Fire Emblem Fates Cuts Petting From English Version

[NPC009]

It is creepy because playing around with characters faces just to see them blush is fetishistic and CREEPY.

And WHY exactly are they fetishistic and creepy? Have you never patted someone on their head?

It's not a quick pat on the head or shoulder, but more like poking and petting them for like a minute. It's not exactly normal human interaction. (Heck, half of my pets don't even like petting to that extend.)

 

[GalanDun]

Things get changed all the time. If all Japanese games that were released in the US with all the weird Japanese stuff still in them, we probably wouldn't have very many Japanese games here at all. If getting rid of creepy petting and a ridiculous character issue to get more people to buy different games, then that is a good thing. Usually when a franchise gets big enough, people change dynamics of the game to make it more accessable to as many people as possible. This is called smart business practice. And considering the US buys more games than Japan at this point, well, you do the math.

People complain about artistic integrity too much. Jesus. It is like it isn't the companies themselves doing the alterations or something.

Self censorship is still censorship. It shouldn't be done.
Oh, and by the way, they left the cross-dressing in Final Fantasy VII. You know, the most popular RPG of all time?

 

[crimsonspear4D]

I always thought that the Japanese adoration with stroking or "petting" a girl's head like their fucking cats or something was a little gross and lotta creepy, but what is even more creepy is how most people nowadays are just cool with it. In my personal opinion, it's kinda condescending to treat ANYONE like their fucking five years-old and not a fully-functioning young adult with boundaries just because it's considered cute; kinda leads me to think why I actually don't believe most Japanese games - or whatever - gives any female character even a hint of self-respect.

There are outliers, of course, like Bayonetta, Lightning (kinda)... and that's all I got right now, but it's just the entire trend that's gotten annoying and no one wants to see a change, tone it down, or at least for fuck-sakes acknowledge that it's creepy and weird to put your hand and rub on teenage girls head.

 

[Hagi]

I've no real issue with them taking it out but it does beg the question, why put it in in the first place?

I mean either they put it in just to pander locally and it's not something they consider a real part of the game. Or it's something the developers did actually want in their game and they're now taking it out.

Neither paints a real pretty picture of Nintendo as a company with products they have pride and faith in. Then again, it is Nintendo...

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

No. Thus the decision to remove the petting game. Generally Fire Emblem is just typical fantasy, and the characters would feel just as at home in a western title as an eastern one. Ike and Hector are just strong brutes (with Ike being comparatively simple), Ephraim, Eliwood, and Roy are knight in shining armor types (with Ephraim being a bit more blunt), Micaih, Lyn, and Erica are all kind and gracious women. The most anime thing about any of them is that Ike is shipped with dudes. Unless you're very specifically talking about Awakening, which still doesn't match the level of "weird Japanese shit" that is a panty fighter, I don't see your argument.

I'm sorry but you're just ignorant of the vastness that is anime and go on to treat only modern moe tropes and whatnot as anime while ignoring the vast history of anime, one that while closer to traditional western tropes, is still plenty distinct to one who knows where to look. All the chars you list are anime takes on those tropes, distinct from the western things they derive inspiration. It genuinely frustrates to use the term anime for only the weird sexy bits and incomprehensible stuff. It is ALL anime.

So its a panty fighter you're using another term for???

That's the official genre classification on famitsu. Kyonyu action, kyo meaning huge or gigantic and nyu being part of the word milk. Hey, a bit of humor is needed in these topics!

Firstly, you can go ahead and think that, I won't stop you, but I doubt we'd agree. Secondly, I'm not dismissing it, I'm saying that it and Fire Emblem are two completely different types of game. Comparing Senran Kagura to Fire Emblem is like comparing Fire Emblem to Dead Rising. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

SK deals with income disparity, parental abuse, orphan life, joining gangs as a means of survival, trying to decide if absolute white and black law and order is attainable, if evil is necessary for good to have any meaning. It shows that without evil, good tends to become the default evil due to human nature.

It doesn't sound like topics the dismissive term you keep describing the game as would invoke for one who knows nothing of it, now, does it.

The point isn't that it would be too sexual. The point is that it would be really fucking weird, in a game that's trying to go for a somewhat broad audience, or at least a broader audience than a panty fighter.

EDIT: Also, something I forgot, these games are largely marketed to preteens outside of Japan. I don't know how well that gels with bizarre petting game.

Dragon Quest IX was marketed to preteens, I distinctly remember an ad which could only be described as a barbie commercial. In that game there's countless of fetish outfits like the bloomer gym outfit or the sexy lingerie, you can also get motorboated (what in JP is called pafu pafu; sticking your head between two boobs and getting it massaged by them). There's also this fairy whom you can pet and tap on the bottom screen and she reacts in what uber puritans could describe as suggestively. The preeteens seemed to also not explode because of this stuff, mostly due to the fact that at that age these things go over your head.

Your definition of weird is your own, you are free to not buy the game if you feel that way, you don't get to change it.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Wow, this thread seems to have devolved even further into finger pointing territory. As sick as I am about the moral panic over sexuality in games coming from the progressives, can we please make sure there's actually any outrage on their end before we start freaking out? So many people are blaming those dastardly, mustache-twirling SJWs for censoring another game, despite the lack of any concerted effort to get it removed. The claim that the west is now a sexually puritanical dictatorship completely under their control is rather convenient, because it means anything and everything that is removed can now be labeled "preemptive self-censorship" without the villainous SJWs even being aware of it.
Ah, who am I kidding, a game being altered by Nintendo for localization purposes, that's never would have been done before the Dark Lord Anita's rise.

 

[Something Amyss]

I would take it back but if I pull out now they'll touch. Thats not a risk I'm willing to take. [http://www.celebtricity.com/guy-murders-best-friend-after-their-balls-touch-during-three-some/] I guess some guys pathetically feel that their masculinity is so threatened by merely touching another guy that the only way to resolve it is to murder the "offending" party are really dedicated to stupid internet jokes.

You know, I will go far for a joke or a pun.

But I wouldn't do that.

Also, you don't want men murdering one another? Am I going to have to file a report with the Matiarchy?

I'm not sure how to combat that. I mean what is it you actually need before you will accept that content is being cut from games because they think the west thinks sexuality is immoral - when of course this isn't true. A tiny minority of people have all this weird repressed sexuality shit. Like, do you actually need the Government to legislate on it? Like, is that what you need?

I'm curious as to how you got there from me talking about it not being a moral panic and the cries of such being in itself a moral panic.

I'm also curious as to why you'd ask me to assume into evidence things which are convenient for you with no apparent backing in reality.

Says the guy with the avatar of the Pearl Clutching Queen.

More like "says the girl with the avatar who triggers the pearl clutching."

And, I mean, that's kind of the point. Take a mild and rather boring internet critic who says some fairly uncontroversial things about games, and people scream and pitch a fit and clutch at pearls and then she's speaking before the United Nations because she's such a threat the totally not-pearl-clutchers decided it was necessary to threaten her, her family, and people around her.

That's a moral panic. That's pearl-clutching.

Now I'm being asked to give a crap that I can't stroke underage cartoon characters because somehow, the sort of localisation that's been happening my entire life is now some sort of slippery slope to...well, nobody's actually told me where, but it's censorship, and that alone means I should care.

I've spent the last two years watching people unironically recite "First They Came" over video games, supposedly it's other people who are the pearl-clutchers. The boring internet critic lady who explains cultivation theory for noobs is a pearl clutcher, but the ones who take that message and proclaim "she's coming to take your toys!" are not.

The very fact that people seem to be so unaware of just how long this "censorship" has been going on tells me that it wouldn't be a thing if it wasn't playing directly to outrage culture.

If there was less pearl clutching, my avatar would have no relevance. She'd still be an internet critic with like, 500 subs who made bland and occasionally snarky comments about whatever the latest movie release was.

In short...

I just found it funny that someone would complain about people overreacting while having an avatar depicting someone who has made their fortune and fame entirely based upon people overreacting.

Yup. People overreacting to her put her on the map. That doesn't make it funny or ironic. It bolsters my point.

 

[Something Amyss]

Self censorship is still censorship. It shouldn't be done.

You agreed to self-censor when you signed up for this site.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Things get changed all the time. If all Japanese games that were released in the US with all the weird Japanese stuff still in them, we probably wouldn't have very many Japanese games here at all. If getting rid of creepy petting and a ridiculous character issue to get more people to buy different games, then that is a good thing. Usually when a franchise gets big enough, people change dynamics of the game to make it more accessable to as many people as possible. This is called smart business practice. And considering the US buys more games than Japan at this point, well, you do the math.

People complain about artistic integrity too much. Jesus. It is like it isn't the companies themselves doing the alterations or something.

Self censorship is still censorship. It shouldn't be done.
Oh, and by the way, they left the cross-dressing in Final Fantasy VII. You know, the most popular RPG of all time?

Yes, it should be done. Just screaming 'censorship' is meaningless. It's not an 'I win' button. Actual thought can be put into reasons on why people usually dislike the idea of censorship, some shallow idea that the word is automatically evil isn't necessary to save frozen peaches.

 

[RaikuFA]

Kinda sucks Fire Emblem-Amie is being removed but as long as they do something about the grinding I can live with it removed.

 

[tippy2k2]

What's fun about rubbing someone's face until the plot can progress? It's basically just wrist exercise.

Plus I can think of an even better wrist exercise that involves rubbing with a better payoff!

[small]Thank you! I'll be here all night! Don't forget to tip your waitress![/small]

Sounds like nothing of value was lost. I'm sure there are people heartbroken over the lack of a face rubbing mini-game but I am not one of them.

 

[Foolery]

I'm more annoyed at Nintendo for chopping the game up into 2 1/2 chunks, and announcing DLC before release, honestly. I don't give a damn about some petting game. Nothing of value was lost.

 

[Czann]

Dude! Just do it like Germany and make everyone in the game robots that bleed green slime. Axe the strategy/tactics and make it a shooter filled with american stereotypes and imagery.

Better yet! Just murder the damn game already and put it out of its misery.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Oh no...that was holding the game together. Really, is anyone seriously going to miss this?

I would have liked this to remain, frankly. With how much they're removing, and the fact that they split it into three damn games, I might just not bother with it at all.

How much they're removing? They removed one stupid mini-game and one scene. You make it sound like they're completely butchering the game into something unrecognizable.

Though if you want to skip out on it for it being three games, by all means, that's understandable.

But I would have liked that stupid minigame.

 

[hentropy]

The problem of course is Nintendo. Unlike the Soleil debacle, which was a case of "this was so stupid it shouldn't have even been done in Japan", this appears to be more of a case of "too weirdly sexual for western audiences" and Nintendo wanting to make it at least ostensibly safe for kids/young teens to play.

If it were any other publisher it probably would have stayed in, or even them releasing an "uncut" version with a higher rating.

 

[Bat Vader]

Why not make two separate versions. One where the stuff is cut and one where the game is in its original unaltered state besides English. That way both camps can be happy.

 

[Paragon Fury]

"They're not coming for your games."
- Jim, the Jimquisition

I wish I could edit video, just for that clip so I could use it when needed.

But as for this...I feel like I should screenshot every single page in this thread so that everyone who is in favor of this, or saying that "its fine" can never ever go back or try and dodge their position again.

I'm just not sure I want to make that many enemies at one time.

Because by saying this is fine, you have hereby and forever forfeited your right to EVER, EVER ***** about censorship EVER again. Because you're just proving that you WANT censorship and are okay with it - when you like it. When its okay and doesn't affect something YOU want. Because I'm 100% willing to bet real US dollars that some of the very same people in this thread saying this is acceptable or okay are the same people who if they found out the next Witcher or Fallout or Blizzard game had this kind of censorship (or censorship at all) would be incredibly irate and demanding it be changed or fixed, or at the very least voicing their extreme displeasure.

As for the topic at hand; the SJWs and whatever-the-fuck-wave we're on now feminism have won, or are now very much on the very edge of victory. They have gotten what they wanted - self-censorship in order to avoid the media shitstorm people like Sarkeesian and Chu are capable of kicking up. There are still enough old guard and people my age who aren't buying this shit for there to still be a market, but I'm calling it right now; within one or two generations the SJWs will be in complete control and it will be diversity quotas, games being canned for not being "sensitive" enough or whatever other tripe they use to measure the "correctness" of art at that time.

And lest you not forget and come in try to call "hyperbole" and "overreaction" - we were assured that SJWs and their ilk were "no threat". That nothing would come of them.

And in less than two years we have a major US developer (Blizzard) getting caught trying to sneak through changes on one of their characters, while the lead Dev on another game has expressed a desire to change the designs of major characters to suit "modern" tastes (Metzen, on wanting to change the Dragon Aspects and possibly others).

We have one developer not releasing their newest game in the US and Europe (Team Ninja, DoA) despite the game's predecessor's making the bulk of their profit overseas.

And now we have Nintendo heavily censoring a game because of this.

1 time is an anomaly. 2 times is a coincidence. 3 times is a pattern.

Does it need to be 5 or 6 before you're willing to admit to it?

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

"They" didn't take your games away. Nintendo took a minigame out. I don't see how removing one part of a game counts as taking your games away.

Dude. Stop throwing around the word censorship like that. I didn't want to associate people willingly changing their work with censorship, but people kept insisting that self-censorship was a thing, so fine. Censorship is constantly used as a loaded word, people act like every time it happens is a horrible encroachment on freedom of speech and people who supports it hate freedom. However, self-censorship is also a thing, therefore I cannot stand by censorship being an always evil thing, because doing that would mean I am denying developers the right to change their own. Goddamn. Work. So yeah. Maybe take a step back before you start declaring what other people have the "right" to do. You do not have that authority, you will never have that authority. That'd mean something if developers changing things was a black or white morality thing, a concept I do not and will never buy. The developer changed the game. No one forced them to do it. They changed it in a way that they thought would reach the audience better. You can disagree with it if they want, but they are not in any moral wrong by changing it.

Trust me, if SJWs "Won" there'd be a lot more smug rubbing it in. There's always been self-censorship every time someone releases something to a general public. Developers, writers and artist tweak their work all the time, because most of us don't like pissing people off, and I really don't see what's so terrible about that. The fact that you think this is a recent development reflects a severe lack of understanding on your part on how the creative process works.
Diversity quotas? Either you're being extremely sarcastic or you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Seriously, can you please draw me a map to how we get from "One minigame maybe 10% of the western audience was actually interested in removed" to diversity quotas? Because there's a pretty damn big gap there.

You honestly consider this a threat? The removing of skinshipping? Really? If this wasn't under everyone's microscope, it would've been removed and everyone would've gone on their way being none the wiser.

Developers want to change their characters. Again. I fail to see what's so horrible about this. Maybe it's because I'm a writer who's changed my work on several occasions to avoid pissing people off with no shame about it, but this all comes across as much ado about nothing.

Yeah, making the bulk of its profits overseas. Because it was an xbox exclusive (A console that has absolutely no support base in Japan) for the first game and stopped being that afterwards, whereupon the majority of sales were in its home region.

Taking out one mini-game and changing one scene = heavily censoring? That's barely any changes made. What's the qualification for censorship to be "heavy"?

Admit what? That localization is a thing? Nintendo described this as business as usual. Just because it took sensationalist news for people to realize this was a thing doesn't mean it wasn't a thing before now. Hell, people were more than happy with it when it was done in a way they liked. Or do Ace Attorney fans not realize that the original Japanese Maya didn't talk about how she wanted to eat hamburgers all the time?

Bottom line, I really don't see the removal of one of the dumbest video games I've ever seen as a violation of any kind of freedoms, nor do I see how it's supposed to lead to anything worse.