Controversial Fire Emblem: Fates Scene Dropped From Western Releases

[Davroth]

Oh, and you guys can go on about how you think this story beat was dumb or whatever, but you must realize that is not an objective opinion, rather, it's your /personal/ opinion.

Much like any opinion, by definition.

It's only arbitrary because gamer has become a catch all term for everyone who plays games, which makes it absolutely useless. In this day and age, playing video games applies to a good 90% of western civilization at the very least. If all it takes to be a gamer is that you played Candy Crush that one time, everyone and their mother is a gamer.

Thus if one were to define what a "true gamer" is, it would have to be the enthusiast of the medium, someone who devotes a notable chunk of their life to the medium.

Righto, but that's not the distinction 008Zulu used. He linked the "true gamer" label to people who agree with him on this particular issue. Don't agree, not a true gamer. That's a truly arbitrary distinction.

Differing opinions is no reason to call the intelligence of someone into question, which the implication has been throughout this thread.

And it is a general issue with the term "gamer", it's not limited to how one person uses in this case. One not true Scotsman fallacy doesn't excuse another.

Someones intelligence is called into question? When did that happen?

Saying that something someone likes is dumb is not the same as saying they themselves are dumb. I like transformers one. It's dumb as fuck, but liking it does not automatically make me dumb, nor does any criticism of the film automatically fall to me as well.

And if you're saying we're calling into question the intelligence of the writer? Are we? Taking transformers again, I would never call Bay an idiot. He knows his market, and knows how to sell his product. Man's damn clever if you ask me. Worst I see in this case is a writer didn't take into account the implications of what he wrote. You could argue that makes him a bad writer, but not that he's an idiot because of it. This is one snippet of a game with a lot of writing. Mistakes can and do happen, and maybe this is one of them.

Seriously, people take criticism of work way to personally. Especially considering it's not even your work. It's taking it personally vicariously.

I don't care about other people's opinions, especially on online message boards. But nice try trying to deflect that one on me. If you are not doing what I was talking about, frankly, why did you feel addressed and felt the need to reply?

I only care about this because for me, the artist's vision is paramount. It's not for the masses to decide what's "right" or "wrong" about a work, and just because a vocal group raises a stink about something doesn't mean it should be changed, especially when it's so very questionable that the people complaining actually are people who would buy the product in the first place. But as I said, fans are hard to dissuade to buy something, no matter how much you mess with it. The game will do fine either way.

I'm curious. If people called for change of a game's content based on religious believes, and the publisher caved and made changes in a different ideological direction, would that be fine as well? I don't think either is okay, at all. History if full of examples of pieces of art not receiving any recognition in their time and are historic nowadays.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Oh, and you guys can go on about how you think this story beat was dumb or whatever, but you must realize that is not an objective opinion, rather, it's your /personal/ opinion.

Much like any opinion, by definition.

It's only arbitrary because gamer has become a catch all term for everyone who plays games, which makes it absolutely useless. In this day and age, playing video games applies to a good 90% of western civilization at the very least. If all it takes to be a gamer is that you played Candy Crush that one time, everyone and their mother is a gamer.

Thus if one were to define what a "true gamer" is, it would have to be the enthusiast of the medium, someone who devotes a notable chunk of their life to the medium.

Righto, but that's not the distinction 008Zulu used. He linked the "true gamer" label to people who agree with him on this particular issue. Don't agree, not a true gamer. That's a truly arbitrary distinction.

Differing opinions is no reason to call the intelligence of someone into question, which the implication has been throughout this thread.

And it is a general issue with the term "gamer", it's not limited to how one person uses in this case. One not true Scotsman fallacy doesn't excuse another.

Someones intelligence is called into question? When did that happen?

Saying that something someone likes is dumb is not the same as saying they themselves are dumb. I like transformers one. It's dumb as fuck, but liking it does not automatically make me dumb, nor does any criticism of the film automatically fall to me as well.

And if you're saying we're calling into question the intelligence of the writer? Are we? Taking transformers again, I would never call Bay an idiot. He knows his market, and knows how to sell his product. Man's damn clever if you ask me. Worst I see in this case is a writer didn't take into account the implications of what he wrote. You could argue that makes him a bad writer, but not that he's an idiot because of it. This is one snippet of a game with a lot of writing. Mistakes can and do happen, and maybe this is one of them.

Seriously, people take criticism of work way to personally. Especially considering it's not even your work. It's taking it personally vicariously.

I don't care about other people's opinions, especially on online message boards. But nice try trying to deflect that one on me. If you are not doing what I was talking about, frankly, why did you feel addressed and felt the need to reply?

I only care about this because for me, the artist's vision is paramount. It's not for the masses to decide what's "right" or "wrong" about a work, and just because a vocal group raises a stink about something doesn't mean it should be changed, especially when it's so very questionable that the people complaining actually are people who would buy the product in the first place. But as I said, fans are hard to dissuade to buy something, no matter how much you mess with it. The game will do fine either way.

I'm curious. If people called for change of a game's content based on religious believes, and the publisher caved and made changes in a different ideological direction, would that be fine as well? I don't think either is okay, at all. History if full of examples of pieces of art not receiving any recognition in their time and are historic nowadays.

It's a message board. You made a statement about peoples intelligence being called into question (some could argue that it was a strawman, but I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole because I doubt either of us would be happy with the ensuing conversation knowing the internet). I disagreed with that statement, explaining my reasons behind it. Discussion follows. Isn't that how all conversations go around here?

The problem is, no-one was calling for a rewrite. Nintendo did it by their own accord. What we're seeing here is people saying "huh, that's actually probably for the best". It's done before there even was a fight to begin with.

But on the religious one. It's happened before. Didn't a temple in occarina of time have a muslim chant in it, which got replaced in all future versions of the game? I think that's the case anyway. I'm not muslim, nor do I agree with a lot of muslim doctrines or positions, and yet I'm absolutely fine with that change. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm actually struggling to think of a more extreme version that could actually happen. Because all of these changes that people have "demanded" in the past have been relatively minor or inconsequential, at least from the ones I've seen.

And really, I only care so much about the vision if it's made by a small team/one person. It's come from a large publisher. Any game released by them is a far cry from their original vision. Nature of the game (and honestly, that's also not even always a bad thing. Rewrites and changes during production can create a far better product by the end). Hell, isn't it also like the 17th game in the series? There is no vision here, it's just another game churned out in a long running franchise, not some grand piece of art. I would honestly be surprised if there was any writer on that staff who will hear that this scene is getting changed/removed for foreign releases and think anything more than "Oh well".

 

[Silvanus]

Differing opinions is no reason to call the intelligence of someone into question, which the implication has been throughout this thread.

I've not called anybody's intelligence into question; no more than you or he have done. What he did-- explicitly, mind you-- was call into question one's status as a "true gamer" on the basis of disagreeing with him on this issue.

And it is a general issue with the term "gamer", it's not limited to how one person uses in this case. One not true Scotsman fallacy doesn't excuse another.

When did I indulge in one, exactly? I've not discounted anybody from being a "true" anything, because I know how arbitrary it is.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

so the notion that the ones who disagree with you must be "non-gamers" was baseless.

I would think that gamers, true gamers, would want to experience the game as the developer originally intended.

So, I imagine you prefer the faceless horror version of AC:Unity then? And unmodded Bethesda games? I'm assuming you view yourself as one of these true gamers.

Very disingenuous argument to make, since it is the same executive meddling that forces the teams at Ubisoft to churn out unfinished, not properly debugged messes like Unity and Bethesda to push out their games before they were ready, and to make changes like this one. Your examples have absolutely nothing to do with artistic vision, something that more then one Ubisoft employee lamented after the fact. Cursory knowledge of beta testing would tell you as much.

Disingenuous? That's a bit strong, given the rather moderate question. I could also go with George Lucas's vision of the original trilogy if that would be less "disengenuous." And my comment about modded Bethesda games still stands. I doubt they intended for every female character is Skyrim to have head sized tits and baby-oiled skin, but that's never stopped anyone. I also doubt they intended even the simple texture updates given that those would be far more demanding on hardware than Bethesda likes to be.

And further, are you saying that the localization team are not developers in their own right? Because I take issue with that.

EDIT: And how the fuck has Fire Emblem always been "very Japanese???" Prior to Awakening it's just been standard fantasy schlock as a strategy game. I guess they had some cooking jokes, but even those were comparatively light.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

And unmodded Bethesda games? I'm assuming you view yourself as one of these true gamers.

There's a difference between playing a game that has been censored, and adding a mod to increase the dialogue options.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

FE had always been a jrpg and in jrpgs anime themes and story points permeate everything. People seem to have a very narrow notion of what it is for something to be very Japanese when in fact it can be vey broad. The only way to not notice this is through lack of a full view of anime culture and history. It doesn't need to be full of shinto imagerry and samurai swords to be japanese. Anime styled western fantay in the style of dragon quest or chrono trgger is a very distinct type of genre, wholly other to the western equivalents which originated the theme. Anime like slayers and record of lodos war and berserk, those are what fire emblem is akin to.

 

[Erttheking]

And unmodded Bethesda games? I'm assuming you view yourself as one of these true gamers.

There's a difference between playing a game that has been censored, and adding a mod to increase the dialogue options.

And when we get a game that's actually been censored, I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Because changing a game for the localization is not censorship. Or should I list off all of the changes made to Fire Emblem Awakening? Because they tried to (Poorly) take out the cousin on cousin romance there. Is that censorship? And if it is how come no one made a fuss about it back then?

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

And unmodded Bethesda games? I'm assuming you view yourself as one of these true gamers.

There's a difference between playing a game that has been censored, and adding a mod to increase the dialogue options.

Localization is not automatically censorship, and a mod can also remove dialogue options just as easily. Would you play a mod that got rid of the strange repeated sayings of Skyrim's populace? Because I know I would. I really don't care about the artistic integrity of a child asking if I'm here to lick his father's boots.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

And when we get a game that's actually been censored, I'll be sure to keep that in mind.

Er...except it is. By definition.

Or are you one of those folks who, for some reason, claims censorship to be the purview of government or a ruling body and only the purview of said government or ruling body?

Because changing a game for the localization is not censorship.

Not as a general idea, no, but if you're altering something because it's considered to be offensive or immoral or whatever, for that reason, then it is, again by definition, censorship.

Or should I list off all of the changes made to Fire Emblem Awakening? Because they tried to (Poorly) take out the cousin on cousin romance there. Is that censorship? And if it is how come no one made a fuss about it back then?

Well, yes. It is.

And probably because some tumblrite didn't make a comically misinformed post about it...then the progressive media didn't collectively shit bricks over that willful misinterpretation until Nintendo caved and censored their work. I'm not a betting man, but I'd be willing to wager quuuuite a damned bit that, if a stink hadn't been raised, the scene would have remained as it was.

It's the same reason they, meaning media, lost their shit over that Steven Universe thing, which was apparently only localization. Both instances were censorship and I don't particularly give a fuck about the show.

Essentially, it's just people being people by going all "intellectually dishonest" when it suits their aims.

And I know this next bit is on a slightly different angle of the subject, but-

Localization is not automatically censorship

and a mod can also remove dialogue options just as easily. Would you play a mod that got rid of the strange repeated sayings of Skyrim's populace? Because I know I would. I really don't care about the artistic integrity of a child asking if I'm here to lick his father's boots.

Is it a mod that removes something on the grounds of it being "objectionable" from a moral standpoint?

Then yes. It's a mod that censors the work. If you modded out a repeating phrase or something, that's not really censorship if it's done because...well...it's just fucking annoying.

But then the question becomes where to draw the line. There's a fair amount of grey in all this stuff, to be sure.

The cool thing about mods though is that if, say, somebody else doesn't find that particular thing "objectionable" from a moral standpoint, then they can just leave it as is, rather than having whatever was modded be excised from the source material.

Thanks to the internet, we can all see the original scene in FE, we all know about it now, and there are translations available for folks who can't read Japanese. The game was still, for all intensive porpoises, censored, but if one's bar for the effectiveness of censorious action is that the idea itself is squashed...then they've kinda failed there.

I mean. We've all got brain cells dedicated to it now. It's in our braaaaains. WoooOOoooOOOoo.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

*snip*

I'm not laughing, and I don't think it ought to be removed because its objectionable, I think it should be removed because its horrible, pandering, stupid writing. The fact that it does not work with an audience where there is a whole different context for slipping a drug into a girl's drink is just another reason I think any sane localization team would move some events around.

Also, most people who buy this game don't read internet forums. Awakening was very successful, and not just with the crowd that cares about things like this. I imagine that most of the people who will buy this game will not know about this change in advance.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I'm one of those people who thinks "self-censorship" is an utterly worthless term. I used to have an anti-abortion poem on my FF.net profile. Then I got a message from someone who's sister had liked my stories but had gotten severely upset when she saw the poem because she had a miscarriage. I took the poem down right away because I just felt awful about it. I do not consider what I did to be censoring myself, and if it was censorship then censorship isn't the boogeyman everyone keeps treating it as. Writers, and I've been writing for half a decade, are capable of changing their minds and changing their works to better suit their audience, and frankly as a writer I'm really annoyed that apparently I can never change my work without "censoring" myself. Give me a little credit and let me change my work as I see fit, I'm an adult and so are most writers, we're emotionally mature enough to make decisions regarding the work we're working on. In fact the first thing you're taught when writing anything is "Don't get overly attached to your first draft." Because that's what writing is. Revision revision revision. Romanticizing "The original vision" is missing the point of writing. Or should I have included that attempted rape scene I was planning in one of my serious stories that was based on a porno? That was only acting as a farming device to have two people meet at high school Because I was going to do that before my best friend read me the riot act on how it was an utterly stupid idea, and I never regretted looking back.

Nintendo caved? Citation needed. This is the thing that really irritates me, no one can ever treat developers with any respect, every change they were made they were "bullied" into. They're too fragile to make decisions on their own if what everyone is saying is anything to go by. Despite the fact that Nintendo made the announcement that this was basically business as usual and that they always did this in localization. Also I'm unimpressed if people only get upset about censorship if sensationalist media points it out for them.

I hate what happened with Steven Universe but I didn't call it censorship and plenty of other people shared my views. Don't get me wrong I DESPISE the change made, but that's the thing. Changes aren't censorship but you're under no obligation to LIKE the changes.

EDIT: Plus what Revnak said.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Here's the thing: even assuming that the media is deliberately misrepresenting this scene and it's perfectly explainable if you sit down to listen, regardless of your views on sexuality or w/e... God knows the moral guardians of the U.S. have no time to check their facts when it comes to video games controversies.

I can see it now: some dipshit starts a "Ban this homophobic game" tirade, the same way the "ban the space sex simulator Mass Effect" nonsense started.

Well, maybe I'm exaggerating, I imagine the "won't someone think of the children" crowd is way bigger than the "LGBT stupid-lawful" crowd, but still.

Ok, let's take a look at it. Woman is attracted to other women and gets faint around them but she can't romance the female main character so apparently she's not "really" gay. We just started and I'm already annoyed. Woman asks male main character for help in dealing with this, and he responds by spiking her drink without her knowledge. So the main character is an asshole. Except the game doesn't portray him as an asshole because we're in a comedic scene. I guess drugging your friends without their consent is considered funny in Japan. The woman sees the genders reversed and falls in love with the MC while seeing him as a woman and then stays in love with him when it wears off. Even if you take the parallels to gay conversion therapy out, this woman can't romance any other women in this game, which draws uncomfortable comparisons to IRL Japan where lesbian relationships aren't viewed as "Real" relationships, but just practice for "proper" relationships with men, and that the woman fell in love with someone because he drugged her. This scene is just a minefield of stupid, pretty heavily rooted in a culture that just doesn't accept homosexual relationships.

Exaggerating? That's an understatement. Considering that there was no movement around changing this scene and Nintendo did it all on their own, so bringing up "Ban this homophobic game" doesn't even work as an exaggeration because there's nothing to exaggerate. Because developers are capable of agreeing with their critics. Something that a lot of people can't seem to recognize.

Look, I don't really understand the context no matter how many people explain their view of it, even though I'm generally leaning towards one side because I think spiking drinks is creepy even with the best of intentions. I brought up the assumption that there was nothing wrong with the scene(s) purely for the sake of argument, for the same reason you said "even if you take the parallels to gay conversion therapy out it's still uncomfortable because etc. etc. ".

Trust me, I have no problem with Nintendo editing their game, even if it's because of backlash rather than by their own initiative, I just figured I'd take a swipe at the sensationalist "We don't need to know what we're talking about to get mad at something, especially when it comes to da vidja gurms" crowd. A bit childish maybe, but meh.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

*snip*

I'm not laughing

Aw.

Hmph! Fine! Levity is a no-no!

and I don't think it ought to be removed because its objectionable, I think it should be removed because its horrible, pandering, stupid writing.

Well cool! More power to ya for having opinions.

The fact that it does not work with an audience where there is a whole different context for slipping a drug into a girl's drink is just another reason I think any sane localization team would move some events around.

It's a magic potion that alters perception of gender. "Slipping a drug into a girl's drink" implies malice and a chemical meant to allow someone to cause harm to her. It's not a fair comparison really, especially given the actual context.

But, yeah, like I've said a couple times in here. I get that argument. There's a parallel to it that could make folks uncomfortable once they were made aware of it. It's still censorship. However! Since most of the bullshit spin was devoted to "gay conversion" instead of that facet (which could have been easily addressed on its own by, as you say, moving some events around) it's sort of a moot point.

Also, most people who buy this game don't read internet forums. Awakening was very successful, and not just with the crowd that cares about things like this. I imagine that most of the people who will buy this game will not know about this change in advance.

Yeah, you're right. I bought Awakening. It was quite good. And I had no idea about the cousin thing getting altered either, nor did it impact my enjoyment of the game. Whether or not people are aware of an act of censorship doesn't make it any less censorship though, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Personally, I'm not buying it directly, on principle. I'll just grab a used copy from Gamestop or something.

Rah rah, fight the powah, etc.

I'm one of those people who thinks "self-censorship" is an utterly worthless term.

Well that's not a good start, man.

I used to have an anti-abortion poem on my FF.net profile. Then I got a message from someone who's sister had liked my stories but had gotten severely upset when she saw the poem because she had a miscarriage. I took the poem down right away because I just felt awful about it. I do not consider what I did to be censoring myself, and if it was censorship then censorship isn't the boogeyman everyone keeps treating it as.

Let me preface this bit with a statement; I think that's nice and kind of admirable of ya. It's good that you've got a pronounced sense of empathy. Now-

I hate to break this to you, but it's still censorship. Whether you'd like to refer to it in a certain way or not is kind of irrelevant to the basic concept. Ya had it up, and I assume were comfortable with your work, until someone said it upset them. Self-censoring isn't, inherently, a negative thing, so there's no real reason to try to distance yourself from that terminology.

And censorship's level of severity doesn't exist on a flat plane ya know...which is why I think people are so averse to acknowledging when it's taking place. There's a lot of baggage with the term. Negative connotations all around, and for good reason.

It (should) be taken as a given that it's a more grievous sort of censorship (not to mention unconstitutional in the US) for a government to censor news outlets than it is for a person to make a Skyrim mod that cuts out all the swearing.

They're both, still, acts of censorship though.

Writers, and I've been writing for half a decade, are capable of changing their minds and changing their works to better suit their audience, and frankly as a writer I'm really annoyed that apparently I can never change my work without "censoring" myself. Give me a little credit and let me change my work as I see fit, I'm an adult and so are most writers, we're emotionally mature enough to make decisions regarding the work we're working on. In fact the first thing you're taught when writing anything is "Don't get overly attached to your first draft." Because that's what writing is. Revision revision revision. Romanticizing "The original vision" is missing the point of writing. Or should I have included that attempted rape scene I was planning in one of my serious stories that was based on a porno? That was only acting as a farming device to have two people meet at high school Because I was going to do that before my best friend read me the riot act on how it was an utterly stupid idea, and I never regretted looking back.

As a fellow (for like a decade, but I really need to get back into it) writer, I'm aware of the importance of revision and nobody has said that you can't 'change your mind.' But. When you alter your work, by definition, due to a desire to avoid presenting said audience with material they would find 'objectionable,' specifically for that reason, then you're actively censoring your own work. Again. Not inherently negative. It's just the word that represents the concept.

I don't get folks trying to conflate editing and revision with censorship though. It's all about intent. For instance, rewriting a scene so a character comes in at a slightly later time or from a different direction has no bearing on whether or not the work was censored, but it's no longer the 'original vision' either.

And, frankly, if you were really...here's a bit of unfortunate phrasing...married to that rape scene, believed in it, and were satisfied with the work? More power to ya.

If, however, you changed it after offending some people, because you wanted to remove the element that was offensive, then you've both edited/revised and censored (as part of the former) the original work.

Nintendo caved? Citation needed. This is the thing that really irritates me, no one can ever treat developers with any respect, every change they were made they were "bullied" into. They're too fragile to make decisions on their own if what everyone is saying is anything to go by. Despite the fact that Nintendo made the announcement that this was basically business as usual and that they always did this in localization. Also I'm unimpressed if people only get upset about censorship if sensationalist media points it out for them.

There are tons of articles. The one we're commenting on, for instance.

This scene has existed for quite some time and the localization had been proceeding for a long while (it ships in February) before this crap was brought up. It blew up to be something ridiculous and Nintendo reacted by censoring their work. The scene, as the Escapist's article puts it, "will be removed," ;emphasis is mine.

They reacted to public and media pressure, which is business as usual for them. I don't see how it's a point that's up for debate.

I hate what happened with Steven Universe but I didn't call it censorship and plenty of other people shared my views. Don't get me wrong I DESPISE the change made, but that's the thing. Changes aren't censorship but you're under no obligation to LIKE the changes.

I appreciate the consistency and I don't/didn't mean to accuse ya of flip-flopping on that issue.

But, yeah... :/

The work was altered so as not to offend the (perceived) moral sensibilities of the audience it was presented to; therefore, it is an act of censorship on the part of CN's UK division.

I'd say that even if it was a show I hated. I'll admit to probably being a little giddy about it though.

I do hope I got across what I was trying to say well enough.

[small]Aside: I'm just making this harder on myself, aren't I? These conversations, while entertaining, are so god damned long and there's always this persistent undercurrent of animosity on here. D: Kinda why I took a couple weeks off from perusing the forums and engaging in this stuff. It was a slightly less anxious half-month.[/small]

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

*snip*

I'm not laughing

Aw.

Hmph! Fine! Levity is a no-no!

I was in a mood. Also I have an issue with reaction images I'll never get past. It just feels super dismissive and rude to me.

and I don't think it ought to be removed because its objectionable, I think it should be removed because its horrible, pandering, stupid writing.

Well cool! More power to ya for having opinions.

Thanks?

The fact that it does not work with an audience where there is a whole different context for slipping a drug into a girl's drink is just another reason I think any sane localization team would move some events around.

It's a magic potion that alters perception of gender. "Slipping a drug into a girl's drink" implies malice and a chemical meant to allow someone to cause harm to her. It's not a fair comparison really, especially given the context.

But, yeah, like I've said a couple times in here. I get that argument. There's a parallel to it that could make folks uncomfortable once they were made aware of it. It's still censorship. However! Since most of the bullshit spin was devoted to "gay conversion" instead of that facet (which could have been easily addressed on its own by, as you say, moving some events around) it's sort of a moot point.

Yeah, I honestly hope they just move the dialogue around some. They never said specifically what changes they made, and the reversal could be funny if they write it well, I just don't think they will. If I had to admit to another issue with the writing, it would be that Soleil apparently doesn't have an S-rank support with another female character. I actually think it would be really great if they added that somehow, which would hardly be strange for a Fire Emblem adaptation.

Also, most people who buy this game don't read internet forums. Awakening was very successful, and not just with the crowd that cares about things like this. I imagine that most of the people who will buy this game will not know about this change in advance.

Yeah, you're right. I bought Awakening. It was quite good. And I had no idea about the cousin thing getting altered either, nor did it impact my enjoyment of the game. Whether or not people are aware of an act of censorship doesn't make it any less censorship though, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

As I am trying to get at, making changes to make the work more effective to its chosen audience in a chosen way isn't really censorship, and if it is its the weakest censorship imaginable. Path of Radiance removed the highest difficulty and added a new even easier difficulty level in order to lower the game's barrier to entry, and it made it the easiest Fire Emblem to pick up and play ever. Shoot, my dad played it, and he's not exactly a game guy. Or a Japan guy.

Personally, I'm not buying it directly, on principle. I'll just grab a used copy from Gamestop or something.

Rah rah, fight the powah, etc.

I beg you to reconsider. This is a great series that doesn't get enough support as it is. I may dislike the new angle that the series started taking with Awakening in regards to writing, but it is still such unique and interestingly designed series that could stop being made at the drop of a hat if it starts under-performing again.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Well I did say that if it is censorship, then it's not the boodyman everyone acts like it is. If I seem really bitter towards the term censorship its because everyone treats as something that's always morally reprehensible. As such, that's where I'm coming from where I said I think self-censorship is a worthless term, people have been overusing it and using it as a loaded term. I agree that there's baggage with the term, though I don't necessarily agree that it's all for good reason. A lot of people just jump to conclusions and I feel like its made the stereotype about self-censoring worse.

The rape scene was a sticky situation with a lot of elements to it. My friend pointed out it was really stupid, I didn't think it through. Truth be told "Offending" people wasn't on my mind, but in truth I probably avoided offending people. That's kind of the problem. If someone takes a scene out just because it doesn't fit the tone it isn't censorship, but if they do it is. The thing is, you can't really know the author comes out and says it. And people like to jump to the censorship bandwagon. It frustrates me.

Sorry if I came off as bitter and frustrated in my original post.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I was in a mood. Also I have an issue with reaction images I'll never get past. It just feels super dismissive and rude to me.

Ah, no worries. Wasn't my intention.

Just going for humor. Failed completely, as usual. All in a day's work.

Thanks?

Sorry, there wasn't really much I could say to that bit. We just disagree. All subjective and what-not.

Yeah, I honestly hope they just move the dialogue around some. They never said specifically what changes they made, and the reversal could be funny if they write it well, I just don't think they will. If I had to admit to another issue with the writing, it would be that Soleil apparently doesn't have an S-rank support with another female character. I actually think it would be really great if they added that somehow, which would hardly be strange for a Fire Emblem adaptation.

Ya see, I'd be completely cool with them just shifting the timing around like that. It'd preserve the quirks and eliminate the (to me) legitimate bugbear. The language they use to describe the change doesn't exactly give me much hope for a decent middle ground approach though.

Her not having any S status female supports is kind of an argument, in itself, against the "gay conversion" narrative, imo. But I agree. More same gender S supports in general would be cool.

As I am trying to get at, making changes to make the work more effective to its chosen audience in a chosen way isn't really censorship, and if it is its the weakest censorship imaginable. Path of Radiance removed the highest difficulty and added a new even easier difficulty level in order to lower the game's barrier to entry, and it made it the easiest Fire Emblem to pick up and play ever. Shoot, my dad played it, and he's not exactly a game guy. Or a Japan guy.

Eh. This is definitely not the most severe form it can take, but it's certainly under the same banner. The intention is to sell more by minimizing the potential for offense/alienating customers. They're still censoring the work in order to accomplish that goal.

Difficulty levels aren't usually something you could associate with morality policing. It's a quality of life thing, not an attempt to adjust content based on moral imperative.

Different kettle of fish. o.o

I beg you to reconsider. This is a great series that doesn't get enough support as it is. I may dislike the new angle that the series started taking with Awakening in regards to writing, but it is still such unique and interestingly designed series that could stop being made at the drop of a hat if it starts under-performing again.

I'm right there with you on this...but Nintendo's making it really difficult for me to support their decision making. And, again, just recently, they've made another alteration that I don't care for.

If there were a way for me to support the developer themselves, rather than line NoA's pockets, I'd jump at it in a heartbeat.

Well I did say that if it is censorship, then it's not the boodyman everyone acts like it is. If I seem really bitter towards the term censorship its because everyone treats as something that's always morally reprehensible. As such, that's where I'm coming from where I said I think self-censorship is a worthless term, people have been overusing it and using it as a loaded term. I agree that there's baggage with the term, though I don't necessarily agree that it's all for good reason. A lot of people just jump to conclusions and I feel like its made the stereotype about self-censoring worse.

The rape scene was a sticky situation with a lot of elements to it. My friend pointed out it was really stupid, I didn't think it through. Truth be told "Offending" people wasn't on my mind, but in truth I probably avoided offending people. That's kind of the problem. If someone takes a scene out just because it doesn't fit the tone it isn't censorship, but if they do it is. The thing is, you can't really know the author comes out and says it. And people like to jump to the censorship bandwagon. It frustrates me.

Sorry if I came off as bitter and frustrated in my original post.

I get where you're coming from. The word gets bandied about quite a lot and it's usually, with a great deal of negative fanfare, used to decry the very notion. There's not a lot of nuance when the internet's reactionary megaphone starts blaring.

The US has a particularly strong aversion to the word, I think. We've got the 'Murica = Freeze Peach thing going, pretty hardcore. The current political climate isn't exactly doing a lot to stifle that urge some folks have to cry foul every time something remotely censorious happens, context and level of appropriateness be damned.

It's pretty human to try to discern authorial intent after reading their work. Just how we go about trying to understand what we're presented with, I guess. But I don't think altering stuff based on tone would be sufficient to call it censorship...unless it's because the tone isn't PC and you're only doing the changing to avoid a backlash from PC-

UGH.

Look, it's a thorny, nuanced issue with a good deal of subtle variation involved.

Unless it isn'-

UGH.

And nah, no worries. You're good. Pretty sure I get taken more seriously than I intend a lot on here too.

 

[Davroth]

It's a message board. You made a statement about peoples intelligence being called into question (some could argue that it was a strawman, but I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole because I doubt either of us would be happy with the ensuing conversation knowing the internet). I disagreed with that statement, explaining my reasons behind it. Discussion follows. Isn't that how all conversations go around here?

Oh yeah, noone in here or the other, newer thread is dismissing the whole thing with something along the lines of "Why would you even miss this? It's creepy pandering etc." What's the logical conclusion of that? That people are being weird for wanting this stuff in the game to begin with. If you want "creepy otaku pandering" in your game, what does that make you? It's just the kind of veiled insults I have come to expect from the Escapist community nowadays.

The problem is, no-one was calling for a rewrite. Nintendo did it by their own accord. What we're seeing here is people saying "huh, that's actually probably for the best". It's done before there even was a fight to begin with.

Right, and it obviously has nothing to do with the sociopolitical climate in the western games industry. You know, this is literally what people mean when they say their games are getting taken away. Of course there's no interest group big enough to force a corporation to make changes, but if you raise enough of a stink about other, similar subjects, then big corporations will start to not want to risk the potential bad PR from what is perceived to be a far bigger group of people then there actually are outraged about this kind of stuff.

But on the religious one. It's happened before. Didn't a temple in occarina of time have a muslim chant in it, which got replaced in all future versions of the game? I think that's the case anyway. I'm not muslim, nor do I agree with a lot of muslim doctrines or positions, and yet I'm absolutely fine with that change. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm actually struggling to think of a more extreme version that could actually happen. Because all of these changes that people have "demanded" in the past have been relatively minor or inconsequential, at least from the ones I've seen.

Not really comparable. It was changed in all future versions, not only a regional one to avoid controversy in, say, the middle east. This is kind of the crux of a lot of this topic. This change is not only needless, it's also meaningless to those who are actually offended by it. It's just out of sight, in a language you don't understand. It's not content that is gone from the game as a whole. And if you buy the game, you still support the same people putting out this sick filth! It's incredibly shortsighted. But then again, the people who are the most offended by this stuff wouldn't buy the game to begin with.

And really, I only care so much about the vision if it's made by a small team/one person. It's come from a large publisher. Any game released by them is a far cry from their original vision. Nature of the game (and honestly, that's also not even always a bad thing. Rewrites and changes during production can create a far better product by the end). Hell, isn't it also like the 17th game in the series? There is no vision here, it's just another game churned out in a long running franchise, not some grand piece of art. I would honestly be surprised if there was any writer on that staff who will hear that this scene is getting changed/removed for foreign releases and think anything more than "Oh well".

That seems super dismissive of you. You are mistaking publishers for developers, they are not the same and they are not interchangeable. Nintendo is the big publisher behind it, sure. But that doesn't mean that the developers don't have the integrity to turn out a product with an artistic vision. You can be dismissive of its value as art all you like, however, art or not, it's undeniable that artists worked on it and poured their heart and effort into it. I wont stand for people dismissing that effort as "just another game in a long franchise, why even care?".

-snip-

That reply wasn't directed at you, but further commentary on the nature of the discussion in this thread.

Disingenuous? That's a bit strong, given the rather moderate question. I could also go with George Lucas's vision of the original trilogy if that would be less "disengenuous." And my comment about modded Bethesda games still stands. I doubt they intended for every female character is Skyrim to have head sized tits and baby-oiled skin, but that's never stopped anyone. I also doubt they intended even the simple texture updates given that those would be far more demanding on hardware than Bethesda likes to be.

The George Lucas example is pretty good, in that case, too, someone was messing with something (arguably good or bad) when nobody asked for it. Not sure that comparison works out in your favour though. Much like with Fire Emblem Fates, Lucas decided to purge the other version. That's where he and Nintendo went wrong, see.

That's a different kind of modding entirely. It's also completely optional and can be entirely ignored. What people do with their games at home is none of my business. I might have been willing to follow your argument if you meant the kind of modding that is these days practically required to get Bethesda games to run properly, since that was your followup to the Unity debacle. My bad.

And further, are you saying that the localization team are not developers in their own right? Because I take issue with that.

EDIT: And how the fuck has Fire Emblem always been "very Japanese???" Prior to Awakening it's just been standard fantasy schlock as a strategy game. I guess they had some cooking jokes, but even those were comparatively light.

You can take issue to that all you like. The developers sitting in Japan have no recourse to protect their game from the localisation team who cuts their scenes and rewrites their dialogue for western audiences. Do you think if they botched the localisation of a movie by a big director by changing scenes to better reflect the sensibilities of the country it was localised for. No director /wants/ that. Video games have directors too. Only in the games industry, they are so gagged and bound that they couldn't speak up about it under any circumstances.

And if you can't spot how distinctly Japanese the Fire Emblem games have always been, I'm guessing you are not familiar with he wave of fantasy anime that preceded it and that FE pays homage to in story lines and design? It's always been there, from game one.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

It's a message board. You made a statement about peoples intelligence being called into question (some could argue that it was a strawman, but I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole because I doubt either of us would be happy with the ensuing conversation knowing the internet). I disagreed with that statement, explaining my reasons behind it. Discussion follows. Isn't that how all conversations go around here?

Oh yeah, noone in here or the other, newer thread is dismissing the whole thing with something along the lines of "Why would you even miss this? It's creepy pandering etc." What's the logical conclusion of that? That people are being weird for wanting this stuff in the game to begin with. If you want "creepy otaku pandering" in your game, what does that make you? It's just the kind of veiled insults I have come to expect from the Escapist community nowadays.

The problem is, no-one was calling for a rewrite. Nintendo did it by their own accord. What we're seeing here is people saying "huh, that's actually probably for the best". It's done before there even was a fight to begin with.

Right, and it obviously has nothing to do with the sociopolitical climate in the western games industry. You know, this is literally what people mean when they say their games are getting taken away. Of course there's no interest group big enough to force a corporation to make changes, but if you raise enough of a stink about other, similar subjects, then big corporations will start to not want to risk the potential bad PR from what is perceived to be a far bigger group of people then there actually are outraged about this kind of stuff.

But on the religious one. It's happened before. Didn't a temple in occarina of time have a muslim chant in it, which got replaced in all future versions of the game? I think that's the case anyway. I'm not muslim, nor do I agree with a lot of muslim doctrines or positions, and yet I'm absolutely fine with that change. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm actually struggling to think of a more extreme version that could actually happen. Because all of these changes that people have "demanded" in the past have been relatively minor or inconsequential, at least from the ones I've seen.

Not really comparable. It was changed in all future versions, not only a regional one to avoid controversy in, say, the middle east. This is kind of the crux of a lot of this topic. This change is not only needless, it's also meaningless to those who are actually offended by it. It's just out of sight, in a language you don't understand. It's not content that is gone from the game as a whole. And if you buy the game, you still support the same people putting out this sick filth! It's incredibly shortsighted. But then again, the people who are the most offended by this stuff wouldn't buy the game to begin with.

And really, I only care so much about the vision if it's made by a small team/one person. It's come from a large publisher. Any game released by them is a far cry from their original vision. Nature of the game (and honestly, that's also not even always a bad thing. Rewrites and changes during production can create a far better product by the end). Hell, isn't it also like the 17th game in the series? There is no vision here, it's just another game churned out in a long running franchise, not some grand piece of art. I would honestly be surprised if there was any writer on that staff who will hear that this scene is getting changed/removed for foreign releases and think anything more than "Oh well".

That seems super dismissive of you. You are mistaking publishers for developers, they are not the same and they are not interchangeable. Nintendo is the big publisher behind it, sure. But that doesn't mean that the developers don't have the integrity to turn out a product with an artistic vision. You can be dismissive of its value as art all you like, however, art or not, it's undeniable that artists worked on it and poured their heart and effort into it. I wont stand for people dismissing that effort as "just another game in a long franchise, why even care?"

Ok, to your first point. Sure I guess? There are people doing that. Take it up with them I guess? I didn't do that, have no plans of doing that, so pinning their actions on me seems counter-productive to any potential conversation we could have. I have made no statement nor assertion about you as a person, so I can't help but feel all of that was unneeded.

No-one is taking your games away from you. Unless you want to lay the claim that it's this one small thing that makes the game, the game will still be the same for all intents and purposes. If it's the fact that ANYTHING has changed due to localisation, then you've got to be as outraged at all the changes made in all the fire emblem games released in the west right? It's been pointed out by many people far better than I could ever do it that this is not the first, last, or even amazingly notable thing to have been changed due to localisation. If you want to put your flag on the side of all localisation is bad no matter what, that's fine. I'd disagree with you whole heartedly, but at least it's a consistent stance. At the moment, it is honestly coming across that it is just THIS change that rubs you the wrong way because of what you believe are the reasons behind it, without any confirmation from nintendo. (honestly I believe they're not doing it for the few hundred online users who don't like the scene that were ever going to buy the game anyway, but rather the thousands of far more casual players who are going to buy the game, stumble into that scene, and be made thoroughly uncomfortable by it. Not to mention nintendo is mostly marketed towards family friendly entertainment. Gets harder to keep that image in the west when you have a scene that can be viewed, rightly or wrongly, as drugging a character. Nintendo aren't scared of the "SJWs". They're scared of mums seeing this and never buying a nintendo game for their kids again because of it. And if a mum saw a scene like that, you can be dam sure they'd tell others about it. And unlike on the internet, where we're all relatively game savvy, and can get the cultural references, and justify it, our parents cannot, and nor will so many others).

Doesn't that point about saying it should have been a change for the middle east ignore the fact that there is a sizable muslim population in america and europe? It might be because it is rather early in the morning, if in which case I apologize, but I am just not able to get the distinction you are trying to make here. Again, might be on me, but I get the feeling it might just be something I disagree with you with.

And I'm dismissive because the product turned out is not the envisioned piece from the start. I'm not saying the devs didn't work hard, that plenty didn't pour their heart and soul into it. But at the end of the day they'll have made a product that would have been poked and prodded by the publisher all the way through the design process. To claim that it's the devs perfect work of art is naive because what we get isn't what the devs had in their dream. Fucking hell, nintendo are terrible for this one. The reason why that starfox game made by rare came out like it did was because nintendo walked in and made rare turn their dinosaur based game where you play as a fox into a shoehorned starfox game. There are plenty of stories about how shitty nintendo treated third party devs (is partly why they don't get many third party games any more, and have to rely on in house games to survive). I am not saying don't care. I am just saying don't try to pretend to me that it's a work of art first and a product second. No publisher has worked like that, and nintendo is no different.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Disingenuous? That's a bit strong, given the rather moderate question. I could also go with George Lucas's vision of the original trilogy if that would be less "disengenuous." And my comment about modded Bethesda games still stands. I doubt they intended for every female character is Skyrim to have head sized tits and baby-oiled skin, but that's never stopped anyone. I also doubt they intended even the simple texture updates given that those would be far more demanding on hardware than Bethesda likes to be.

The George Lucas example is pretty good, in that case, too, someone was messing with something (arguably good or bad) when nobody asked for it. Not sure that comparison works out in your favour though. Much like with Fire Emblem Fates, Lucas decided to purge the other version. That's where he and Nintendo went wrong, see.

That's a different kind of modding entirely. It's also completely optional and can be entirely ignored. What people do with their games at home is none of my business. I might have been willing to follow your argument if you meant the kind of modding that is these days practically required to get Bethesda games to run properly, since that was your followup to the Unity debacle. My bad.

Uh, I was talking about the insane stuff he wanted to do that everybody else involved with Star Wars stopped him from doing, and 008 was talking about true gamers wanting to experience the original form of the developers vision, meaning that true gamers wouldn't mod.

And further, are you saying that the localization team are not developers in their own right? Because I take issue with that.

EDIT: And how the fuck has Fire Emblem always been "very Japanese???" Prior to Awakening it's just been standard fantasy schlock as a strategy game. I guess they had some cooking jokes, but even those were comparatively light.

You can take issue to that all you like. The developers sitting in Japan have no recourse to protect their game from the localisation team who cuts their scenes and rewrites their dialogue for western audiences. Do you think if they botched the localisation of a movie by a big director by changing scenes to better reflect the sensibilities of the country it was localised for. No director /wants/ that. Video games have directors too. Only in the games industry, they are so gagged and bound that they couldn't speak up about it under any circumstances.

I didn't ask you if the developers in Japan were developers. I asked you if the guys who localize the series of games you are talking about are developers given that they have added entire difficulty levels, retooled or added mechanics, rewritten, added, or removed dialogue, changed the stats on much of the cast, including the entire cast of one game, and have added extensive art and audio assets to each game. These guys are developers. Absolutely. Their intentions and their desires when localizing these games ought to be considered just like you would the intentions of any developer on the original creative team, even if it is to a lesser extent.

And if you can't spot how distinctly Japanese the Fire Emblem games have always been, I'm guessing you are not familiar with he wave of fantasy anime that preceded it and that FE pays homage to in story lines and design? It's always been there, from game one.

Uh, it came out in 1990? What massive wave of fantasy anime came out in the late 80's? Fire Emblem, like other JRPGs at the time, was made to emulate other games like Wizardry, which in turn were influenced by D&D. The writing and characters have always been super generic high-fantasy.

 

[NPC009]

I think this is a stupid change. People who are going to buy these games are going to buy them for the unique Japanese weirdness. Fire Emblem is one of those game series that has been going on for so long and has been so weird all the damn time.

This over-the-top weirdness is a fairly new thing to Fire Emblem. It only recently started with Awakening, really. Before that the series did have quirky support conversations and such, but the level of insanity (and sexuality) was much more limited. Personally, I buy Fire Emblem games because I love the strategy RPG genre. If I wanted otaku pandering stupidity, I play Agarest War instead.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree, then. FE has always been very Japanese. And quirky. If you are going to say that's not true, then we can stop this conversation right here.

It's funny, though. How you label this as "otaku pandering" based on this account of what the scene even contains at all. Very telling.

1. Who says I'm basing this on just that one convo? Remember that this is the game that went the Pok?mon amie route?

2. I wonder what you mean by 'very Japanese'. Earlier installments were all very much straight-up fantasy games inspired by western fiction and mythology. Sure, Seisen no Keifu had the whole incest thing, but if you look at the plot, it's more like Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones was a thing (BTW the whole children fighting at their parents' side thing? Yeah, not happening in SoK despite you being able to create a boatload of kids) than some random 'No matter how I look at it, my tsundere little sister is too cute to not want to screw' manga. And then there's things such as character designs, compare something like 9-10 to 13-14 and it's like, holy shit, were did all the boob(plate)s come from?