Holy crap @ the Japanese version of this game! It seems almost impossible to win fights (though I suppose it might not be so hard if I could understand the text), but geez, the encounter rate is much higher, I ran into Assassins in the first town, and it's hard to hit anything! It seems like your characters don't start with any equipment or food or money or jack shit, for that matter. And it's almost impossible to open locked doors!

The battles are a little weirder overall. There is no animation of your characters attacking the enemies. In the American version there are slashes for melee weapons and bullets for projectile weapons. This doesn't seem to exist on the Japanese. Each time the enemies blink after a turn on the Japanese version, there's a sound effect that occurs, which is the same sound effect used elsewhere in the party, like when you open a trapped chest and the blades hit each party member. I'm glad that sound effect was removed on the American version, it's kind of annoying. The palette for the Gnomes/Sprites is different and along with being only one instead of a group of three, the Snake/Slither Beast has a different palette, too.

That unused "New Game" and "Continue" font I posted earlier? That's used on the Japanese version's title screen. I don't know why it was changed for the American version, but the font in general is different on the Japanese version.

When you run from a battle in Sorpigal, you don't end up in front of the Inn like you do in the American version. You end up in an enclosed room with a locked door in the upper northwest area of the town, which pretty much screws you over since it's almost impossible to open locked doors with the default party! It either fails or you set off a trap that kills everyone.

I thought the American version had a bit of a slow start, which could make it difficult for a first-time player (especially someone new to RPGs or oldschool RPGs) to get into, but it's hard to imagine it's actually an improvement over the original.

I also noticed the source code on this version is copyrighted to Gakken instead of G-Amusements. Maybe they're the same company? Or maybe Gakken only published the Japanese version, since it seems a children's publishing company by that name does exist.