Aha I did know this. I had a copy of gamefan magazine that had an expose on TR and it had the JP redesigns in it.
It's interesting how classic Western PS1 era franchises didn't really seem to make much headway in Japan despite being drastically repackaged. I don't even think Crash was that huge there in the end. Spyro was basically a flop, and the marketing they gave Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus is fucking baffling
This was the era of "Western game = shit game" in Japan. Then again, plenty of Japanese games got heavily altered to sell here and plenty of Westerners had kneejerk negative reactions to anything anime so I guess it was at least symmetrical
Pretty sure Crash had some success, not like west levels, but I do remember one of the games having a JP only pocketstation download.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
Rules
