The Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai franchise’s Saturn entries were released on Switch in Japan today, its publisher announced.
A part of its Saturn Tribute line, City Connection released the four mahjong/adventure/dating simulation games individually on the Japanese eShop as well as in a compilation on a cartridge.
The lineup includes:
- Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Special + Remix
- Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai II
- Suchie-Pai Adventure: The Throbbing Nightmare
- Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Really Limited Edition
Each game includes electronic versions of their original manuals as well as all the accoutrements that other Saturn Tribute and S-Tribute games enjoy, like rewinding and saving and loading save states.
Unlike all previous Saturn Tribute and S-Tribute titles, these Suchie-Pai entries have not appeared on the Western e-Shop, likely because they’re completely untranslated from the original Japanese and would be very hard to enjoy for audiences unfamiliar with the language.
It was a different story for last week’s Elevator Action Returns, a game that was in English to begin with, and Cleopatra Fortune, a puzzle game re-released two weeks ago that can be enjoyed without knowing Japanese.
The Suchie-Pai physical cartridge costs about 6,900 yen, which converts to about US$50 these days. On the eShop, Suchie-Pai Special, II and Throbbing Nightmare cost about US$15 each, while Really Limited Edition costs about US$22.
Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Special + Remix is a combination of the first two Suchie-Pai games on the Saturn in which players compete in a mahjong tournament. According to its entry on Sega Retro, Special was a 1995 port of the arcade original that removed explicit nudity to get a yellow label rating, while Remix was released later in the year with the arcade version’s nudity restored for a red label rating.
Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai II, released on the Saturn in 1996, was an arranged port of the series’ arcade game sequel that challenged players to solve a kidnapping case — and play mahjong, of course. It had a red label rating.
Suchie-Pai Adventure: The Throbbing Nightmare, an original game for the Saturn released in 1998, switched genres from mahjong to top-down adventure. It included minigames and a dating sim mode but its explicit content was toned down from previous entries to a mere yellow label rating.
Finally, Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Really Limited Edition was itself a compilation released in late 1998. According to Sega Retro, its first two discs contain reworked versions of Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Special and Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai II, with the stripping scenes replaced with tamer versions from the PlayStation ports, while the third disc contain additional content, including a new short adventure game based on the same system from Suchie-Pai Adventure Doki Doki Nightmare. Like the previous entry in the franchise, it had a yellow label rating.
The Switch re-releases censor the nudity seen the original Saturn titles. A person on Twitter posted a video of one of the games depicting a white bar that has been added during an animated scene of a naked girl to partially obscure her breasts.
All of the games are listed with CERO D ratings — for ages 17 and up — except for Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Really Limited Edition, which is rated CERO C for ages 15 and up.
The publisher is also selling a physical “super deluxe edition” for about US$217 that comes with a drama CD, a vocal collection CD and a keychain as well as a download code for the sixth Suchie-Pai release on the Saturn: Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Secret Album.
Secret Album, originally released in March 1999, was less of a game and more of a multimedia disc. It included galleries, glossaries, quiz games, pseudo-chats with characters and interview videos.
City Connection said it has no plans to sell Secret Album on eShop — it’s obtainable as a download code in the physical deluxe edition.
The official website details a variety of retailer exclusives, too, from folders and magnets to a crystal with the series’ main character engraved in it in 3D.
City Connection announced the Suchie-Pai collection in July, as Shiro reported at the time.
Saturn Tribute games are the Saturn originals running on what City Connection calls the Zebra Engine, which dataminers have found appears to be a modified version of the SSF emulator. City Connection appears to use the “S-Tribute” label for the Saturn games from Taito that it’s handling, while games like Cotton 2 and Suchie-Pie are from other publishers and sport the “Saturn Tribute” label.
So far, 10 games have been released under either label: Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force, which came out last year; Layer Section & Galactic Attack, which came out in April; Cleopatra Fortune and Elevator Action Returns, which came out in November; and the four games in today’s Suchie-Pai collection.
Two more were announced during an April 2 livestream: Puzzle Bobble 2X & 3 and Metal Black. There has been no further news on them since their announcement.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
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