As I mentioned in my previous post, Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido’s situation is different than the one of Mario Tennis Aces and its Online Tournament Demo. You can also have two copies of the game’s demo, as shown in the screenshot below.
But inside each software, you’ll immediately notice that all the text and user interface is translated properly to the language you have set it to, the only exception being the game’s logo. The only other difference that isn’t visual is the voice-acting, now being the Japanese one instead of the English one.
What this means is that, first of all, the Japanese and the American version of Sushi Striker have different software ID, so they considered completely different software. (So if you wanted, you can purchase both and have two save files, I guess. XD )
Internally, the software seems to be the same to the point that all the text is even translated exactly the same way. What seems to have happened here was that they decided to just replace the voice-acting sound files instead of adding both. This was probably done to make the file size smaller. Also, the game knows if it’s being played in a language other than the one of the used in the voice acting and it won’t play the voice sounds during in-game text scenes when that’s the case.
To see the difference and what I’m talking about the in-game text scenes, here’s my two gameplay videos for comparison. First the American demo set to English:
And now here’s the Japanese one with the text set to Japanese:
If you have tried or seen the Japanese demo version while the system is set to English, you would have already noticed that there’s no voice acting at all when there are in-game text dialogues. The audio files are there but the game doesn’t play them since the system is set to a different language. In the same way, if you play the American version but have your Switch in Japanese, you’ll hear all the voice acting for video cut-scenes but won’t hear anything for the in-game texts. (And the text would be all in Japanese, properly translated.)
By the way, the full game will also have an online mode. It’s possible that it may be region locked similar to how it is in Splatoon 2, but there’s no way to confirm that until the game releases and someone decides to test it.
As for my opinion on the game based on the demo, it’s actually a really good puzzle game. Presentation seems to be really good. I’m not good at puzzle games but Sushi Strikers is a game that makes me get upset at myself because I want to play it better.
