What Was Cut from Project Justice Outside Japan?
The Japanese Dreamcast version of Project Justice (December 17, 2000) carries a character creation mode presented as a board game. The European and North American versions (2001) do not. This page documents what the mode is, why the record says it was removed, and what Western players received in its place.
WHAT WAS CUT
A board game that builds fightersThe Japanese Dreamcast version of Project Justice includes a character creation mode, and it is not a menu: it is packaged as a board game set at an inter school festival, in which you build your own fighters, who can then be used across the game's other modes. It is this game's equivalent of the original Rival Schools' School Life Mode, rebuilt as a board game rather than a school life simulation.
Every non Japanese version removed it. The documented reason is unglamorous and specific: the translation time the mode would have required. Europe (April 13, 2001) and North America (May 16, 2001) shipped without it.
WHAT THE WEST GOT INSTEAD
The parts, without the game that builds with themThe Western versions were not left entirely empty handed: they include unlockable sub characters built from the creation mode's parts, pre assembled fighters made of the same components Japanese players combined for themselves. The pieces crossed the Pacific; the workshop did not.
For collectors this is the sharpest regional divide on this shelf: the Japanese Dreamcast disc is the only home version with the complete game, board game and all. The full story of the release is on the history page. Readers coming from the Rival Schools pages will recognise the pattern, the original's School Life Mode stayed in Japan too, but the cut documented here belongs to Project Justice alone, and it is a different mode, cut for a stated reason.
THE GAME ON THE SHELF
Project Justice, the overseas edition