If they remove something but replace it with something else, I don't think as many people would be as "mad" or "disappointed". There will of course still be people complaining but not as many I would think. Removal and just leaving a gaping hole is what some have a problem with.
Fire Emblem Fates' localization doesn't have the petting minigame
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Can we stay on topic please?
I can read the original Japanese, I am not relying on anyone's interpretation but my own and I think it's pretty cut and dry. It's a mix of many homophobic (specifically lesbophobic) tropes and the horrific idea that spiking someone's drink is fun and games (the main character uses it as an in). Arguing that it's not literally conversion therapy is splitting hairs. The idea that girls will grow out of their "gay phase" and that being a lesbian is weird and something needing to be fixed (via rape or therapy), if only they just meet the right man are all part and parcel of gay conversion therapy philosophy.
Wouldn't reprogramming of this nature be handled by Intelligent Systems? Not sure how redoing stuff like this for localization works.
Bumbletron
Member
I think it would certainly be difficult, but who knows. If they remove something of this size, I think it would make everything a lot better if they added in something as a substitute. And they've had quite a bit of time to work on it, so perhaps they were able to get some help to do something like that. There may be some slight hope.
"There's a hole where my husubando should be." I have faith in NoA to make up for it by doing something like this for us.
"What are you playing there, Billy?"
" Hey dad, it's the new Fire Emblem game!"
"Wow, the dialogue and subject matter is so mature, with no weird shit anywhere to be seen."
"Yeah, the medium is really mature now and should validate my hobby of choice in your opinion of me."
"Billy you are, by extension, mature and wise beyond your years. After all these years of me busting your balls for it, your choice of hobby has finally been validated to me, seeing that you take interest in such a refined artistic medium without any weird shit."
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
And like I was saying, honestly, I feel exactly the same way. I also feel the same understanding and leeway should be given to the localizers, however. Especially if they are in house localizers. And that is something I feel should be a bit more prevalent. Because, just as Japanese designers have their ways, American designers have their own. The localizers have the terrible job of trying to bring us the closest thing to the core experience the Japanese players had while still making it marketable to a substantial portion of the Western market, including many who don't/wouldn't care to understand the cultural differences.
That was the whole reason I brought up the theoretical argument. Because if that was both the case and we all knew about it, this whole discussion would be entirely different.
I found Junpei to be much more bear-able. Especially with the character development about 2/3rds of the way in. He definitely grew on me, and grew as a person throughout the game. Yosuke had his arc and 'change' much too soon and had no way to grow after the first 20 minutes. He was a throwaway character for me. Plus, just look at this derpy face.
Where is he looking?
Movalpolos
Banned
Having these things removed from the US version doesn't give Nintendo a pass. It's there and exists as the originally intended work.
Bumbletron
Member
Into your soul. Also about 4 cm to the left of that.
It's simpler to just remove the trigger of skinship to get dialogue (the current game is: take them to room when the "!" prompt appears -> skinship minigame test -> get dialogue). It should be fairly easy to see which step can be removed. Make them emote/blush/whatever as if the petting had occurred when you start the event, and then trigger the dialogue. That way its just made out to be a bonding exercise (or intimate if you are "S" ranked) but no touching minigames involved.
This is simply removing flags and disabling the check for "proper" use of skinship to make the unit happy. Rather than expecting Treehouse/IntSys to program in a completely new Fallout 4 dialogue choice system.
It depends entirely on the localization company in question. Not all of them have dedicated programmers, or have access to the tools they'd need to do that kind of thing, etc etc. Some do.
Bumbletron
Member
That seems to be in line with what most would expect, following barracks conversations in Awakening. Fair enough.
(I did have to refrain from taking a dig at Fallout 4's dialogue system)
veloxStrix
Banned
Ruined, not buying it.
I don't think it was particularly creepy - well, taken out of context one of the characters seems pretty strange - but, like the Soleil conversation, I don't think taking it out really harms the game. The game is excellent and removing anything that could become some dumb headline make someone say, "I'm not buying that," is fine with me.
I already have the Japanese version. 
I don't think it was particularly creepy - well, taken out of context one of the characters seems pretty strange - but, like the Soleil conversation, I don't think taking it out really harms the game. The game is excellent and removing anything that could become some dumb headline make someone say, "I'm not buying that," is fine with me.
This is a weird issue for me to comment on. On one side, it's a utter trash side-game that they are removing, on the other side, they're removing content from the game without seemingly putting anything in place instead of it.
Do I really care about its omission? Not really. Should I be glad that Ninty cut out totally optional content from my game? Absolutely not. In the end I'm just sad they didn't bother replacing the face petting with some Pegasus and Wyvern petting but went for the cheap old cut.
Do I really care about its omission? Not really. Should I be glad that Ninty cut out totally optional content from my game? Absolutely not. In the end I'm just sad they didn't bother replacing the face petting with some Pegasus and Wyvern petting but went for the cheap old cut.
Astral Dog
Member
This shoud be the default answer on this thread, but it got messy too soon.
Bumbletron
Member
charlequin
Banned
When people talk about this issue in a vacuum, sure, it sounds weird because why shouldn't what's okay for one country be okay for another? We were all against the Xenosaga content censorship, right?
The problem is that this isn't actually a situation that arises in a vacuum. It used to be that there was plenty of trashy, pervy stuff in Japanese games, but it was in games that made sense -- from softcore T&A sims like DoAX or Onechanbara all the way to hardcore H-games -- while other stuff was, by and large, actually appropriate to whatever type of theme and genre they represent.
Over time (the last decade or so, especially) a combination of cultural and economic factors (the ultra-low birthrate, the relative unacceptability of gaming as an adult hobby, etc.) have combined to make the financial sustainability of games made primarily for the Japanese market very precarious. The result has been a well-documented effect where, with general audience purchases dwindling, publishers have decided to go after people who will actually spend a lot of money by aggressively targeting the pervert otaku market with every game, regardless of what any other part of its setup would suggest.
Over here in the US, videogames are very much a general market product for all ages, and people have a strong expectation that the content in a game will match its external presentation, the exact same way they'd expect in a movie. Much like people who might enjoy an R-rated erotic thriller could still get upset at a random, incongruous strip show in the middle of a PG or PG-13 fantasy adventure movie, people who might have no problem with explicitly erotic games or contextualized mature content might still be turned off by jokily outrageous fetish imagery in what's supposed to be a serious story, or random sexual minigames in a previously conservative and restrained tactical RPG series, or having to beat magical women and choke them with dog collars or whatever just to explore a dungeon. If people see this kind of incongruous thing, some of them are maybe going to say "fuck this" and stay away from the game, or the series, or the publisher.
Because Nintendo doesn't need a specific ultra-niche community of big-spending perverts just to have a successful game launch here like apparently everyone does in Japan now, and because losing audience members because of a distaste for random fetish pandering isn't really conducive to their brand goals, it only makes sense for NOA to cut as much of this stuff as they can out and try to have a product that at least vaguely targets an audience of normal people.
I know for a fact that I would not have picked up Awakening if it wasn't for Kozaki's great character designs.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
I'm always against censorship but that didn't have any business in being a part of a FE game, so personally, for selfish reasons I'm glad they've removed it and I actually think of this as the definitive edition now
I don't really see how this is fetish pandering though. Maybe if there's more lewd content that I haven't seen, but from what I have seen it mostly looks like a goofy feature that was lifted from the Pokemon games and not to be taken entirely seriously.
Like, I'm having trouble seeing a sexual or perverted interpretation of this.
I'm going to have to see evidence of this as that seems like a big assumption on your part.
Bumbletron
Member
It wasn't just taken from a pokemon game unfortunately. It has been in many other games as early as 2004 from the earliest I can reference from experience. I recently played through Feel The Magic: XY/XX and it was in that. There was also something almost exactly like the game in Fates in Project Diva F2nd.
The fetish part I can't speak to myself.
I think it can count as creepy, but not in a "ban this sick filth" way but more like "this is a really weird thing to put in for nebulous reasons and with unusual character reactions." Petting probably is right in a sense, as it's like adding normal cat/dog adoration... To another human character.
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
I don't really see how this is fetish pandering though. Maybe if there's more lewd content that I haven't seen, but from what I have seen it mostly looks like a goofy feature that was lifted from the Pokemon games and not to be taken entirely seriously.
Like, I'm having trouble seeing a sexual or perverted interpretation of this.
The stylus is a symbolic representation of the player's penis.
/s
Metalstrike
Member
Yep.
SenorArdilla
Member
I want them to spoil specifics though.
Mass Effect
Member
I don't really see how this is fetish pandering though. Maybe if there's more lewd content that I haven't seen, but from what I have seen it mostly looks like a goofy feature that was lifted from the Pokemon games and not to be taken entirely seriously.
Like, I'm having trouble seeing a sexual or perverted interpretation of this.
So I've been on virtually media blackout for this game and wasn't quite sure what this mini game entailed.
But now seeing this... yeah, no. I'm fine with this being gone.
Elaugaufein
Member
I don't really want spoilers exactly but not all details are spoilers. "We substituted in a different conversation set / we cut the entire thing but fixed the mechanical problems (reducing the avatar's ability access) and child characters access to abilities by Y / we cut things with no regards for the mechanical consequences so suck it" or "We removed the touching mini-game content (but kept the rest of the content) / (entirely) " are all better explanations than what has been given without spoiling anything.
From what I'm told it's more the things that the male characters will say to a female avatar during this are particularly suggestive? Things like "I'm going to mess you up" and whatnot.
FE got a lot of female fans with Awakening, and this feature seems designed to pander to them more than the male fans, heh.
And that gif, like many people, doesn't factor the lewd lines in that mode.
Crash Station
Member
Everything else you've said is definitely a proper analysis of the shifting demographics in Japan, but is this really necessary, especially that last line? Steve's been really cool about this, even if he secretly feels the same way.
Come on, mate, you just compared it to a minigame where you interact with pets in a decidedly pet-master like fashion. Which makes sense for Pokemon, and somewhat less so for Fire Emblem. Whether you want to frame it in terms of power dynamics or generally goofiness or sexuality is up to you, but I don't think it's difficult to imagine that interpretation.
That is a bit of a downside. Female gaze stuff doesn't normally get anywhere near as much play in the West.
Crash Station
Member
A few years ago? Try almost a decade ago. There's even been threads about it, not that they'd fly now.
There was no way those would have remained uncensored anyway. It's just disingenuous to pretend this mode is limited to pat a unit and telling him / her "good job".
Mr Fahrenheit
Member
Why though? I don't like that they changed that conversation, but I get the thought process and reasoning behind changing it. This is just removing something for the sake of it. Like, I'm hardly canceling my preorder over it or anything, I forgot it even existed and it's not a feature I ever pay attention to in games that have it, but why take it out? What's so terribly inappropriate about some weird minigame where you slide your stylus on a characters face that they had to go through the effort of removing it?
And what planet are the people with the "oh yea, I'm glad this super creepy and disgusting feature was removed" type replies living on? You could probably post that gif on the Neopets forums and you wouldn't even get a warning.
And what planet are the people with the "oh yea, I'm glad this super creepy and disgusting feature was removed" type replies living on? You could probably post that gif on the Neopets forums and you wouldn't even get a warning.
Elaugaufein
Member
Hmmmm I wonder how hard it would be just to insert the officially translated English into the jp version of the game?
This way, you can have the unaltered game?
Given there's already a (mostly complete storyline wise) fan translation of the Japanese version subbing in the official English translation should actually be relatively easy if anyone is inclined to do so. There might be some issues though depending on exactly what they do with (Soleil / My Room / other things that effect the programming) since depending on how they handle the changes it might alter where / what the game expects to look for some stuff. Of course anything they leave out of the English version won't be translated and you may get garbage text as a result depending on how things are handled.
Elaugaufein
Member
Hmmmm.. This is interesting. I still don't see anything inappropriate here either.
I think what's happening here is people are seeing what they want to see rather than what is actually there. Some of that is due to people assuming the anime trope of a blushing girl is somehow lewd.
I find that these people who think that have had a limited sampling of anime in general and it was a negative experience.
She literally blushed, got serious for sec, and then the screen faded to white. I don't even know what to say...
watching this (and yes dat be lewd) really makes me think the real reason was because it took too much work getting all the needed VAs. Never knew it was that deep lol.
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