Making one Wander
I’ve recently purchased the Chinese version of Wanda To Kyozou, known in western territories as Shadow of the Colossus. I have read, on many occasions, about how this particular version of the game is considered to be superior since it is exactly like the original Japanese edition, while featuring subtitles in Chinese, Japanese and English. So I grabbed my Japanese version and examined them both. It didn’t take long for me to realize of another peculiarity featured in the Chinese version.
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Apart from the use of Chinese characters 汪達 to write the name “Wanda” the cover art is exactly the same. Here’s a comparison shot below.
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This, however, is where it gets a little more complicated. I remind you that the game was released in the US as Shadow of the Colossus before any other version came out. The official release of the Japanese version happened about a week later, October 27th to be exact. Strangely, the Chinese version was released two days before on the 25th.
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Where the Japanese version reads “Wander and the Colossus”, this Chinese one reads “Shadow and the Colossus”, which makes absolutely no sense. The same can be read on the image printed over the DVD. I remind you that this is an official product with a proper Sony serial number, not some knock-off from a Hong Kong dealer. If that had been the case there would be no reason to take this seriously.
Though it seems clear enough that someone mishandled the packaging design, having replaced the manual and disk text only partially for the English-Chinese version, I found this blunder to be amusing and surprising as well. Quite puzzling too: a bridge between the North-American and Japanese version of sorts.
