Namco Bandai cuts big chunk of content from European release of One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP
One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP came out in Japan a couple of months after the 3DS’ launch last year. It included two games in one. Both Unlimited Cruise Wii titles were packed into one game card, along with the Marine Ford mode.
The European version of One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP is finally releasing next month. Potential buyers should be aware that a significant amount of content has been cut.
Although One Piece Unlimited Cruise 1 will be on the cartridge, the entire second “episode” will not be included.
Namco Bandai explained that the decision was related to card size issues:
“Unlimited Cruise SP is a special case a bit. In Japan the game was released with two episodes on a single cartridge with the Marine Ford mode. For the European release we had to integrate the game in 5 languages ??(English, French, German, Italian, Spanish) and this posed a problem to integrate the two sets of cartridges available on one for 3DS. We tried various approaches without success (hence the delay of the title that was out at the end of 2011) and in the end we were forced to include only the first episode. The rest is similar to the Japanese version: new characters, Japanese voice …”
The Japanese version of One Piece: Unlimited Cruise SP came on a 2GB card. In the very near future, developers will be taking advantage of 4GB cards. We’ve also been hearing that 8GB cards may be an option.
I wonder if Namco Bandai tried using a larger card size for the European release…
