Controversial Fire Emblem: Fates Scene Dropped From Western Releases

[Spartan448]

Intelligent Systems went for a canonically gay protagonist in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn.
It's not explicitly stated, but it is very heavily implied.
Every lead up to that point can end the game by getting hitched to someone of the opposite sex if they finish the game with a capped support. (This even applies to 2 of the protagonists of Radiant Dawn, Miciah and Elincia) Ike however, has only 2 support endings, both with dudes where he leaves the continent to go on a journey with them. (For those familiar with Avatar: LoK, it's the equivalent of the "Friendship vacation" at the end where they provide enough plausible wiggle room that the people who would be offended can look the other way) He also rejects the amorous advances of a princess and merchant throughout the game.
...And then Awakening shat all over it with a character who is supposed to be his descendant implying there was a uterus involved.

Dear Intelligent Systems:
Please fire whoever is responsible for writing Awakening/Fates, and bring back the people who wrote Sword of Seals, Blazing Sword, (Just FE over here) and the Radiance cycle.

There is literally no canonical evidence as to Ike being gay at any point in either Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn. Having gay characters is one thing but it's downright petty when you take an already established character and try to use the tiniest possible circumstance to claim that character is somehow a raging homosexual.

Also, the writing for Awakening was fine. It was at least better than Sacred Stones.

 

[CaitSeith]

*sigh* Oh, Nintendo... The more the things change, the more they keep the same.

 

[Spartan448]

While this scene did need to be changed, I find myself wishing it would have been changed because it's just a poor scene, not because someone with an agenda intentionally mistranslated it and put it on 4Chan to start a controversy. Drugging someone is bad irregardless of whether or not Solei is actually a lesbian (which is apparently a discussion now...?), and the game can only benefit from changing the scene.

That said, I do hope that's the ONLY thing that changes. Pointless censorship has been around since forever and it's a practice that needs to stop, though probably won't until the US and EU get past their whole belief that if anyone under the age of 18 catches even the slightest hint of sexuality or sexual suggestion they'll be doomed to failure their entire lives and will probably end up doing 18 kinds of meth.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

(Read title of article) 'Oh man, this is going to be bad in the comments...'
(Read article) 'Wow...um, yeah, okay, that does seem to be crossing a line there.'
(Read comments) 'Huh?'

Okay, so she's apparently not gay, she just has trouble around cute girls, and the hero gives her the potion to help her get over the problem by switching everyone's gender in her eyes, so that when it wears off, she realizes that all the men she spoke with were actually girls and thus she can now talk to them. Is that about right?

Still, I can see why it's being removed/edited/whatever. Surely there could have been an easier way to do this. Maybe have a cute girl dress up like a man or something? Even if the gay part of it isn't true, giving someone a spiked drink who is on your own team, and then having the option of that person falling in love with you, does kind of seem a bit creepy.

 

[WindKnight]

Next on the list: banning all Grimm and other fairytales where love is found after drinking a love potion or other magical means.

Ridiculous.

Well, you know, they've quietly changed the ones that involved rape. Like sleeping beauty being woken by the newborn babies prince charming impregnated her with while she was sleeping, or how the witch in rapunzel figured out there was a prince by rapunzel complaining her dress was getting tight around her belly.

 

[spartandude]

Remember the days when we just played games and no one gave two shits about stuff like this? Yeah I say we go back to that and ignore the SJWs and controversy vultures. Or flat out "make examples" of them.

Yes because controversies like this never existed until the past couple of years... at all. But in all seriousness stuff like this happens all the time where some things get changed/ removed/ added when released in a different region to make it more appealing.

 

[Kaimax]

Is Soleil Gay/Lesbian? No, people took a mistranslation too seriously without considering cultural context.
Is her Support story Stupid? Yes, and I'm glad that they could change her support story too something less stupid.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

It's been a thing since the third game. Awakening just made it easier to do support conversations. If your first FE was the GBA one, then yes, there were support conversations and characters would get married if they were S-ranked. The "dating-sim" element was in there all this time.

Off-topic (I've only ever played one Fire Emblem game), but I never understood why the support conversations had to be hidden under a mile-thick layer of concrete and molten lava in Sacred Stones. If I recall, the support conversations were unlocked by positioning the characters next to each other repeatedly, and on occasion a conversation option would pop up. But you had to do it so absurdly many times that I hardly ever saw any of the conversations on an average playthrough, let alone advance them to their conclusions. Which was really disappointing, since when I started farming the conversations, I found most of the game's best writing in there. It elevated so many of the characters from one-dimensional anime archetypes to fully fleshed out characters and developed some really interesting character dynamics. Why did they have to hide it behind such a tedious and arduous unlock system?

 

[WindKnight]

Is Soleil Gay/Lesbian? No, people took a mistranslation too seriously without considering cultural context.
Is her Support story Stupid? Yes, and I'm glad that they could change her support story too something less stupid.

The person who originally broke the story abut the scene in question specifically talked to people in Japan to to make sure she wasn't misinterpreting things - their replies were 'no, its just as f***ed up as you think it is'.

 

[Gigano]

It's hardly the first time they've rewritten some stuff [http://tinycartridge.com/post/21330765433/fire-emblem-awakening-has-fun-with-a-disturbing].

But thank god no time will be wasted on helping out with social anxiety, so everyone can get back to the killing.

Japanese games don't seem particularly adverse [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/142246-Steam-Will-Have-an-Uncensored-Sex-Game#&gid=gallery_4651&pid=1] to the idea of portraying lesbian relationships. They probably won't portray them exactly as would be done in the west, though.

Since it's only fiction, and no real rights for real gay girls are on the line, let's keep it that way. Mostly to avoid censorship, but if nothing else for the sake of diversity.

 

[Arcadian Legend]

Can't help but feel there's a fair bit of misinformation going on here. It would be best if people directed themselves to this link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/41zoyo/misleading_information_about_changes_to_a_certain/

It's still horribly written though no denying that. And there's still the whole issue that, even if it was to help her, she was drugged without her consent regardless. This, if anything is most likely what is most likely actually going to be changed.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Anyone know when Fire Emblem went from a tactical RPG to a dating sim? I haven't played an FE since the first one and I don't recall there being relationships in it...just a straight-forward paper-rock-scissors tactical RPG with perma-death.

Seems like it's gone from that to this:

I've never played a Fire Emblem game, but I find myself wondering why there are Dating Sim elements in a tactical RPG.

As for this news, the "magic powder" makes me think more of date rape than gay conversion.

 

[Connor Voskamp]

I'm upset, I was hoping that they wouldn't change the scene that way all the morons who thought it was some kind of date rape scenario would get blown the F*ck out when they actually played the game. (Lol who am I kidding, the people who got assblasted don't play games)

Pro tip: the scene takes place over a long period of time, not "Oh here take this potion and shag me Soleil."

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Anyone know when Fire Emblem went from a tactical RPG to a dating sim? I haven't played an FE since the first one and I don't recall there being relationships in it...just a straight-forward paper-rock-scissors tactical RPG with perma-death.

Seems like it's gone from that to this:

I've never played a Fire Emblem game, but I find myself wondering why there are Dating Sim elements in a tactical RPG.

As for this news, the "magic powder" makes me think more of date rape than gay conversion.

It's not as clean cut as dating elements.
As you have 2 units fight together, regardless of who they are, in close proximity, or as a team they generally grow in camaraderie, and it just so happens some units start to feel a deeper connection with another than they would with others. Regardless of the end result of the bonding they generally meet in cut scenes in between fights, talk, and their bonds grow meaning they work better as a team. The bonding between teammates has been in it since forever.

Spoiler

It just so happens when some male, and female units get close together a child from the destroyed future gets teleported to the present to help out and become extra units. Or in the case of Chrom, and your female character if they don't get close enough to someone else, they get close by default at a certain point. This can lead to some min-maxing, and what not. There's not much in the way of dating, though. Fire emblem characters routinely got together in the epilogues.

Honestly, it feels like both to me, depending on the gender of the player character.
I mean if you play as a guy it seems like it comes out as:
Male character drugs female character, and appears as a woman.
Female character falls in love with male character that looks like a female character.
Drug wears off.
Female character still loves the male character even though she fell in love with the female version.
Female character is now in a straight relationship even though she fell in love with the female version.

That's a pretty blatant gay conversion, IMO. If not something still pretty twisted.

 

[Rosiv]

Anyone know when Fire Emblem went from a tactical RPG to a dating sim? I haven't played an FE since the first one and I don't recall there being relationships in it...just a straight-forward paper-rock-scissors tactical RPG with perma-death.

Awakening. Sure there were always support conversations (Ike x Soren is canon and none of y'all can prove otherwise) but it didn't turn into an important mechanic until then.

You get a high five for the mention of Ike x Soren, but I'm going to have to act like an annoying nerd and point out support convos served an important purpose in the fourth game, Seisen no Keifu. There's a timeskip halfway through and you play the second half with the second generation of character. If you did not pair people up to make babies, you're stuck with crappy no-name replacements.

Were ike and soren acutally ever confirmed to be romanticly involved or am I misunderstand? I've played the fire emblem games with ike and I don't really recall a romantic relationship, just a good friendship. Maybe I'm just bad at subtext though.

 

[EyeReaper]

Wait, holy shit they actually added gay characters? Nintendo can learn from past mistakes! It's a Christmas miracle!

Intelligent Systems went for a canonically gay protagonist in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn.
It's not explicitly stated, but it is very heavily implied.
Every lead up to that point can end the game by getting hitched to someone of the opposite sex if they finish the game with a capped support. (This even applies to 2 of the protagonists of Radiant Dawn, Miciah and Elincia) Ike however, has only 2 support endings, both with dudes where he leaves the continent to go on a journey with them. (For those familiar with Avatar: LoK, it's the equivalent of the "Friendship vacation" at the end where they provide enough plausible wiggle room that the people who would be offended can look the other way) He also rejects the amorous advances of a princess and merchant throughout the game.
...And then Awakening shat all over it with a character who is supposed to be his descendant implying there was a uterus involved.

Dear Intelligent Systems:
Please fire whoever is responsible for writing Awakening/Fates, and bring back the people who wrote Sword of Seals, Blazing Sword, (Just FE over here) and the Radiance cycle.

As I mentioned, never played the G-Cube FE's. Still plan to, so I've been avoiding all and any spoilers as much as I could. So if I get a detail wrong, feel free to tell me.

Ike is a lord, yes? every blue haired protag. of Fire Emblem is one. Or at least someome of high power and high standing? It's not inconceiveable that even as a gay guy, he sired a child solely to continue his lineage and legacy. Seems like a medieval alike thing to do.

 

[RebornKusabi]

What an odd scene. Even reading the description laid out in a way that attempts to contextualize it makes it still sound... Skeezy. Ordinarily I'm on the side of artist integrity and standing up against censorship, but not for bigotry and homophobia.

Edit: I researched the scene and it does not in fact depict gay conversion or date rape. Just very unfortunately poorly written romance.

Honestly, most of Nintendo's edits this year have been quite inconsequential to me and this is in that same list. I played Xeno X Blades: Chronicles and the Lin bikini censorship was 100% acceptable to me (the character's ****ing twelve!) while the bust slider was odd to cut out. And having 100% Fatal Frame 5, the edit in there was sooo unnoticeable to me. It edits out a girl in a bikini, who's underage, during a psychic flashback, during a scene that's like literally under a minute if even that.

I guess I'm getting old. I mean, self-censorship shit sucks but in North America, under-age porn is still illegal even if it's soft-core. So selling a major title with it is probably not... Kosher. And if a scene looks like gay panic or date rape, to ignorant idiots like me, I can see why they took that out also.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Wait, holy shit they actually added gay characters? Nintendo can learn from past mistakes! It's a Christmas miracle!

Intelligent Systems went for a canonically gay protagonist in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn.
It's not explicitly stated, but it is very heavily implied.
Every lead up to that point can end the game by getting hitched to someone of the opposite sex if they finish the game with a capped support. (This even applies to 2 of the protagonists of Radiant Dawn, Miciah and Elincia) Ike however, has only 2 support endings, both with dudes where he leaves the continent to go on a journey with them. (For those familiar with Avatar: LoK, it's the equivalent of the "Friendship vacation" at the end where they provide enough plausible wiggle room that the people who would be offended can look the other way) He also rejects the amorous advances of a princess and merchant throughout the game.
...And then Awakening shat all over it with a character who is supposed to be his descendant implying there was a uterus involved.

Dear Intelligent Systems:
Please fire whoever is responsible for writing Awakening/Fates, and bring back the people who wrote Sword of Seals, Blazing Sword, (Just FE over here) and the Radiance cycle.

As I mentioned, never played the G-Cube FE's. Still plan to, so I've been avoiding all and any spoilers as much as I could. So if I get a detail wrong, feel free to tell me.

Ike is a lord, yes? every blue haired protag. of Fire Emblem is one. Or at least someome of high power and high standing? It's not inconceiveable that even as a gay guy, he sired a child solely to continue his lineage and legacy. Seems like a medieval alike thing to do.

Nah, Ike's just a beefy mercenary. That's what makes him amazing.