Seiken Densetsu version differences

The following is a list of version differences between the various releases and remakes of Final Fantasy Adventure (also known as Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden or simply Seiken Densetsu in Japan and Mystic Quest in Europe).

GameBoy

Initial Release

The first iteration of Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden was released in Japan on June 28, 1991.

North American Release

The first international edition of Final Fantasy Adventure was released in North America in November 1991.

Name change

• The game was renamed Final Fantasy Adventure for the North american market as a way to capitalize on the Final Fantasy franchise.
• The North american game manual have names for the Hero and the Heroine, calling them "Sumo" and "Fuji" repectively. There were not officially named in the japanese manual.
• The currency in the Japanese version is known as ルク ("Ruku") but is just gold or GP in the English version, so the R was replaced with a G.
• Some characters and places' names were altered to fit the character limit in dialogue boxes. Examples of this are the Shadow Knight shortened to Dark Lord and the Kingdom of Lorimar being replaced by Lorim.
• All Status conditions and almost all spells' names were shortened to fit in 4 characters long. For example, Petrification was renamed Ston, and Blizzard was changed to Ice. Similar treatment was done to weapons, armor, items, enemies and bosses.
• Some terms were changed for unknown reasons; the evil empire is called グランズ ("Granz") in japanese but "Glaive" in English.

Script

• A lot of dialogue where ommited or trimmed down, some gameplay hints and details were affected in the process (see Name Change section for examples).
• The grammar quality and spelling mistakes are a recurring issue, along with some unnatural word choices.
• The level-up message box in japanese feels more like a friend congratulating the player while the english text is more neutral.
• Upon leveling-up, aside from the usual stat increase, japanese players would choose a job type between "Warrior", "Wizard", "Monk", and "Sage" roughly corresponding to a specfic stat boost. (Warrior boosts Strength, Wizard boots Wisdom, Monk boosts Stamina, and Sage boosts Mind). North american players would simly choose the stat they wish to increase, elimitating the job system entirely.
• To accommodate the descending lowercase alphabet letters added, the numbers and letters were all raised by one pixel.

Censorship

Due to Nintendo of America's policies on religious imagery, a couple tiles and dialogue were altered for release outside Japan.

• Mentions of the Dark Lord's slaves were replaced as fighters.
• The reference to character dying in the game are toned down, if not outright ommited. Hasim, Fuji's initial protector, is an example of this.
• Fuji's kidnapping by Mr. Lee originally mentioned her virgin blood being needed. This was scrapped in the North american version.
• The coffins in Kett's basement had their crosses removed and replaced with a "V".
• The Star of David in Wendel was replaced with an eight-sided star (which, ironically, is also a religious symbol).
• Sumo and Amanda were looking for Medusa's blood in the uncensored version in order to lift the curse Davias casted on her brother Lester. In the International release it is her tears.

European release

The european release of Seiken Densetsu was released in 1993.

Name change

• The game was renamed Mystic Quest for the European market, probably since none of the Final Fantasy games being available on the continent at the time. Another Final Fantasy spinoff (Mystic Quest) was released in Europe later in 1993 and heavily influenced the name and font used for the localization.
• The game was translated in british English, German and French.

GameBoy Color

The game saw a North American re-release by Sunsoft in April 1998.

References

• Wikipedia
• Legend of Localization
• Censorship fandom
• The Cutting Room Floor