Was the PS1 Votoms Blue Knight game ever been in North America?

[False Prophet]

From MAHQ: "Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Blue Knight Berserga Story is a four-volume novel series released exclusively in Japan from 1985-1987. Initially published in Dual Magazine, it was written by Masanori Hama with illustrations by Hiroyuki Hataike. The story focuses on Kain McDougal, a former AT pilot who enters the Battling arena to track down his best friend’s killer. The novels were later adapted into a 1997 PlayStation 1 game published by Takara. The game was distributed in North America as an import titled Blue Saber Knights."

(https://www.mahq.net/votoms-blueknight/)

But I can't find anything online about the NA version of this game. The Japanese version of the game has English text on the box as seen here: https://www.tradergames.fr/en/playstati ... ition.html

But it's definitely the Japanese version, as it has the product code SCPS-45115, and SCPS is the code for Japanese PS1 and PS2 games. So is the information on MAHQ wrong? Did Takara actually imported and released the game in North America at any noticeable quantity?

[Chris]

I don't know much about this game, but compare these two things:

The Japanese version, listed on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/304001105336

This version with all-English text and the title Blue Sabre Knights (via Tim Eldred):
https://timeldred.com/media/update23/Vgame05.JPG

[Mafty]

It seems as though it actually did get a release in North America. Really the game itself seems to work without prior knowledge of the Franchise (Votoms side stories avoid some of the more Science Fantasy elements).