Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Regional Differences

This is a sub-page of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Regional Differences

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To do: Get images and more in-depth comparisons. Also, German version changes.

Japan

The Japanese release is based on the second version of the game, and on top of removing Hot Coffee and inheriting any fixes in that version, it also features these additions/changes:

General

• Two new screens have been added to the intro movie, one warning the player that the game is made for people 18 and older, and another screen mentioning Capcom published and distributed the game.
• In the menus, instead of X being used for selecting and triangle being used to go back, circle and X replace their functions respectively. Also, triangle is used to place a waypoint on the map instead of circle.
  • The "game", "brief", and "stats" menu options are now "system", "log", and "records".

International	Japan

• When completing a mission, "Mission Passed!" is now "Mission Completed!", and "Respect +" is "Respect Up!"
• Activating a cheat will simply have the notification say "ON".
• Several names of locations have had their names simplified, such as Madd Dogg's Crib being called Madd Dogg's Mansion, or Wardrobes being called Closets.
• One of the most obvious and game-altering changes is that pedestrians will no longer drop money on death. They will still drop weapons, however.
• Shooting a pedestrian will immediately give you a one-star wanted level, no matter where you are, and even if they're already dead. The normal rules still apply for running people over or using melee/alternative weapons, however.
  • This causes the star counter to freak out during missions that disable wanted levels, constantly giving and taking away one star.
• You can no longer stay locked onto someone you've killed. Peds also no longer move when you stomp on/shoot their corpses, and they can not be beheaded.
• You can no longer stomp on pedestrians that are on the ground, making melee fights last longer than they probably should. This also applies to melee weapons like bats and knives.
  • In fact, all special ground-based moves from gyms have been removed, with the coaches skipping over them entirely, meaning CJ can never use his legs in a fight at all.
• The splat sound used when running over people has been removed.
• The Total Legitimate Kills stat has been removed.
• CJ as well as pedestrians will no longer scream in pain when on fire.
• The Combine Harvester will no longer spit out gored limbs if you harvest a pedestrian.
• Many references to sex shops have been removed, leaving them simply called..."SHOP" in most cases. There is a single Sex Shop in Las Venturas that was left unchanged, and it can clearly be seen in the mission "Madd Dogg" on top of that.
• The painting of Candy Suxx in some Safehouses has been replaced with a picture of some palm trees. One was left over in the "adult shop", however.
• When having sex with a prostitute, she will not moan. The car will still shake violently, however.
  • Oddly, any implications of sex with girlfriends are entirely removed, even the screen shake.
• Strip Clubs are now just Clubs. But in name only, nothing else was changed.
• Restricted Area was renamed to No Fly Zone.

International	Japan

Missions

• Several missions that involve killing innocent civilians for one reason or another now have them be affiliated with the Ballas inexplicably. Senseless killing bad, but senseless Balla killing good.
• Many references to drugs in general are removed from the game, including Tenpenny's bong and Rosenberg doing cocaine, sometimes even changing the camera angle of a cutscene to make it easier to truncate these references. Ironic considering how often the protagonists already disapproved of hard drug use. This also indirectly changes the direction of the game's story in some cases.
• The 7th Quarry mission sees Carl disposing of a "mannequin and fake cop bike you used to deceive the enemy" as opposed to a dead cop and his bike. The 4th mission was removed entirely, however it can still be loaded manually, and the subtitles prove they tried to change it to be compliant with Sony's demands, changing it from burning bombers to burning their belongings/evidence...but you still end up burning the bombers themselves. It was probably more trouble than it was worth trying to replace the models in the end.
• The mission Madd Dogg will keep the camera far away as Dogg jumps from the building into your car's boxes. It also removes the blood spurt from his landing.
• The Pimping side mission has been removed altogether. Once again, they did try to change it by having the prostitutes be "temporary workers"...
  • Even stranger is Jizzy's mission that's almost exactly like this side mission is left completely intact minus some small subtitle alterations, such as referring to prostitutes as just "girl" or "woman" and the rival pimp just pretending to be a pimp. Most amusingly, the punters are simply called "assholes" in the subtitles.
• Near the end of the mission Reuniting the Families, the scene that shows the bike cop getting chopped up by the helicopter cuts away just as it's about to happen. It still plays the slicing sound oddly.
• The intro cutscene for Gone Courting cuts to gameplay after Carl enters Catalina's house, removing the sex/torture sequence entirely.
• The second cutscene in the mission Jizzy replaces the pole dancing stripper with a normal prostitute model. Because of the model swap, the prostitute has a broken jaw.
• Two Rampages in Los Santos and Las Venturas were disabled since their goal was to kill random pedestrians (the LS one did try to change it by saying to kill enemies instead, but not the LV one). Rampages that involve destroying cars/bikes, of course, specify that they're "enemy gang" vehicles while still having ordinary pedestrians driving said cars. Stats related to all rampages were also removed.

Interestingly, in 2011 Take-Two released a new "Rockstar Classics" version of the game which is identical to the original Japanese release, except there is less censorship overall (Strip Clubs are still called Strip Clubs, the Crack Den is still a Crack Den, etc.). The particular build used was actually one that was a few weeks older than the original release's.

(Source: Vadim M)