Content had to be cut to shrink it down to one disc. It sucks, but if it has to happen, it makes sense to cut the FMVs to keep as much of the actual game intact as possible.

>>12884093
>Content had to be cut to shrink it down to one disc.
you have it backwards. they didnt want to hire english voice actors to dub the cutscenes or spend more than $100 localizing so they just removed the story and by consequence the game now fit on one disc.

>>12884093
Why would multiple discs even an issue, PlayStation had plenty of those games because CDs were dirt cheap.

>>12884193
Dirt cheap doesn't mean free. A 2-disc game costs more to produce than a 1-disc game. AC3 sold below expectations in japan, so it makes sense that they'd want to produce the NA version as cheaply as possible.

File: Rena_Hirose_Character_Portrait.png (1.42 MB, 1019x1350)

1.42 MB PNG

>>12884030
someone on here or /aceg/ mentioned that even back then, the development cost of the game was really high even for the time and doing a full localization probably would've been way too costly for the time. Altough I'm just parroting what I read and google seems to turn up similar sentiments and the possibility of poor returns for the 3rd entry in the west, so they went with a safer approach.

it sucks, but better late than never I suppose with the currently available translations.

>>12884225
Well yeah there's the answer. Honestly don't even know why they bothered localizing it at all if they were gonna try to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy
>According to Kaku, when Namco stated that the American release would be heavily cut down and omit the original Japanese storyline, it was met with backlash from fans and publications, causing interest in the game to severely diminish when it was ready to ship.