• Japanese PSP2 DLC Works with Western Version of Game?

    Since the release of PSP2 in the West, there has been much discussion about whether or not the DLC released in Japan would eventually make its way to the US and Europe. The general consensus has been that the chance was likely slim. That is, until now. PSOW member Izuna has posted a very interesting guide in our PSP2 Forum which shows how to play the Japanese-released Phantasy Star Portable 2 DLC with the Western release of the game!


    The process is actually quite easy, and simply involves downloading the free DLC from the official Japanese PSP2 site (where a similar guide is posted in Japanese) and storing it on your PSP's memory stick in the designated folders. The catch, as you might have guessed, is that the mission text is all in Japanese. However, it seems that the items you find during these missions will be displayed in English. (Please note: We do not yet know if there are any potential negative side effects from doing this, but none have been reported so far.)



    This discovery opens up access to many of the very popular downloadable missions that were released for the Japanese version of the game, such as Gemaga and Maximum Attack Cross. In addition, it raises a very good question: If the Japanese DLC can be used with this method, does that mean that Sega could potentially release localized DLC sometime down the road using a similar method? We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, head over to the forums and check out the full guide and discussion! Thanks to Izuna for posting the guide and credit also goes to funkyskunk for letting us know about this trick in an earlier thread!

    Comments 27 Comments
    1. Tomeeboy's Avatar
      Tomeeboy -
      That would seem unlikely, seeing as how the information and DLC is available for free right on the official Japanese PSP2 web site (just in Japanese).
      This method of accessing the DLC is presumably for players who cannot connect their PSP to the Internet, but do have access to download the missions on a computer and copy them to a memory stick manually.
    1. dragonlibrarian's Avatar
      dragonlibrarian -
      i commented about it on the sega forums, but the post was removed until they could make sure the dlc wouldn't mess up people's games. if someone got banned they must have posted it a lot.
    1. BIG OLAF's Avatar
      BIG OLAF -
      I'm a little apprehensive about downloading and trying these missions. Like the article said: no one knows if there's any negative and/or game breaking side effects just yet. I'm actually going to wait until we get a definite "no" answer on DLC for the Western versions before I go doing this either way.
    1. Izuna's Avatar
      Izuna -
      been playing this for a while, and even converted a JPN save; they both work pretty much 100%, the only really unfortunate things are some items being dummy items. I imagine that if/when SEGA releases Western DLC, this package will have to be overwritten to use it.
    1. GUARDIANDNL's Avatar
      GUARDIANDNL -
      i´m happy with this and dissapointed in some way...
      it´s like when i just check the memory from my PSU v1 and AOTI both for PC...i found the scripts from playstation 2 memory card on it also found the data for the first episode from PSU episode 3... anyway i found kind of lazy they (SEGA) mess this up a lot...how come they didn´t think of this...cause i´m really sure there were some guy who said: "what if a psp2jp owner use the dlc mission content on the us version just changing ther name of the folder???...i mean i now it is stupid and after all we are SEGA...but still...." voila....
      like i said i´m happy that this event mission ARE in the us version in some way (i´m literally pointing a gun on my friends and take them to the store to buy the game so we can enjoy challenge and MAX).
      but thinking...like the password spoiled surprise...this is another mess for us in the INFINITE future.
      meh...i´ll just enjoy my endorphines a little while.
    1. Overlord Zenon's Avatar
      Overlord Zenon -
      Im not surprised really since the game is supposed to have less a region lock, so the code would have to be near identicle
    1. ZeroXRaven's Avatar
      ZeroXRaven -
      I honestly don't appreciate Izuna being the only one getting credit for this because FunkySkunk was the first to post it and to my knowledge the one who brought it to the forum....soooo give him credit please...it's not right....
    1. Izuna's Avatar
      Izuna -
      I agree to a point... I did find out for myself, although I wasn't the first one~ what matters is that this news got through, which is pretty cool for PSPo2 users.
    1. MaRayearth's Avatar
      MaRayearth -
      I wonder what Ruby has to say about this.
    1. Pavichokche's Avatar
      Pavichokche -
      The first post about this on the Sega forum got deleted (and the person who posted it)likely banned.
    1. Tomeeboy's Avatar
      Tomeeboy -
      We try to always give credit where credit is due, so thanks for bringing this up. I've updated the story accordingly to credit funkyskunk as well (since it looks like he was, in fact, the first one to mention it here). While Izuna does still deserve our thanks for posting a formal guide, both users deserve credit for taking the time to bring this information to the PSOW community and make people aware of it. We do appreciate it!
    1. SELENNA's Avatar
      SELENNA -
      Interesting.
      *grabs popcorn*
    1. S-T-H's Avatar
      S-T-H -
      No one got banned over this and I don't think anyone actually got into any trouble for posting PSP2 related things this week. Of course a few bits of info have been removed, but that doesn't mean those users are in trouble. As Clumsyorchid has stated, they are looking at how using the JP DLC affects the English version. From my own experiences elsewhere, any fair test of that is going to take some time. Once there's a good idea of how well it works, they'll probably know just how many disclaimers to put on using it. Based on some of his posts, they appear to (rightfully) be concerned about what kind of work it might be for their customer support team to respond to particular issues that might come about.
    1. Sarthraa's Avatar
      Sarthraa -
      There's only one problem about this. When you put these missions into your game, the default ones get their text changed to Japanese as well. Not much of a problem if you can read Japanese, of course. Just figured I'd give y'all the heads up in case you haven't found that out already.
    1. Tomeeboy's Avatar
      Tomeeboy -
      Somebody else can probably confirm this, but I think that is because the file downloaded from the official JP PSP2 site includes ALL of the missions that have been released (including the Japanese versions of the default missions in the Western version of PSP2). I'm guessing that the text would go back to English on these if you were to remove the JP DLC or change the folder names so that it's no longer being loaded. If I'm wrong, somebody let me know
    1. Imatron_'s Avatar
      Imatron_ -
      Now what I want to know is can custom made stuff be put into the game, for example, the poster I made for the PSP2 poster contest?
    1. Sarthraa's Avatar
      Sarthraa -
      Makes sense. Once you remove the folder containing the downloaded missions, it should revert to loading from the western UMD I would assume. I've heard that, if you select one of the missions that were already on there from the western version, the in-mission text reverts to English. This would need some confirmation, though, as I haven't gotten to try it yet.
    1. pedrovay2003's Avatar
      pedrovay2003 -
      Ah, I remember doing this back in the Dreamcast PSO days. There were a ton of Japanese-exclusive Guild Quests back then.
    1. MagraiserPR's Avatar
      MagraiserPR -
      I'm upset cuz i dont know what to use in the Jp ver. of Bruce's trade where i saw dagger of serafi and girasol can anyone post some type of translation for that cuz i really want those weps
    1. GUARDIANDNL's Avatar
      GUARDIANDNL -
      check here
      http://bumped.org/psublog/
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