deal with Nis America's European branch to bring Atlus titles to Europe so... really what the hell is to stop them from getting NISA to deal with the PAL release at the same time Atlus USA goes through the US Localization. If they did it that way it would speed up the PAL releases significantly because lets face it a 6-9 month wait for the exact same damn games as the US version with no multi-5 translation is not acceptable!

On a more positive note Persona Q was released the same week as the US release so perhaps they are actually improving.

 

[Dandark]

I am still waiting for the latest Blazblue game, Blazblue: Chronophantasma, to come to Britain if it ever will. At this point I would probably just prefer it to get a PC release.

 

[Scow2]

As an American, there is one game from Japan that, atrociously, was never released here. It is now over 10 years old, but still the greatest American game ever made.

 

[CaitSeith]

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden 2 for the SNES

The worst thing is that the Nintendo magazines announced it when it was released in Japan.

 

[Gone Rampant]

Steins;Gate's English release never made it to Europe.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I am still waiting for the latest Blazblue game, Blazblue: Chronophantasma, to come to Britain if it ever will. At this point I would probably just prefer it to get a PC release.

I was like that came to Britain Im in Britain and I have it then I remembered I actually imported it same as I did with P4U2, and GGXRD because seriously they are the worst at bringing their games anywhere except Japan and America I used to just support the releases here when they finally came out but no not any more its pathetic the way they handle it the wait for P4A was especially bad not the longest they have ever done being a mere 9 months after America (with no localisation done for Europe) but the fact it was region locked was extremely irritating. I think it may be available digitally though on the PSN on EU store pretty sure it is actually but as for the disced version dont hold your breath although Chronophantasma 2 is out soon anyway not sure if its a separate disc or a free upgrade though.

There are way to many games that never made it and continue not to make it that I would like which is why I import more and more probably import as many if not more games than I dont now on consoles tbh.

I suppose 2 that I havent got that I would like recently are Fatal Frame 5 (which I am still hoping for a western release) and Valkyria Chronicles 3 on PSP (which I know is unlikely ever to get a western release but looks amazing, wish it got localised instead of 2).

Oh and still waiting for Dragon Quest X on WiiU to make it, better make myself cozy.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Any and all Fire Emblem games that have not been localized outside of Japan. One in particular, the sequel to Shadow Dragon that only got released in Japan.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Shinobido. A Tenchu game at heart made by the original developers after all we got in the west were mediocre or frustrating sequels which never progressed the plot after the great third game.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Now that From Software is big here, maybe it's time for a release of Metal Wolf Chaos. They could cross it over with Metal Gear Rising, Raiden and the president could protect Japan from resurrected Stalin and the red army.

I remember being very excited about Sin and Punishment when Nintendo Power covered it and let down when the decision was made to not release it here. It really does live up to the hype, so I'm glad today's gamers can play it (and its sequel) on modern consoles.

Obligatory cheeky answer: Starfox 2.

 

[OhNoYouDidnt]

For me, it would be Zettai Zetsubō Shōjo: Danganronpa AnotherEpisode. I'm a massive Danganronpa fan, and even though it's a weird third person spin-off thingy instead of a proper visual novel, I'd love to play it. Whilst it's actually a fairly recent release, something still tells me that it will probably never leave Japan.

I'd love to be wrong about that, though.

 

[Michel Henzel]

The first and third game in the XenaSaga trilogy (PS2). Only the second one, which is kinda the worst one, was ever released in the Pal region. I remember it well as this is what made me go ahead and have my PS2 modchipped making it region free.

 

[Raddra]

Suikoden 3

I remember it was scheduled for release, I even had a pre-order in. Then one day it just got pulled from the release schedule without a word.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

I had to import several DS games that I wanted, notably Devil Survivor 1&2 and The World Ends With You. That is no longer possible unfortunately, with the 3DS's region lock. Nintendo have been pretty good about releasing games in Europe on a reasonable schedule, but aside from Pokemon there aren't many first party titles I'm interested in.
That said, Atlus continue to be jerks with regards to European localization. I suppose I should just be happy we got Shin Megami Tensei 4 at all. Otherwise, Europe tends to get all the major releases I'm interested in eventually.

That saves me a lot of typing out
At least devil survivor 2 will be getting a 3DS re-release/update this year (I think anyways). Got devil survivor 1 re-release last year.
Never did get my hands on The World Ends With You tho.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The really big one I can think of is Seiken Densetsu 3 (the Secret of Mana sequel). I was a huge fan of the first SoM and was so ticked off that the sequel wasn't making it to North America. Thing is, I eventually was able to play it later on and I was actually super disappointed with it. Outside of looking absolutely beautiful, I found it totally underwhelming as a game. It wasn't even that it wasn't better than SoM, it's that it was actually worse. So I guess maybe that's the lesson here, especially when talking about times gone by where you could only really see screenshots and read brief descriptions in magazines. Just because something you can't get your hands on sounds and looks good doesn't mean it's actually a good game worthy of pining over.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Phantasy Star Online 2. ;_;

Now, I'm not an MMO player. The only MMO I played seriously was Ragnarok Online, and I gave up shortly after my friends did.

But this is one MMO I WOULD have played, even if none of my friends did. I really like the PSO universe, and I have VERY fond memories of the gamecube game and the DS game.

I would have DEFINITELY played it.

But as far as I know, it's never ever EVER coming to North America. And that makes me really really sad.