Never Made it Here: GiFTPiA (by Branden M.)

February 3, 2011, by Branden M. - GiFTPiA, pronounced "Gifttopia," is a communication RPG released in Japan in 2003 on the Nintendo GameCube. At E3 2003, GiFTPiA was shown in English that year. It seemed certain that it would get a North American release date. Unfortunately, it was later cancelled for unknown reasons. Why was it cancelled? Is it even worth knowing about? In this ongoing feature, we will be looking at games that never made it to American and European shores!

The game starts off with a cut-scene resembling an ancient Japanese shadow puppet theater. Pokkle, a young boy, oversleeps and misses his coming of age ceremony. A typhoon hits the island, which brings misfortune to the citizens and they put Pokkle in jail for treason. You are later released on parole with your faced blurred out for being an under aged criminal and a ball and chain. Once you participate in community service, you will be allowed to explore small parts of Nanashi Island. Pokkle's face is stilled blurred out until you pay a fine of 5,000 mane. After paying the fine, Pokkle will have an interesting discussion with the Mayer of Nanashi Island telling you that you must pay 5,000,000 mane to have another coming of age ceremony. You soon meet a crazy old timer who tells you that there is more to growing up than just making money; it is about helping people. After a long conversation, you eat some mushroom stew that makes everything trippy. You start seeing visions of a mushroom fairy… Yes, a mushroom fairy that tells you to make peoples wishes comes true. Shortly after, the old man turns into a chicken for a while.



GIFTPiA is similar to Animal Crossing in the terms as you will be doing favors for many residents on the island, but GiFTPiA is very different in many aspects. Instead of a village inhabited by raccoons trying to get you into debt or angry moles trying to kill you, GiFTPiA is played on an island about seven times the size as a village in Animal Crossing with many weird inhabitants. In Animal Crossing, you have the ability to customize the village to your liking. You can customize your clothes, hair, and house. In GiFTPiA, you do not have that freedom to customize anything you want. You can, however, change the main character's hair from purple to blonde by eating a yellow mushroom! The biggest difference is that Pokkle has to eat and sleep. In Animal Crossing, eating was just there for fun but if Pokkle never eats he will soon grow tired and faint. If he does not sleep, sleep ghosts will start to haunt him until he soon gets to too tired and will sleep right where he is. You will then wake up learning that raccoons have stolen most of your money.

How do you fulfill people's wishes? First, you collect some items like pineapples and mushrooms throw them into a shrine and you will get a wish container. You will then take the wish container to a villager and you will start the quest. Once you complete it, the wish container will glow and you will be one step closer to becoming an adult. For example: you must get a ball back from your dog, Tao, for a little boy. Once you complete it, you have fewer restrictions.

One of best features of GiFTPiA is the soundtrack. All the music is played through a radio that will have many different Japanese artists like Akino, Six Squares, Komachi and more! The soundtrack is very unique with many different genres of music such as Screamo, Country, Jazz, and Techno to name a few.



Why did GiFTPiA never make it to North America? If it was shown in English in 2003, why just cancel it? After emailing Nintendo of America about this issue, they told me it was too weird for western players. It could be the fact of an old man turning into a chicken, or a mushroom fairy or being too trippy. I do have to disagree with Nintendo of America; if GIFTPiA is too weird, what about WarioWare? WarioWare is very weird in the terms of the setting and characters but yet sells well in North America with the Wii release of WarioWare Smooth Moves.

Is GiFTPiA import friendly? Import friendly is a term used to explain if the game is difficult to enjoy with a language barrier or not. GiFTPiA, is not import friendly. As this is an RPG, there is a lot of text in the game. If you do not know Japanese fluently you can get very frustrated not knowing where to go or what to do. For gamers still interested, do not go just yet. There is an English guide and English translation script in the works. While the script is still being worked on, you can still use it up to a certain point.

How are you going to play it though? Unfortunately, all Nintendo home consoles are region-locked. This means I cannot play any Japanese Wii games on my North American Wii and vice versa; same applies to European Wiis. How can you get around this? There are two main ways: 1. Buy a Japanese GameCube or Wii. 2. Use a freeloader or homebrew application (Wii only). Freeloaders will work for both a Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii, though Wii owners can no longer use it after updates in the 3.X firmware updates.

Where to import? If this game interests you; it will be difficult to find in a local import gaming shop. Some websites will charge you $80 just for a used copy of GiFTPiA. Sounds expensive huh? Importing games can be very expensive sometimes. I would recommend NCSX.com, where you can import a brand new sealed copy of GiFTPiA for $40 plus shipping. That is the best deal we could find on this game. GiFTPiA is a unique game that never hit American or European shores. It provides a unique game play that is only found in certain RPGs. If you decide to import this, let us know your thoughts. Importing is an exciting adventure to a world of the unknown, learning about games that "Never Made it Here."