@jesse_dylan Nintendo did get better on the Switch generation, with games like Xenoblade 2 coming over unchanged, even with crazy risque designs like Newt. but the industry as a whole is probably as the worst it's ever been with censorship, specially after playstation shifted it's HQ to california and f*cked every developer that liked doing fanservice.
@jesse_dylan it's only made weird here because the content gets removed, which prompts people to ask why and it devolves from there. Had they left the game alone, I guarantee you nobody would be talking about it. Also, if you wanna bring age rating into the question, games like samurai Maiden, Senran Kagura burst, and even xenoblade 2 itself all have T ratings. A book slider would not raise the age rating past a T.
People wanna day this is a non-issue. And it would've been if they hadn't removed the feature.
@jesse_dylan you do realize Nintendo saved bayonetta, the woman who gets naked when she fights and constantly makes suggestive poses ans sexual innuendos, from oblivion and went out of their way to tell Platinum to make the link costume Sexier right?
Not to mention that they HAD all of that in the original Japanese release. All I'm arguing for is that the original vision be preserved.
@LikelySatan again, not part of the development team. they're employed by completely different segments of the company. they went in after the game was finished and removed the bits they didn't like.
@Finntendo Here's the thing mate, I too have played character customization games without a boob slider and I don't have a problem with them. What you're ignoring is that this WAS a feature that WAS included in the game, but then got removed from the in the western release. in a game that features LOTS of revealing outfits. (and again, I don't mind Lyn being the only one to have this toned down as long as the rest of the cast is unaltered).
Having that Slider only gives people the option, games are fantasy, escapism. if someone wants to run around in a big fantasy world as a big boobed anime woman in cyber lingerie, let 'em. if that's not your thing, that's fine, X allowed for both. Why would you support NOT having the option to chose?
I kinda blame the Nintendo World Report. not everyone knows the game has customizable outfits and this is a lot of people's first time seeing Elma. we've seen A LOT of Remasters censoring outfits so you can't blame anyone for being concerned.
My main worries are: Are any of the existing outfits going to be toned down and is the Breast Slider going to be restored? there was absolutely no reason to remove what is a standard slider for customizing a female character from the game. These are fair concerns to have and is very disappointing seeing people so dismissive of that. it's fine if you particularly isn't bothered, but why is it such a bad thing for people to want aspects of the game they liked to be preserved?
@LikelySatan yes. because the localizers are outside actors. they took no part in the creation of the game. just removed a feature they personally didn't like despite it being a staple of character creators. and, Remember the Yuji Horiie interview, the West is ALWAYS the ones pushing censorship and alterations of japanese art.
@Samalik oof, that's not very reassuring, I'm still gonna "wait and see" for now, since they are doing the thing they did with Xenoblade 1 DE and redoing all the models in a new artstyle. so far, doesn't look like anything was removed, but we need more information.
@Samalik I get what you mean, ideally, nothing should be censored, but I'm saying that if Lyn is the only compromise, I can accept that. to me it's more important that the rest of the characters get their uncensored outfits and that the Breast Slider isn't removed.
@N8tiveT3ch Nintendo isn't Sega. they don't operate in the same way (plus X has a higher age rating).
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but usually when something gets changed in Nintendo games, it's NoA's touch of death. I'm just hoping the japanese branch keep them in check this time. since they DID get a lot better about not letting Three House censor their games when the Switch launched (granted, if Fire Emblem Engage and Paper Mario are anything to go by, they need to clean house again).
I just hope it's uncensored this time. I don't really mind Lin (who is a child) getting toned down outfits since the rest of the cast had them uncensored, but one thing that was ridiculous was the removal of the breast slider from character customization.
I'm gonna be cautiously optimistic, mostly because XC1DE didn't get any of it's more spicy outfits toned down.
I talked about this in another post, but I think it bears repeating here:
other than the Rouge situation, I don't really see the dialogue changes as censorship.
Sega had revealed a while back that they were gonna have the dialogue be rewritten. Generations was written back in what so.e call the "Meta Era" of Sonic (the 2010s, post colors), when they had the writers Pontac and Graff working on the games. These guys admitted in an interview that they didn't really know or cared about sonic prior to getting the job and all they did after being hired was "watch some cutscenes on youtube to get the gist of it", that's why every game in that era has that cringe Saturday morning cartoon humor and the characters act like parodies of themselves (with knuckles in particular being made into a joke).
After they FINALLY got rid of those guys and brought Ian Flynn (who's been writing the comics since 06) to wrote Frontiers and that resulted into a shift back to the 'Adventure Era' style of stories (like we saw with the Dark Beginins Shorts) and the most well received Sonic story in years, they wanted to rewrite the Sonic part so it wouldn't be as jarring when put next to the Shadow part. Knowing the context, to me, removing stuff like Sonic putting his hand on Amy's face and Knuckles eing slammed into a tree, or not making a "gained weight" joke wasn't done out of censorship and political correctness, but out of an attempt to take the characters more seriously.
Heck, on the Amy note, Ian actually addressed it in his podcast a few years ago when a fan noticed that Sega was already trying to move away from having Amy be obsessed with Sonic be her defining trait (it's been happening since Lost World) and he said that, to him, her feelings towards Sonic should absolutely still be part of who she is (and he even still sprinkles moments of that in IDW comics, she's just less over the top and abrasive about it), but he's ultimately beholden to write what Sega wants him to write.
That being said, no excuses for what they did to rouge's model, that is censorship and I will definitely not ever defend it. Her model was fine and unchanged as recently as Mario and Sonic at the 2020 Olympics, and if NINTENDO of all people didn't have a problem with Rouge's cleavage being put next to their squeaky clean Mario, there's no justifiable reason to do what they did to her model. It was never a problem and it never affected the games' age rating.
TLDR, Rouge's model change is a change made out of censorship, but while there's PLENTY of remakes and remasters that rewrote things for the sake of removing what they deemed "problematic". (I myself called these out like removing catcalling or jokes in Paper Mario, or the atrocity that was the Dead Rising Remake), but this isn't the case here. though I don't blame anyone who isn't aware of the finer details of the reasoning for thinking so.
@Samalik Indeed, I'd say there's an argument to be made regarding whether or not the changes are an improvement or not (personally, i despise the Pontaff years, so as far as I'm concerned, nothing of value was lost) and it is odd that they didn't change certain animations to fit the new dialogue.
But I've a lot of people on our side of the argument conflate the writing changes and Rouge as both being instances of politically correct censorship when Id say, knowing the entire context, only the latter is. (Heck, I wasn't even gonna play the Sonic side cuz I hate the Meta Era writing, and hearing that Flynn was rewriting the whole thing actually made me wanna play it).
But I know there's a lot of cases nowadays of remakes arbitrarily changing things and censoring them, so I don't blame anyone for jumping to that conclusion.
@Samalik actually, other than the Rouge situation, I don't really see the rest as censorship at least not for the most part.
Sega had revealed a while back that they were gonna have the dialogue be rewritten. Generations was written back in what so.e call the "Meta Era" of Sonic (the 2010s, post colors), when they had the writers Pontac and Graff working on the games. These guys admitted in an interview that they didn't really know or cared about sonic prior to getting the job and all they did after being hired was "watch some cutscenes on youtube to get the gist of it", that's why every game in that era has that cringe Saturday morning cartoon humor and the characters act like parodies of themselves (with knuckles in particular being made into a joke).
After they FINALLY got rid of those guys and brought Ian Flynn (who's been writing the comics since 06) to wrote Frontiers and that resulted into a shift back to the 'Adventure Era' style of stories (like we saw with the Dark Beginins Shorts) and the most well received Sonic story in years, they wanted to rewrite the Sonic part so it wouldn't be as jarring when put next to the Shadow part. Knowing the context, to me, removing stuff like Sonic putting his hand on Amy's face and Knuckles eing slammed into a tree, or not making a "gained weight" joke wasn't done out of censorship and political correctness, but out of an attempt to take the characters more seriously.
Heck, on the Amy note, Ian actually addressed it in his podcast a few years ago when a fan noticed that Sega was already trying to move away from having Amy be obsessed with Sonic be her defining trait (it's been happening since Lost World) and he said that, to him, her feelings towards Sonic should absolutely still be part of who she is (and he even still sprinkles moments of that in IDW comics, she's just less over the top and abrasive about it), but he's ultimately beholden to write what Sega wants him to write.
That being said, no excuses for what they did to rouge's model, that is censorship and I will definetly not ever defend it. He model was fine and unchanged as recently as Mario and Sonic at the 2020 Olympics, and if NINTENDO of all people didn't have a problem with Rouge's cleavage being put next to their squeaky clean Mario, there's no justifiable reason to do what they did to her model. It was never a problem and it never affected the games' age rating.
@jowy_sw It's not a conspiracy when you can find video of SBI employees making presentations where they say with their own mouth that their goal is to burn the industry to the ground and bring up how they're needed because otherwise the industry will be filled with people like Quentin Taramtino (their words, not mine). Not to mention that now we have heard straight form people like Yuji Horiie about how Americans have this narrow minded idea of what's appropriate and force it on japanese game developers.
Also, what SBI defenders such as yourself dont understand is that There's a difference between having diversity happen naturally in a game or even political themes in a story and shoving american left-wing current day politics in a game to lecture players. Baldur's Gate 3 gives players freedom to express themselves and doesn't try to lecture the player, And Alan Wake 2 was a financial flop.
I remember being interested in this game when it was announced as it's not often we see a game (or any media really) based on African mythology, But I changed my mind when I saw SBI was involved.
@AlienX @SalvorHardin no, that's pretty in character for Omega. if you pay attention to his dialogue in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, he very much loves fighting and destroying things and has a lot of fun doing so.
06 was the only time he was completely serious. the only lines we had from Omega in these shorts were "I call dibs" and "I wanted to destroy it", both are pretty in-line with his personality.
@AstroTheGamosian yes, not only that, Blackrock is one of the main responsible entities for DEI (with Larry Fink being very open about it in that one interview where he talks about "forcing behaviours"), encouraging people to hire based on superficial characteristics like race, gender, and sexual identity in order to increase their ESG score and get more funding.
As @martynstuff mentioned, Im not too worried since Nintendo has means to protect themselves from hostile takeovers. And between Saudi Arabia and Blackrock, I much rather have the former owning shares than the latter. (I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo actually bans Blackrock from investing in them).
@Daniel36 All good mate! I appreciate we can disagree without animosity!
I'll say this (and I think we might've found some common ground here actually), I do agree that localizers SHOULD have a limited amount of creative liberty, there are such things as jokes, local expressions, metaphors, and song lyrics that simply don't translate, and I'm certainly not against reworking a lines to sound natural as long as they're not altering the original content or information being conveyed.
I gave Fire Emblem Engage as a bad example because it goes out of its way to completely change what characters are saying (and from what I hear Eiyuden Chronicles isn't much better), but one example that came under certain scrutiny recently that I actually defend is Unicorn Overlord. The game is a medieval fantasy, and thus, the localizers opted to make the dialogue more flowery and sophisticated, like you'd see in most western fantasies, but (as far as I know) they didn't do that thing where they altered personalities, or completely changed the lines into something completely different from the original, They just delivered it in a way that they believed would feel natural to the setting. That's something I'm completely fine with.
Another Example is actually from the game and character my Profile pic is from, in the Senran Kagura Series, Shiki is a Gyaru who learned speak English so she sprinkles some English lines here and there. Gyarus are a type of fashion sub-culture popular among young girls in Japan, so her manner of speech was adapted into an American Valley Girl (which is the closest equivalent to a Japanese Gyaru, even though it's not exactly the same), and her English lines were changed to French, since it wouldn't make sense to keep her foreign language lines in English when that's the language the game was being translated into.
Ultimately, The main thing I require is that the original intent be preserved. There is a time and place for artistic liberty but don't have a guy hold up an Onigiri and tell me it's a Jelly-filled Donut.
@SoIDecidedTo basically, yes. Star Wars Outlaws was a massive failure, taking an entire month to reach 1 million copies sold (which is great for an indie or small budget game, not so much for a AAA licensed title that costed around $200 - $300 million to make), and that failure was the final nail in the coffin for Ubisoft's stock to plummet, and its investors start the talk about the company going private. they are terrified of what AC Shadow's failing would cause. hence why they're delaying it to try to make some last minute adjustments.
@Daniel36 I wasn't trying to sound condescending. I do find your interpretation negative, but I didn't mean that as a disrespect towards you
That's what I meant is that I don't think the mindset of "someone somewhere by be offended by this dialogue and/or content therefore we must change it" is a healthy one for creative works. It'd basically create an environment where the creators have to constantly walk on egg shells, and when you try to create something that appeals to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. And in the context of localization, it's disrespectful to the original author because it's not the localizer's story to change, and the fact that they so readily and shamelessly go around changing lines they don't personally agree with is precisely why many people lost their respect for the profession.
@Paraka it was definetly a factor. And of the Endymion report is to be believed, they actually DID have a fictional japanese male protagonist to go along the female one and allegedly, he was even modeled already, But the idea to replace him with Yasuke came about in 2020 after the BLM protests. And trying to change your project in order to ride a sociopolitical trend is typically not a very good idea.
Specially when you consider that, in this effort to make their game mode diverse, now we have a big foreigner going around killing Japanese people, which only served to add to how short sighted and tone deaf their decision making was.
@jojobar well AC historically has been known to adapt the cultures and time periods of it's settings pretty faithfully. with people saying their depiction of Venice in AC2 to be so beautifully recreated that it belonged in a museum. And Shadows showed itself to be very sloppy, and very incompetent in its depiction of Feudal Japan to the point that it was raised as a point of concern in Japanese Parliament.
Even leaving the matter of Yasuke aside, they had really amateurish and frankly stupid mistakes of the sort that you wouldn't see in past games:
Like having events that happen in different seasons take place all at once (like cherry blossom and rice crop harvesting, also a rice field next to a river, which wouldn't happen as it'd flood the field), Chinese Architecture being spotted, using the flag of a modern-day Reenactment group without their permission, making a promotional figure using a one-legged Torii gate (the only one in existence is monument to the victims of the Nagasaki bombing in WW2), and another promotional stand using an ebay-bought sword from One Piece.
Ultimately, through sheer incompetence, they managed to piss a country that not only is one of the main hubs of gaming in the world, but also one that is traditionally very proud and protective of their history. to the point they had to issue an apology in their japanese twitter account, and cancelled their TGS appearance last minute, so I'd say it's a lot deep than just a usual case of toxic gamer talk.
@Kingy it doesn't. The context and the message is still exactly the same, but a lot of websites are trying to use this statement (which, let's face it, was probably forced from above, cuz it doesn't make sense to scrub an entire interview over a single mistranslated word) to completely invalidate the point about censorship.
@Daniel36
Yeah... I respectfully completely disagree with everything you just said. And I find that mentality extremely negative.
In the example I gave, for that character, who is an attractive woman constantly talking about her own beauty and proud of her figure, being concerned about weight gain is perfectly natural and in character, the idea that a certain character isn't allow to talk about a certain topic because someone somewhere might be offended is asinine. It's literally changing art and stifling creativity (ironically, this is something Shuntaro Furukawa himself spoke out against when Sony's new censorship policy was being implemented and he wanted to make clear Nintendo would not impose on what third partied can and can't publish).
People who have an issue with being overweight aren't gonna magically feel better about themselves because they removed a line about a character being concerned about her own weight from a game. And this goes for any other taboo topic.
Thus I'll reiterate, it's not the Job of the localizer to alter the original script. It doesn't matter if the culture being translated for has different sensibilities, because the foreign product was made with the values and sensibilities of its country of origin, and that should be respected.
these are fantastic, I love the lore continuity by bringing in a younger GUN commander (with the Archie name "Abraham Tower" basically being confirmed canon with Maria calling him Abe), and Rouge making Shadow go to Sonic's Birthday Party, justifying his presence in Generations. Ian Flynn is just built different to be able to make everything connect so naturally like that!
@MegaVel91 I'd like to add to that as someone who didn't grow up in an english speaking country and got exposed to lot of localized american products. The job of a localizer is (or at least should be) to convey the author's intentions in a new language in the best possible way. there IS some creative liberties that have to be taken (like when a character is portrayed to have some regional accent, or in cases of song lyrics, jokes, or slang), but ultimately, it's not the job of the localizers to "rewrite" the work, completely changing a phrase to be about something completely different, or changing a character's personality.
The only reason the localization discourse became so toxic and why some people take it too far with the accurate translation thing is because WAAAAAY too many American localizers have been doing the later rather than the former, and that's undeniable.
Heck, my first language is Portuguese, and when I started learning english, I'd watch movies or shows with subtitles, Now I'm trying to learn japanese and it's really freaking distracting when I chose to play a game in the japanese language with english text (a VERY recent example is Fire Emblem Engage), and I can clearly tell that what I'm hearing and what I'm reading aren't remotely the same thing. (One example that always comes to my mind is a support talk where Rosemary is originally worried about gaining weight from eating too many cakes, yet the localization says she's embarrassed about making a silly face while eating. I don't know how anyone can defend that type of crap with a straight face.)
even if the word is Puritan and not Sex Education, that doesn't take away the rest of what was said in the interview. it's still Crystal clear that the censorship happened, they don't like it, and the fault is the west.
This reeks of some sort of cover-up, you don't scrub an entire interview because a single word was mistranslated.
@TheDragonDAFan I don't think we're gonna see any of those, since those games are completely unrelated to Shadow. (I know Frontiers isn't either, but it's the most recent game in the series so that's probably why Chaos Island is in there),
It does seem we're getting Westopolis level, which makes sense, it'd be weird if the Shadow campaign skipped on a level of Shadow the Hedehog, specially if Black Doom is the main antagonist.
Ah he'll yeah! There was th concern that this was only gonna be a few levels, but if it's roughly thr dame length as Sonic's campaign, and WITHOUT classic Sonic, that's fantastic news!
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.
@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.
@JohnnyMind yeah, I feel ya. It's kind of a hard choice to make, now it's been made clear that neither the audience nor the creators themselves want these types of changes (whether it's the censorship or the "type A and B" instead of male and female). Ultimately, the only way this can be fixed is if the rot inside the American branches of companies like square is weeded out, (since they are the ones feeding the narrative that America has narrow and strict regulations, when that's a complete lie) but that's easier said than done.
It's up to each person really, I chose not to get the game (or, if I get it, it'll be either used or at a discount) because I dont want censored games on my shelf, but i don't blame anyone for still wanting it.
If you haven't played Dragon quest and wants to though, DQ11 is an easy recommendation! Excellent game.
@OwenGamer22 I'm kinda in thr same boat, I do really wanna pick this up, but the censorship is a deal breaker. I might get it used down the line (it's not liket he switch is lacking games to play).
I brought up Romancing Saga 2 in my initial comment cuz, from what I've seen, none of the designs seem to have been toned down (probably because its a more niche title that isn't big enough to get the attention of the ethics department/consultation companies/censorship Square associates with. I didn't care much for it in the dirext but the demo really turned me around on it.
@the_beaver kind of a disingenuous characterization.
Nobody is gonna be complaining about peach being covered up in a mario game, what most people are against is the censorship of games from the past made for the sake of people who probably wouldn't buy the game regardless (one example is censoring cleavage in female designs, like the female form is something to be frowned upon, but another is what Capcom is doing with the dead rising remake, removing line from a war veteran about communism, making one of the many psychopaths in that game white when he was originally Asian, or removing the "erotica" rating which was an optional type of bonus points you could get in the original).
It's more of a matter of respecting the original vision and not having american sensibilities forced in Japanese made products (which is something that HAS been happening, with the people behind it not even hiding it).
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Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@jesse_dylan Nintendo did get better on the Switch generation, with games like Xenoblade 2 coming over unchanged, even with crazy risque designs like Newt. but the industry as a whole is probably as the worst it's ever been with censorship, specially after playstation shifted it's HQ to california and f*cked every developer that liked doing fanservice.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@jesse_dylan it's only made weird here because the content gets removed, which prompts people to ask why and it devolves from there. Had they left the game alone, I guarantee you nobody would be talking about it. Also, if you wanna bring age rating into the question, games like samurai Maiden, Senran Kagura burst, and even xenoblade 2 itself all have T ratings. A book slider would not raise the age rating past a T.
People wanna day this is a non-issue. And it would've been if they hadn't removed the feature.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@jesse_dylan you do realize Nintendo saved bayonetta, the woman who gets naked when she fights and constantly makes suggestive poses ans sexual innuendos, from oblivion and went out of their way to tell Platinum to make the link costume Sexier right?
Not to mention that they HAD all of that in the original Japanese release. All I'm arguing for is that the original vision be preserved.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@LikelySatan again, not part of the development team. they're employed by completely different segments of the company. they went in after the game was finished and removed the bits they didn't like.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@Finntendo Here's the thing mate, I too have played character customization games without a boob slider and I don't have a problem with them. What you're ignoring is that this WAS a feature that WAS included in the game, but then got removed from the in the western release. in a game that features LOTS of revealing outfits. (and again, I don't mind Lyn being the only one to have this toned down as long as the rest of the cast is unaltered).
Having that Slider only gives people the option, games are fantasy, escapism. if someone wants to run around in a big fantasy world as a big boobed anime woman in cyber lingerie, let 'em. if that's not your thing, that's fine, X allowed for both. Why would you support NOT having the option to chose?
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X Fans Are Once Again Discussing The Game's 'Censorship'
I kinda blame the Nintendo World Report. not everyone knows the game has customizable outfits and this is a lot of people's first time seeing Elma. we've seen A LOT of Remasters censoring outfits so you can't blame anyone for being concerned.
My main worries are: Are any of the existing outfits going to be toned down and is the Breast Slider going to be restored? there was absolutely no reason to remove what is a standard slider for customizing a female character from the game. These are fair concerns to have and is very disappointing seeing people so dismissive of that. it's fine if you particularly isn't bothered, but why is it such a bad thing for people to want aspects of the game they liked to be preserved?
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@LikelySatan yes. because the localizers are outside actors. they took no part in the creation of the game. just removed a feature they personally didn't like despite it being a staple of character creators. and, Remember the Yuji Horiie interview, the West is ALWAYS the ones pushing censorship and alterations of japanese art.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@Samalik oof, that's not very reassuring, I'm still gonna "wait and see" for now, since they are doing the thing they did with Xenoblade 1 DE and redoing all the models in a new artstyle. so far, doesn't look like anything was removed, but we need more information.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@Samalik I get what you mean, ideally, nothing should be censored, but I'm saying that if Lyn is the only compromise, I can accept that. to me it's more important that the rest of the characters get their uncensored outfits and that the Breast Slider isn't removed.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
@N8tiveT3ch Nintendo isn't Sega. they don't operate in the same way (plus X has a higher age rating).
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but usually when something gets changed in Nintendo games, it's NoA's touch of death. I'm just hoping the japanese branch keep them in check this time. since they DID get a lot better about not letting Three House censor their games when the Switch launched (granted, if Fire Emblem Engage and Paper Mario are anything to go by, they need to clean house again).
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Confirmed For Switch
I am VERY excited!
I just hope it's uncensored this time. I don't really mind Lin (who is a child) getting toned down outfits since the rest of the cast had them uncensored, but one thing that was ridiculous was the removal of the breast slider from character customization.
I'm gonna be cautiously optimistic, mostly because XC1DE didn't get any of it's more spicy outfits toned down.
Re: Nintendo Museum Overseas Visitors Reportedly Breaking 'No Photos' Rule
of course they would. Westerners respecting rules in Japan? never!
Re: 'Fitness Boxing 3' Overview Trailer Introduces New Workouts And Hunky Instructors
How to make your fitness franchise prosper? Make sure the instructors are hot!
Re: Some Fans Aren't Happy About Sonic X Shadow Generations' Changes To The Original
I talked about this in another post, but I think it bears repeating here:
other than the Rouge situation, I don't really see the dialogue changes as censorship.
Sega had revealed a while back that they were gonna have the dialogue be rewritten. Generations was written back in what so.e call the "Meta Era" of Sonic (the 2010s, post colors), when they had the writers Pontac and Graff working on the games. These guys admitted in an interview that they didn't really know or cared about sonic prior to getting the job and all they did after being hired was "watch some cutscenes on youtube to get the gist of it", that's why every game in that era has that cringe Saturday morning cartoon humor and the characters act like parodies of themselves (with knuckles in particular being made into a joke).
After they FINALLY got rid of those guys and brought Ian Flynn (who's been writing the comics since 06) to wrote Frontiers and that resulted into a shift back to the 'Adventure Era' style of stories (like we saw with the Dark Beginins Shorts) and the most well received Sonic story in years, they wanted to rewrite the Sonic part so it wouldn't be as jarring when put next to the Shadow part. Knowing the context, to me, removing stuff like Sonic putting his hand on Amy's face and Knuckles eing slammed into a tree, or not making a "gained weight" joke wasn't done out of censorship and political correctness, but out of an attempt to take the characters more seriously.
Heck, on the Amy note, Ian actually addressed it in his podcast a few years ago when a fan noticed that Sega was already trying to move away from having Amy be obsessed with Sonic be her defining trait (it's been happening since Lost World) and he said that, to him, her feelings towards Sonic should absolutely still be part of who she is (and he even still sprinkles moments of that in IDW comics, she's just less over the top and abrasive about it), but he's ultimately beholden to write what Sega wants him to write.
That being said, no excuses for what they did to rouge's model, that is censorship and I will definitely not ever defend it. Her model was fine and unchanged as recently as Mario and Sonic at the 2020 Olympics, and if NINTENDO of all people didn't have a problem with Rouge's cleavage being put next to their squeaky clean Mario, there's no justifiable reason to do what they did to her model. It was never a problem and it never affected the games' age rating.
TLDR, Rouge's model change is a change made out of censorship, but while there's PLENTY of remakes and remasters that rewrote things for the sake of removing what they deemed "problematic". (I myself called these out like removing catcalling or jokes in Paper Mario, or the atrocity that was the Dead Rising Remake), but this isn't the case here. though I don't blame anyone who isn't aware of the finer details of the reasoning for thinking so.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Sonic X Shadow Generations
@Samalik Indeed, I'd say there's an argument to be made regarding whether or not the changes are an improvement or not (personally, i despise the Pontaff years, so as far as I'm concerned, nothing of value was lost) and it is odd that they didn't change certain animations to fit the new dialogue.
But I've a lot of people on our side of the argument conflate the writing changes and Rouge as both being instances of politically correct censorship when Id say, knowing the entire context, only the latter is. (Heck, I wasn't even gonna play the Sonic side cuz I hate the Meta Era writing, and hearing that Flynn was rewriting the whole thing actually made me wanna play it).
But I know there's a lot of cases nowadays of remakes arbitrarily changing things and censoring them, so I don't blame anyone for jumping to that conclusion.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Sonic X Shadow Generations
@Samalik actually, other than the Rouge situation, I don't really see the rest as censorship at least not for the most part.
Sega had revealed a while back that they were gonna have the dialogue be rewritten. Generations was written back in what so.e call the "Meta Era" of Sonic (the 2010s, post colors), when they had the writers Pontac and Graff working on the games. These guys admitted in an interview that they didn't really know or cared about sonic prior to getting the job and all they did after being hired was "watch some cutscenes on youtube to get the gist of it", that's why every game in that era has that cringe Saturday morning cartoon humor and the characters act like parodies of themselves (with knuckles in particular being made into a joke).
After they FINALLY got rid of those guys and brought Ian Flynn (who's been writing the comics since 06) to wrote Frontiers and that resulted into a shift back to the 'Adventure Era' style of stories (like we saw with the Dark Beginins Shorts) and the most well received Sonic story in years, they wanted to rewrite the Sonic part so it wouldn't be as jarring when put next to the Shadow part. Knowing the context, to me, removing stuff like Sonic putting his hand on Amy's face and Knuckles eing slammed into a tree, or not making a "gained weight" joke wasn't done out of censorship and political correctness, but out of an attempt to take the characters more seriously.
Heck, on the Amy note, Ian actually addressed it in his podcast a few years ago when a fan noticed that Sega was already trying to move away from having Amy be obsessed with Sonic be her defining trait (it's been happening since Lost World) and he said that, to him, her feelings towards Sonic should absolutely still be part of who she is (and he even still sprinkles moments of that in IDW comics, she's just less over the top and abrasive about it), but he's ultimately beholden to write what Sega wants him to write.
That being said, no excuses for what they did to rouge's model, that is censorship and I will definetly not ever defend it. He model was fine and unchanged as recently as Mario and Sonic at the 2020 Olympics, and if NINTENDO of all people didn't have a problem with Rouge's cleavage being put next to their squeaky clean Mario, there's no justifiable reason to do what they did to her model. It was never a problem and it never affected the games' age rating.
Re: The Entire Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Team Has Been Put On Redundancy Notice
@jowy_sw It's not a conspiracy when you can find video of SBI employees making presentations where they say with their own mouth that their goal is to burn the industry to the ground and bring up how they're needed because otherwise the industry will be filled with people like Quentin Taramtino (their words, not mine). Not to mention that now we have heard straight form people like Yuji Horiie about how Americans have this narrow minded idea of what's appropriate and force it on japanese game developers.
Also, what SBI defenders such as yourself dont understand is that There's a difference between having diversity happen naturally in a game or even political themes in a story and shoving american left-wing current day politics in a game to lecture players. Baldur's Gate 3 gives players freedom to express themselves and doesn't try to lecture the player, And Alan Wake 2 was a financial flop.
Re: 'Croc' Comparison Video Shows A Solid Yet Familiar Graphical Evolution
I remember playing this as a kid on PC. I feel so old
Re: The Entire Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Team Has Been Put On Redundancy Notice
I remember being interested in this game when it was announced as it's not often we see a game (or any media really) based on African mythology, But I changed my mind when I saw SBI was involved.
Seems like I was not the only one.
Re: Video: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Side-By-Side Graphics Comparison
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Re: Yakuza Kiwami Dev Confirms Physical Switch Release, Limited Run Distributing
@SillyG play-asia could've done it and CDPR did it with Witcher 3.
Re: Yakuza Kiwami Dev Confirms Physical Switch Release, Limited Run Distributing
sigh.... it was HAD to be Limited Run eh?
Re: Sonic X Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings Episode 3 Is Out Now
@AlienX @SalvorHardin no, that's pretty in character for Omega. if you pay attention to his dialogue in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, he very much loves fighting and destroying things and has a lot of fun doing so.
06 was the only time he was completely serious. the only lines we had from Omega in these shorts were "I call dibs" and "I wanted to destroy it", both are pretty in-line with his personality.
Re: Nintendo Asks Switch Online Playtest Program Participants To "Not Discuss Or Disclose Content"
Yeah... unless there's an actual NDA, somebody is gonna snitch.
Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund Considering Increasing Its Stake In Nintendo
@AstroTheGamosian yes, not only that, Blackrock is one of the main responsible entities for DEI (with Larry Fink being very open about it in that one interview where he talks about "forcing behaviours"), encouraging people to hire based on superficial characteristics like race, gender, and sexual identity in order to increase their ESG score and get more funding.
Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund Considering Increasing Its Stake In Nintendo
As @martynstuff mentioned, Im not too worried since Nintendo has means to protect themselves from hostile takeovers. And between Saudi Arabia and Blackrock, I much rather have the former owning shares than the latter. (I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo actually bans Blackrock from investing in them).
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
@Daniel36 All good mate! I appreciate we can disagree without animosity!
I'll say this (and I think we might've found some common ground here actually), I do agree that localizers SHOULD have a limited amount of creative liberty, there are such things as jokes, local expressions, metaphors, and song lyrics that simply don't translate, and I'm certainly not against reworking a lines to sound natural as long as they're not altering the original content or information being conveyed.
I gave Fire Emblem Engage as a bad example because it goes out of its way to completely change what characters are saying (and from what I hear Eiyuden Chronicles isn't much better), but one example that came under certain scrutiny recently that I actually defend is Unicorn Overlord. The game is a medieval fantasy, and thus, the localizers opted to make the dialogue more flowery and sophisticated, like you'd see in most western fantasies, but (as far as I know) they didn't do that thing where they altered personalities, or completely changed the lines into something completely different from the original, They just delivered it in a way that they believed would feel natural to the setting. That's something I'm completely fine with.
Another Example is actually from the game and character my Profile pic is from, in the Senran Kagura Series, Shiki is a Gyaru who learned speak English so she sprinkles some English lines here and there. Gyarus are a type of fashion sub-culture popular among young girls in Japan, so her manner of speech was adapted into an American Valley Girl (which is the closest equivalent to a Japanese Gyaru, even though it's not exactly the same), and her English lines were changed to French, since it wouldn't make sense to keep her foreign language lines in English when that's the language the game was being translated into.
Ultimately, The main thing I require is that the original intent be preserved. There is a time and place for artistic liberty but don't have a guy hold up an Onigiri and tell me it's a Jelly-filled Donut.
Re: Ubisoft's Disastrous 2024 May Lead To The Company Going Private
@SoIDecidedTo basically, yes.
Star Wars Outlaws was a massive failure, taking an entire month to reach 1 million copies sold (which is great for an indie or small budget game, not so much for a AAA licensed title that costed around $200 - $300 million to make), and that failure was the final nail in the coffin for Ubisoft's stock to plummet, and its investors start the talk about the company going private. they are terrified of what AC Shadow's failing would cause. hence why they're delaying it to try to make some last minute adjustments.
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
@Daniel36 I wasn't trying to sound condescending. I do find your interpretation negative, but I didn't mean that as a disrespect towards you
That's what I meant is that I don't think the mindset of "someone somewhere by be offended by this dialogue and/or content therefore we must change it" is a healthy one for creative works. It'd basically create an environment where the creators have to constantly walk on egg shells, and when you try to create something that appeals to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. And in the context of localization, it's disrespectful to the original author because it's not the localizer's story to change, and the fact that they so readily and shamelessly go around changing lines they don't personally agree with is precisely why many people lost their respect for the profession.
Re: Ubisoft's Disastrous 2024 May Lead To The Company Going Private
@Paraka it was definetly a factor. And of the Endymion report is to be believed, they actually DID have a fictional japanese male protagonist to go along the female one and allegedly, he was even modeled already, But the idea to replace him with Yasuke came about in 2020 after the BLM protests. And trying to change your project in order to ride a sociopolitical trend is typically not a very good idea.
Specially when you consider that, in this effort to make their game mode diverse, now we have a big foreigner going around killing Japanese people, which only served to add to how short sighted and tone deaf their decision making was.
Re: Ubisoft's Disastrous 2024 May Lead To The Company Going Private
@jojobar well AC historically has been known to adapt the cultures and time periods of it's settings pretty faithfully. with people saying their depiction of Venice in AC2 to be so beautifully recreated that it belonged in a museum. And Shadows showed itself to be very sloppy, and very incompetent in its depiction of Feudal Japan to the point that it was raised as a point of concern in Japanese Parliament.
Even leaving the matter of Yasuke aside, they had really amateurish and frankly stupid mistakes of the sort that you wouldn't see in past games:
Like having events that happen in different seasons take place all at once (like cherry blossom and rice crop harvesting, also a rice field next to a river, which wouldn't happen as it'd flood the field), Chinese Architecture being spotted, using the flag of a modern-day Reenactment group without their permission, making a promotional figure using a one-legged Torii gate (the only one in existence is monument to the victims of the Nagasaki bombing in WW2), and another promotional stand using an ebay-bought sword from One Piece.
Ultimately, through sheer incompetence, they managed to piss a country that not only is one of the main hubs of gaming in the world, but also one that is traditionally very proud and protective of their history. to the point they had to issue an apology in their japanese twitter account, and cancelled their TGS appearance last minute, so I'd say it's a lot deep than just a usual case of toxic gamer talk.
Re: Ubisoft's Disastrous 2024 May Lead To The Company Going Private
as they say, you get what you deserve.
if anything, going Private at least would give Ubisoft the chance to change itself for the better. not that I think they'd be able to.
Re: Mario + Rabbids Director Davide Soliani Launches New Studio, Working On Original IP
Wish him all the best in his future projects! Ubisoft very clearly didn't deserve him!
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
@Kingy it doesn't.
The context and the message is still exactly the same, but a lot of websites are trying to use this statement (which, let's face it, was probably forced from above, cuz it doesn't make sense to scrub an entire interview over a single mistranslated word) to completely invalidate the point about censorship.
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
@Daniel36
Yeah... I respectfully completely disagree with everything you just said. And I find that mentality extremely negative.
In the example I gave, for that character, who is an attractive woman constantly talking about her own beauty and proud of her figure, being concerned about weight gain is perfectly natural and in character, the idea that a certain character isn't allow to talk about a certain topic because someone somewhere might be offended is asinine. It's literally changing art and stifling creativity (ironically, this is something Shuntaro Furukawa himself spoke out against when Sony's new censorship policy was being implemented and he wanted to make clear Nintendo would not impose on what third partied can and can't publish).
People who have an issue with being overweight aren't gonna magically feel better about themselves because they removed a line about a character being concerned about her own weight from a game. And this goes for any other taboo topic.
Thus I'll reiterate, it's not the Job of the localizer to alter the original script. It doesn't matter if the culture being translated for has different sensibilities, because the foreign product was made with the values and sensibilities of its country of origin, and that should be respected.
Re: Sonic X Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings Episode 2 Is Out Now
these are fantastic, I love the lore continuity by bringing in a younger GUN commander (with the Archie name "Abraham Tower" basically being confirmed canon with Maria calling him Abe), and Rouge making Shadow go to Sonic's Birthday Party, justifying his presence in Generations. Ian Flynn is just built different to be able to make everything connect so naturally like that!
but DAMMIT THESE ARE TOO SHORT!
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
@MegaVel91 I'd like to add to that as someone who didn't grow up in an english speaking country and got exposed to lot of localized american products.
The job of a localizer is (or at least should be) to convey the author's intentions in a new language in the best possible way. there IS some creative liberties that have to be taken (like when a character is portrayed to have some regional accent, or in cases of song lyrics, jokes, or slang), but ultimately, it's not the job of the localizers to "rewrite" the work, completely changing a phrase to be about something completely different, or changing a character's personality.
The only reason the localization discourse became so toxic and why some people take it too far with the accurate translation thing is because WAAAAAY too many American localizers have been doing the later rather than the former, and that's undeniable.
Heck, my first language is Portuguese, and when I started learning english, I'd watch movies or shows with subtitles, Now I'm trying to learn japanese and it's really freaking distracting when I chose to play a game in the japanese language with english text (a VERY recent example is Fire Emblem Engage), and I can clearly tell that what I'm hearing and what I'm reading aren't remotely the same thing. (One example that always comes to my mind is a support talk where Rosemary is originally worried about gaining weight from eating too many cakes, yet the localization says she's embarrassed about making a silly face while eating. I don't know how anyone can defend that type of crap with a straight face.)
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
even if the word is Puritan and not Sex Education, that doesn't take away the rest of what was said in the interview. it's still Crystal clear that the censorship happened, they don't like it, and the fault is the west.
This reeks of some sort of cover-up, you don't scrub an entire interview because a single word was mistranslated.
Re: Shadow's Sonic Generations Campaign Length Reportedly Revealed
@TheDragonDAFan I don't think we're gonna see any of those, since those games are completely unrelated to Shadow. (I know Frontiers isn't either, but it's the most recent game in the series so that's probably why Chaos Island is in there),
It does seem we're getting Westopolis level, which makes sense, it'd be weird if the Shadow campaign skipped on a level of Shadow the Hedehog, specially if Black Doom is the main antagonist.
Re: Shadow's Sonic Generations Campaign Length Reportedly Revealed
Ah he'll yeah! There was th concern that this was only gonna be a few levels, but if it's roughly thr dame length as Sonic's campaign, and WITHOUT classic Sonic, that's fantastic news!
Re: Dragon Quest Creator Chimes In On Characters Showing Less Skin In Upcoming HD-2D Remake
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Re: Dragon Quest Creator Chimes In On Characters Showing Less Skin In Upcoming HD-2D Remake
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.
Re: Dragon Quest Creator Chimes In On Characters Showing Less Skin In Upcoming HD-2D Remake
@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.
Re: Bakeru Is Currently Unavailable On The Switch eShop In Europe
@DreamlandGem ah, appreciated!
Apologies for bringing up something completely unrelated, I really didn't know the proper channel to ask.
Re: Bakeru Is Currently Unavailable On The Switch eShop In Europe
@JohnnyMind yeah, I feel ya. It's kind of a hard choice to make, now it's been made clear that neither the audience nor the creators themselves want these types of changes (whether it's the censorship or the "type A and B" instead of male and female).
Ultimately, the only way this can be fixed is if the rot inside the American branches of companies like square is weeded out, (since they are the ones feeding the narrative that America has narrow and strict regulations, when that's a complete lie) but that's easier said than done.
It's up to each person really, I chose not to get the game (or, if I get it, it'll be either used or at a discount) because I dont want censored games on my shelf, but i don't blame anyone for still wanting it.
If you haven't played Dragon quest and wants to though, DQ11 is an easy recommendation! Excellent game.
Re: Bakeru Is Currently Unavailable On The Switch eShop In Europe
I really liked the demo! Gotta pick it up some time.
Re: Bakeru Is Currently Unavailable On The Switch eShop In Europe
I know it's off topic but I don't know where else to comment this.
Ain't y'all gonna report on that Yuji Horii interview at TGS?
You know, the one where he addresses why certain changes had to be made in DQ3 Remake?
Re: Nintendo Patents Filed After Palworld's Release Suggest Lawsuit Prep Started Months Ago
Is it even legal to sue for patents filed after the release of the competing product? This seems kinda illegal to me.
Re: Get A Closer Look At Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake In New Gameplay Trailer
@OwenGamer22 I'm kinda in thr same boat, I do really wanna pick this up, but the censorship is a deal breaker. I might get it used down the line (it's not liket he switch is lacking games to play).
I brought up Romancing Saga 2 in my initial comment cuz, from what I've seen, none of the designs seem to have been toned down (probably because its a more niche title that isn't big enough to get the attention of the ethics department/consultation companies/censorship Square associates with. I didn't care much for it in the dirext but the demo really turned me around on it.
Re: Get A Closer Look At Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake In New Gameplay Trailer
@the_beaver kind of a disingenuous characterization.
Nobody is gonna be complaining about peach being covered up in a mario game, what most people are against is the censorship of games from the past made for the sake of people who probably wouldn't buy the game regardless (one example is censoring cleavage in female designs, like the female form is something to be frowned upon, but another is what Capcom is doing with the dead rising remake, removing line from a war veteran about communism, making one of the many psychopaths in that game white when he was originally Asian, or removing the "erotica" rating which was an optional type of bonus points you could get in the original).
It's more of a matter of respecting the original vision and not having american sensibilities forced in Japanese made products (which is something that HAS been happening, with the people behind it not even hiding it).