It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
The JRPG Days are not over yet!
You've been playing Zwei: The Arges Adventure and Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds while snagging genre classics on the cheap from our jRPG Days sale. Now it's time to take a look behind the scenes: team leader Ken Berry and localization producer Thomas Lipschultz have taken some time to chat with us about how XSEED handles the release and localization of their beloved JRPG series.
The interview is broken down into two parts, for convenience. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow, January 30.

So, let's start with a quick year in review – from your professional point of view, has 2017 been good to Japanese games in the West?

Ken: Yes, I would say that 2017 has been a very good year for Japanese games in the West. The obvious big winner is Nintendo with their extremely successful launch of the Switch, as I remember some Japanese executives being concerned whether the idea of one machine being both a home console and a portable machine could succeed in North America where public transportation is not nearly as prevalent as Japan.
The PC platform also continues to get more support from the Japanese gaming industry. Not only are you seeing more instances of simultaneous PC launches with the console release, but they seem to be gradually accepting the idea of DRM-free on PC as well, which had always been a huge challenge in the past because they would often mistakenly equate “DRM-free” to “free.”

A lot can be said about different sensibilities in Japan vs. the West. In the past year, maybe more than ever, sexuality, sexualization, and consent, are talked about in mainstream Western culture – taboos are being broken and lines being drawn. Has this had an impact on your approach and your work?

Tom: As a company, I think it’s definitely made us stop and take stock of a game’s content a lot earlier in the process than ever before, so we know well in advance whether there will be any potentially problematic content, and can prepare ourselves to deal with that content as production ramps up.
For me specifically, it’s been kind of an inner struggle, as I think a lot of people are aware that I have a personal zero-tolerance policy for censorship in video games, along with a fairly broad definition of what constitutes censorship (for me, it consists of any content changes made not out of legal or contractual necessity, but solely in an attempt to avoid offending or upsetting members of the target audience). Despite this, I do fully understand that from a business standpoint – and even from a moral standpoint – it’s always best to avoid upsetting your fans, because obviously, an upset fan is not going to remain a fan for very long, and signing off on upsetting or troublesome language or imagery is never something anyone wants to do!
The problem I have, though, is that I truly do consider video games – ALL video games – to be art, and just as it wouldn’t feel right to me if someone painted over offensive material in a painting, edited out offensive material in a book, or cut offensive material from a film, I don’t want to see anyone (least of all us) editing out offensive material in games. My thought is, if it’s that offensive, then we probably shouldn’t be releasing the game at all – though that’s obviously not always a realistic option.
Recently, however, with all the news that’s come out about systemic sexual harassment and abuse in Hollywood and elsewhere, as well as the issues being faced by the LGBTQ community in this modern political climate, it’s become much harder to justify maintaining a zero-tolerance approach – and with a lot of Japanese games starting to really push the boundaries of “good taste” more and more, the looming threat of censorship has become much larger and more imposing than ever, and certainly more of a beast to fight on multiple levels. And it’s really not a battle I WANT to fight – I’d rather just localize games that everybody can enjoy!
I still hold firm in my belief, however, that if we want video games to be classified as an art form on par with books, films, and paintings, we need to maintain zero tolerance for censorship in localization, no matter how offensive the content we’re localizing may be. And if there’s any positive to be gained by doing so, it’s that the presence of offensive content in localized titles will spark much-needed discussion about those topics, and hopefully lead to a dialogue on the state of the industry in Japan, possibly even resulting in creators being a little more cognizant of people outside their tight-knit circle of acquaintances when designing new titles from here on out.
But for the immediate future, I believe content alteration will occur a little more often in the West than it has before (hopefully not by us, but regrettably, that isn’t outside the realm of possibility!), while little else will change for the industry overseas. My solace lies in the thought that we’ll just keep getting more games like the Zwei titles to work on: superb examples of classic action JRPG design with content that’s often snarky and a little mischievous, but never crosses the line into offensive territory, and thus isn’t at any risk of being toned down in localization. Those remain a joy to work on, and the more games of that sort I’m given, the less worried I’ll be about censorship moving forward.

The titles. We need to talk about the game titles...
What is it that makes Japanese naming conventions so different? How do you approach localizing a game's title, and what does it take to make it work in the West?


Tom: I don’t think most Japanese naming conventions are all that different, honestly, save for the fact that they’re usually much longer than the names we tend to see here (with subtitles on top of subtitles, e.g. “Corpse Party: BloodCovered: …Repeated Fear”). Which, I believe, is mostly attributable to some general differences in the way games are advertised in Japan, with more text meaning a bigger poster on the wall and more space allotted to discuss the game in print… not to mention the ability to strike a pose and rattle off a long name, looking and sounding kind of dorkily awesome in the process!
In the Western world, though, we’re definitely all about succinct naming: something short and to the point, that rolls off the tongue, with one or two words being the ideal. Especially if it’s unique enough to be Googlable! We want the name to be easy to remember so that prospective fans can always find information on it at a moment’s notice, even if they haven’t heard anyone talking about the game for quite some time.
I assume you’re speaking more in terms of translations, though (“Sen no Kiseki” → “Trails of Cold Steel”), as well as the rare addition of subtitles (“Zwei!!” → “Zwei: The Arges Adventure”). In the former case, the goal is to come up with something that remains relatively true to the original Japanese but still sounds snappy and natural in English, with bonus points for picking a name that perfectly fits the tone and content of the game (as “Trails of Cold Steel” most definitely does).
And in the latter case, we were really just trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that we were releasing “Zwei II” before “Zwei” – a luxury afforded us by the fact that the two games tell standalone stories, and necessitated by the fact that Zwei II was finished and ready for release quite a bit sooner. We considered numerous possible subtitles for both games, but ultimately chose “The Ilvard Insurrection” for Zwei II because… well, it preserved the acronym, “Zwei:II”!
We attempted something similar with the first game, but despite our best attempts, we couldn’t come up with any viable names that would form the acronyms ONE, EINS, or even WAN, nor any single-word subtitles beginning with the letter I. We settled on AA to preserve the double lettering of Ilvard Insurrection, and because A is the first letter of the alphabet… and also because the first Zwei is a pretty tough game, so we anticipated a lot of people would be saying “AAAAAA” when playing it!
Post edited January 29, 2018 by maladr0Id
avatar
kohlrak: There's alot to be said about Japanese language preferring gender neutral pronouns (thanks to the double meaning of the gender specific pronouns possibly implicating a relationship [彼女, for example, can mean "she/her" or it can also mean "girlfriend" which can easily become confusing, so そいつ, which is gender neutral, becomes preferred]), which leads to situations like with Poison from street fighter not really having a clear original gender. On one hand, they could've be subtly testing the trans idea, it's also possible that it really was a mistranslation in the manuals.

Then there's also the fact that, while names typically do have genders, Japanese is one of those languages where you can easily end up with A Boy Named Sue, especially when using western names whose genders they cannot imply to the same degree as us. We know a name like Vivian is feminine, but did it sound like a masculine name to the creators (Vivi from final fantasy IX is perceived masculine)? Was it homosexuality that was censored, or was the name important enough that changing the sexuality of the character worth it, due to an extra added meaning that the Japanese audience would not have perceived (in other words, did it over-hilight the hoosexuality to the point of potentially distracting from the story?)? I'm not familiar with the case being referenced, to be honest.
Of course, I could mention another character from Final Fantasy 9: Quina. Quina could be considered to be an example of a non-binary character; that is, one who is neither male nor female. This, incidentally, can pose issues when translating the game into highly gendered languages (for example, in many Romance languages, such as Spanish, adjectives are conjugated based off the gender of the noun being modified). Then there's a bit of a strange issue, when Quina marries Vivi in one scene.

Incidentally, Square has played a bit with sexuality and gender even before then. In Final Fantasy 6, Terra could be considered asexual; she doesn't find someone like Edgar attractive, and she doesn't seem attracted to Celes, either. There's even a bit of dialog about this after she first encounters Edgar. Then, there's SaGa Frontier, in which there's the relationship between Asellus and Gina; it goes even far enough for you (Asellus) to be given the opportunity to rescue Gina after she's been kidnapped. Final Fantasy 7 has a crossdressing scene, as well as tohe fact that it's possible for Cloud to go on a date with Barret.
avatar
kohlrak: There's alot to be said about Japanese language preferring gender neutral pronouns (thanks to the double meaning of the gender specific pronouns possibly implicating a relationship [彼女, for example, can mean "she/her" or it can also mean "girlfriend" which can easily become confusing, so そいつ, which is gender neutral, becomes preferred]), which leads to situations like with Poison from street fighter not really having a clear original gender. On one hand, they could've be subtly testing the trans idea, it's also possible that it really was a mistranslation in the manuals.

Then there's also the fact that, while names typically do have genders, Japanese is one of those languages where you can easily end up with A Boy Named Sue, especially when using western names whose genders they cannot imply to the same degree as us. We know a name like Vivian is feminine, but did it sound like a masculine name to the creators (Vivi from final fantasy IX is perceived masculine)? Was it homosexuality that was censored, or was the name important enough that changing the sexuality of the character worth it, due to an extra added meaning that the Japanese audience would not have perceived (in other words, did it over-hilight the hoosexuality to the point of potentially distracting from the story?)? I'm not familiar with the case being referenced, to be honest.
avatar
dtgreene: Of course, I could mention another character from Final Fantasy 9: Quina. Quina could be considered to be an example of a non-binary character; that is, one who is neither male nor female. This, incidentally, can pose issues when translating the game into highly gendered languages (for example, in many Romance languages, such as Spanish, adjectives are conjugated based off the gender of the noun being modified). Then there's a bit of a strange issue, when Quina marries Vivi in one scene.

Incidentally, Square has played a bit with sexuality and gender even before then. In Final Fantasy 6, Terra could be considered asexual; she doesn't find someone like Edgar attractive, and she doesn't seem attracted to Celes, either. There's even a bit of dialog about this after she first encounters Edgar. Then, there's SaGa Frontier, in which there's the relationship between Asellus and Gina; it goes even far enough for you (Asellus) to be given the opportunity to rescue Gina after she's been kidnapped. Final Fantasy 7 has a crossdressing scene, as well as tohe fact that it's possible for Cloud to go on a date with Barret.
And the interesting thing is, in most of these, it's definitely a case of humor. It was never meant to imply more than that, which is straight up apparent. Japanese humor usually capitalizes on Three's Company style jokes, where a situation is made excessively awkward by circumstances, and usually someone reacts in a way that would be "normal," but you the viewer have the extended knowledge that the guy freaking out doesn't have.

Terra, without going into spoilers, I think didn't go into her sexuality. It needs to be said that she reasonably might not have found humans attractive. Given her origins, if censorship was in order, that would've been a more ideal thing to censor out. When it comes into looking too deep into characters, she's a prime example. Her love of children suggests that she's interested in having kids of her own, but i immediately picked up on the idea that she's not found someone she felt is worthy, or that maybe she doesn't wish to bring a child into the world, for reasons that would also be spoiler. She seems more focused on the children, not unlike how many japanese men and women opt out of children, despite wanting them, to focus on their career.

EDIT: To be clear, I didn't finish FF6, yet. I had just gotten to the part where the party is separated. I found Terra's character to be particularly mature and depressing, which I think was the main point, more than anything about her sexuality. So, to say she stands out as asexual, to me, sounds alot like trying to make her what we want her to be instead of facing the reality of what her character is clearly meant to be: depressed, horribly, at the total lack of chance for any meaningful future. Which, as i understand it, to be teh overall theme and feel of FF6.
Post edited February 15, 2018 by kohlrak
avatar
LootHunter: 1. It's a cartoon.

2. Later they allowed homosexual romance.
1. Why does that matter?

2. In Gravity Falls? I don't recall any mention of homosexuality in that show whatsoever, and I've seen every episode... fairly recently. I know the creator WANTED there to be homosexual romance in the show, but sadly, that's the one thing Disney fought back on. They gave him full creative freedom in every other regard... but in that one instance, he was told no.

avatar
LootHunter: Sexually attractive women in sexually attractive poses and clothes are getting constant SJW backlash and censorship on the basis of men shouldn't be sexually aroused by women in games.
It's a real stretch to call that "censoring heterosexuality." Especially since I know plenty of women who find that sort of thing extremely attractive as well! Censoring salacious imagery isn't exclusively a heterosexual thing by any means.

avatar
LootHunter: Many Japaneese games with too sexually attractive women (DoA series for example) simply not released in US.
And that's not censorship at all. If a publisher is too uncomfortable to release a game in the domestic market, it is 100% appropriate for that publisher to refrain from releasing the game at all. It's when publishers decide to release it anyway, but then make cuts to it, that I take issue.

But to claim that this is censorship is kind of preposterous, as it basically assumes that the publisher has no free will whatsoever -- clearly, they HAVE to release every game players want, or else it's censorship! They simply have no say in the matter.

avatar
LootHunter: In Siege of the Dragonspear there was (allegedly) trans character. She was very poorly written, however, so there was backlash about it (the writing not the character). However, her (character) creator accused everyone who didn't like her of transfobia.
OK. And what's your point, exactly? A writer is accused of bad writing, and tries to shift the blame onto something else instead. That boils down to unprofessionalism -- nothing more. It has no real relevance to discussions of censorship. If your point was to use it as an example of "SJW culture" or something... no, it's not even that. If what you say is true, then it's just an example of one person being bad at their job and stubbornly refusing to admit it. It's a great example of deflection, but not really anything beyond that.

-Tom
Post edited February 15, 2018 by wyrdwad
avatar
dtgreene: Of course, I could mention another character from Final Fantasy 9: Quina. Quina could be considered to be an example of a non-binary character; that is, one who is neither male nor female. This, incidentally, can pose issues when translating the game into highly gendered languages (for example, in many Romance languages, such as Spanish, adjectives are conjugated based off the gender of the noun being modified). Then there's a bit of a strange issue, when Quina marries Vivi in one scene.

Incidentally, Square has played a bit with sexuality and gender even before then. In Final Fantasy 6, Terra could be considered asexual; she doesn't find someone like Edgar attractive, and she doesn't seem attracted to Celes, either. There's even a bit of dialog about this after she first encounters Edgar. Then, there's SaGa Frontier, in which there's the relationship between Asellus and Gina; it goes even far enough for you (Asellus) to be given the opportunity to rescue Gina after she's been kidnapped. Final Fantasy 7 has a crossdressing scene, as well as tohe fact that it's possible for Cloud to go on a date with Barret.
avatar
kohlrak: And the interesting thing is, in most of these, it's definitely a case of humor. It was never meant to imply more than that, which is straight up apparent. Japanese humor usually capitalizes on Three's Company style jokes, where a situation is made excessively awkward by circumstances, and usually someone reacts in a way that would be "normal," but you the viewer have the extended knowledge that the guy freaking out doesn't have.

Terra, without going into spoilers, I think didn't go into her sexuality. It needs to be said that she reasonably might not have found humans attractive. Given her origins, if censorship was in order, that would've been a more ideal thing to censor out. When it comes into looking too deep into characters, she's a prime example. Her love of children suggests that she's interested in having kids of her own, but i immediately picked up on the idea that she's not found someone she felt is worthy, or that maybe she doesn't wish to bring a child into the world, for reasons that would also be spoiler. She seems more focused on the children, not unlike how many japanese men and women opt out of children, despite wanting them, to focus on their career.

EDIT: To be clear, I didn't finish FF6, yet. I had just gotten to the part where the party is separated. I found Terra's character to be particularly mature and depressing, which I think was the main point, more than anything about her sexuality. So, to say she stands out as asexual, to me, sounds alot like trying to make her what we want her to be instead of facing the reality of what her character is clearly meant to be: depressed, horribly, at the total lack of chance for any meaningful future. Which, as i understand it, to be teh overall theme and feel of FF6.
A character can be asexual (or otherwise non-cishet) and not have it be the sole or primary characteristic of that character. She can be both asexual (not attracted to others) and depressed at the same time, while still wanting to be a mother to children; there's no contradiction.

The SaGa Frontier example does seem to be a serious example. If you're not familiar with the SaGa series, I should mention that those RPGs are very unique, both as a group and individually. Interestingly enough, there are plenty of similarities between Terra and Asellus, to the point where having both characters be non-straight makes perfect sense and feels right.

SaGa Frontier 2 has a character who I interpret as being gay; however, he was kicked out of his home for an unrelated reason, being unable to use magic (in a common magic setting). So, we get to see the sort of things that a gay person might experience, but for a completely different reason (which is more comparable to a disability then to sexual orientation).

The PS2 remake of Romancing SaGa has one character, Aldora, who I interpret as being transgender; she's actually my favorite character in that game. I should point out that the situation with her is actually more complicated than I'm describing, but it does feel like the way an ancient religion would describe transgender people. (The game takes place in what feels like an ancient world setting, with a pantheon of gods and goddesses that are active in the world's affairs, much like you see in Greek mythology.)

Then again, the SaGa series has always been atypical and sometimes ahead of its time; even the original SaGa (on the Game Boy) has some content later in the game that leaves the player with a rather disturbing feeling (like after abandoning a certain world, or a certain place with dead children).
avatar
LootHunter: 1. It's a cartoon.

2. Later they allowed homosexual romance.
avatar
wyrdwad: 1. Why does that matter?

2. In Gravity Falls? I don't recall any mention of homosexuality in that show whatsoever, and I've seen every episode... fairly recently. I know the creator WANTED there to be homosexual romance in the show, but sadly, that's the one thing Disney fought back on. They gave him full creative freedom in every other regard... but in that one instance, he was told no.
Than what is this?
avatar
wyrdwad: Censoring salacious imagery isn't exclusively a heterosexual thing by any means.
Maybe you right. Maybe homosexual salacious imagery also censored but such censoring doesn't have much backlash from straight people. But nevertheless it's still censoring.

If creators had intent to make salacious characters or scenes they were forced to abandon the idea. But as I've said I only heard about censoring sexy women, who attract men.
avatar
wyrdwad: And what's your point, exactly? A writer is accused of bad writing, and tries to shift the blame onto something else instead. That boils down to unprofessionalism -- nothing more. It has no real relevance to discussions of censorship. If your point was to use it as an example of "SJW culture" or something... no, it's not even that. If what you say is true, then it's just an example of one person being bad at their job and stubbornly refusing to admit it. It's a great example of deflection, but not really anything beyond that.

-Tom
My point is is that this is just one example of many. And yes those examples are what "SJW culture" consists of.
Post edited February 15, 2018 by LootHunter
avatar
wyrdwad: 1. Why does that matter?

2. In Gravity Falls? I don't recall any mention of homosexuality in that show whatsoever, and I've seen every episode... fairly recently. I know the creator WANTED there to be homosexual romance in the show, but sadly, that's the one thing Disney fought back on. They gave him full creative freedom in every other regard... but in that one instance, he was told no.
avatar
LootHunter: Than what is this?
I guess I stand corrected. I don't recall interpreting that scene to mean they were actually a couple, however -- it seemed more to me like the typical "I love you, man" bromance thing that you see all the time in buddy cop movies. But if it was indeed intended to be a legitimate confession of love, more power to Mr. Hirsch!

avatar
wyrdwad: Censoring salacious imagery isn't exclusively a heterosexual thing by any means.
avatar
LootHunter: Maybe you right. Maybe homosexual salacious imagery also censored but doesn't have much backlash from straight people. But nevertheless it's still censoring.
My point is that it's the same imagery. When a female character is given additional clothes in a fanservice-heavy game, that's a blow to homosexual women just as much as it is to heterosexual men. A character doesn't have to be homosexual to be attractive to someone of the same sex.


avatar
wyrdwad: And what's your point, exactly? A writer is accused of bad writing, and tries to shift the blame onto something else instead. That boils down to unprofessionalism -- nothing more. It has no real relevance to discussions of censorship. If your point was to use it as an example of "SJW culture" or something... no, it's not even that. If what you say is true, then it's just an example of one person being bad at their job and stubbornly refusing to admit it. It's a great example of deflection, but not really anything beyond that.

-Tom
avatar
LootHunter: My point is is that this is just one example of many. And yes those examples are what "SJW culture" consists of.
I do agree to an extent that there exists a certain degree of "political correctness culture." But I don't think it's quite as overblown as you're making it out to be, nor do I think the example you gave is representative of it in any way.

To be perfectly frank, your posts in this topic come across as... reaching, I feel. You clearly feel like your ability to enjoy true artistic freedom is under attack, and it is... but the people you've chosen to blame for perpetrating this attack have nothing to do with it. Most every member of the LGBTQ community I know is just as fond of "lewd" content as anyone, and just as opposed to content censorship. And most of the people I know who fight for social equality in American culture (basically, the very definition of "social justice warrior") are opposed to content censorship to one extent or another as well. I consider myself to be someone who fights for social justice, in fact, and I'm VEHEMENTLY opposed to censorship!

I really think when the anti-censorship crowd starts blaming everything on "SJWs," they hurt their own cause. Not only is that blame misplaced IMHO, but it also makes anti-censorship activism appear to many who are more on the fence (or who haven't thought all that much about the issue) as bigoted and judgmental, which may push some people over the edge in the opposite direction.

The real perpetrators of censorship are... America's puritanical roots, basically. These days, this manifests itself as zealous members of the religious right, who hang on to outdated ideals of morality and gender norms. People who preach the idea that there's a "proper" way girls should behave, a "proper" way they should dress, etc. are the ones who spearhead campaigns to get games taken off shelves, or report games to the news, etc., which is where all the censorship controversy in this industry really stems from.

And I can say with certainty that very few who fight for social equality, and very few members of the LGBTQ community, are part of this zealous faction of so-called "do-gooders." ;)

-Tom
avatar
kohlrak: And the interesting thing is, in most of these, it's definitely a case of humor. It was never meant to imply more than that, which is straight up apparent. Japanese humor usually capitalizes on Three's Company style jokes, where a situation is made excessively awkward by circumstances, and usually someone reacts in a way that would be "normal," but you the viewer have the extended knowledge that the guy freaking out doesn't have.

Terra, without going into spoilers, I think didn't go into her sexuality. It needs to be said that she reasonably might not have found humans attractive. Given her origins, if censorship was in order, that would've been a more ideal thing to censor out. When it comes into looking too deep into characters, she's a prime example. Her love of children suggests that she's interested in having kids of her own, but i immediately picked up on the idea that she's not found someone she felt is worthy, or that maybe she doesn't wish to bring a child into the world, for reasons that would also be spoiler. She seems more focused on the children, not unlike how many japanese men and women opt out of children, despite wanting them, to focus on their career.

EDIT: To be clear, I didn't finish FF6, yet. I had just gotten to the part where the party is separated. I found Terra's character to be particularly mature and depressing, which I think was the main point, more than anything about her sexuality. So, to say she stands out as asexual, to me, sounds alot like trying to make her what we want her to be instead of facing the reality of what her character is clearly meant to be: depressed, horribly, at the total lack of chance for any meaningful future. Which, as i understand it, to be teh overall theme and feel of FF6.
avatar
dtgreene: A character can be asexual (or otherwise non-cishet) and not have it be the sole or primary characteristic of that character. She can be both asexual (not attracted to others) and depressed at the same time, while still wanting to be a mother to children; there's no contradiction.
True, but Occam's Razor: There's absolutely no reason to assume that she's asexual. It's like me telling you a story about Joe and Fred walking down the street. Fred hit on Joe, and Joe told him to go to hell. Does that mean Joe is straight? He could be asexual, he could also be gay, but just doesn't like Fred. There's nothing in there that is worthy of saying with any level of certainty that Joe is straight. Meanwhile, we know that Fred likes men, but maybe he also likes women, or maybe he was making a joke and Joe was gay and he was making fun of Joe. We don't know. Terra, if she was into straight humans, still had every reason to act the way she did. I mean, take the situation into context there. WARNING: Spoiler ahead! The world was going to hell, it was doomed, and no manner of anything is really going to fix it. She's taking care of those children for nothing, as they're ultimately doomed, and possibly never to have children of their own. That was the pink elephant in the room with that game. That alone justifies every word that she said. No reason, what-so-ever, to assume that there was more to that. Maybe she is bisexual, but I wouldn't dare suggest such, when there's absolutely no evidence to say so. She could've been hot for Locke. Maybe she's a pedophile. Honestly, I don't think the original writer actually thought that deep into her character, when there's a much bigger story here. It's like, if I was taking coin flipping bets on the street and someone called a missile strike on my street and everyone died, does it really matter whether the coin landed heads or tails? I don't think anyone would bother to take notice as they're scraping my insides off the pavement while my girlfriend (who lives on another street) is wailing that everything we've worked on is over, with about 100 other people standing there crying over their family members, with another thousand or so people getting in the way of rescue workers because they want to take selfies. I really don't think anyone will care how the coin landed, even if that coin flip was about to land me a lot of money as someone were placing bets. It was important to me before the airstrike, maybe it could've changed my life forever if I had won and there was no airstrike, but thanks to the airstrike, that little detail of the coin flip, my sexuality, etc, became incredibly inconsequential, to the point of not even worth being mentioned.
The SaGa Frontier example does seem to be a serious example. If you're not familiar with the SaGa series, I should mention that those RPGs are very unique, both as a group and individually. Interestingly enough, there are plenty of similarities between Terra and Asellus, to the point where having both characters be non-straight makes perfect sense and feels right.
I'm not. What evidence do you have that Terra is non-straight? Straight is the norm (actually, I think bisexuality is, but this isn't the place to get into that topic), so it's most logical to assume she is unless there is significant evidence to the contrary. Frankly, it doesn't matter if she wasn't straight, but if we're going to go down this road and make something out of nothing, why not?
SaGa Frontier 2 has a character who I interpret as being gay; however, he was kicked out of his home for an unrelated reason, being unable to use magic (in a common magic setting). So, we get to see the sort of things that a gay person might experience, but for a completely different reason (which is more comparable to a disability then to sexual orientation).

The PS2 remake of Romancing SaGa has one character, Aldora, who I interpret as being transgender; she's actually my favorite character in that game. I should point out that the situation with her is actually more complicated than I'm describing, but it does feel like the way an ancient religion would describe transgender people. (The game takes place in what feels like an ancient world setting, with a pantheon of gods and goddesses that are active in the world's affairs, much like you see in Greek mythology.)

Then again, the SaGa series has always been atypical and sometimes ahead of its time; even the original SaGa (on the Game Boy) has some content later in the game that leaves the player with a rather disturbing feeling (like after abandoning a certain world, or a certain place with dead children).
It would really help, too, if you understood the culture behind the authors. Japanese history is full of open bisexuality of men, especially molestation of little boys, to the point that it was often expected of these men, even if they didn't have sexual interest. However, that was so long ago, i'm not sure how much it affects modern authors. That said, it's not unspeakable of Japanese culture to mention this. Last time i checked, they generally just see it as a quirk of their historic figures. Honestly, i've heard suggestion that it might explain the assassination of one of Japan's most famous historic leaders: 織田信長 (Nobunaga Oda).
avatar
wyrdwad: I really think when the anti-censorship crowd starts blaming everything on "SJWs," they hurt their own cause. Not only is that blame misplaced IMHO, but it also makes anti-censorship activism appear to many who are more on the fence (or who haven't thought all that much about the issue) as bigoted and judgmental, which may push some people over the edge in the opposite direction.

The real perpetrators of censorship are... America's puritanical roots, basically. These days, this manifests itself as zealous members of the religious right, who hang on to outdated ideals of morality and gender norms. People who preach the idea that there's a "proper" way girls should behave, a "proper" way they should dress, etc. are the ones who spearhead campaigns to get games taken off shelves, or report games to the news, etc., which is where all the censorship controversy in this industry really stems from.

And I can say with certainty that very few who fight for social equality, and very few members of the LGBTQ community, are part of this zealous faction of so-called "do-gooders." ;)

-Tom
I'm a religious right, and I understand the sentiment. My father, for example, told me of how many movies he has thrown out over 20 second sex scenes, which had little to nothing to do with the plot. Alot of movies and games today, since sex sells, gratuitously put in these scenes. What i explained to him is, censoring these gratuitous scenes effectively is impossible, because everyone has a difference of opinion over what is and isn't "too far." So when they came out with those family-friendly DVD players, everyone had their own ideas. As for preventing the gratuitous scenes, while the grand majority of people say in public that they think it's wrong, not enough people are willing to boycott for gratuitous scenes: the number of sales gained from the scenes far exceed the number of customers lost, and most people who are offended will either "deal with it," "fast forward," or censor the movie themselves. If this wasn't the case, we'd see more developers with "family friendly" options in menus, just like Dead or Alive has a boob-jiggle level option, Mortal Kombat used to have a "gore level" option, etc. Fact of the matter is, preachers who say not to have extramarital sex get caught banging secretaries.

The SJWs, on the other hand, are a bit more zealous and true to their boycotting (not saying they're more honest and true to their causes, but that's for another topic). Rather than censorship, they will straight-up throw the baby out with the bath water: if you don't like it, the whole game is rubbish, trash, and must be avoided. On the flip side, the left loves to inject new content where there was none: which is what this talk about Terra is. There's no reason to assume Terra is non-straight, yet a lefty is trying to inject this idea that she is. She might be, but no one cares, and trying to highlight her being non-straight is just SJW propaganda. There's this one guy at the church i used to go to, whom never got married and have kids. So people go around swearing he's gay. Maybe he just got too busy to get involved with women until it was too late. Are nuns asexual? Sometimes we perform, if you'd prefer to call it so, reverse censorship: adding content where the was not original, and doing so in such a way that distracts significantly from the original work.

What i find amusing is Huniepop: boycotted by both the hardcore right and the hardcore left. This shows you the truth of people who cry censorship, because it gets hate from all angles.
avatar
kohlrak: What evidence do you have that Terra is non-straight?
Her reaction to Edgar hitting on her, and in particular, her thoughts afterwords (presented as dialog when nobody else is around IIRC, much like a soliloquy).
avatar
kohlrak: What evidence do you have that Terra is non-straight?
avatar
dtgreene: Her reaction to Edgar hitting on her, and in particular, her thoughts afterwords (presented as dialog when nobody else is around IIRC, much like a soliloquy).
Could you be more specific? It's been a few months, so i don't remember it off hand. I don't recall anything glaringly standing out that suggests anything more than "I don't care, because we're totally screwed." Since you're making the claim, i'll leave you to back it up.
avatar
kohlrak: The SJWs, on the other hand, are a bit more zealous and true to their boycotting (not saying they're more honest and true to their causes, but that's for another topic). Rather than censorship, they will straight-up throw the baby out with the bath water: if you don't like it, the whole game is rubbish, trash, and must be avoided. On the flip side, the left loves to inject new content where there was none: which is what this talk about Terra is. There's no reason to assume Terra is non-straight, yet a lefty is trying to inject this idea that she is. She might be, but no one cares, and trying to highlight her being non-straight is just SJW propaganda. There's this one guy at the church i used to go to, whom never got married and have kids. So people go around swearing he's gay. Maybe he just got too busy to get involved with women until it was too late. Are nuns asexual? Sometimes we perform, if you'd prefer to call it so, reverse censorship: adding content where the was not original, and doing so in such a way that distracts significantly from the original work.
Ehh. I don't see that as any different than people who propagate the "Squall is dead for 3/4 of Final Fantasy VIII" theory (which I totally buy into!). Fan theories can be fun to discuss, and most of the time, the developers tend to totally love it when fans dissect their work and try to find hidden meaning, with most refusing to give a definitive statement because they're just too amused at how passionately everyone is discussing the matter. ;)

What it ultimately comes down to, though, is that discussions like that don't hurt anyone, so why worry about them? If people want to theorize about Tina/Terra's sexuality or lack thereof... more power to 'em! No harm, no foul, and it could lead to some really fascinating discussions.

I mean, I fully subscribe to the theory that Adol and Dogi are a canonical couple in the Ys series, and Falcom has refused to comment one way or another, which just lends further credence to that theory.

And I also subscribe to the theory that Adol didn't die in the north pole at age 63 (which official Ys lore more or less directly states, strangely enough!), but rather became Santa Claus. Which is a game I REALLY WANT to see Falcom make sometime. ;)

And while I do understand and agree with what you're saying about particularly zealous "SJWs," I would just like to point out that for every one such person I've met on the internet, I've met probably five or six totally reasonable socially conscious LGBTQ-friendly hippie activists who would stand by my side in the fight against content censorship any day of the week. The "problematic SJWs" are, if anything, a small minority of people in a large and extremely important social movement.

I guess to put it simply, I fully support so-called "SJWs" -- just not the ones that try to censor artistic works. But such people really are in the minority. They're very vocal, and as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease -- but ultimately, they're vastly outnumbered by level-headed, good people.

-Tom
Post edited February 15, 2018 by wyrdwad
avatar
kohlrak: The SJWs, on the other hand, are a bit more zealous and true to their boycotting (not saying they're more honest and true to their causes, but that's for another topic). Rather than censorship, they will straight-up throw the baby out with the bath water: if you don't like it, the whole game is rubbish, trash, and must be avoided. On the flip side, the left loves to inject new content where there was none: which is what this talk about Terra is. There's no reason to assume Terra is non-straight, yet a lefty is trying to inject this idea that she is. She might be, but no one cares, and trying to highlight her being non-straight is just SJW propaganda. There's this one guy at the church i used to go to, whom never got married and have kids. So people go around swearing he's gay. Maybe he just got too busy to get involved with women until it was too late. Are nuns asexual? Sometimes we perform, if you'd prefer to call it so, reverse censorship: adding content where the was not original, and doing so in such a way that distracts significantly from the original work.
avatar
wyrdwad: Ehh. I don't see that as any different than people who propagate the "Squall is dead for 3/4 of Final Fantasy VIII" theory (which I totally buy into!). Fan theories can be fun to discuss, and most of the time, the developers tend to totally love it when fans dissect their work and try to find hidden meaning, with most refusing to give a definitive statement because they're just too amused at how passionately everyone is discussing the matter. ;)

What it ultimately comes down to, though, is that discussions like that don't hurt anyone, so why worry about them? If people want to theorize about Tina/Terra's sexuality or lack thereof... more power to 'em! No harm, no foul, and it could lead to some really fascinating discussions.

And while I do understand and agree with what you're saying about particularly zealous "SJWs," I would just like to point out that for every one such person I've met on the internet, I've met probably five or six totally reasonable socially conscious LGBTQ-friendly hippie activists who would stand by my side in the fight against content censorship any day of the week. The "problematic SJWs" are, if anything, a small minority of people in a large and extremely important social movement.

I guess to put it simply, I fully support so-called "SJWs" -- just not the ones that try to censor artistic works. But such people really are in the minority. They're very vocal, and as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease -- but ultimately, they're vastly outnumbered by level-headed, good people.

-Tom
Loud minorities make alot of noise. This is why everyone thought Hillary would have won the election. Truth is, it's not an issue for fan theories. However, when righties like me make legitimate claims of censorship due to the left, it's usually more one of those people injecting the content into official translation. To be honest, I hear about it, but I haven't played the examples in question. On the other hand, i've seen devs take an original work and adapt it into a game or something and add their own flair, which usually includes an agenda. We see this alot with religious material, but, honestly, I'll admit that i haven't seen much of it. What I do see alot of is scenes or something with an agenda that is totally out of place, has nothing to do with the story overall, yet the original author puts it in.

A great example of this, where it didn't even have an agenda (thus wasn't really a lefty thing), i picked up just by looking to my right and seeing a copy of Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet. The game was basically a starfox version of a zelda game, and they just hounded you with this half-naked fox woman. They could've taken out this sappy romance and it probably wouldn't have had much, if any, effect on the overall story. It was just thrown in there, probably at the last minute, just to either give Fox a motivation other than simply to be a hero, or it was done to try to get more women playing starfox, because i guess women like romance (which wouldn't surprise me, since Krystal is the first female playable character, and they probably wanted a cool way to introduce "choose the gender of your avatar" idea like they did in other games). That said, I wouldn't call for censorship, myself, but I would like to point out the series has fallen apart since.

Now, how often does this happen in video games? I don't know. I'm reading claims here that it does happen. That's what the SJW comments are about. I think i might've seen it a couple times where untranslatable jokes get replaced with the views of the translator (since there's dialog that needs filled and the original joke is completely lost, so they have to throw something in there).

But, at the end of the day, you have to take a stand against altering original works more than absolutely necessary, whether it's adding or removing. Unfortunately, the loud minority gets too much respect. That's how we end up with crap like the censorship in Deadpool.

EDIT: I just remembered, SJWs love to censor older works that might show signs of "racism." Tom and Jerry is a good target.

http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Tom_and_Jerry
Post edited February 15, 2018 by kohlrak
low rated
avatar
wyrdwad: most of the people I know who fight for social equality in American culture (basically, the very definition of "social justice warrior") are opposed to content censorship to one extent or another as well. I consider myself to be someone who fights for social justice, in fact, and I'm VEHEMENTLY opposed to censorship!
This (and the resto of the comment) is the most self-contradictiory statement I ever seen.

For starters "Social Justice" has nothing to do with equality. Otherwise people would say that they are fighting for equality not social justice. And I'm not trying to hairsplit here - "social justice" is literally based on the premise that sertain social groups (namely white straight men) have some sort of privilege and thus have to be disparaged by means including (but not limited to) devoiding them of the media that makes them feel empowered. In other words SJ idea is about favouring sertain social groups (I don't say minorities because women are roughly half of human population) over the others.

That's why so called Social Justice Warriors were never against censorship. They are the ones who demand censorship of any salacious female imaginery on the premise that sexy women perpetuate men's derogatory attitude towards women.

You are right of course that censorship of sexy female imaginery upsets not only straigt men, but also gay women (and actually not gay women too). In fact many people point that out as a proof of SJW hypocrisy. And some SJW allow games that are specifically targeted to cater LGBTQ some leniency in that regard.

avatar
wyrdwad: The real perpetrators of censorship are... America's puritanical roots, basically. These days, this manifests itself as zealous members of the religious right, who hang on to outdated ideals of morality and gender norms.
Maybe that was true a few decades ago, but today it's not the religious right, but "progressive" left who impose their morality and gender norms on games (and pretty much any other media). And the most funny is exactly the fact that while those norms are different (women should be powerful, independent, not relying on (aka needing) men; men should not be overly masculine unless they are antagonists) it still ends with the same sanctimonius notion of descency (aka no overy sexy clothes).
Post edited February 15, 2018 by LootHunter
Phew. OK. I think I'm going to bow out of this discussion now, because we've simply reached the point of "agree to disagree." I... am very much a "leftie" myself, politically, and don't agree with almost anything from the above two posts. But we're here to discuss video games, not American politics, so I'm not going to go into the finer details of why I hold the views and values I do.

I'll just say that in my experience, it has not been the left that's stood in the way of artistic freedom, but the right. However, your experience may be different, and that's fine. This is, at its core, not an issue of left vs. right politics, but of artistic freedom -- and I think we can all agree that content censorship flies in the face of artistic freedom, and is a cause worth fighting against.

Just remember, as you fight the good fight, that there are members of the left who stand with you; and I will endeavor to remember as I fight it that there are members of the right who stand with me.

-Tom
avatar
LootHunter: For starters "Social Justice" has nothing to do with equality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice