Gameboy Wars Advance CO Sprites in Advance Wars

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Gameboy Wars Advance CO Sprites in Advance Wars

Postby RadioShadow » Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:40 am

Name: Gameboy Wars Advance CO Sprites in Advance Wars
Hacked By: RadioShadow
Rom To Patch: 0263 - Advance Wars (E).gba
Download: IPS Patch – 1.0l

Description: In the Japanese version of Advance Wars (known as Gameboy Wars Advance), six of the current COs sprites are different. They were changed in the USA/Euro version to avoid racial/ethnic stereotypes and not to depict Christianity. This hack however allows you to play the European version of Advance Wars with the CO sprites from Gameboy Wars Advance.

Screenshots: The Japanese sprites are the ones on the right.

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Reasons for Changes:

When ‘Gameboy Wars Advance’ was getting translated into English which today is known as ‘Advance Wars’, a couple of changes had to be made to six of the CO’s sprites. The reasons why they were changed are mentioned below.

Nell’s Changes:

There isn’t really much to say about Nell’s Japanese sprite. In Gameboy Wars Advance her uniform is a bit more revealing since her skirt is shorter and she wears a sleeveless top. It seems the idea was to make Nell look like a pretty/sexy instructor.

While Advance Wars was getting translated, they decided Nell’s uniform was a bit too revealing and due to laws about what characters can wear in games rated E/+3, Nell’s skirt length was increased and her sleeveless top now has sleeves. These changes may also have been made to make her military uniform look more formal.

Olaf’s Changes:

Olaf’s original sprite is very amusing to look at since he is sitting in a chair, is fat, has a white beard and wears a woolly hat which has lead to a lot of people from the west to refer to him as Santa Claus since he looks very much like him. Since Santa Claus does not exist in eastern countries, Olaf is taken more seriously in Japan.

Now most western games aren’t allow to have anything related to Christianity. A perfect example of this are the Castlevania’s releases in the west where crosses were removed and the walls are now bare. Due to this reason the grumpy people who were localizing Advance Wars weren’t in a Christmas sprite mood and decided his sprite needed editing so people in the west would take Olaf seriously and to remove the Christianity reference.

In Advance Wars, he now wears an army cap instead of a woolly hat which makes him look more like a Russian officer. To get rid of the Santa reference, his beard was changed from white to brown.

Grit’s Changes:

Grit’s original sprite showed him as a typical American cowboy. When Advance Wars was getting translated, they decided Grit shouldn’t be shown as a typical cowboy as you don’t see many cowboys in Russia. He was also called ‘Billy’ (after the fiction character Billy the Kid) in Gameboy Wars Advance which makes it obvious he is an American who has defended to Russia.

Remember the Cold War, where the Americans suspected and accused people in the government of being Communists? Grit was found as a conspirator of Olaf, trying to hound information out of Nell. He had to find a way out of there and so he sided with Olaf, another former Orange Star citizen.

In order to make his sprite look more Russian, his cowboy hat was replaced with a Russian Style Headgear (Hat). This also meant the Cold War reference has gone since the game is referring to Grit who is a Russian who went to Orange Star (America) and later on joined Blue Moon (Russia).

In one of the early Japanese screenshots of Gameboy Wars Advance, Grit was shown smoking a cigarette. When the game finally got released in 2004, it seems they decided against the idea of having Grit smoke in the game. Of course, the cigarette would have been edited out in Advance Wars anyway as you can’t have smoking references in E/+3 games.

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Kanbei’s Changes:

Kanbei’s original sprite is interesting because he is typical stereotype character. However, not many people would understand what the sprite was based on because his character motif is based off a Japanese movie. Now all Advance Wars fans will know Kanbei is portrayed as a wannabe samurai. Well funny enough, that’s because he is. There is an extremely popular film known as ‘Shichinin no Samurai’ (The Seven Samurai). The film is about seven samurai who save a village from a group of bandits. However, there are only six samurai in the group; the seventh one never gets invited to join the group. The seventh samurai is named ‘Kikuchiyo’ (Kanbei’s Japanese name in Gameboy Wars Advance) who goes out his way to become a samurai (including faking his birth certificate to show he’s “of noble blood”) who later on proves his worth. Kikuchiyo is a constant show-off and carries the biggest sword out of the seven samurai.

Going back to Kanbei (Kikuchiyo) in Gameboy Wars Advance, he is very similar to the seventh samurai in the film since he goes out of his way and speaks as if he’s of noble blood. In addition to this, he gets an extremely goofy looking samurai outfit to extend the joke. Now not many western people are going to get this joke and to prevent getting in trouble from stealing names, they based Kanbei’s name after ‘Kambei Shimade’, the leader of the mercenary samurai in the movie.

Now Kanbei’s sprite needed to be changed and the editors went to work in redesigning his outfit. In Advance Wars, Kanbei is referred to as a ‘modern samurai’ so they went and made him look like one by making him wear more modern style samurai cloths. If you compare Kanbei’s Japanese and USA sprite, you will notice that Kanbei is taller and skinner compared to his Japanese sprite. His ponytail was also removed as it seemed he looked silly with it.

Sonja’s Changes:

Before you read on, there was one main change that was made when Advance Wars was released. The below sentence will give you a better idea on why Sonja’s sprite was changed.

The main change that was made was the first coloured army was originally called ‘Red Star’ and has been called that in other Japanese versions of the game such as such as ‘Famicom Wars’. The ‘Red Star’ army style and the COs are based on the Americans. The red star is a symbol of communism and the ‘Red Star’ and the ‘Americans’ combined together is not a good thing to refer to in the west since we don’t want the communist in charge of the Americans. To solve this issue, the army was called ‘Orange Star’ but the palette of the army and buildings were not edited. So the armies were technically still red but were referred to as orange.

Sonja has to be one of the most interesting reasons why her sprite was changed. The first thing you will notice about Sonja is she originally wore red but it got changed to green instead. But why the colour change you ask? Well it’s a long story.

If you have played Advance Wars, you will have noticed the storyline in Advance Wars mentions Nell, Sami and Sonja were in the military academy. Now the one thing that a lot of people forget is Sonja is from ‘Yellow Comet’ while Nell and Sami are from ‘Orange Star’. So how can they have studied if they lived in different countries? Well Advance Wars doesn’t explain much but Gameboy Wars Advance explains Sonja’s history in more detail.

While Sonja was growing up, she was ahead in all her classes and constantly pulling off A’s! Her oh-so-proud father Kanbei, Emperor of Yellow Comet noticed Sonja doing well in Yellow Comet Military Academy and this is when Sonja told her father “Father, I'm bored of Comet school. I'd like to go to Red Star Academy!” (She wanted to go and study in America).

When she attended the Red Star Academy, she ended up in the same class as Nell and Sami. Nell and Sonja constantly hit the books while Sami did as little as possible. However, Sonja excelled above her classmates and was able to skip to the next grade! Hence, Sonja was a year younger and also a year smarter than Nell. After Sonja finished academy, she went back to Yellow Comet out of loyalty and to command her father's armies. From constantly reading whenever she gets the chance, she does come off as a nerd and thus, is an Intel geek from knowing so well about terrain and such.

As for the colour change made to the sprite, Red is the colour of the Red Star military's school uniform and she wears red to symbolise she studied at Red Star Military Academy. They already got rid of the Red Star reference in Advance Wars so it wasn’t a great idea to have Sonja refer to Red Star as well so they changed the colour to green which is a more typical colour seen in the army.

She originally wore glasses in Gameboy Wars Advance to simply to show she is the stereotypical anime glasses girl, the one who looks like a nerd with them on, but when they come off she is one of the most beautiful girls of the group. They got removed in Advance Wars to prevent people from calling her a nerd even though in my opinion, she looks cute with them on. They may also have been removed since how can she be a vision expert if she has bad vision herself? So to make her seem more suitable to be an expert in that area, they were removed to show she has perfect eyesight.

The last change that was made was Sonja wears a garrison cap in Advance Wars. This was probably added to make her look less like a typical nerdy school girl and to make her look more like a military CO.

Drake’s Changes:

In Gameboy Wars Advance, Drake was designed to look like a pirate. In Advance Wars, Drake uniform was changed to make him like look like a sailor.

The army is made up of three types of units, air which is controlled by the air force, sea which is controlled by the navy and ground which is controlled by the army. Eagle, the leader of Green Earth is best with air units so Drake is the opposite and is best with sea units.

In western countries, it would be silly for a pirate to join the navy and it would be even stranger that Eagle is a pilot in charge of the air force while Drake is a pirate in charge of the navy. Due to this reason, Drake’s sprite was edited to make him look like a sailor to make the situation more believable.

Credits:

RadioShadow – Well I did make this hack
Solid One – For giving me information about the tool, unlz.gba
Odin_Knight and labmaster – Helping me find a graphics offset
Kosheh – For the information about Sonja’s changes
Kosheh – He gets credit twice for explaining the changes better
The following websites:
- http://www.warsworldnews.com
- http://www.advancewarsnet.com
- http://www.customwars.com
- http://www.romhacking.net
- http://aw-experience.com/
Last edited by RadioShadow on Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby Marcus » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:04 am

The funny thing about the change to Red Star's name is that orange is actually the national colour of The Netherlands. I think something like Scarlet Star would've been a better choice, but oh well.
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Postby Linkman » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:39 am

Um, wasn't Advance Wars originally released for the Americas and Europe, only receiving a Japanese release years later? Your descriptions have some clearly wrong assumptions there...
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Postby DTaeKim » Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:13 pm

Linkman, the Japanese were going to get the game first, but the game's release date happened to coincide with September 11, 2001. Advance Wars 1 was never released in Japan. The Advance Wars 1 + 2 double pack was the first time they saw the game.
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Postby Linkman » Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:30 pm

Um, link, source, evidence? I think 9/11 is a very good reason to stop a military-based game from getting a North-American release, but not a Japanese one.

And why would they wait 3 years and a sequel to release the game in Japan? Plus, some of the "changes" make a lot more sense in the western version than in the Japanese one. I'm fully aware Intelligent Systems is a Japan-based studio, and I too find it weird that the western release came before the Eastern one, but I honestly doubt they'd call off the game because of something like that. Furthermore, if the game was originally developed for a Japanese release, then it would've been ready before the American version, which was the one slated for a 9/11 release, and since there'd be no problem before that, the game would've seen an eastern sale. Which it didn't.

Plus, this is a game that appeals much more to western audiences than eastern ones. I don't know about you, but everything points to the western release being planned before the eastern one.
"everytime I try to draw xen I end up drawing a kangaroo smoking a cigar while chainsawing a tree" - Deoxy
"I can't believe I'm the only person who voted Stallone. His appeal lies in watching is movies again and again just to hear what the hell he's talking about." - Kilteh
"I'm sure that God put cows on this Earth for us to eat them. Otherwise, he would not have made them so stupid and delicious." - Azrael.
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Postby Shift Breaker » Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:55 pm

I prefer all of the ones on AW than GBWA.

That's really all I have to say on this topic. Sami's Alt Clothing on AW:DS is pretty awesome, though.
"The part where you all shut up happens now." ~ thefalman
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Postby Hans Stockmann » Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:12 pm

Yes Link, the release in Area 11 was terminated due to Septermber 11. We kid you not. It's similar to how the Arsenal Gear crashing into NYC cutscene was removed from Metal Gear Solid 2 due to that same event. Bother are games made by elevens.

Also,
Armpit CO Nellu, Commander of the Sky
Armpit CO Nellu, she's good luck too
Armpit CO Nellu, even though you're cheap,
Armpit CO Nellu, we all love you!

Armpit CO Nellu, she's a miser
Armpit CO Nellu, yet so broken
Armpit CO Nellu, always the victor
Armpit CO Nellu, and prone to inform.

She's the wonderful Instructor of Orange Star!
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Postby RadioShadow » Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:34 am

Linkman wrote:Um, link, source, evidence? I think 9/11 is a very good reason to stop a military-based game from getting a North-American release, but not a Japanese one.

And why would they wait 3 years and a sequel to release the game in Japan? Plus, some of the "changes" make a lot more sense in the western version than in the Japanese one. I'm fully aware Intelligent Systems is a Japan-based studio, and I too find it weird that the western release came before the Eastern one, but I honestly doubt they'd call off the game because of something like that. Furthermore, if the game was originally developed for a Japanese release, then it would've been ready before the American version, which was the one slated for a 9/11 release, and since there'd be no problem before that, the game would've seen an eastern sale. Which it didn't.

Plus, this is a game that appeals much more to western audiences than eastern ones. I don't know about you, but everything points to the western release being planned before the eastern one.


I do agree with some of your points Linkman but you do know that Intelligent Systems is a Japanese company, not a American company.

Also, have a look at this site: http://nindb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/agb/bgw.shtml

"The original Game Boy Wars Advance was due to be released in Japan on the 12th September 2001 - one day after its US release. The tragic terrorist attacks of the 11th changed that, and in the end the game was pulled from Japanese release dates. Since then, a second Advance Wars game, Black Hole Rising, has been released in America. Due to not receiving the prequel, Japan also never got to play this game. Until now.

This cart contains the full versions of Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, with the full complement of crazy (but fitting) outfits the characters wore in the original Japanese screenshots. Olaf is kitted out like a blue Santa Claus, Nell is wearing short sleeves and a shorter skirt, and so on. These changes have also been brought over to Game Boy Wars Advance 2's selection of characters."


As IS are a Japanese company, why would they make the game in the USA? As AW release data was so close to GBWA, it shows that the Japanese version was made first and then an English translation of the game was made.

Just the terrorist attack mucked up the Advance Wars time line which meant the translated version only got released while the original got cancelled.

As for why Japan decided not to release the game due to the terrorist attack which had nothing to do with them I don't know. I've never found the real answer to why. All I know is it got pulled from the Japanese release. Advance Wars nearly got taken off the market as well.


Now when AW2 was made, things get tricky. This may sound crazy but IS decided to make a sequel to AW1 so they went an made the Japanese version. Yes, even know the English version got released first, the game was made in Japanese first, the translation version made its release first.

This can be proven by looking at Grit's and Sonja's AW2 artwork. Have a look at Grit's.
http://advancewarsnet.com/files/aw2/art/Blue%20Moon%20CO%20Grit.png

He's wearing a cowboy hat. Hang on, he never wore a cowboy hat in AW1? Same for Sonja, she wears red and glasses in the artwork but not in AW2. This shows the game was made in Japanese.

The problem was, Japan hadn't got GBA1 let so they couldn't release it at the same time as the USA. In the end, in 2004, they finally released both versions in one cartridge. Why they waited an extra year I can't explain.

Yay for Advance Wars having the most complicated time line ever. I'll update the topic to take what I just typed into account.
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Postby Marcus » Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:47 am

Yeah, Linkman, read this article; it's an interview with AW's director, Kentaro Nishimura. About two thirds down he says:

Kentaro Nishimura wrote:For all these efforts to make Advance Wars’ appeal as broad as possible, there were still no plans to release the game outside Japan, just as the previous games in the series had never seen an overseas release. “When I joined Nintendo," says Nishimura, “I was told that these kinds of games would never be successful abroad, because they were turn-based games, and turn-based games weren’t appreciated outside Japan. But we decided it was because these kind of games were too complicated. People are used to action games and shooting games, and in those all you have to do is press the A button and the B button and you’ll soon understand how to play. But for SRPGs, you’ve got to know the rules before you start. So, with Advance Wars, even though there wasn’t a plan to release it outside Japan, we made it really easy to play. We put a really good tutorial in, so people didn’t need to read the manual. And when the US marketing people played it they came to us and said: ‘But this is great! Why can’t we sell it over here?’ And it seems that Advance Wars’ success has shifted Nintendo’s attitude over western tastes." Nishimura, who also worked as director on Fire Emblem, makes it clear that game would never have been released in the west had AW not paved the way.


All of this has been common knowledge amongst AW fans for years!
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Postby Linkman » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:14 am

Hmm, I'm convinced. I think the NoA localization deserves some congratulations then, their changes were a great improvement in my eyes, and I'm very fond of their script.
"everytime I try to draw xen I end up drawing a kangaroo smoking a cigar while chainsawing a tree" - Deoxy
"I can't believe I'm the only person who voted Stallone. His appeal lies in watching is movies again and again just to hear what the hell he's talking about." - Kilteh
"I'm sure that God put cows on this Earth for us to eat them. Otherwise, he would not have made them so stupid and delicious." - Azrael.
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Postby Shift Breaker » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:54 am

Yeah, I think that making Drake a Former Pirate was a better idea than making him an actual pirate.

Now, if you do a hack with the AW2 Sprites, then I'll be excited.
"The part where you all shut up happens now." ~ thefalman
"I actually like to think of myself as a younger, hipper, more alive Nostradamus." ~ Treed
"Shifty, if I wasn't as manly a man as I am, I'd totally ask you out. And hope you'd wear that topless dude to impress me. In another lifetime, perhaps." ~ Nemmy
"Majora's Mask may by the only game I've played where someone was mooning me the entire time and I didn't care." ~ ThrawnFett
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Postby Hans Stockmann » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:00 pm

You Xen, mind translating my lyrics into japanese? I wish to sing along to the song with my ker-azy tweaks.
"Humans were drinking alcohol five thousand years ago, and they're still drinking it today. Alcohol is humanity's friend! Do I abandon friends?" - Yang Wenli
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Postby Xenesis » Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:03 pm

Not today. I've already set myself on fire today. And the nearby lab bench.
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Postby Hans Stockmann » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:30 pm

And I thought putting too much coal in a boiling mixture and it getting propelled to the roof was bad...
"Humans were drinking alcohol five thousand years ago, and they're still drinking it today. Alcohol is humanity's friend! Do I abandon friends?" - Yang Wenli
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Postby RadioShadow » Fri Aug 24, 2007 1:44 am

I've gone and updated the 'reasons' on why the COs were changed. Thank Kosheh for filling in the gaps.

I'm going to check to make sure there are no bugs in the patch before I submit the rom to romhacking.net

And I need to proof read the topic for any spellings and corrections.

I'm also working on a AW2 hack will imports the GBWA2 sprites into AW2. :wink:
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