Dragon Quest Creator Chimes In On Characters Showing Less Skin In Upcoming HD-2D Remake

I pass to comment on the first thing mentioned, but for the gender thing… come on, just label them male and female and be done.

We are ridiculous. Just check out the idiotic tangerine lunatic we got on deck to possibly run the joint.

I agree with the creators. They are now obliged to put “type 1” and “type 2” so as not to offend anyone.

The Type A and B thing is stupid as hell. Seriously, what purpose does any of this crap serve? There’s other games that have plenty of exposure in character designs and it’s perfectly fine, and then there are some that get criticized to hell for it. This is just pointless.

The world changed. People can either keep up or get left behind. Whining about it does no real good other than invite the worst possible people to call you "based" and treat you like the exception.

Calling it Type 1 and Type 2 is kinda on the nose, but I like nintendos approach in games like acnh and splatoon 3 saying to just "pick your style". It's a subtle way for avatars stay open to interpretation, enough that their style mean what you want it to mean

@Bobb It affects the creators’ vision of the game. It’s like some higher authority that you don’t even know tells you how to do your own creations. Would you be fine with that?

@Arkay 100% agree. What a world we live in 😞

tbh I have to agree with him. Why do people care this much about something so trivial, especially when the creator of the game is saying it's not an issue?

@Arkay yuuup.

"Doing business with such a ridiculous country is really frustrating." Spitting some hard facts. Game was fine as is, and it's a flipping remake. You can't please everyone used to be an acceptable cost of business not this impossible thing everyone had to constantly chase.

you're probably only going to see this... once.

@Savage_Joe This wouldn't have happened without the express approval of the creator. And here he is talking about it along with a former Shonen Jump EIC about how he thinks this discourse is ridiculous. This same thing can be said of other remakes that changed things for "no reason", it needed the explicit approval of the original's director, which... Yuji Horii is. I don't see how this is some higher power affecting his creative vision when it literally is his vision.

I'm really exhausted with how impossible it is to talk about video games without running into an absolute flood of people who spend every waking moment whining about non-cis and non-white people existing. These are good changes.

I’ve always thought the type 1 and 2 were dumb…. You can clearly tell which body is male and female.

I'm amused that it is at the same time both the extreme left and extreme right in America that are causing censorship on a Japanese game.

If anything is /popcorn-worthy, it's this.

A small change like this isn't going to change much in regards to the game, since it is mostly cosmetic. Now the Type-1 and Type-2 is a little silly, and just reminds me of Diabetes. Still these days it has become necessary, since we do live in such sensitive times.

does the Japanese version of the remake also include these changes, or are they only implemented for the rest of the world? And if the Japanese version is going to be the superior version, any word on if that version will have English text as an option?

@Lizuka I’m exhausted talking about video games with others and they bring up race for absolutely no reason

Like it or not, the Type 1 / Type 2 thing is good PR for a game, why else would companies have it? Especially Nintendo, which has never been one to care for “social issues”.

Torishima is 100% right, it is a religion. A godless religion, that's why it's so toxic and poisonous to everything it touches. Someone tell them that age ratings don't matter at large. And "regulations" about things like male or female, or the "cover up because it's illegal" is a pure fabrication. They are being lied to.

It's really not a big deal, at all.

Does exposed character skin enhance the gameplay?
NO.
Does exposed character skin improve the story telling?
NO.

If the game mechanics work and the gameplay feels like the original game, then it's fine.
It's all pixels and polygons in the end.

Anyway, I'm sure this comment section will be super cool and chill.

this comment section sucks im leaving this site

@Scposteel That does not make it necessary.

@SnowyNowak “ This wouldn't have happened without the express approval of the creator. ”
Otherwise, the creators would be flooded with hate comments and the media would be doing hit articles about the game, trying to ruin it. Stellar Blade is the perfect example of that. If 2024 has taught us something, is that politics tarnish creativity.

It's pretty much what we all knew. Nice to hear them admit it. I wish they'd just have stood up and said "No." They use the excuse of "Well, we don't want to lose an audience base." But most 6 year olds wouldn't play DQ anyways. Those who would parent's probably would actively get it.

Companies are just doing their part in making sure I keep on saving money and work on my huge backlog of amazing games. 👍

@Savage_Joe You mean the game sitting at 81/100 on Metacritic? With a bunch of 10/10s, 9/10s and 8/10s from critics?

Some classic shenanigans to be sure

I hadn’t even noticed the changes.

@LavenderShroud I remember when Splatoon 3 did this "Type 1" and "Type 2" thing so many people here on Nintendolife were praising Nintendo for being inclusive, progressive etc etc. As if this was the most important change from the previous games.

In Animal Crossing New Horizons they just say "choose your setting" and then both genders are exactly the same.

Wow I’m surprised and saddened to see so much anti-trans sentiment here. I guess it’s easy not to care when you’re not in an affected group.

I feel grateful to be friends with many people that are.

@Lizuka Male and female are sex and not gender, so I don’t see why they ever needed to change it. It’s not non inclusive

@BlublacMH no, it hasn't. All that's happened is that certain groups with very extreme views weaseled their way into positions of power and now try to dictate what is and isn't allowed.

Neither the creators nor the consumers wanted any of these changes. And this interview has made it crystal clear that whoever it is at Square Enix's american branch that has been feeding these lies that "this is what westerners want" to the Japanese creators, they need to be found and fired.

I never cared for sexy fan service myself. Even if a person does like sexy fan service I don't see HD-2D being the way to go for er... eye candy. Eh, whatever floats your boat I guess, who am I to judge? Apathetic is me.

As for the type 1 & 2 type A & B America (politically) ridiculous bit? Yeah, I'm not biting the hook here, Nintendolife ain't the place to air this out.

...As for a much more pleasant topic Seeds of Salvation is one of my favorite old school JRPGs. Love that is perfected the DW/DQ formula that is still being used to this day. Great game and looking forward to the remake.

"Type-1" and "Type-2" is kind of a weird solution; a spin on the aforementioned "Choose Your Style" from Splatoon would've been a better choice.

When we know better, we do better. Changing the outfits makes sense. Doing a little bit of work to make the remake more inclusive cost them nothing and it doesn't affect the game or the storytelling.

If any of this bothers you - especially a need for female-presenting characters to be more scantily clad while crying "CENSORSHIP" - you need to do some soul searching.

Is sad but not surprising that, even with the creators coming out, and explaining in no uncertain terms "we didn't want to make these changes, we think they're stupid. But we've been told that we have to", there's still people on these comments defending thr blatant tampering of their vision.

@ottoecamn This is gonna blow your mind, but virtually every piece of commercial art created is in some way compromised to reach a wider audience. And it's always been this way. This is actually hilariously a lot better than things used to be.

All things considered, this is really innocuous. you should see the kinds of hoops and censorship Nintendo made partners jump through back in the NES and Super NES eras. Castlevania games got censored over and over and over again.

The scantily clad female-type characters are completely unnecessary tropes and only serve to perpetuate this sexualized expectation of all females. Like, those outfits don't make sense from a story standpoint. It's clearly done for eye candy. And that in and of itself is distasteful and wrong. We shouldn't be setting these standards continually. BUT ALSO, many women are playing video games and probably even more nowadays. They probably don't want to feel like the only options they have to closely represent themselves are the characters with body parts exposed and bouncing around for all to see. It sends a bad message. Both of these elements are about representation. The characters in the game could just be male or female. But since these are acting as avatars for the players, it allows people more freedom to pick someone that they feel aligned with, devoid of any labels. No one is saying you can't be a male or a female person, yourself. Just recognize that there are all types of different people in the world, and they would all like a chance to the same things that you have.

I believe the CERO is no joke when it comes to "too much skin". Remember Palutena in Smash Bros. for Wii U?
Coming from Sakurai himself

One of the first things they say in overseas ratings reviews is “no guns”—that I can understand. But in Japan, they immediately ask “could you show us all the female characters upside-down?”

As much as it may go against the original vision, or in this case what was already established years ago, if it has to be changed for the sake of complying with everything, it sadly has to be changed.

The people talking about how these changes are 'not a big deal' remind me of the tale of the frog in the slowly boiling pot. The level of integrity of anyone who censors these things towards the games they are editing is a clue as to how much they care about it, which affects how well they will treat the product they are editing. But I guess it's easier to just keep burying your heads in the sand.

Seeing as the game will have gendered dialogue i.e if you chose female, should indicate daughter etc, it does beg the question at least

If it's not a big deal why did it have to change?

Unnecessary censorship is still unnecessary.

People saying the change doesn't matter, while it would have made all the difference to my parents when I was a kid.😂 Is removing fan service like this not a good thing?

As for the "Type 1/Type 2"... it's so ridiculous. It's so obvious which one is which.

So they don't realize it looks terrible and ridiculous? LOL to be so unaware of oneself.

they should have gone for M rating, lmao. voting with my wallet and skipping the game.

The demonisation of human bodies by organised religion has turned this into a society of prudes.

Even then it’s not rated all ages. It’s going to end up rated teen at least. Besides the changes arebt going to make someone who wasn’t interested in it before suddenly buy it just because they cover up some skin. Heck given that young kids play GTA then people have nothing to complain about.

@OctoAmbush This is Nintendo Life, not an airport departure lol

@Arkay Certain group??

@ottoecamn What ideology?

@GameOtaku Exactly my thoughts. Kids play Call of Duty, GTA, and other M-rated games they shouldn’t. Yet something like this is bad and not appropriate?

I’ve already expressed my thoughts on the censorship / type A and B thing, so I’ll just say that it’s so nice knowing the actual creators agree that this is silly.

I wasn’t expecting them to be so profound about it, though

@LadyCharlie Does it match with the original creators’ vision?
No

Does it respect the legacy of Akira Toriyama?
No

I actually applauded the creators for actively showing their disdain for having to change their work. Usually it’s just all “well we had to”, but here they’re calling out how ridiculous it really is.

@AussieMcBucket
Then just don’t play games that have those tropes and leave it alone for everyone else to enjoy. Like the Hank Williams junior song says “why can’t everybody else leave everybody else alone?! Hey you do your thing and we’ll do our thing too!”

@Arkay nah, he is calling you guys sexually narrow minded xD don't misinterpret his words. You are on the wrong. Minorities are not to blame here.

However, I believe Type A and Type B is misleading and confusing. I don't understand who pressured then to do it

What is it they said about the new Ghost game?

Oh, don't like it, don't buy it. Right

Okay so did anyone say "No, we are not changing that" or did they just fold? I really don't care about the design changes, but it should just be a toggle. Look at me, solving the problem in a comments section.
Now, let me tell you how we fix Nintendo, over night. Okay, so we start with more Mario nipples, and then...

@Fulgor_Astral type 1 and type 2, literal hate crimer. And don't assume my integer, either.
...I'm sorry. I'll go now.

@ottoecamn Senran Kagura deserved a better fate. I miss that franchise

Y'all, let's keep in mind that this company keeps reporting losses every quarter. Even their guaranteed hits are reported as underperforming. Let's let them broaden their audience with their easiest commercial success of the year if they feel it necessary.

@TheBoilerman I was also noticing that there's a "conservative" change and a "liberal" change, both ruffling feathers. So perhaps it's all even.

@papahefe She seems unmodified here, but it's hard to tell: https://www.play-asia.com/dragon-quest-iii-hd-2d-remake-multi-language/13/70eja3
And yes, it lists English.

“I really wonder, who's even complaining about this?”

Really easy to say after changing it because someone complained.

@Overzeal it could just as easily be that attitudes were assumed. I doubt anyone complained. This was probably preemptive.

@LikelySatan

I really wonder who would even complain about it.

Really unfortunate that this is happening. I wonder who the hell at Squeenix is telling them this bs about them having to absolutely make these changes? And frankly it is very weird how every major JP company overnight was suddenly in lock step in regards to never mentioning sex within a character creator again.
Ridiculous stuff.

Tbh I never liked human (or very anthro) characters clad in very little clothing in RPGs, it doesn't make sense and it doesn't look appealing to me. So for all I care they put a winter coat and high snow boots on the character.

That said, it's also not the biggest issue, so who really cares.

Regarding the gender thing; I'm all for inclusiveness, but just put male and female instead of option 1 and option 2. Honestly this whole thing is getting rather ridiculous.

@GameOtaku Yeah, that's the solution. Not everyone else learning more tolerance and empathy.

Why have the armor if she has clothes underneath? It makes zero sense, and it looks ridiculous. Somebody that doesn't like women had to come up with this, because nobody else would even think about doing something this stupid.

P.S It probably doesn't matter much because as soon as this game comes out somebody's going to hack it back in.

Well, unnecessary censorship strikes again! And people continues to defend it... Sigh

@Gamepro500 people do most certainly wear clothes under armor in normal circumstances (or as normal of a circumstance where a medieval armor is needed!)

Imagine all the pinching, cutting, chaffing and bruising if they didn’t.

I will just repeat what I have already said.

I am only annoyed by the type a/type b nonsense. The human species is sexually dimorphic and that is easily visible except in medical issues/genetic issues. I am still going to play whatever type is the female character.

As for bodily exposure I can’t take most of it seriously because most characters that are designed with half naked women and girls (as many male focused media love sexualizing the female body at young ages) are designed for boys and men to look at them sexually as opposed to a power fantasy which is why male characters are designed musclebound and (if) no shirt. Objectification vs (male) power fantasy. If I walk around with no shirt on I will get arrested (or harassed … likely both) if a man walks around with no shirt on, nothing happens at all. The last time I could do that I was a toddler. Female and male bodies are not treated the same. Full stop. (I have not heard of a place where they are treated exactly the same. If it exists someone tell me and I will move.) We have countries where women have to be covered from head to toe and can’t speak in public. With legal/criminal and physical repercussions if they aren’t. Women aren’t allowed to make decisions about our own bodies without it becoming something that everyone thinks they have a say in and there isn’t a female alive that hasn’t been impacted by a world that condems us for our birth despite being the natural other half of the whold fricken species. Be it legally, socially, religiously or medically. Until that goes away forever I can’t take any argument about “censorship “ seriously as it isn’t in good faith and it never will be.

Frankly “censorship” is everywhere. Nearly everything a person consumes has been couched for maximum sales/opinion. I will bet the censorship brigade isn’t mad about all the name (and culture) changes made for the western localization but oh no we can’t stare at a representation of a female body…the horror.

Let women and girls tell you what we find to be a power fantasy or practical for our bodies and heroines.

Personally I am going to get the game, take my heroine and whip Zoma’s behind. I dgaf if everyone is in a burlap sack. Let me stab some bad guys.

As always, killing countless enemies is fine, but don't you DARE show a little bit of skin!!

It's wild how the political paradigm has shifted so drastically in the last couple years. It felt like the West was becoming increasingly more and more Liberal, but the pushback has been immense as of late. Elon's takeover of Twitter was a massive turning point.

People are tired of constantly walking on eggshells--our culture's obsession with political correctness is, I believe, one of the leading causes of the depression and anxiety epidemic plaguing us. No one can have a normal human conversation without being paranoid that their words will cause offense, that something they said in a tweet from years ago would be used against them for the rest of their lives. It's not a healthy way to live.

I'm glad people are finally coming to the realization that it's okay to go against the grain, and that the policing of free speech is never a good thing. People also seem to be waking up to the bogus narratives that perpetuate both sides of the media. The free thinkers are the real woke ones!

This comment section, which would have been a lot more "progressive" just a few years ago, has a much more diverse range of opinions, and I think that's really encouraging to see. If you lean Left, that's perfectly fine, but cracking down on free speech and dehumanizing those who think differently under the guise of moral superiority instead of engaging in difficult but constructive conversations isn't okay--regardless of which party perpetuates it. (I'm an Independent, for the record.)

I'm proud of Nintendo Life that I don't see a bunch of deleted comments. I'm hoping they've finally come to the same realization about censoring people's voices. Anyways, I'm looking forward to finally playing Dragon Quest III for the first time, regardless of this nonsense.

Should not have censored the outfits and pandered to the type of people who want type A and B instead of male and Female.

Well they got one thing right. America is indeed ridiculous. You got religious maniacs on one side… then you have the horny weird anti-woke children of the religious maniacs on the other side. Then you have people who just want representation stuck in the middle.

Depressing comment section.

@ottoecamn You are absolutely right, also Senran Kagura is awesome!

LOL Torishima definitely comes off as the ranting old xenophobic man in this clip that you cannot take seriously. It truly represents what is happening a lot in Japan though, there is a struggling shift in culture from younger generations that are fed up with not being heard. They've had the same government for decades because older generations own the political space with their massive aged population, and seniors don't like change. The final season of Aggretsuko did a good job of painting this scenario, where if a politician retires they just vote for the son or underling that has been groomed to follow the exact same line.

So instead the younger generations are turning to their workplaces and changing them. Someone said earlier that Nintendo doesn't pay attention to social progeression issues. Well yes and no, I think they pay attention to their workers and their needs and desires for representation. EG Nintendo treating employees that are in commited same sex relationships the same as those in married opposite sex relationships to make up for the fact that the government won't allow same sex marriage.

The same would be going on in development processes. The younger generations are taking charge and creating policies. It's not a surprise that Splatoon (by Nintendo's younger developer team) was one of their first games to ignore binary gender and simply have style. And then other games like animal crossing followed their lead.

As for the costume censorship. The game was made when the developers' workplace was basically all men. The current Square Enix has far more women in their employment with voices. So I think this is also a subtle culture change in Japan.

So the old man can blame America all they want, he is just showing that he is yet another old man in Japan that is ignoring the youth in his own country.

Okay. Preorder canceled. Ofcourse my fictional women need to be half naked. Jeez.

/s

Honestly, knowing the communities. Someone will make a mod for the PC version of the game. And I'm okay with that too. People should do what they want. It's just a game, people.

And about the gender options. Just make 2 questions: femine / masculine and she/her, he/him, they/them. And then everyone should be happy.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest

Type 1 or Type 2? They have diabetes? Jeepers.

Torishima describes it perfectly. No one else should have to conform to others’ social ideologies especially when it comes to creating art. Doing such adds nothing but barriers and roadblocks. There’s already enough games news articles and such attempting to force a new agenda and abolish valid points of view because of offenses to the writer/creators idealism. Pushback is good being done with it is better. It truly is an evil disguised as good to put it politely as he did.

So they changed sexes for diabetes types, that's funny.

That being said, it's trivial but I do think the creators should be free to do as they please, which they kind of are, they're censoring themselves to reach what they "think" is the masses.

Though we all know that if they kept it the way it should be, it wouldn't really hurt their sales as these types of people are in the minority, and creators should stop acting as if they're the majority and just do what they want to do, and stop enabling this senseless debate that hasn't gone anywhere for the last few years, but only empower really questionable people with no genuine intention.

@JohnnyMind My issue with the people I met and hardcore anti-censorship is those individuals are perfectly okay with censorship when it comes to things they don't agree with.

What I gathered though the years of these culture wars is that when it comes to censorship we are all hypocrites to some degree. We are only active when it come to censorship that matters to us, while staying silent or not showing any particular interest it comes to censorship of others.

There is no true unity against all of censorship. Even anti-censorship crowd will admit there are some things that should be censored when it veers into the most extreme.

@BlublacMH When the very thing you're being told to leave behind is a vital aspect of human nature, would you do it?

@sanderev The point is that, as far as pop culture and approachability is concerned, the original art has been defiled, especially that of a man who just passed away. Don't you think that's a bad thing?

Can we just have both? Games nowadays should have more options, not getting rid of options. Games also should be able to have two or more age ratings nowadays so devs don't need to feel the need to alter their creations due to age ratings. So make a version for ESRB T and a version for ESRB M for example, and the game will have T-M for it. Just look what happen with Fortnite with the many game modes having their own rating for example.

@Samalik This game was in development while Toriyama was still living. I hardly doubt they waited till after his death to suddenly change it.

The body type 1 and 2 stuff is so hilarious. How dehumanising.

@WaffleRaptor01 The designs were revealed long after he died. I can't say they sabotaged his work out of spite, but that still doesn't make it feel any less that they are crapping on his legacy and eye for character design.

More changes made for people who don't buy games. If anything the censorship makes LESS sense because more women both play games now and also want to see sexy women in them too like the men. It's almost like... certain groups in the industry are only there to burn it down from the inside, and certain groups are so, SOOO easily manipulated into helping them doing it every time.

@IceEarthGuard The devs of Omega Labyryth Life did exactly that.

The PS4 version bombed hard

Visual Novel developers are forced by steam to censor their games for release.
They also get shunned and bomb, only really put up for obligation because Steam is the entire PC platform while VN fans tell you to buy from the publisher's official website.

Safe to say, it's because it's more work for less payoff. And in some sects of art, shows a lack of confidence in one's own work, trying to be everything but becoming nothing

This comment section is a black mark on Nintendo Life. Some real reactionaries in here working themselves up about nothing.

@Not_Soos looks up at the comment section
You were saying?

@Specters I am angry, beyond reason, and irrational. Nah seriously, Im just wondering if I should get this on PC or Switch.

I have to agree with Kazuhiko Torishima. Changing Akira Toriyama's designs isn't going to ruin my day, but you do lose something. The best thing to do is to warn people exactly what's in a game, and let them make up their own mind. When I first played Dragon Quest VIII, it was magic because you never knew what you'd find in the game. There might be a big fight, a romantic moment, some skullduggery... or, yes, something a bit titillating. When you take that possibility away, you remove something from the artist's palette.

I see a lot of people saying "it's not a big deal", "it changes nothing", "it won't affect the gameplay". Okay, right, I agree but then, if it is so minor, why bothering changing the design in the first place? You are getting offended by a fictional character who isn't wearing a short and a top under their armor suit? Should the game require a Mature label to be sold without censoring the designs? People are really fighting against windmills.. I think there are more worrysome matters to discuss..

Man these ratings boards are really starting to crack down. Makes me wonder why he even wants the lower age rating if it’s such a hassle.

@Lizuka 'Cis people', there's no such thing there's just people.

@Gamepro500 you do realise that people wear clothes under armour right? The armour is for protection while the clothes prevent chafing.

The new armor looks bad. Fill it out with more of those red bits to cover her up more if you're going to do that. Make her armor look more like the male warrior's armor to fill in so it looks cool.

We all seem to be throwing an opinion in here which I think is great, and such a wide range of views. A little bit of cancelling which is a shame, it perfectly fine to not agree with someone.

For me the Japanese games market has over sexualized charactors in games for years, and personally I feel it is not neccessary. With regards to censorship I think it just depends on the reasoning, in most cases I think they are commercial decisions and have nothing to do with personel views. If the creators have that much conviction then they shouldn't change things in order to appease censors. If they do then that change is on them.
With regards to gender, that should be what the creator wants it to be, full stop.

I am a non-binary/transfeminine person.
Leaving aside the fact that most character creators force me to use either male or female, neither of their respective frames matches mine. Obviously, the same problem persists with Type A and Type B, but it does highlight the fact that going with binary choices and simply renaming them just isn't enough when it comes to character creation. If your story revolves around two premade characters that just happen to be male and female, fine. I am not asking you to rewrite them for me. That would be silly.

I think the real issue is developers either half-assing things, or simply not caring about them. Renaming things is half-assing it. I think we can all agree on that. There's nothing wrong with having male and female presets for those who want them. The lack of a custom option is. Transgender people didn't just pop up a mere ten years ago. We've been here for thousands of years. We are valid, we are growing (from 1% to 10%), and we deserve at least some consideration.

I get that many of you feel like something is being taken away from them with "Type A" and "Type B", and those feelings are certainly valid. However, some have taken this conversation to a level that is just plain unacceptable, and those contributions deserve to be removed. If I have to hold back and act civil, you owe me the courtesy of doing the same. It's only fair.

As for the artwork: This is a separate discussion, as it is purely a ratings things. SE have been censoring re-releases of DQ for ages to get lower ratings. It is nothing new and certainly nothing to get worked up about. Anecdotally, I can tell you that revealing designs do not gel well with my son. He thinks it's "disgusting adult stuff" and it just weirds him out. So in that sense, these changes are on-point.

It should also be noted that there is no such thing as "the artist's vision" when said artist works for a company. You draw what the company tells you to. If they want it changed, you change it. There is no disrespect here, it's just business. If you have a problem with that, you don't work with those companies.

I am not a fan of the developers leaning into a certain narrative to vent their frustrations. It comes across as petty.

Such things just bring unnecessary attention to things that should be considered normal. I get that getting offended is an international sport now but it's harmful. I dont think it should bother a normal person whose mind doesnt revolve around <those> things. Unfortunately with nowadays schemes and "entertainment content" such people are a rarity

@Ashley2024 and I'm sure you'd have the same attitude of there being no such thing as artistic vision and everyone should bend to corporate will if a company was forcing binary choices on a creator.

I pass to comment on the first thing mentioned, but for the gender thing… come on, just label them male and female and be done.

@NFrealinkling Concord did that and look what happen. The people online were so against pronouns.

@AussieMcBucket
What was that again about tolerance? It’s a two way street. You can’t tell someone what they can and cannot enjoy. Her attire does actually make sense in the context of the fantasy game. In dragon quest (in most games of the series anyway) female characters are weaker in strength but they do have other advantages such as increased magic and able to use their sex appeal (which is a stat in the games opposite the male charisma stat) to use female specific abilities such as Puff-Puff and Sexy Beam. So her showing off her body makes thematic sense. Take the sisters Maya and Meena in dq4. One is a dancer so she shows off her body while her sister a fortune teller dresses more modestly in a long dress.

@full_metal_opera AC Shadows has two protagonists. Not just one. One of them is a Japanese female.

The black person you are referring to is based on an actual historical figure. One that Japanese history acknowledges. He's name as far we know was Yasuke. What we do know is that he was briefly a retainer for Oda Nobunaga. Theses two things are facts.

Koei, the company behind Nonbunaga's Ambition has made Yasuke a part of the games for a while now. His most prominent role being Samurai Warriors 5. Noih, even featured the character as well. Rather you wanna believe it or not, yes there was African male living among a homogeneous Japanese society at the time.

One thing for sure. This game was not going to get an all ages (E in ESRB) rating for several reasons. Besides suggestive themes it also has alcohol, tobacco and gambling which is enough to bump it up to a T rating anyways. So the covering of a characters body does nothing in context to other things.

@Vexx234
Yes of course but that was an exception considering Japan was closed off from the outside world at least until the last few centuries. They probably knew using a historical figure who could appeal to a demographic would be a great idea. I admit I like the idea of doing so especially for a change of pace to the generic formula. Of course AC tries to be (tries anyway) to get the history right.

@Serpenterror I think Concord died for quite a few other reasons that…

It's cool to finally see Japanese creators finally talking about how they're forced to censor and change their visions largely due to the west and America.
But when are they going to do something about this? Whoever's forcing the censorship and Type A/Type B thing needs to be questioned directly and challenged, or else we can only expect more censorship on the horizon.

@Bobb I agree. I don't like censorship when it comes to art, I think it takes away from the original artist's vision (in this case, the late Akira Toriyama). But I also recognize that it really won't affect gameplay at all and doesn't hurt anything else. I'm still buying the game day 1, its one of my most anticipated games of the year

@JohnnyMind
I'd rather not mention this here because there's a chance Nintendo Life won't like it, but Vivian wasn't actually trans in the original Japanese version. That was a change made to the Switch version.
In the original Japanese version, Vivian was called an Otokonoko/trap/femboy and was referred to as a boy by Goombella as well as Beldam.
In Super Paper Mario, Vivian is again referred to as an Otokonoko and a boy in a character card.
In the Japanese Switch version of TTYD, Vivian's gender is left more ambiguous.
Some people interpret Vivian as being trans in the original Japanese version because how the bullying is portrayed, but the game never says this and actually states otherwise.
Anyways, I just don't want the misinformation that Vivian was absolutely trans in the original version of TTYD spreading.
I could link to my sources but it's up to you if you want to believe me or look into it yourself.

Back on topic, censoring art is bad.
Even Animal Crossing keeps all the nude statues and stuff exactly as is.

@DDFawfulGuy Forced? Force means to do something against one's will. The Japanese aren't forced to do business with America. They have every right to tell America to shove off and not work with them at all.

They want the American market and as such censor themselves for that extra bit of revenue.

@Vexx234 well if everything is historically sound I wonder why Japan is hating on the game. Must be the hip hop beats...

@GoshJosh
They're "forced" to make changes to their creations if they want that American market.
If you saw the interview, or even just read the article, I think it's clear that they'd rather not make the changes but have to "comply" if they want the age-ratings or sales or approval from the west.
If your options are either "censor yourself or don't sell your game/manga in the west" that's not much of a choice, is it?

Anyway, we're arguing over semantics instead of the actual matter at hand. If you want to rephrase what I said to better suit your understanding of the English language, whilst still understanding the point I'm trying to make, then go ahead.

"I really wonder, who's even complaining about this?"
Horny people, that’s who.

Does anyone know if the Japanese version will be closer to the original or will it be censored as well?

We all know that this is because of usofan hipocrisy, let us be honest here.

@DDFawfulGuy they could have just gone for a different rating.

@atombomb66
Yes the Japanese and international versions will be identical. They said as much in the interview.

@Bratwurst35 prolly more about the modern audience vs. traditional gamers. the modern audience is freuently represented by activists and shill media, while gamers call out anything that mildy represents the so-called 'woke agenda'. More recently traditional gamers have been voting with their wallets and shill media have been trying to pin a games failure on those gamers.

@GameOtaku ok thanks for the info.

How games are ruined by trying to please too many people rather than just being what the creators wanted.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6xmXVUaafxs&pp=ygUWTW9kZXJuIGdhbWUgZGVzaWduIGJlZQ%3D%3D

@MarcusIsCool who even complains about that?

@Poco_Lypso
Their games are usually PEGI 12 in the UK anyway so I agree, they could've gone with a higher rating if it meant keeping everything the same.
So either they think the age rating in ESRB would've been high enough to affect sales or there's something else asking them to comply with changes.

@JohnnyMind
Oh, fair enough.
Though in Japan, and especially in media, it's not uncommon for people to use pronouns often used by the opposite sex. Like there's a lot of tomboys in anime that use 'boku' and rarely 'ore'.
Similarly, there are characters that use that 'body of a man but the heart of a maiden' line but are still guys, like Leeron from Gurren Lagann.

@DDFawfulGuy whats actually more concerning and I just learnt about it, - like why do we need type 1 and type 2 chars and cant just use traditional gender? if thats related to rating then there is truly something fishy going on. Sounds a bit like pandering to little children to me. No wonder people are upset...

@GameOtaku The source of that video is a group called "The Babylon Bee" which promotes a hard right leaning narrative and regularly mocks the LGBT community, minorities, and liberal causes.

Their website promotes racial and xenophobic attitudes under the guise of "Christian satire". I'm just making that clear for people before clicking the video.

@Poco_Lypso
If I had to guess, someone insisted that Male and Female were changed to Type 1/A and Type 2/B for the sake of non-binary people?
But it's a mute point because you're still choosing the body of a male or female and in most cases characters will still refer to you as a guy or a girl, like FE: Three Houses convos/marriages, so why bother?
Besides the why, I'm also wondering how they convinced creators that this change was even necessary? It sounds silly even as just a suggestion.

@DDFawfulGuy seems like a forced inclusion or something. I dont see a need for this in a game where u can choose ur gender in the first place. games like these give trans or non-binary people the option to play as their gender of choice anyway...

@AussieMcBucket The sympathy your asking for is to remove sexuality from the human experience under the guise of protecting women, 4 billion people in other words, presuming they don't also want to play as attractive characters in general. And that's setting aside the whole heavy fantasy aspect inspired by greek gods and ect. requiring suspension of disbelief for the sake of enjoyment and fun and the fact that sexualization is in the eye of the beholder.

Sorry, but that level of intolerance gets no sympathy from me.

@GameOtaku Tolerance would be acceptance of other people's viewpoints. I'm pretty sure you're covered with over-sexualized women. I'm struggling to understand how this is telling you that you can't enjoy that. Or is this game only for you? This just sounds like what you don't like, not what "ruins the game."

@Samalik This is clever wordplay from you to consider that to be intolerance. I don't recall asking to remove sexuality from humanity. That's a bit broad.

@GameOtaku Hahah thanks for the share. I missed this one. I feel like I'm watching a meeting with sweetbabyinc. haha DripDrops comment made me find yours to see what they were talking about. Glad I saw dripdrop's or I would have missed this comedy gold.

The devs are correct. This puritanism is ridiculous, though it has a purpose; to divide, to create camps of people to get at each others' throats instead of questioning the rich oligarchs who do this.

Same playbook as every other thing in class society, just different demographics strung up and forced to fight.

@AussieMcBucket I dont know man, nowadays its become a bit of a one-way street tbh, where on camp will tell the other whats right or wrong. 'oversexulization' may be considered bad, but its games we are talking about, a place to escape from reality.
The problem we are facing is, there is a movement that wants to define femininity and masculinity, and it wants to put ugly female characters into games - I dont really see the appeal here. But thats ofc subjective asf.
We all have our tastes and preferences, personally I dont like women with tatoos - yes, most of them have tatoos nowadays, Am I going aroung teaching people about the stupidity of tatoos and how I dont like them and want them banned from gaming?
As for oversexualization and I mean this, we are talking about pixel chars. If people are offended by sexuality they should ban the porn industry. Pretty sure that industry does more harm to people than a pixel char. Yep, the hyprocrisy is real...

@AussieMcBucket
So what about my viewpoint? If that’s what you want then mine should have as much bearing on tve issue as yours.

Diversity-the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.
So my view and having characters show off skin is included in diversity since like a salad if you take out everything you don’t like you’ll be left with nothing.

@AussieMcBucket "The scantily clad female-type characters are completely unnecessary tropes and only serve to perpetuate this sexualized expectation of all females. Like, those outfits don't make sense from a story standpoint. It's clearly done for eye candy. And that in and of itself is distasteful and wrong. We shouldn't be setting these standards continually."

I dunno man, that seems pretty on the money as to coming off as intolerant, especially when the market is doing different things with men and women as is.

The character select has a simple solution: Masculine or Feminine. Even if the character art pretty clearly depicts subtle curvatures of respective biological genitalia, everything from gender diversity to the wide spectrum of self expression can be distilled down to a simple masculine vs feminine paradigm without much issue.

As for the designs... Yes it's unnecessary. No it's not worth canceling your purchase over.

Hopefully making a ruckus online can encourage Square Enix to update the designs retroactively with a later update. However, getting the game culturally canceled and hurting sales revenue will only hurt future HD2D games. Square Enix is a business at the end of the day, not an art house. They will not, I repeat, will not read between the lines if DQIII sells poorly. The finance suits will simply look at the numbers and tone back, or outright cancel, other pixel art projects.

Square Enix has written themselves into this financial corner, but now that they have, everything must sell very well, or else everything similar will be put in jeopardy. That is a plain reality. So if you are a fan of JRPG's or pixel art projects, think very carefully before venting online the kind of emotional outrage that runs the risk of turning DQIII into a financial pariah.

They can put whatever they want in their game, but they could at least try to be honest about why it's there. Notice it's very heavily skewed toward one gender - we have games with "armor" for women that covers perhaps 10% of their body while their male co-stars have only their face visible, if that. Include it or don't include it, but don't lie.

@AussieMcBucket Healthy representation is also a problem of quantity, not just quality.

For many years, the only representation woman were offered in many different forms of media were objectified, dehumanizing cliche's and stereotypes. Ditto for racial representation.

With an increase in quantity, you can therefore increase diversity. If the only option for a girl to self-represent in DQIII was the bikini armor, then yes, that would be sexist. But now that they can select a girl character, they can self-represent with many different classes, not just the one that is sexualized.

@qm11 I think that's a different thing altogether in that bulky armor compliments masculinity expected from heavy fighters. Some do have ab windows, but overall the designs act as though men are naturally build iron shields, at least in a fantasy sense.

There is no science to it because in the end every artists is going to have their creative bias'.

It's wild how you are all distorting the meaning of the word "intolerance." This seems to be at the forefront of the pushback movement, right now. The overt sexualization can have real, harmful consequences for women. This isn't a matter of opinions. And again, it's about making these things more accessible and representative for all. That is the goal for these changes. And that is what I'm saying. You're all crying foul that someone took away your "good ol' days" content with lots of boobs and butts because "that's what [you] like." This isn't an assault on you. It's an extension of inclusivity to everyone else. Change is tough. I get it.

@Ulysses Calling it sexist is a bit of a stretch

@Ulysses
That’s one thing I never understood. You’d think businesses would see the comments about why consumers don’t buy their games and try to do something about it. “Oh we goofed up big time on the next game we will not make the same mistake and make the game the creators want and sell it on its own merits instead of trying to do the impossible task of pleasing and trying to kiss every alarmists rear end.”

@Samalik You misunderstood or simply stopped reading before I got the part where I was saying it wasn't.

@AussieMcBucket And yet there's no comment on the yaoi women may consume, or complaints from men about how they are portrayed as too sexy and always portrayed as eye candy for those who are into guys.

You can knock it off, man. I wasn't around until the 90s and didn't have a functioning brain til the 00's.
I'm just seeing the flaws in the stock arguments the older I get, and facepalming when people fall for it.

@Ulysses
lol, this isn't some niche franchise like TWEWY.
It's bloody Dragon Quest and Team Asano.
It'll sell well in Japan regardless of literally everything else because Dragon Quest is Japan's national treasure. I'm not joking, they had DQ music playing at the Tokyo Olympics it's that big.
And Asano from Team Asano recently got a promotion this year and no doubt he's directing, producing or otherwise overseeing other projects HD2D or not. Octopath and Triangle Strategy sold reasonably well so they're not going to change course because of this one game.
Now let's say DQIII did sell badly. I can't say for sure if the decision makers at SE will actually acknowledge why it happened but considering the noise made recently I think someone at SE would've taken note of it.
Either way, I don't think the Type 1/2, censorship or HD2D games is something that'll change with bad sales of just one game, but it doesn't really matter because DQ will sell brilliantly in Japan at the very least.

@Ulysses I did read your entire comment. I just don't agree with the sentiment that it's automatically sexist because creators are to make what suits them and their world. Even if it's a, shall we say "unique appeal" of the author, like most of the female cast of Bayonetta being british dommy mommies.

the same sentiment goes for RPGs.
Similarly, if a game only features girls in bikini armor, but all of the girls have vibrant unique designs featuring the motif and fun/engaging characterization, then who cares if it's all bikini armor, at least it'll be fun.

@Samalik That's why the issue of representation is more complex than just one game. It's a combination of many factors, from subtle nudges made within the isolated environment of one game to the macro influence that the industry as a whole endorses.

For multiple decades, the prevailing, macro influence of video games was unequivocally misogynist. Games like this are where we are seeing one of the laws of the universe at play: an equal and opposite reaction. Games are going a little too far to correct the record recently. But in time, tensions will loosen up to a more balanced approach. Which involves another law of the universe: entropy.

@DDFawfulGuy Absolutely nothing is immune to the demands of money. Even Final Fantasy is in danger. Square Enix currently is in utter chaos internally, trying to figure out why FF continues to sell so poorly, relatively speaking since it's still selling in the millions.

I'm glad they added clothes because the male-gaze sexualization of women in video games is not a good thing. It does not advance gender equality; it reinforces patriarchal notions of women as sex objects. I think he's the one being "ridiculous."

@Ulysses I'm sorry, I'm not seeing that either. As the creators of this remake have complained, these kinds of things aren't seen as issues in japan. Women also makes these kinds of things too because they find them fun, amusing, empowering, silly, ect. So calling it misogyny is a long stretch.

I'm going back to old anime here, but even the likes of cutie honey were seen as empowering at their time, while Rumiko would end up penning Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2 which was enjoyed by both men and women, despite expressing more than the thing you're complaining about.

Thinking about it right now off the top of my head, I honestly wonder how much of the accusation of misogyny is intertwined with unacknowledged misandry from the accuser. After all, you have to actually think of the other gender as lesser than you for such an an accusation to stick. And maybe thinking men are pig headed dangers for wanting to see sexiness is also one of those things. Not saying you said that, these are just musings now

@Samalik First of all, I'm not the one complaining. I was the one replying to the person complaining, reminding them how the topic they used is more complex than a simple this or that.

@BlublacMH I disagree, and it seems that many people do as well. This is a forced change. It’s happening unnaturally, and unnecessarily. There is no need to censor beloved art just because it could offend some people who won’t even buy the game.

@Ulysses
Honestly, whoever is in charge of SE's marketing and sales prediction needs to be fired. How can you be so wrong so often?

On a separate note, I'm tired of people supporting censorship whilst saying it's for women. It's almost always men saying this. If women hate having sexy women in video games so much why aren't they the ones speaking up?
And saying 'male gaze' as if lesbians don't exist. The truth is that women like having pretty and sexy women in video games too. Hell, there are plenty of women that like Senran Kagura, Bayonetta, 2B. If you look at the interview, the woman is the first one to bring up the censorship topic and say that in fantasy games, as long it's fun, everything is fine.
So where are these women supposedly being negatively affected by video games?
And who are these men that somehow have their views on women warped because a video game has a woman in skimpy armour? Absolutely ridiculous.
If you're going to be pro-censorship you could at least have the decency to make a proper argument supported by facts rather than just pulling stuff out of your arse.

Nevermind that the character shown is actually a lot sexier now that it's simply better drawn.

This is an annoying amalgamation of things that are very different in nature. They avoid rating issues by covering parts of some characters' bodies, this I can believe, but it's absolutely their choice.

Also nobody in the US or anywhere else is going to complain that male are referred to as male and female as female. I mean of course about 20 people are going to complain on the internet because they can but they will never get anywhere with such a complaint, not anywhere that could prevent the game from being on store shelves anyway. So that too is strictly their choice.

They make it sound like it's some audience or some country's will that is at work against them but the truth is it's simply the financial higher ups at Square that decided on their own that the game should be rated this or that, which BTW makes the character look a little less like an ultra sexualized 14 years old so maybe not such a bad thing. And the same people, still at square, also decided that referring to male and female as A and B was going to make them look cool or something which the fact that it's going to achieve that goal is really up for debate if you ask me.

Long story short, that's on them, only them and presenting things the way they do is only twisting reality or inviting people to do so to comfort themselves in their own fears which they like to believe in very much because in their mind it allows them to be as mysoginistic and transphobic as they want and also a lot more while they're at it.

That's obviously just gamergate fuel. Let's not go there thanks.

I wish that more people would understand that just because a video game has more inclusive options for players, it does not mean that the developers have gone "woke" or are "pushing an agenda".

People come in many different types. It should only be fair to let everyone be able to have something they can better relate to when playing games.

In case anyone was wondering, I am Type 1/Type A. Just thought I'd clarify.

@DDFawfulGuy Plenty of women do and still do. Have been for awhile now. You just selectively choose not to listen to them.

@Samalik the Dragon Ball art style is in this weird place, where all men are drawn so weirdly exaggerated, that most of the time they don’t register as sexy- even for people who prefer men.

@DDFawfulGuy about Vivian, I would consider how the ones identifying her as a boy are always other people (one of whom is Beldam and the other one likely heard it from Beldam). A far as I know, even in the original Japanese text she still insists on being treated and presenting herself as a girl.

@Ashley2024 I do agree that it feels a little strange to rename the options when most of these character designs are still very much easily and instantly identifiable as gender-conforming males and females.

It’s not like in splatoon and animal crossing where your character is basically a nonspecific doll to dress up.

@GooseLoose1
Please. Even on Twitter it's mainly guys saying women's outfits should be censored. And I've seen women saying in response that he's the sexist one for saying women can't decide how they dress.
Even in this comment section is mostly men.
If more women are okay with or even like these kinds of designs than there are women complaining then is there really any reason to censor them?
If there's any evidence that women wearing sexy outfits in video games hurts real women I'm willing to see it.

I'm glad NL was brave enough to report on this. It's important to note that the artists who brought this franchise to popularity feel stifled by modern political ideologies. If the situation was flipped, and the creators felt pressure to make things more sexy or more gender-binary, it would be equally worth reporting on.

@Eel
Interesting perspective.
You say 'other people' but even the game itself will state Vivian is a boy.
To my knowledge, in the original Japanese, Vivian is called a boy by Beldam, Goombella and that Goomba that gives you a Trouble Centre Quest to find him a girlfriend.
At no point does Vivian deny being a boy or insist on being called or treated as a girl.

@DDFawfulGuy well in the case of Beldam, she kind of can’t do anything beyond get sad (it’s clear she’s hurt by her comments though). As for system text and tattle info, characters don’t usually react to those either.

I don’t know how the goomba conversation goes in Japanese, but in English she seems offended.

@Eel
Yeah, you're right. Vivian at that point is too scared to talk back to Beldam. And you can't talk back to Tattles and system text, lol.

I think in Japanese Vivian just says to the Goomba "Hmph. Well you're not my type either!" or something like that. Or maybe I'm thinking of the English version, lol. Everyone's offended by this random Goomba saying they're not his type.

TLDR PR translation: “Blame Americans not us.”

@Vexx234 You mean the grossly historically inaccurate (and quite frankly tone deaf based on their merchandising decisions) Ubisoft game that Japan audience crapped on for not respecting culture and said inaccuracies was cited for one of the reasons for the delay?

Yasuke wasn’t even a samurai, but a retainer (that had no evidence of actually doing any fighting for Nobu.) that Nobu kept around as a novelty pet (again history mentions how Nobu was an arrogant man that does things on a whim.) and if you knew anything about feudal Japanese history, Nobu more likely kept him as a sodomy partner then swinging a sword at Japanese lol.

Reminder Ubisoft’s sole “Japanese consultant” was a joke fanfiction writer and actual Japanese historians could make a book about the historically inaccuracy in the game. The architecture is more Chinese than Japanese for starters lol.

Nobody denies Yasuke existed including Japan. This is far from his first portrayal. It’s that everyone with a brain dismissed this ludicrous portrayal for Yasuke because Ubisoft is more focused on checkboxes than games which is no wonder why everything has been going to hell for them lately especially after the Outlaws flop.

@Arawn93 I was going to put a proper response as I would've enjoyed a debate here. But given the rest of your post is just trying to be inflammatory and your approach childish, I won't engage.

Have a good day. For anyone interested here's a good post about Yasuke.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1css0ye/was_yasuke_a_samurai/

@Kingy It's worth it to me. They gave me a free T-shirt. Im staying.

Isn't the editor-in-chief's response Xenophobic? Blaming America for something we never even caused in the first place? CERO is the reason why they had to censor her outfit. To comply with Japanese age ratings, given how strict they are in comparison to the West.

Also, I don't really have any big qualms with the censored design. Nor do I with the original. Both are fine, and both can exist without issue imo.

@DripDropCop146 Bro, you got a shirt?

...on second thought, censorship isn't sounding too bad anymore. I've been meaning to get something to wear under my bikini armor.

Yeah, this seems like a non-issue to me. This was the only 2D-HD remake I was thinking of getting barring a surprise release of 2D-HD Chrono Trigger, and this doesn't sway me one way or the other honestly.

The new design even kind of looks better (although I'm not really a fan of the costume either way).

@Fulgor_Astral sexually narrowminded for thinking there is male and female?

Literally creating problems were there weren't any to begin with.

Well hey, if it's really not an important thing then why change it in the first place?

@Ryu_Niiyama well, what we see im the character selection is a mix of the gender expression and physical characteristics, not biological sex. They are two completely different things

@Gaymer90 Nope. It’s female and male characters. If you wanna play as a female character and you are a dude that’s your business. Almost every female gamer on planet earth has played as a dude more than once because male is often the default and only choice in many games, Dragon quest especially as there are far more games including 11 that are male protag only. Standard fare, but most certainly not “expression”. This isn’t a character creator. You aren’t “expressing” anything other than you pick for the player character if Ortega had a daughter or a son. That’s it. Female or male. Whatever you wanna add to it mentally on your own is your business but does not change this 30 year old Japanese game. And either way it shouldn’t be Type A/B. We already have words to describe the two sexes. Female/woman/girl and Male/man/boy.

Still getting it. I’m pretty tired of hearing about this. Just let me enjoy it in peace!

I'm tired, of the rest of the world, having to suffer from American censorship...

He's completely right. The west has become overly sensitive on these matters, and it's a shame this even leads to censorship for Japanese entertainment creators who might have a completely different view on certain social aspects.

@Jireland92 do you realize this is a game, and that its not set in modern times?

@Gamepro500 My pronouns are "he/him", in fact. 😐

All they need to do is to up their ESRB rating from E to PG and, like magic, they can do what they like again.

@Arawn93 lmao, so true.

That 'expert' is a complete joke - claimed its mostly people from western countries who are vocal about and dislike the game.

if anyone has doubts about how Japan feels about AC Shadows or Yasuke, then this song (pretty good btw) will erase them all, lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLxQJPq8OJI&t=2s

@Gamepro500 and? Just because it’s a fantasy game doesn’t mean the outfits can’t make any sense at all. It’s a dumb argument that excuses a lot of bad character design choices. I don’t think DQ3 qualifies as bad character design just to be clear, just making a point.

@Poco_Lypso Yup. Hilarious that the person responded to me posted just a Reddit link of all things as if that does ANYTHING for his argument lol.

I will trust the multiple ACTUAL Japanese historians (not the joker Ubisoft used and certainly not a random Reddit link) in Japan that criticized Ubisoft’s blatantly inaccurate culture portrayal in the game. Ubisoft couldn’t even get the architecture right. Lot of it was CHINESE in origin.

Anyone that acts like Japan loves how this AC is portrayed (like how Ubisoft’s “Japanese Consultant” acted like Japan would LOVE this AC) are just as tone deaf as the Ubisoft merchandising team that used a WWII memorial for game profit.

@Arawn93 Ubisoft’s "brilliant" strategy supposedly is to brush of criticism as toxic gamer talk, and to issue demands that devs don’t publicly engage with disccusion about what Japanese gamers think of their game
https://thatparkplace.com/ubisoft-developers-reportedly-reveal-company-brushes-off-legitimate-criticism-as-toxic-gamer-talk-and-dei-policies-have-led-to-brain-drain/

@BlublacMH Indeed, the world had changed. Now it's Korean developers making great games like Stellar Blade instead of Japanese developers. Hopefully the Japanese learn to resist these foreign influences sooner rather than later.

They should've given more options. Clearly male, slightly androgenous male, middle, slightly androgenous female and clearly female, and not call them anything but say "Choose the look you like the most".

And then do the same with clothing. Bikini armor, bikini armor with leather, bikini armor with gambeson or something, and then something else clothed, even better protected.

Because while we are all putting our panties in a bunch, I think both options are lame. The most naked one the most lame, but I still wouldn't choose the female fighter all the same for wearing such a ridiculous outfit.

Nor would I choose the male option because he looks weird too.

Maybe we can all agree that having the option would be best? More options is better representation and still allows you to choose the option that would have been the default.

"Who is really complaining about this" is an apt question only because the answer is no one, no one is complaining. $1000 bounty for anyone who can find complaints from even the most strident activists, that a game lists Male and Female player options. New games come out all the time still bearing those labels, you hear nothing.

And so this change is made voluntarily, because people in development and marketing recognize it's NICE to acknowledge the social and scientific consensus, that sex and gender are separate and on a spectrum. It's appreciated and can be handled elegantly, I've praised this before about Animal Crossing and Splatoon.

Meanwhile you absolutely WILL hear complaints about scantily clad characters, both from those who say it's objectifying women and those who say it's corrupting the youth. My take is we should probably just leave legacy games made by old men like these unaltered, and avoid the tiring discussions. They get a longer leash anyway because of when they were made.

It's really telling when people comment "Type 1/2 is dumb who cares". People keep saying games should be an escape, well there are people who want that escape in their games, but don't agree they fall in the binary choice. So picking a body type makes more sense than trying to subscribe that type to a gender. It's a clunky naming scheme sure, but eh is it a big deal that it ruins your game?

@Arehexes The “is it a really big deal?” goes both ways. Gaming industry went fine with “boy or girl” “male or female” etc. for decades. Last I checked back in the early days of Pokemon when Professor asked if you were a boy or girl there was no controversy from both children and adults alike. At this rate is the final destination of this rabbit hole gonna be “Cis Male” “Cis Female” and “Trans”?

@Arawn93 Please explain to me why Type A/B bothers you so much?

I love the final bit though, it's almost as if doing the Type A/B doesn't solve that. Or let's go full hog and do what Balders Gate 3 did. Pick your gender and your genitals as separate things. Now everyone can be anything they want, wooo. That game also won game of the year as well. What is Square's excuse besides they damn well know ratings bump up rates which could mean less sales. It's the same reason why Hollywood dumps out so many PG-13 movies.

Edit: Welp seems good ol Dragon Quest games that were JP only also had these changes in the past. Kinda weird to blame the west on changes made in games never released to the west....

Dragon Quest games are about the last type of game I would play to see skin....Then again, there have been allusions to sex in much of the games.

I am on the fence about cancelling my preorder of the game. It looks great, but I don't want to support censorship.

And no, I'm not some right-wing Trumper. I vote democrat straight up and down the ballot. Regarding the removal of gender terminology - I'm a gender-bender myself who still doesn't fit in on either binary. There's nothing wrong with using words like "male" and "female" since those are the two main genders that the vast majority of humans identify with. I also don't like this weird disdain of anything remotely sexy.

So yeah, not all of us "lefties" support this PC censorship stuff. A LOT of us don't. Perhaps a "safe" mode for kids would've made more sense.

And the "walking on eggshells" attitude that some on the left have is doing us NO favors whatsoever. It makes us look weak and petty. That said, let's not pretend that right-wing folk don't do this, because a lot of those people also get upset seeing a gay person or brown person in a show or game.

The silly censorship affects the gameplay in any way?
No
It was unnecessary?
Yes

Now the radio station behind the show is saying the words were mistranslated and taken out of context. So don’t believe everything you read on Twitter.

@Ryu_Niiyama 30 years is a long time for things not to change. Of course social norms are a product of their time, but sexism, racism, and the differences between sex and gender were not as mainstream knowledge back then, but they are now.
I'm just glad the creators of the game are more updated regarding current society than the online gamer community. The goal after all is not to be offensive (and I really don't see why it is), it is to be inclusive.

Let it all end up the same way as SS:KtJL, Dustborn, Concord and the likes. It’s all starting swing back the other way.

"and? Just because it’s a fantasy game doesn’t mean the outfits can’t make any sense at all."

Says the person crying about it video game....smh

@SuperBro64

In other words you're a guy....🙄.

@Gamepro500

@Jireland92 Do you realize this is just a game?