I've read dozens of threads on the topic of localisation changes and I've skimmed through this one and... I'm annoyed. I usually keep out of these, but I feel like writing down my 5 cents on the topic. I am annoyed both by the localisation changes and by the way of discussion surrounding them. Let me give you some background and introduction.
I am from Germany. I am used to localisation - missions being completely altered in Call of Duty games, blood and gore being completely removed in other games, dialogue changes in both movies and games because eff it even if it's an evil character he shouldn't go that far. (on the other hand, as has been given as an example in those threads by other Germans quite often, something like the Dead or Alive Xtreme games or Senran Kagura, to take two of the most titilating games out there, get an age rating of "12"... and "16" for Europe overall)
Anyway, as a kid of the early 90s, I was a huge fan of the
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. HERO Turtles, US fans might ask - Isn't it
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Yeah. UKs fault - they had it out for "Ninja" and especially "Nunchucks" back in the day, so EVERYTHING aimed at potentially younger audiences had to have the word "Ninja" removed, as well as any depiction of "Nunchucks" and I think ninja stars and similiar things were also affected. So they became the "HERO Turtles" and any scene and mention of characters such as Michelangelo fighting with Nunchucks was cut out. This was the case for all European releases, they even changed parts of the merchandise. In Germany, for some releases, they even 'localised' more of the battle scenes and dialogue, basically reducing some episodes to "some anthro-turtles throwing around smart-ass one-liners and... eh... somehow win the episode, we guess?" instead of "LOOK AT THOSE TURTLE NINJAS BEATING UP THE BAD GUYS WITH THEIR NINJA WEAPONS".
Point being, the tone changed. It was a similiar, but also quite different show in Europe. Another example for a 180° tone change was the European release
Probotector, that one futuristic shoot and run game by Konami where you're playing two cool robots who shoot other mechanical menaces in the jungle, apocalyptic city landscapes, alien bases, more jungles. US and Japan knows this game as
Contra and being more Rambo than SciFi.
Again, point being, the tone changed, this time even more drastically. They pulled that in Germany with
Command&Conquer and
Soldier of Fortune as well - everyone was replaced by robots!
Now when I got older, had access to other sources of information (start of the internet age! YAY!), I got aware of a whole lot of things that changed for our releases. And it annoyed me, really. Not because I didn't enjoy what we got - I did, I was a kid and the products were still pretty neat - but because someone somewhere decided FOR ME as an adult what I should enjoy and what I shouldn't enjoy. As a mostly PC gamer in the late 90s period, this was easy to get around. Blood patches which restored the original games as the US, UK etc. got them for us in Germany. Was
Baldur's Gate a better game now that critical hits resulted in gore and there being blood every now and then? Well, critical hits now had an actual IMPACT and visual representation, though I've enjoyed it before the blood patch as well. Was
Unreal Tournament a better game with blood and gore (completely missing in German versions)? Well, depends, if you've played it competitively, you probably disabled blood and gore and gibs for performance and better visibility
To this day, I import the few shooting and action games I am interested in from UK or sometimes even USA when cuts are done for the whole of Europe (such as in
The Last of Us).
Again, what gets me here isn't WHAT is changed, it is that somewhere someone decides to change something from another cultural context or maker for an intended audience - and not in the way of "OK we can't use this saying because they won't understand it in another language" or "Hey, this word has a different meaning in another language and needs to be described, let's change the dialogue to translate the intention of the dialogue itself, not just the words according to dictionary", that's fair, that's localisation and translation (I've worked as a translator a few years back, it's actually a very creative process if done right). Completely regardless of if it's government or a company (I hate the semantics discussion that gets up in these threads so OK lets say its all localisation, whatever). I get it when it's a product for kids, you have different social norms everywhere and while in Germany and really most of Europe it's totally fine to show light sexual content or PG13 nudity in a TV program aimed at younger audiences, violence is not. US, it's vice versa almost. OK, whatever, change it (such as the small changes in Animal Crossing).
BUT, and this is a big BUT, something like
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE or
Fatal Frame/Zero V, that's aimed at older teens and adults! As an ADULT, I want to have to make this decision for myself - do I want a game like that with this sort of content, or do I not want this? And if I don't want this... I look into another product. There's other RPGs and horror games which put their focus on something else, so everyone should be happy because not everything has to be for everyone. Now of course it is well within Nintendos right to do whatever they want during localisation, but it is also well within the potentially paying customers right to complain about it (or agree with it). I should at this point note that I am a huge fan of Nintendo games and still buy most of their games, I look really forward towards Fire Emblem Fates next week (Europe here, I am annoyed at the omissions, but I don't feel they change the overall tone enough too make me not enjoy the game) but I am really not sure if I will get Tokyo Mirage Sessions (and I am as big an Atlus fan as I am a Nintendo fan so this was basically one of my most wanted games this year).
Another example from myself. I am not squeamish about fictional violence, but even with character action being my favorite genre (loving even the over the top violent
OG Ninja Gaiden 2, the
Devil May Cry series EVEN Donte,
Bayonetta etcetc) I can't really enjoy
God of War III. It somehow has a sort of cynical depiction of violence which gets me sick to the stomach (and YES, also violence against helpless human soldiers and naked women). Now do I proclaim about this in every thread about God of War? "How can you sick monsters enjoy this violent gore fest? It would be SO much better without the violence because the violence offends me/makes me uneasy so WHY wouldn't you just replace the violent parts with... dust. Like in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. It wouldn't change the gameplay. At all."... but I don't. Because I don't need the whole world spinning around me and my wishes and also because I can understand WHY someone would enjoy this, I am happy for every fan of God of War that a God of War 4 is coming which is probably going to be even more extremely violent and without that violence, it wouldn't be God of War. It would have a completely different tone. I can deal with this, and just play other games in the genre more fit for my own personal tastes.
I also have a strong dislike for anything with realistic military settings. Well, not many shooting games left for me as you can imagine. I was actually slightly amused at that thread a few days back about the
Battlefield 1 remake and a journalists opinion about how he found it too violent and real. Fair enough, it's a understandable opinion even if you disagree with it. Funnily the conversation then went on in a similiar way like the fanservice conversation, only now with people who like militaristic violent games justifying their taste and sometimes even ridiculing the author for being sensible about the topic. "It's just pixels/videogames who cares!!!". Some of the posters there were the same ones which go into fanservice threads and yell about the anime avatar people...
On that topic - Now why is it that everytime there is a game with even the slightest hint of fanserivce, there's this army hivemind coming down on it with fists of anger, explaining why it would be the better game without the hints of fanservice, why fans of fanservice must be some sort of dumb, sexist people? I get it, different opinions, and maybe you care about a localization change or you don't, whatever. But why also go to lengths to belittle people who, for whatever reasons (be it "I hate if a product changes its tone in localisation", "I like virtual boobies" or "I just want the same experience other Japanese players got") are against those changes or even angry at them (happening so very often with Nintendo products lately, especially)? And why, really, I want to get behind this, why are there people who make it look like as if every single person who defends fanservice or speaks out against localisation changes in threads like those be automatically almost GG level of evilness?
(This was painted in a broad brush. I know there are many cool moderate people on NeoGAF who are able to discuss something without behaving like that - and I am very PRO discussion of themes and undertones in videogames and wether they're a positive or a negative trend. This sort of discussion on games is slowly reaching academia as well and that's always a good sign for the maturing of a medium. But there are also a lot of posters in threads like these who I really feel get very personal, very condescending towards people who... like fanservice or dislike localisation changes like these in TMS. To be clear, though, there are also a lot of fanservice fans here who sometimes do the same the other way around, making this kind of discussion feeling very heated at times even if in the end, at least in this thread, we're discussing virtual bikinis basically. Feel the heat, eh. )
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Imagine for some reason, ninjas are now the next 'bad thing' in the US. Maybe someone points out something about Ninja ideology being a bad influence, or certain weapon and symbols being banned or misused by some people deemed evil by the general public.
Shadow Warrior 2 will release, but for the US version, and US version only, they would change everything about ninjas, swords and shurikens, mythology and make it about fencing and crossbows.. also, instead of snarky-sarcastic violence loving remarks, the character would talk about his long-lost love from the Vicotrian era. It would be otherwise the same game, but... would you be OK with that? Having it changed in localisation to be something quite different in tone? Now imagine a game where one dungeon centers around the topic of "Sports Illustrated Bikini issue" style idol-photoshoots and the uneasyness of one of the characters who tries to get into showbiz to partake in such things for popularity and an evil character being obsessed by doing these kind of shoots. It's almost a Persona game, it is centered about the inner conflicts of its characters (also the evil ones). Yeah, they just changed the topic of the photoshoots and changed the character dialogue, yet they immediately change a lot of the tone of this game and the characters in it.
If Nintendo wants to make games without fanservice, I am actually very fine with it. We got other products with fanservice for those who like this kind of thing and yeah,
some games would even be better if they didn't even have fanservice in their original versions. One example actually being Fatal Frame/Zero V, the horror game with the ghost cameras. The bikini costume which made that one character so uneasy during one scene with a creepy photographer (also explaining her reservations to the spirit camera and the topic of photographs) being unlockable for her to wear in the game kinda defeated the intention of the scene where it was made a point that she does not like it. So I would and actually do prefer the bikinis NOT in the game. Yet they WERE in the game in its original release so I feel the games should be the SAME in every region in that regard. I wouldn't care even a bit if they would already produce the games with "OK no even slightly sexual content in this game" and release them without fanservice in Japan and the same version in the West. There would be no change. The change during localisation/translation is what gets me (and if I read it correctly, a lot of other people as well) and it should actually get everyone who are interested in video game as an art form because only because today, it's "just" Nintendo changing some character skins, changing some storylines, replacing some quests in regards to sexual tones..." What if it's something else in the future? I mean, those living in America, imagine Trump winning and America changing within a couple of years and suddenly, depiction of gay characters or certain political undertones will be a "no-no" all over again? Or ninjas are now outlawed? That would suck
(also, this post got a lot longer than I anticipated. Sorry for the wall of text...)
