1up has come up with an excellent article which goes over the remaking of several different games for different target groups. Often, games which we thought were never changed, such as Fox, or Mario, faced large changes for different audiences. Most visibly different are those from Asia to North American audiences and likewise. Within, a good amount of descriptions are provided for you to see the differences that many of the games have. Regions do make a difference.

Videogamers may look at their hobby as being "art," but the fact is that games are still commercial products -- they exist primarily to make money. It's the publisher's job to make sure that a game can actually sell, and companies will go to great lengths to make sure that happens.

In some cases, this involves drastically changing a game and giving it a complete makeover. Perhaps a publisher thinks a title will sell more if it's associated with popular cartoon or movie characters. Sometimes, companies want to create a brand-name association by tying a game in with a well-known franchise. Maybe the game is too culturally alienating and needs to be made less "foreign." Or sometimes, the pesky red tape of licensing issues prohibits certain characters from appearing in various regional markets. The quality of these "makeovers" tends to vary wildly -- many involve mere sprite hacking, but the more ambitious localizations tend to create whole new experiences, to the point where they almost feel like sequels. Regardless of the reasons, what follows are several games that were given massive makeovers to make them more suitable to a given audience.

Mishtram via 1up.com »