Feature: Stranded! The Top 25 Games that Won't Come to America Subscribe to this RSS feed

Numbers 20-16!

20-Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon (Playstation 2)

If you just couldn't get your fill of Yangus, the thief in Dragon Quest VIII, then you'll be shedding more tears than the beer this fatso can consume. The game takes place in his younger years and has players marching through randomly generated dungeons with turn based battles.

Since there's not much interest behind normal Yangus in the US, we're guessing this game isn't high atop Square-Enix's "to translate" list. Besides, there's plenty more Dragon Quest we need to see stateside (see later entries).

19- Rent a Hero No. 1 (Sega Dreamcast)

One of Sega's more interesting characters has still not set foot on American shores. Tackling the tired superhero game genre, Rent a Hero No. 1 presented an humorously odd premise of a local hero-for-hire who aids his local community.

Presented as a more lighthearted adventure like Shenmue, the US was twice cursed with this title. First, the title was passed over for release during the Sega Dreamcast era. Things were looking up for gamers when the Rent a Hero No. 1 was translated and prepped for a US release on the Xbox. Unfortunately, the distribution fell through, and this Hero didn't get to save the day stateside.

18- Shin Megami Tensei if... (SNES)

The Shin Megami Tensei series started on the Super Famicom as a first person action RPG. This is the third installment in the series. The story focuses around the main character's high school being sucked into hell... ah the memories of High School. The nearest you'll get to seeing this is in the first Persona game where the female lead makes a cameo.

With the PS2 iteration of Persona starting to make some waves in the marketplace, the time may be right for these older high school/Hell-themed titles to make a mark in the US via remakes.

17- Dokidoki Majo Shinpan (Nintendo DS)

Think the Salem witch trials were one of the cooler points in history? Dokidoki is that game that lets you examine girls from head to toe to find out if they are a witch. If the DS stylus and touch screen weren't made for molesting virtual girls, then I don't know what they were made for.

Unfortunately, there's a panty-ful of reasons this game won't come out here. There's the ambiguous age of the characters you're fondling, the cute style that belies the dirty exterior, and the fact that sexual games are about as rare in the US as sexual gamers... need we go on?

16- Evil Twin (Dreamcast)

This game was developed by the French and never saw this side of the Atlantic. While it's possibly Tim Shaffer didn't see this game before he developed Psychonauts, the resemblance is striking.

As the lone European entrant on this list, Evil Twin makes the cut because it adheres to what makes European games great. Pure, old school gameplay and unique plot and character design make Evil Twin a tantalizing platform treat. A tantalizing platform treat that probably would have sold two dozen copies in America.