Controversial Fire Emblem: Fates Scene Dropped From Western Releases

[Souplex]

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.

Yes and no.

Spoiler: Minor spoilers

Ike gets enobled so nobody will object to him leading an army, this is how he gets his promotion, but it doesn't really mean anything to him.

Spoiler: Less minor spoilers

Ike's dad used to be a general for Daien, with their military meritocracy, that makes his dad noble, but since they have a military meritocracy, it might not be hereditary. They don't really go into that.

 

[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.

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'.

Nope, all those early articles were misunderstood secondhand bullshit that focuses on the wrong things.
https://imgur.com/gallery/Z46S9

In the game, Soleil is not a lesbian or Bi. The things she does is more because of mimicking her Father and is actually "more successful" than him in terms of getting popular with the girls. But she gets carried away and it became a habit out of spite for her Father. In game she has no Marriage option with females from the start making her a straight character, she also has 9 romantic supports with males, making her support scenario with Kamui moot, as even without Kamui's "help" she can still have a straight relationship with other males.

 

[Chriss_m]

These lunatics are worse for the gaming industry than the religious right ever were.

 

[Kaimax]

Nope, all those early articles were misunderstood secondhand bullshit that focuses on the wrong things.
https://imgur.com/gallery/Z46S9

You know, despite the fact that this particular post has no actual evidence and relies upon nothing but people's willingness to just believe everything they say because they're defending a game from the wrong sort of criticism and that's all it takes for some people.

Lol, Same thing for the other side, they would just believe everything someone would say because the found something that offended them in them game, even if they don't understand the game, and relies on secondhand translation.

Fact : Soleil is not Gay/Bisexual, this is supported with other Romantic Support scenarios where she can marry other males with no problem. There was no forced change to her Sexual preferences.

The only thing we can agree on is Kamui's (MC) Romantic Support scenario for her is stupid, which is going to be changed.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Also kinda bummed I might miss out on gender swapped art of the male cast.

Ditto. Golden opportunity for a Rule 63 goldmine. Seriously, fucking casuals.

It's just not the same, but we'll likely see anything missing thanks to the internet.


On a side note, being crappy with names, I thought this whole issue was about Syalla. Not that this really changes anything I've said, or anything.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

When did FE become all about sex? I mean, I know I was only barely aware of this series but the last game I heard about featured some sort of breeding mechanics and I don't even.

 

[NPC009]

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.

If you look at trends within the series, it's sorta implied. In Radiant Dawn, Ike shows no interest in women at all, while most Fire Emblem heroes have one or more romantic options. On top of that, the game encourages you to glue Ike and Soren together. There are scenes that are important to the story that you can only get if you got them to A support in both Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

On the other hand, it's not like the ever confirm that it's romantic, but let's be honest, even if it were fully intended to be romantic, it's doubtful they'd confirm it since that could potentially upset a lot of players. (And not just because of the gay thing. I mean, some people take shipping really seriously, so many games give the player options. The Tales series is notorious for this as well. They're written in such a way players can mentally pair the characters with whoever they want.)

 

[NPC009]

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

Ridiculous.

Eh, that's a joke, right? Please tell me it's a joke...

Grimm's fairytales are a little over two hundred years old, and based on stories even older than that to boot! It's not 1800 anymore. We live in 2016 now. Society changed, in many ways for the better. Drugging women to claim their love is frowned upon. Heck, drugging people in general is. Please don't drug people without their consent.

Also, no one is banning anything. The creator is changing a thing, because in hindsight, the thing s kinda dumb and has weird connotations.

It isn't a joke. 200 years old or not, fantasy is fantasy. The end.

It's not that simple. Those stories were a product of their time. This new Fire Emblem game is a product of our time. It's not trying to be a classic fairy tale either. What's wrong with judging it by modern standards?

People can dislike and hate it for whatever number of reasons, that's their good right. Even if a majority of the users finds that the content is stupid as fuck it should not be censored or in any way changed. Creators should throw their products out there to be judged by the public, they shouldn't change their game because they're arrogant enough to think that they know what that public wants.

That's naive. With commercial products, creators are already trying to appeal to their (potential) audience. They have to, because the product needs to sell. If something is not well-recieved, it makes sense to take a second look at it and try to figure out how it can be improved. And just because it's a change does not mean it's censorship. Being able to go back and change something to be better is a luxury, and if creators can afford that luxury - great. All creators want to create something they can be proud of, after all.

Besides, do you have any idea how often writing is changed during the localisation proces? For instance, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door would have been a lot less funny if it had recieved a straight translation.

At least from what this article told you, you're wrong on the account of the creator changing things because of hindsight considerations. Given that they're only changing the Western release.

Changing the Japanese version would be harder. It'd involve a patch players would have to manually download from the eShop.

I'm not saying the situation in this game is right or wrong btw. I'm just saying that people should be allowed to judge for themselves. This way nothing is learned for either the author nor the player.

I disagree. Nintendo has learned. This support convo was one of the first things that made the rounds on the internet after the game was released in Japan and Nintendo noticed this. Anyone who is interested can learn what the original was like.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

My only opinion is that... it's a magic potion yes? Well magic can turn a fucking prince into a frog but turn a gay person straight and that's stretching the reality? No, don't respond. I already know Arthur Chu types would rather push me off a cliff.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Well if you deal with an unstable audience this is really the only solution, and I'm guessing they will need to keep doing it for the foreseeable decade or two until people grow up.

People having an issue with a character being unknowingly drugged and it leading to that person falling in love with the person who drugged them? I fail to see how people People need to "grow up." Or how this audience is "unstable."

Really, which part of this is a GAME/BOOK/MOVIE you do not comprehend?
It's also not a bible or coran. It does not contain laws and instructions what to do with your life to save your soul. It is a fiction, a fairy tale fantasy with friggin magic at that. How backward minded you need to be to treat it just like Inquisition did book writers in Dark Ages of Europe?
This is not immoral and culturally unacceptable or inapropriate blasphemy. This is just a fiction written by culturally different authors. People, stop being enraged, xenophobic chauvinists to japanese art creators. How about putting down your pichforks and torches and apply open minded approach to something foreign to you? Sounds crazy? Guess what we already had invented that in Europe in XVI century! It was called Renaissance and followed Dark Ages.

How about USA's social movements and their blind followers around the world take next step and move on mentally to the next era of human evolution we went through ALREADY in Erope 5 bloody centuries ago? Do we really have to go through 10 or so centuries of being bigotted, self-opressing, chauvinistic and xenophobic tards re-enacting Dark Ages or could someone over there on the other side of the pond pick up history book 'read all about it' and friggin move on?

 

[scotth266]

Disappointing, but not surprising given that the usual suspects had already begun to spin the scene as something horribly sinister, mostly so they could profit off the resulting pageviews.

Can't wait to see the chorus of "It's not censorship if they do it to sell copies."

Oh look, it's that baseless imgur post people trotted out months ago as some sort of definitive proof that absolutely nothing was wrong and the evil SJWs were wrong about everything. You know, despite the fact that this particular post has no actual evidence and relies upon nothing but people's willingness to just believe everything they say because they're defending a game from the wrong sort of criticism and that's all it takes for some people.

As opposed to the original post that started it all, which also has no actual evidence and relies upon people's willingness to just believe everything they say because of the "muh gaming homophobia/sexism" boogeyman?

Oh, and naturally, they link to the person who supposedly started the whole thing, which is just wonderfully useful for all the scum of the internet in figuring out who exactly to go bother.

Someone posted controversial bullshit on a public forum? QUICK, WE MUST DEFEND THEM FROM THEIR CRITICS, WHO ARE OBVIOUSLY THE SCUM OF THE EARTH

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Can you at least get some sort of bilingual Japanese/English version from Hong Kong or elsewhere?

I have always resented censorship masquerading as a localisation effort. I'd rather not contribute to this stupidity. We've gone from self-appointed Christian moral authoritarians to self-appointed inter-sectional feminist moral authoritarians. I do not want any part of any of these smelly little orthodoxies determining what is and what isn't acceptable.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Game developers take out one stupid scene with horrific implications and all of a sudden we're in the dark ages again? You know, you'll have to forgive me for finding this post to be a bit of an overreaction and not a particularly apt comparison. When people are being rounded up by the SJW Inquisition, then that comparison will be appropriate. As of now, it's pure hyperbole. Oh and I'd call someone drugging someone else "Culturally inappropriate.". Not culturally inappropriate "Blasphemy" as you put it, but cultural inappropriate all the same. Xenophobic? I guess I have to praise everything that comes out of Japan or I'm xenophobic huh? I can't criticize ANYTHING about them. Like the fact that they're severely patriarchal, homophobic and this tends to pop up in their art a lot. Japanese art developers are big boys and girls, I think they can handle little old me having an opinion. I'm not exactly harassing them with insulting tweets or e-mails. And if they can't, well, it sounds like they weren't mentally prepared for creating art if they can't handle CRITICISM!

Human evolution doesn't work like that. The evolution of our bodies has nothing to do with the cultural mindsets we've developed over the last thousand years. It might sound impressive to say but it doesn't MEAN Anything. Yes, yes. Me pointing out that it's sketchy as hell to have someone be drugged in a game and it being portrayed as perfectly acceptable and even quirky humorous is me being a, as you put it "bigotted, self-opressing, chauvinistic and xenophobic tard." You got me. Me not wanting stupid things in video games is proof that I'm chauvinistic and self oppressing. You're not overreacting AT ALL!

Basically you're angry I have a different opinion from you and you're trying to dress it up as me being some oppressor of cultural freedom. Scenes get taken out of translations all of the time because things constantly don't work in overseas audiences, this happens all the time. But this can be connected vaguely to SJWs, so it must be evil. It's a bit more complicated than that.

 

[Erttheking]

Disappointing, but not surprising given that the usual suspects had already begun to spin the scene as something horribly sinister, mostly so they could profit off the resulting pageviews.

Can't wait to see the chorus of "It's not censorship if they do it to sell copies."

I still haven't gotten an explanation for how someone being unknowingly drugged leading to falling in love under any circumstances isn't sketchy as hell. Then again I'm one of those prudes who thought Tharja possibly raping the main character in the last game to be "Decisively unfunny."

Ok, how about this? Things are taken out of translations all of the time. Certain things that just don't work in other cultures get taken out. In the last Fire Emblem game Lucina could marry her cousin. They tried to take out of the game by making their S-class a more platonic thing in the western release. They utterly messed it up because they still left the casual declarations of love in, but I didn't see anyone protesting the "censorship" of the cousin marrying scene in the last game.

And as a writer I find it hard to swallow when someone refers to changing anything as "censorship." Any writer that doesn't have their head up their ass can listen to criticism and realize when they put something stupid in their work. People on this website like to romanticize works never being changed, but not only is that unrealistic, it's unpractical. No one held a gun to Nintendo's head and forced them to do this. It was them exercising their freedom of speech. Freedom of speech includes taking things out of products that you think would be less well received in other cultures or just less well received in general. I've done it several times with my writing. Going back and changing things, adding scenes, or scrapping scenes in development because I realize how stupid they would be.

 

[Karadalis]

OMG! SOMEONE DID SOMETHING TO A FICTIONAL CHARACTER! HOLD THE PRESSES EVERYONE AND LETS GET OUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!

Seriously people... get a fucking grip.

The whole thing is more or less played for laughs in this weird japanese humor way and you get your panties in a twist about soggy knees?

Oh for the love of... listen people: Games do not influence or reinforce notions of people, nor do they make people do anything they wouldnt normaly do anyways based on their upbringing and/or culture. (hello cologne!)

Cutting this scene out means the original product was changed due to moral outrage, AKA IT WAS CENSORED!

Also @Erttheking.. no... it is still Censorship, cause the climate in the west has become so toxic and hostile due to the actions of a very loud minority of people who dont even consume videogames that more and more japanese developers deem it necesary to Self-censor their games and thus alter the original vision just because of pearl clutching wanna be feminists and other assorted SJWs.

There was no other reason to either censor or outright cut this scene kept for stupid fucking outrage culture. NO ONE who doesnt want to is forced to play that scenario out, yet people in the west are denied this scenario simply because some people belonging to a very narrow minority raised a stink about anything they deem "problematic" because they had their personal morals offended and treat a game like its actually SUCCESFULLY influencing/brainwashing people to go out and drug girls in bars (insert other horrible accusation of preying/hating on women/gays here).

I hate to break it to those outragers but the people who play fire emblem are the most unlikely to ever go to a bar and drug girls. Most likely people who drug girls dont even touch videogames like this.

This is moral outrage panic over nothing once again making the west seem like even a more unatractive market for japanese developers cause they deem it necesary to change their games.

Well changes are expensive, needing more then a simple translation costs money, cutting out scenes and entire parts of the game costs money. So why even bother bringing games to the west anymore at all if all the west seems to do is ***** and moan about every little "problematic" thing as if it has any tangible effect on real life.

I highly doubt that the rape statistics saw an incredible raise when the game was released in japan, infact crime statistics throughout the western world show a record breaking decline in those crims ever since the 80s.. and we are more liberal in our laws then ever before in history and getting even closer to not let things like religion or sexual orientation tamper with ones rights. And video games had ABSOLUTELY no negative effect on said progress.

Unless someone here wants to claim that without videogames we would have made soooooo much more progress... but then i got a bridge to sell you.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

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.

Nope, 100% unconfirmed. And anyone who claims "subtext" once again is coming at it from a Western point of view due to not understanding Japanese ideas of male camaraderie. Plus Ike has a descendant in Priam so obviously he got married and had kids at some point. That's what I always find fascinating about these situations; a lot of game companies are Japanese and we unknowingly engage in skewed interpretations due to the different cultural norms between Japan and America. And unfortunately most of the time we refuse to acknowledge that and engage in ethnocentric behavior which isn't a good thing.