Fire Emblem: Fates - CHOOSE A SIDE!

I will apologise that I jumped down Mas' throat before I'd fully read his post. Apart from misusing the c word, his heart's in the right place on this one.

I see it as being like Dodgeball. In the UK there's a line that reads "Son, you're about as much use as a cock-flavoured lollipop"; in the US, this is "Son, you're about as much use as a poopy-flavoured lollipop". Different things for different markets, but still under the control of the makers of the thing.

Albeit in this case the original was pretty poorly thought out and offensive. It's like when I post something on here drunk, then sneakily edit out the really objectionable parts later...

In Mas's defence Self-censorship is an actual thing.  As for the actual thing, if it was just this I'd swallow it since it's typical Japan crossing the line nonsense, but as always whenever a company decides to self-censor something because they're too timid to leave challenging content alone it raises the obvious question about what else has been altered.  Xenoblade had a large portion of religious words removed, along with a pile of unnecessary word changes (testament changed to Reclaimers, BLADE acronym changed from basically being an easter egg of the first game in to that melodramatic nonsense, Dolls becoming Skells, and so on) that flew under the radar because some people (morons) were too busy whining that they couldn't oggle a 13 year old (and as such completely killed any chance of a credible movement).

I'd also disagree that this is actually the creators changing things.  As far as I can tell it's more a case of a book publisher (Nintendo of America) taking a authors work and altering it without including them in the process.  

Normally I'd just shrug it off, it is a localization after all, but this is Nintendo.  They're basically to game localization what 4kids (those bods that ruined One Piece originally and dubbed Yu-gi-oh and Pokemon) was to anime.  There's a fine line between taking in to account what's considered appropriate in a region and just changing things willy-nilly, and whenever this sort of thing comes up it just rewakens my concerns about overall integrity of the localization.  It also shows just how in the past Nintendo is that they feel they need to baby-fy all their games.

athrun wrote:

I'd also disagree that this is actually the creators changing things. As far as I can tell it's more a case of a book publisher (Nintendo of America) taking a authors work and altering it without including them in the process.

Do we actually know that this was the case though or are you just making an estimated guess based on changes in other games?

I do think there right to change things this time Athrun as could you imagine the field day press would of haved with such dated content in also would it of past PEGI, ESRB or USK with it as well.

The_Jaster wrote:

athrun wrote:

I'd also disagree that this is actually the creators changing things.  As far as I can tell it's more a case of a book publisher (Nintendo of America) taking a authors work and altering it without including them in the process.

Do we actually know that this was the case though or are you just making an estimated guess based on changes in other games?

Flipping that question on its head I would ask what evidence you have that suggests this localization will be handled any differently to any of Nintendo's other ones?  What reason do we have to think that out of all of Nintendo's games this specific one will have any involvement from its creators in regards to changes to the script and storyline? It's a niche game being handled by a big company, the sort of company that doesn't care about keeping absolute authenticity, especially not for nicher projects. Course if there's proper evidence to the contrary that can dissuade me of my suspicions I'll be sincerely thrilled to hear it.

masofdas wrote:

I do think there right to change things this time Athrun as could you imagine the field day press would of haved with such dated content in also would it of past PEGI, ESRB or USK with it as well.

There are ways of getting around this sort of thing without the clumsy censorship being used here. Clumsy censorship is a sign of incompetence, and incompetence means far bigger problems than fetish fuel omissions. Continuity errors, bad plot rewrites, changed character personalities, all are common results when incompetent rewrites, typically caused by censorship, occur. There's a reason the anime community doesn't stand for this sort of thing, and it's the chief reason I'm anti-censorship in general. I don't trust the people doing it to get things right, because they rarely do.


Anyway I'll be stepping back from the debate now, if I keep going I'll just get too het up over it. I'm just fed up of all these poor alterations, if companies like xseed and Atlus can avoid this then Nintendo certainly should be able to.

I think the change - and it is a change, not a display of censorship - is right in this case. The part of the game that was changed is in really bad taste in the first place. Some things just don't fly with Western audiences compared to Japanese audiences.

They could have left it, sure Athrun but your telling me they should left unaltered seriously.

athrun wrote:

Flipping that question on its head I would ask what evidence you have that suggests this localization will be handled any differently to any of Nintendo's other ones?  What reason do we have to think that out of all of Nintendo's games this specific one will have any involvement from its creators in regards to changes to the script and storyline? It's a niche game being handled by a big company, the sort of company that doesn't care about keeping absolute authenticity, especially not for nicher projects. Course if there's proper evidence to the contrary that can dissuade me of my suspicions I'll be sincerely thrilled to hear it.

I have none, just as you only have your suspicions but it sounds like you are convinced that those suspicions are facts when it's flat out impossible to prove if it was or wasn't a creative choice (of the developers) to alter the questionable content.

If I had to guess though it's likely been changed by the localisation team itself who usually have to run any change by the director of the game.

I've got to jump in with the consensus here, and I'd go so far as to say that something so absolutely fucking awful could actually have done with being censored off the blocks. I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if so, apart from at Nintendo/the developers thinking they could put something so absolutely fucking awful into their game.

As it is, a couple of other little edits are more than a worthy price to get rid of something so absolutely fucking awful.

Balla is absolutely right here.

Also, when I say "creators", I include the localisation team. You can't just directly translate a script word-for-word from Japanese; Treehouse do a phenomenal job creating scripts with jokes, metaphors and references which work in the new language while keeping the spirit of the old.

Athrun888 wrote:

In Mas's defence Self-censorship is an actual thing.  As for the actual thing, if it was just this I'd swallow it since it's typical Japan crossing the line nonsense, but as always whenever a company decides to self-censor something because they're too timid to leave challenging content alone it raises the obvious question about what else has been altered.  

This isn't challenging content though, it's just utterly repugnant. I'm not arguing that games shouldn't discuss horrible topics like 'praying the gay away' and such, but if that's something that's going to be tackled it needs either its own game, or a damn heavy amount of nuance in a sub-plot. Let's be honest, a Fire Emblem game is not going to have anything valuable to say about the subject.

I can see you're trying to bring up a wider point about what else has been cut but...

Athrun888 wrote:

I'd also disagree that this is actually the creators changing things.  As far as I can tell it's more a case of a book publisher (Nintendo of America) taking a authors work and altering it without including them in the process.  

Assuming the creative team were against this or, any other, change to their game I still would not call that censorship in this context. Those developers are fully aware that Nintendo's regional heads are going to get final say as to what goes into the final cut, and what gets changed or outright removed. That's a known factor before development has even started. So if a Nintendo region decides something needs to be altered because they don't think it will sit well with their audience, then you can't call it censorship, self or otherwise.

The game is being made to please the regional bigwigs who are ultimately in charge of deciding what stuff the fans want.

There's a reason why a lot of developers will never seek out publishers at all, and that's because they want full creative control. The chaps of Team Meat would sooner stop making games than get paid handsomely by any publisher for example. If you work for Nintendo, then you work for Nintendo. It's as simple as that really.

*SIGH*  My reaction after finally looking up the details, on this supposed horrible storyline about curing someone of homosexuality and date raping them and... Well, none of that happens apparently.  Not that the actual storyline doesn't sound nonsensical or anything and would probably still need some tinkering with to iron out issues that arise from cultural differences, but I'm utterly unsurprised this all arose from the places it did and the buncha jokers that is the gaming media not bothering to do any further research on the matter.  


So, that's two of my pet hates this thing has raised, my dislike of censorship-style localizations (and bad / sloppy localizations in general) and appallingly bad journalism.

Drunkalilly wrote:

Balla is absolutely right here.

Also, when I say "creators", I include the localisation team. You can't just directly translate a script word-for-word from Japanese; Treehouse do a phenomenal job creating scripts with jokes, metaphors and references which work in the new language while keeping the spirit of the old.

The problem is they're the type to insert jokes where there weren't to begin with, change things that have no need or business being changed solely because they feel like it, and the only times I've seen metaphors of note were thrown out the window in their own localization.  

That sort of thing isn't localization, it's outright adaptation.  This sums up why I dislike such methods of localization in a nutshell.




Granted, not all that harmful in a game such as that one, but at the same time given such incompetence I wouldn't want the team anywhere near anything even remotely serious.

There was nothing about date rape just the curing of homosexuality which there must be something close to that in the Japanese version which journalists may of interpreted worse then it may really be but it's 2016 we shouldn't have anything like that in any medium unless it's tackled in the correct way like Muss says.

This is what I read the second time in a better report

Nintendo of America, in a statement to us, has revealed that a controversial "drugging"/"gay conversion" support conversation in the upcoming game Fire Emblem: Fates will not be present in the North American and European versions of the game.

“In the version of the game that ships in the U.S. and Europe, there is no expression which might be considered as gay conversion or drugging that occurs between characters.” a Nintendo representative e-mailed us this morning.

In the Japanese version of Fire Emblem: Fates, you can gain S-Support, the highest level of a bond between to characters when pairing them together in battle, with several characters in the game. Most of these supports end in a marriage proposal, after several conversations between the characters.

One of the female characters, Soleil, is attracted to women, and often gets flustered and weak in the knees when she's around them. She often fears that she can't be a "strong and cool woman" because of this. Later in the support conversations if you pair her up with the male protagonist, he spikes her drink with a "magic powder" that makes her see women as men and vice-versa to help her "practice" around women. This was done without her knowing, as she fails to recognize the protagonist at the start of the conversation. Once the magic wore off, she found herself attracted to the male protagonist, and ends up proposing to him, saying that she fell in love with the female version of him, but now loves him as a male.

This was interpreted by many as not only casually drugging someone in order to alter their state of mind, but as a means of "gay conversion therapy", a method used by many religious organizations to change one's sexual orientation from gay to straight. This method is often seen as scientifically unfounded, abusive, and heteronormative.

Nintendo did not elaborate on how exactly these scenes would be changed in localized versions

The whole censorship or whatever you want to call it, to me isn't the issue it's the content that a global company like Nintendo would even allow it into one of there games is horrendous.

Yeah, the problem with all of that is it's using a tumblr rant from someone who used some very bad early translations to make a fuss about something they hadn't even played as a source.  Far as I've heard from sniffing around places with people who've played the game she's bi.

Well it's still iffy and like I said you should be handled better if something like that is done.

Seems us lot don't care about petting. This is out soon or out in the good ol' USA and reviews are coming with most sites reviewing both or even all three version of the game.

I don't know who made this handy picture but yesterday this was up to date


Seems all the versions are good, now it's just which version you get unless you get the special edition with all 3 versions of the story.

If there can only be one then Nintendo has your sorted

I care, because any form of censorship is stupid. The only reason to care, but it's enough. Unless something champions actual hate speech or genuinely harmful views censorship is wrong. No ifs ands or buts. The fact Nintendo does it also shows they literally don't even get who the audience is, which is even sadder.

Honestly Fates is kind of an absolute irrelevancy right now, and it won't change until we get a release window.  It's out in a few days in the us and it's utterly disgusting that we don't even have a actual release window, WINDOW, for this.  Much less a date.

Not even this month being packed with rpg's (one of which is probably going to be better than Fates anyway) is a good reason, a slightly later release date would be one thing, but no date at all?  Absolute farce, they're pulling an Atlus on us, and like Atlus I will give them absolute hell for it.  Might even skip the release just to spite them.  



I was interested in the game.  Was being the appropriate word.  Time passes and Nintendo has missed their chance to sell this to me.  I likened them to Atlus for that reason.  If I do buy at release it's solely to ensure I get a copy.

This is also another reason Nintendo are scum for region locking, this literally would have been a non-issue with the ds and is indeed one of the reasons companies shouldn't. Either be prompt with your releases or get out of the way of a consumer who finds a way of still supporting your release without putting up with your incompetence.

That seems a little harsh Athrun...

I would like a release date though. Would've been awesome if it was this week over here as I've got 8 hours of trains this weekend. Bah.

I do think were due a a Nintendo Direct maybe sometime in March to push Zelda's and go this is what is coming.

Censorship is kinda stupid I agree but what they have taken out, we shouldn't really have in 2016 even though I have defended DOA Xtreme 3 as I have said if people want they should be allowed to buy but that whole game is centered around that, where FE should be about the battles not if this character is gay or not and I can pet one.

Maybe one version should be uncensored and a higher age rating but Nintendo want to sell the game and lower age will help.

I figured it's been a while and we needed another good ol' rant.     Gotta do Palpatine proud every once in a while!



On the lighter side, seems I'm conquest according to the flowchart solely because I don't have a family (to speak of anyway).  Actually looking at it I'm Conquest for every single question!  

As for directs, the problem is the game is out in the US pretty much right now.  This isn't an era where delays like this are acceptable, and unless we get a direct on the first of march saying fates comes out the next day nothing Nintendo can do at this point is good enough.  At this point we're looking at a two month delay at the absolute minimum, and Nintendo doesn't have the excuse that Atlus does (lacking a branch in the region) either.  It's just plain incompetence on their part.

They wouldn't be faffing about like this if it was Zelda or Mario or Pokemon. They are fully capable of getting this out at or around the same time in both English speaking markets, and I for one am not going to quietly tolerate this kind of blatant incompetence.

It's not just the delay though, it's the lack of any news whatsoever that's especially bad. I really don't care what their excuse is, if they aren't doing directs because of Iwata's passing (may he rest in peace) then they should use the billions of social media avenues big competent companies have. Not having a direct is absolutely no excuse for this complete vacuum right now.

Athrun888 wrote:

I care, because any form of censorship is stupid.  The only reason to care, but it's enough.  Unless something champions actual hate speech or genuinely harmful views censorship is wrong.  No ifs ands or buts.  The fact Nintendo does it also shows they literally don't even get who the audience is, which is even sadder.  

I don't see any harm in "self-censorship." In this case it's just Nintendo deciding that they want to cater to a given market in a certain way with the removal of a face prodding mini-game and some optional dialogue.

Bits and bobs get changed all the time in games, the Japanese version of Fallout 3 is "censored" because the 'fatman' weapon is re-named 'mini-nuke' out of respect for World War II, but I don't remember any uproar one way or the other regarding that.

Fates is Nintendo's game and they have the right to change things. It's fine if you don't like their decision, but I'm predominantly a strategy gamer and I love tactical-rpgs. I'm part of their audience too and when push comes to shove I, and presumably many others, won't be thinking about anything other than having a good time with the fun little strategy game that's eventfully going to hit our shelves, with its gorgeous cut scenes, challenging difficulty, and light-hearted matchmaking.

There are those online (I'm not aiming this at anyone in particular, I've just been on a few other sites today) who find it incongruous for Ninty to release a game about war but remove a scene about 'love.' The issue there is that FE: Awakening, and prior FE games, do well in terms of selling how nasty wars are through their narratives. Equally, however, they also discuss how despite wars being wastes of lives, they can also be necessary to stop evil. This is woven into the core game mechanics by virtue of characters being killable and their deaths not only affecting the player's army, but also potentially resonating with other characters in the players army who had built up a rapport with the fallen combatant. Fates promises to have a narrative that also delves into these aspects of war, and due to it being sold as two products, might even tell the tale in a more nuanced nature than ever before.

Alternatively all of Soleil's romance options are heteronormative to lesser or greater extents.

obvious spoiler to do with her, as translated online, conversations, :

Spoiler-free: Soleil's supports almost all read like terrible fan fictions (possibly a product of online translations) and if Nintendo want to change/ potentially improve some/many them for a western release then more power to them.

If there was an embargo on the Japanese editions of Fire Emblem, such that one couldn't even import them, then I'd care because that would be legitimate censorship. But that's not the case. Anyone who wants the Japanese version will be able to get a copy, and, without looking into it, I'm sure there are ways to unlock a 3ds' region and stick a fan-translation into the JP version for those who can't read the language - although, yes, region locked hardware is draconian.

Of course, not having a release window is poor form, especially in the age of digital downloads.  Nintendo should be doing better in that regard!

Athrun888 wrote:

Unless something champions actual hate speech or genuinely harmful views censorship is wrong

A gay character can be turned straight by the player, if the player wants them to bang a male. There is no option for them to actually have a gay experience.

That is backwards shit. Japan is behind us on this issue, and Nintendo is bringing us a version of the game that has been dragged into the 21st century. Correct.

Getting concerned about some of the language being used in this thread now. Let's keep the discussion civil. Thank you.