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Because of the circumstances behind their conception, the Japanese versions of these three games all feature title screens reminiscent of Famicom launch titles, with the copyright information uniformly reading "COPYRIGHT 1983 ATARI". When Nintendo of America exported the games to North America in 1988, the title screens were made more elaborate and the copyright info was updated. The ways of accessing the game's modes are also changed in the North American release; instead of having them all available on the title screen, the player must press Start in Defender II and Millipede to bring up a menu (itself displaying additional copyright information). In Joust, pressing Start skips the menu and automatically begins Game A; the player must press Select in order to access the menu.
The development of Joust as a launch title for an Atari-distributed system would have a prominent knock-on effect on HAL and Nintendo's future. The game was one of the first titles to be programmed by Satoru Iwata, who would go on to become a vital asset to HAL thanks to his coding skills before becoming Nintendo's president in 2002, and his experiences developing Joust would help him program Balloon Fight.
The Cutting Room Floor articles:
https://tcrf.net/Defender_II_(NES)
https://tcrf.net/Joust_(NES)#Regional_Differences
https://tcrf.net/Millipede_(NES,_HAL_Laboratory)
https://tcrf.net/Defender_II_(NES)
https://tcrf.net/Joust_(NES)#Regional_Differences
https://tcrf.net/Millipede_(NES,_HAL_Laboratory)
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