Get ready to relive some of that good ol’ gaming nostalgia thanks to the magic of YouTube. User going by the nickname “rotkappchen” uploaded a video featuring all 421 JRPGs from the PS1 era. The 2 and a half-hour compilation will show you 20 to 30 seconds snipers of gameplay from the 90s and 2000s JRPGs.
This whole project seems like a colossal undertaking. Rotkappchen himself commented that he worked for legendra.com and compiled a lot of the databases found there. He double-checked information on a lot of Japanese websites. And last but not least, he himself played a lot of those JRPGs in Japanese over time.
All this works to get the date of release, developer, genre, and title right. The creator of this glorious compilation went above and beyond to actually translate a lot of this himself! About 80% of all PS1 JRPGs were never released outside of Japan. So rotkappchen had to actually translate the titles, and in some cases the genre. Because Japan uses a little bit different lingo than EU or NA gamers.
It is still sad to think about how many games did not make the trip across the ocean due to a number of issues. Final Fantasy I, II, and III were released in the North American region with localization… but they were actually Final Fantasy I, IV, VI! This was due to the fact that actual II and III did not make it to America and Square Enix did not mind that fact. Same with V. And then they just dropped Final Fantasy VII without changing the name in the North American region.
Tales of botched localizations, complete flops, and JRPGs lost to time are plenty. We at times narrowly got games that are nowadays considered classics. To this day ragtag translator groups are trying to bring some 25-year-old games to English-speaking audiences with mixed results. And it is kind of sad, that some of those gems we will simply not experience.
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