How was Diablo released in Japan?
Diablo's Japanese story starts with an absence. The PC version was never localised: development delays had left its code and text data tangled together, so swapping languages was effectively impossible, and Japanese PC players made do first with imported English copies sold without Blizzard's involvement, then with the English version sold by agent SourceNext. For the PC, Japan's Diablo was someone else's game in someone else's language.
The first genuinely Japanese Diablo is the PlayStation edition: published by Electronic Arts Square, the EA and Square joint venture, on July 9, 1998, priced 5,800 yen, catalogue number SLPS-01416. That is the exact item this Library's covers page compares, and the edition SOJ stocks.
It was a full localisation, voices included: every line of dialogue and narration performed in Japanese (the Warrior by Jurota Kosugi, the Rogue by Atsuko Tanaka, the Sorcerer by Yu Shimaka). In exchange, the port traded the PC's online play away: no Battle.net, but a local two-player mode in its place, with item trading between the two players, the feature the American box brags about in its flame badge. The Hellfire expansion was not included. A budget reissue followed as PlayStation the Best on November 18, 1999, at 2,800 yen.
ONE DATABASE WARNING
Labelled, not hiddenSome Western databases credit this edition to "Electronic Arts Victor." The stronger record, Japanese Wikipedia, GameFAQs' release data, the era's own software catalogues, and a Game*Spark feature written around a physical copy, all say Electronic Arts Square, and the box itself brands only Electronic Arts. This Library prints EA Square and flags the conflict rather than hiding it, because the next collector who checks will find both names in the wild.
THE EDITION
SLPS-01416
