Late Export For You / Video Games

• Ace Attorney gets hit with this on a regular basis, assuming the games get localized at all, although the gaps have been getting smaller. For example, the first game was released in Japan in 2001, but wasn't released in the west until 2005. In contrast, the gap for Spirit of Justice was only three months. Then there is The Great Ace Attorney duology, where the first game came out in 2015, but wouldn't get a localized version until 2021.
• Animal Crossing (2001) didn't come out in Europe until 2004, presumably due to the sheer amount of text that needed to be localised.
• While the first Another Code game was released in all regions (though localized in North America as Trace Memory), the 2009 sequel, Another Code: R, failed to release in North America and Australia until the Compilation Re-release remake Another Code: Recollection was announced in September 2023, to release 4 months later.
• Atlus games are often a case of this, as it takes a very long amount of time for their games to be localized, and some feel that the North American and Japanese divisions don't work together very well.
  • Persona 5 got a lot of the fanbase complaining after being delayed from 2014 to 2016 to begin with, then finally being released in Japan in September 2016. After another delay, the Western localization was released in April 2017, about seven months after its initial release.
  • New Atlus games are usually announced in Japan first with no word of any export whatsoever. Though a localization is usually announced by Atlus USA soon thereafter, this continues to bother some Western fans anyhow, especially those of Etrian Odyssey (whose worst case was a 14-month extra wait between the Japanese release of the fifth mainline game in 2016 and its localized release in the Americas in 2017, with an extra month of wait in Europe's case).
  • The 10-month delay for the European release of Persona 4: Arena was notorious, especially given the rare use of Region Coding for a PS3 game — it pissed off the European gamers so much that threats of boycott were thrown around and order cancellations ensued. Fan backlash was so great that Atlus didn't try the same schtick with Ultimax.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV is the second closest Atlus has gotten to averting this trope, with a May 2013 release in Japan and July 2013 in North America. Europe still got the short end of the stick though, as they didn't get the game until October 2014.
  • Persona 5 Strikers would not get a Western release until February 23, 2021, a full year and 3 days after its original Japanese release. According to this interview with Cassandra Lee Morris and Erika Harlacher, this was partly because of the COVID-19 Pandemic delaying cast recordings until it was safe to come back.
• Brain Age: Concentration Training was going to be released in Europe in 2013, some time later the American release, but for some reason the release was cancelled... until the April 2017 Nintendo Direct revealed that the game was finally going to be released in July 2017, 4 years after the originally intended release date and exactly 5 years and 5 months after the Japanese release.
• Bravely Default was originally released in Japan on October 2012, with no localization announced at the point. It would finally come out in Europe on December 2013, and in North America on February 2014, with updated content and gameplay.
• Chrono Cross came out in Japan on November 1999 and in North America on August 2000, but Europe wouldn't get the game until April 2022 with the remaster. The remaster also includes the 1996 title Radical Dreamers, originally available via the Japan-only Satellaview add-on for the Super Nintendo, making it a 26 year wait for any localization.
• The Cosmic Fantasy series debuted in Japan in 1990, but only the second game would ever see a western release two years later; the first game wouldn't get localized until 2024, courtesy of publisher Edia.
• The first title of the Danganronpa series released on PSP in 2010, taking four years for a localized release to arrive on the PS Vita in 2014.
• Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 was released in Japan in July 1995 as an early PlayStation title. It wasn't released in North America until almost eight years later; by which point the original PlayStation was already largely obsolete.
• Devil World: During 39 years, the game was not released in North America, what with it being made when NOA still had a very strict policy of censorship of religious themes and imagery (it did see release in Europe). Even with the various Virtual Console re-releases the game had been getting, it didn't receive a North American release. It was finally brought to the region in late October 2023 alongside other spook-themed classic games to celebrate that year's Halloween.
• Dragon Quest has historically had major problems with this trope:
  • Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III and Dragon Quest IV took, on average, three years to be released in America. This is likely a factor in why the franchise isn't the phenomenon there that it is in Japan; by the time America received the games, the competition had already established a foothold and Dragon Quest didn't always look as good in comparison. And then Dragon Quest V and Dragon Quest VI didn't come out in America at all and had to wait for Nintendo DS remakes about 15 years later.
  • Europe had things even worse, as not one of the games in the series were released there until Dragon Quest VIII in 2006. They then received the DS remakes of IV to VI about 15 years after the original releases, same as America, but I to III had to wait for smartphone ports in 2014 and Dragon Quest VII for a 3DS remake in 2016 (VII was again around a 15-year gap, while the original trilogy was around three decades late).
  • The 3DS remakes of VII and VIII also dragged their feet getting released internationally, both taking around three years (and both were only released internationally at all thanks to Nintendo playing Network to the Rescue).
• Europe didn't get Drill Dozer until it was released as a Virtual Console title for the Wii U in 2016, roughly 10 years after its original release.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The series had three games skipped for North American release prior to the success of Final Fantasy VII:
    • Final Fantasy II for the Famicom, released in 1988, saw its PlayStation update release alongside the updated Final Fantasy as part of Final Fantasy Origins 14 years later.
    • Final Fantasy III took the longest of any; the original was released in 1990 for the Famicom. There was a remake planned for the WonderSwan that never came to fruition, and as such, unlike the first two games that were remade for the system and were the source for the ports that ended up on the PlayStation Origins compilation, no such release would be possible without doing another ground-up remake elsewhere. Square Enix would take advantage of the burgeoning success of the Nintendo DS a couple years later and develop a 3D remake for the system, which would arrive in 2006 in both Japan and North America (elsewhere in the following year), a whopping 16 years after the original. The original 2D Famicom version eventually made it out of Japan with the Pixel Remaster version... 31 years later.
    • Final Fantasy V, originally released in 1992 for the Super Famicom, took the least time, owing to all three of the mainline games on the system being ported to the PlayStation a few years later, and a localization of the script that was abandoned when original plans to release the game stateside were scuttled. It was coupled with the port of Final Fantasy VI as part of Final Fantasy Anthology in 1999, 7 years after the original. (It arrived in Europe 2 1/2 years later in early 2002.)
  • Europe was even less lucky, as none of the first six titles came out there at the time. It took their respective remakes on the PS1, GBA or DS for them to finally come out in Europe.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light released in 1990 on the NES with no plans for localization (the 2008 Nintendo DS remake that was released internationally does not count). Fast forward thirty years to 2020 and not only would the game finally see release outside of Japan, but fully localized with some modern features (like rewind) to boot.
• Getsu Fuma Den, originally released in 1987, did not get an international release until it was included as a bonus within Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon in 2021, albeit untranslated.
• Giana Sisters DS was released in Europe and Australia in 2009. It received a North American version in February 2011, however it had a limited release (only being available at a few places like Walmart).
• Gimmick! (1992) was initially released only in Japan and parts of Scandinavia, though a US version was planned. It wouldn't reach broader markets until the Updated Re-release Gimmick! Special Edition in July 2023, a whopping 31 years after its original release.
• Ginga Force was first released on the Xbox 360 in 2013 in Japan, albeit as a region-free game. It has now been announced for a release on the PlayStation 4 and Steam alongside its spin-off Natsuki Chronicles.
• Gradius:
  • Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou was released in 1988 in Japan and Europe, but did not see an official release in North America until its inclusion in Gradius Collection in 2006, eighteen years later.
  • Gradius Gaiden was released in 1998 in Japan, and took eight years to be released elsewhere. Like Gradius II, its export took form of being one of the games on Collection.
• Harvest Moon: Back to Nature on the PlayStation was released in English however its Distaff Counterpart was skipped over. Harvest Moon: More Friends for Mineral Town, which is essentially a remake of the game for the Game Boy Advance, was translated later. Back to Nature and Back to Nature: For Girl were eventually both rereleased on the Playstation Portable as Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl.
• Hydlide: The first two games were fairly popular on Japan-only microcomputers, but were only exported to North America five years later, and in the form of quite lackluster NES and Genesis ports at that, making them both very dated and accused of ripping off later games.
• Ketsui, a 2003 game, was not released outside of Japan until 2020, 17 years later, by way of the localized Ketsui Deathtiny port for PS4. And even that version is an example unto itself, as the Japanese version was released in 2018.
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 wasn't released in Europe until 2009 via the Wii Virtual Console, 12 years after it was released on the SNES.
• Despite the popularity of the Kunio-kun series in Japan, very few of the titles made it overseas (notable exceptions include Crash n the Boys and River City Ransom). With the release of Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle, 11 of the un-localized games on the Famicom finally saw release outside of Japan. Kunio-tachi no Banka would get an official English release in 2022 by WayForward under the title of River City Girls Zero, twenty-eight years after its Japanese release on the SNES.
• The 1989 Japanese NES game Legend of the Ghost Lion was released in America in 1992. That's only three years, but the SNES debuted in the interim, 1990 in Japan and 1991 in North America. On top of that, the game is an adaptation of the 1988 film Beyond the Pyramids: Legend of the White Lion, which only came out in Japan. It's surprising the game was exported at all.
• The Legend of Heroes - Trails:
  • The series first began with Trails in the Sky which was first released in 2004. The game wouldn't be localized until after seven years for an English release in 2011 on PC and PSP. The later installments; Sky - Second Chapter would take four years and Sky - The 3rd two years before getting a Western release.
  • The Crossbell duology, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, were originally released in Japan 2010 and 2012 respectively. There wouldn't be any official localized release until Fall 2022 for Zero and 2023 for Azure.
  • The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails also originally came out in Japan 2012, but wouldn't see worldwide release until 2023.
  • In comparison, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series didn't take as long, taking two years for each installment from initial release in Japan to worldwide release.
  • Falcom in general tends to be this, because they aren't large enough to localize games for foreign export themselves, won't allow other companies to do it on their behalf until after they've been released to the Japanese market, and tend to release text heavy games that take a lot of work to translate (between dialogue and description text, the script of the typical Trails game would make a Doorstopper if printed out).
• Level-5's games started getting pretty bad about this, in regards to Western releasing.
  • White Knight Chronicles took 14 months to be released in North America, while Fantasy Life took 21 and Professor Layton and the Unwound Future took 22. Inazuma Eleven takes the cake, though - it was released in Europe in January 2011, two and a half years after its Japanese release, and North America three more years after that. And the series didn't release in Australia until Inazuma Eleven Go in 2015. (And the region proceeded to get no more of them)
  • There's also LBX: Little Battlers eXperience, which wouldn't be released in America or Europe for four years, after which the game had already gotten an Updated Re-release and a port to another console.
  • Their European department has now become more prolific than their North American department because of this; Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney had a six month gap between Europe and North America, with the latter receiving nothing but a barely modified version of the European build complete with its alternate voice actors — thus making the schedule slip look almost entirely unnecessary. The Inazuma Eleven series, despite having five games released (with the sixth and last seemingly in the works) in Europe, had its first game released in America when Europe was on its fourth, and the North American branch has been giving infamously mixed signals about whether the others are on a very long schedule slip or if it has no chance because its Twitter and Facebook keeps reporting on its release...in Europe only.
  • Despite being Level-5's most successful franchise to date and having been constantly promoted by the company with the intent to expand internationally, the first Yo-kai Watch game wouldn't leave its home country for over two years, by which time in Japan the game had already gotten a sequel, the sequel's Updated Re-release, the announcement for a third game, and a spinoff game. Yo-kai Watch Blasters took THREE YEARS to get released outside of Japan. In that time, the third game came out, got an Updated Re-release, Blasters got a sequel, released another spin-off that crosses over with Romance of the Three Kingdoms (that will more than likely be No Export for You), and there's a fourth game announced for Switch. The third main Yo-kai Watch title also took nearly three years to come out internationally.
  • Level-5's status with this trope has been acknowledged by them on their official Twitter for The Snack World, which itself is another example. Two years after the Switch version, three years after the 3DS (which will remain No Export for You).
  • Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds took a whole year for the company to release a Global version of the game.
• Like a Dragon:
  • Most Like a Dragon games aside from Yakuza 3 were released abroad six to eight months later. However, Yakuza 5 and 6 were released three and two years later respectively.
  • The spinoff Like a Dragon: Ishin! was released in February 2014 in Japan, and stayed there until the 2023 remaster.
• Live A Live originally came out in Japan in September of 1994 for the Super Famicom. Non-Japanese fans of the game had to wait 28 years until the Nintendo Switch remake was announced to be released in July of 2022.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man 6 was released in Japan and North America in November of 1993 and March of 1994, respectively. Europe didn't get it at all, and the Mega Man Anniversary Collection, despite including the game, was only released in North America. It wasn't until the 3DS Virtual Console in 2013 that Europe finally got it, nearly thirty years after the original release.
  • Mega Man & Bass was originally released for Super Famicom in 1998 only in Japan. The game was eventually ported for the Gameboy Advance in 2002 and released in North America in 2003 and Europe in 2004.
  • Despite being released in Japan in 1994 and in Europe and Australia in 1995, Mega Man: The Wily Wars took a long time to get a stand-alone physical release in America. It was first exclusively available as part of the Sega Channel service during the mid-to-late '90s, then it was one of the 80 games included in AtGames' Sega Genesis Ultimate Portable Game Player in 2012, then one of the 42 Sega Genesis Mini in 2019, and in 2020, a partnership between Capcom and Retro-Bit Gaming finally resulted in the game's physical release in America happening.
• The first two Metal Gear games zigzagged this. Out of two original MSX titles, only the first game was released in Europe (with some dialogues cut due to translation limitations), but it received an awkward port for the NES in 1990. The sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake however, never left Japan. It wasn't until 2005, when Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence came out was when Western audiences finally got ahold of the original MSX versions of the first two games.
• Metal Wolf Chaos came out in Japan in 2004 and stayed there. It didn't get a worldwide release until the 2019 remaster Metal Wolf Chaos XD.
• While Monster Hunter games being released internationally about half to 2/3 of a year after their Japanese releases was the norm until Monster Hunter: World, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate is notable in that it took 17 months after its original Japanese 3DS release to get a localized release (a little over a year after the Japanese Switch release), 8 months after its sequel World was released worldwide.
• Genre-Busting Cult Classic Moon: Remix RPG Adventure originally released for the PlayStation in 1997 in Japan, but never officially left the country until its Nintendo Switch release in 2019.
• The first game in the Mother series is a famous example. While an official English version was translated for the NES under the title EarthBound, it was never actually released, and became available only through an unofficial ROM dump under the Fan Nickname "EarthBound Zero" for many years. Finally, this version was officially released on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2015, twenty years after its sequel was released westward. To differentiate it from Mother 2 (also named EarthBound in English), it was renamed EarthBound Beginnings. It was also brought to Nintendo Switch Online in 2022.
• Mr. Driller
  • A truly baffling case with the Game Boy Advance version of Mr. Driller 2. It released in Japan in 2001, but didn't release in Europe until 2004 and North America until 2005. Its release in North America came after not only the Japan-exclusive Mr. Driller A for Game Boy Advance (which has six playable characters by default compared to Mr Driller 2's two characters), but also the Nintendo DS game Mr Driller: Drill Spirits, which had released worldwide by that point. Only Namco knows why they bothered with the comparatively minuscule Mr. Driller 2 after that.
  • That being said, the above doesn't come close to Mr. Driller: Drill Land. Drill Land was announced for a worldwide Nintendo Switch release in 2020, nearly 18 years after its original release on the GameCube.
• Both the PSP Updated Re-release versions of Makai Kingdom and La Pucelle (La Pucelle: Ragnarok) weren't released overseas until 2022 as part of their NIS Classics Compilation Re-release.
• Nintendo's The Mysterious Murasame Castle was first released for the Famicom Disk System in 1986. Despite numerous re-releases over the years, none of them made it outside of Japan. After receiving some Western acknowledgement via a minigame in Nintendo Land and the main character, Takamaru, appearing as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, the game was finally released internationally on the 3DS Virtual Console in 2014, twenty-eight years later.
• Nasuverse:
  • Witch on the Holy Night was originally released in Japan for PC in 2012. It would only be officially translated into English for a remaster on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 and brought outside Japan in 2022, incidentally, making it the first visual novel from Type-Moon to be localized and released outside Japan.
  • Tsukihime was Type-Moon's first major project, released as a doujin back in 2000. It would be remade and released in 2021, and the remake will be released internationally in 2024.
  • Fate/stay night originally came out in 2004. It too will come out officially in English and Chinese for the first time in 2024.
• Owing to the extraordinarily large gap between the release of the Japanese Family Computer and the American Nintendo Entertainment System, The NES' black box titles were often examples of this, with North American releases coming years after their original Japanese releases. In particular, the NES versions of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye launched with the Famicom in July 1983, but would not reach American shores until June 1986, nearly three years later. Super Mario Bros. was an unusual aversion, with its American release coming in October 1985, a mere month after its September 1985 Japanese release.
• Pandora's Tower: The game was one of the targets of Operation Rainfall which was a fan campaign to get a series of Wii JRPGs released for North American audiences (the other two being Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and The Last Story). While all these games would release in North America a year after they did in Europe, and two years after they did in Japan, Pandora's Tower stands out for its April 2013 release: five months after the launch of the Wii U.
• Panel de Pon was only released outside of Japan as a Dolled-Up Installment, cutting out references to the fairy characters and replacing them with either Yoshi's Island or Pokémon characters. The first Panel de Pon game was finally released outside of Japan via the Nintendo Switch Online service, just under 25 years after the original release.
• Phantasy Star Online 2 had a nasty history of trying to get exported out of Japan. It finally got an announcement at E3 2019 for PC and Xbox One for release in 2020. An eight-year gap between the original Japanese PC release and a release in America (but not Europe).
• Even though every other release made it to North America at more or less the same time as other regions, the New Play Control! version of Pikmin 2 for the Wii was released in every region except North America in 2009, and North America didn't get it until 2012. This was likely because Nintendo of America didn't renew their deals with the owners of the many trademarks in the game.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Red and Blue reached Europe after three years, well within the Game Boy Color era, which made it look incredibly dated compared to "older" games like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. Despite this, they didn't even fix impossible-to-miss bugs like Psychic pokémon being immune to Ghost (opting to change the manual instead).
  • The North American releases of Red and Blue came out 2 years after Red and Green in Japan. This gap was taken advantage of by Nintendo, Game Freak, and 4Kids Entertainment. As "Pokémania" was already in full-swing in Japan, the series was prepared for the same to occur internationally. A lot of merchandise was created prior to release and the anime was released first to hype up the games even more. Following this, the gap between the initial Japanese release and the American release were smaller in comparison, 11 months for Gold and Silver, 4 months for Ruby and Sapphire, 7 months for Diamond and Pearl, 5-and-a-half months for Black and White. Then with Pokémon X and Y, the release gap was eliminated completely.
• Puyo Puyo
  • Puyo Puyo 2 first hit Japanese arcades in 1994. The first version of the game to release outside Japan (and, for that matter, the first non-Dolled-Up Installment Puyo Puyo localization in general for home consoles) was 1999's Puyo Pop for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, almost exactly five years later.
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris's first versions released in Japan in 2014; it wasn't released in North America or Europe until 2017, long enough for Puyo Puyo Chronicle to release in Japan in the meantime. In this case, legal red tape surrounding Ubisoft's Tetris Ultimate was to blame.
• Radiant Historia was released for the Nintendo DS in Japan in November of 2010 and in North America three months later. The game was advertised in plenty of European video game magazines as well, but it didn't see a proper release there until 2018, in the form of an Updated Re-release for the Nintendo 3DS, subtitled Perfect Chronology.
• Reverse: 1999: Originally released in mainland China on May 31, 2023, the game was eventually released globally on October 26, 2023.
• The Rhythm Heaven series, aside from the first installment which was unreleased internationally, each took nearly a year long to come to North America, Europe and Australia after their Japanese release dates.
• The SNES-era SaGa (RPG) games were for a long while were the only ones in the series to not get localized.
  • 1992's Romancing SaGa came over as a PlayStation 2 remake in 2005.
  • 1993's Romancing SaGa 2 however didn't come over until 2016 for mobile and 2017 for consoles and PC.
  • 1995's Romancing SaGa 3 came out internationally for the first time in 2019 on the same platforms as Romancing SaGa 2.
• Four and a half years separate the Japanese and American releases of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love.
• SEVEN's CODE was released in Japan in October 2019, requiring methods of accessing Japan-region smartphone app markets to download the app. However it got an official international release in January 2020 in English. Notably, this did not result in a 3-month gap in content for English-language players; all of the existing content was translated in English upon the international release and all future updates were synced between both versions.
• Sin and Punishment was one of the last few games for the Nintendo 64, but it only released in Japan in 2000. It wasn't until 2007 that the game was available worldwide on the Wii Virtual Console.
• The UK-developed Sonic 3D Blast on the Sega Saturn didn't come out in Japan until 1999, despite the North American version being released in 1997. By the time it came out in Japan, the Sega Dreamcast was already out on the market.
• The original version of SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom was never released in Japan. The game eventually did reach Japan by way of the Rehydrated remake in 2020, 17 years after its initial release.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels was initially not released outside of Japan due to its status as a Mission-Pack Sequel with a massive Sequel Difficulty Spike. A modified version was later released internationally as part of the Super Mario All-Stars collection. The original version would finally be made available internationally in 2007 through the Wii Virtual Console.
  • Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't released in Japan until almost four years following its North American release, with the Japanese name Super Mario USA.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3 got released in Japan in 1988, but due to a chip shortage (and that the western Super Mario Bros. 2 came out in North America one week earlier than Mario 3's Japanese release), the game wouldn't come to America until 1990, and Europe wouldn't get it until 1991.
  • Super Mario RPG, originally released in 1996 in Japan and North America, wasn't released in Europe or Australia until twelve years later, thanks to the Wii's Virtual Console.
• Tales Series:
  • Various games have been released within the minimum of five months except for the North American releases for Tales of Vesperia, which was released in the same month, and the ones that weren't released at all. It wouldn't be until Tales of Arise that a Tales title would be released on the same day (barring time zones) for Japan and the rest of the world.
  • Tales of Phantasia was released a decade after its initial release.
  • Vesperia has an Updated Re-release for the PlayStation 3 with new content, released a few months after the initial game's release. It wasn't released outside of Japan until 2018, ten years after the game's initial release in 2008, on the Xbox One, Switch, PC and PlayStation 4.
• After being stuck in Japan for two years, Touhou Genso Wanderer -Lotus Labyrinth- was finally released internationally via Steam (in the form of an Updated Re-release called Lotus Labyrinth R) in 2021. The game didn't initially support languages other than Japanese and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), though AQUASTYLE have stated that they are working on adding support for more languages, starting with English.
• Wangan Midnight:
  • Maximum Tune 5 is infamous in this regard. It was released in 2014 in the Asia Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand, and then in 2017 in North America...at a time when Japan was on Maximum Tune 5DX+ and most of the rest of the Eastern Pacific was on 5DX.
  • China jumped from Maximum Tune 4 to 5DX in 2018.
  • Maximum Tune 6 once again took a whole year to leave Japan. The game was released in Japan in mid-2018, but only reached the rest of Asia in mid-2019.
• The third game in the World of Mana series, Seiken Densetsu 3, came out in Japan in 1995 for the SNES. It wound up staying there for nearly a quarter of a century. The game got a famous Fan Translation in 2000, cited as perhaps one of the most well-known fan translated games in the world. The game never got released internationally because it was released right before the Nintendo 64 was due out, and the game was 32 megabits (4 megabytes), which needed more expensive cartridges to create. If localized at the time, the cartridge would have to be even larger, thus more expensive due to the text size.^note Japanese characters take up less data than English characters as one Japanese character can sometimes be a full word in English. This is true when looking up the Japanese release of the game compared to Fan Translation and the official release. The game would remain a Japan-only exclusive until 2019 when Square Enix announced that it would finally get an official release for the Nintendo Switch. 24 years after the game first debuted, it was released in the West as Trials of Mana in the Collection of Mana set. The game would also get a full-fledged Video Game Remake, which was released in April 2020.
• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles first released in 2010 in Japan. It would take one year to reach Europe and Australia, and another year to reach North America (with a paltry distribution, given that a North American release wasn't originally planned). Xenoblade Chronicles X was slightly better with Japan getting the game on April 29, 2015, and the localizations coming out internationally over seven months later on December 9.
  • While Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was initially released in South Korea the same day as other regions, it wasn't available in Korean. A Korean translation wouldn't be released until September 3, 2020. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, which came out a few months prior to that date worldwide, was available in Korean from release.