Originally Posted by Gamefaqs
- All text changed from Japanese to English.
- Item names changed from the American FF7 Demo Disc.
- Of the 6 disabled Materia in the Japanese release, five were
altered slightly (not named, either), and the other one was made
into a real Materia (Underwater).
- In the beta version, there were two new Key Items (Ruby Fragment
and Emerald Fragment), similar to the mementos your recieved when
you killed Shinryu or Omega in FF5j (in other words, no real use).
These were removed and replaced with the Desert Rose and Earth
Harp items, below.
- Three new Items were added (Guide Book, Desert Rose, Earth Harp)
- A new weapon was added: the Rising Sun (for Yuffie). Technically,
this isn't a new weapon, as it was in the Japanese version, but
wasn't normally available in the game (for the life of me, I don't
know why--but I'd bet anything it was an oversight.)
- One of the Weapon Monsters was turned into a boss (Diamond Weapon).
- Two optional Weapon Monsters were added to the game (Emerald and
Ruby). This also resulted in small scenario/changes being built
around these two new bosses.
- A new FMV sequence was added showcasing the new Weapon monsters.
This isn't a seperate sequence, but was added in along with the
FMV seen when escaping from the Whirlwind Maze in Disc 2.
- The Submarine mini-game now plays much faster.
- There's a bit after this showing Cloud's arrival in Midgar, and his
meeting with Tifa--this part wasn't in the Japanese FF7.
- Minor graphical changes were made, clearing up exisiting areas or
simply adding more to the background to create a more detailed game.
However, these changes were very small and the game is not that
graphically different from the Japanese version.
- The number of letters available for naming your character was
changed from 6 to 9 spaces.
- Apparently, one enemy, 'Test Zero' was removed. This enemy was simply
a battle-testing opponent (it looks like Dark Nation), that had no
purpose in the game and was left in by mistake (or as a joke by the
programmers, as it gives you lots of EXP, or so I'm told).
- Some of the spells have been altered. For instance, Chocobuckle
does damage according to the number of times you've run away from
a battle, instead of that _multiplied_ by the skill users' EXP
level.
- Mr. DeLucas notes that at least one area was made easier to access;
the Chocobo Barn. In the Japanese version, you appeared closer to
the outside pen than you do in the US version.
- The difficulty was altered.*
- The ability of Sephiroth, "Supernova" was completely redone. It
is nothing like the Japanese version (a short clip of an explosion
in outer space), and instead shows a comet-like blast of energy
destroying several of the outer planets, then striking the sun
and sending it into a supernova, which destroys most of the
inner planets and rises up behind Sephiroth and the good guys,
causing lots of damage. It's also at least a minute and a half
longer than the Japanese version.
- There is a star field that appears after the credits. The credits
themselves are now in English (but the Japanese logo was removed!
It looked _so_ cool in the Japanese, especially with the kanji and
little English translations!)
* The exact statement from Mr. Hironobu Sakaguchi was "The enemy
encounter rates have also been adjusted so that the story line and
battles are more balanced. Also at certain points you'll have
bosses with weaknesses that are hard to work out, and we've added
hint messages to aid the player."
This may just be me, but from my personal experience with both games,
this doesn't seem to be true. The enemy encounter rate is just the
same as it was in the Japanese version. What Mr. Sakaguchi doesn't
mention is that several of the enemies have been made easier, in
terms of tactics they use against you (the Bloat Floats near the
Corel Reactor for one thing), but this isn't a widespread change.
Furthermore, in regards to his 'hint messages' statement, this
doesn't seem to be true. The only message I can think of is the
one that Reno gives when you fight him at the support pillar in
Sector 7 about breaking his Pyramid attack.
However, the _gameplay_ has been made considerably easier. For
instance the 'Guardian of Time' puzzle in the Temple of Ancients
requires no figuring out; you just move the hour hand as you wish
in order to enter the various rooms. But in the Japanese version,
there were many options that would move the hands back or
forward in different patterns, making the puzzle extremely tough.
Another example would be climing Gaea's Cliff in Disc 2; in the
US version, keeping your body temperature high is easy, but in the
Japanese version, it would begin dropping immediately if you
weren't pounding the Square button with all your might.
Final Fantasy International (Complete Game) --
- Includes all of the changes made to American Final Fantasy VII.
- The text was changed back into Japanese, but was rewritten in the
same way that the American text was altered for clarity.
- The game save files of the Japanese FF7 can be used with this
version of the game.
- Not having to do with the game itself, but an extra CD and hintbook
were included. The hintbook was for the original FF7 Japanese
release, and the extra CD has bonus info. and nothing that can be
used in the actual game (directly).
