Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@KoekiieWoekiie To be fair, I heard a lot people claiming the changes made in TMS actually altered the narrative in that portion of the game. I said changes instead of censorship because it I’m not sure a developer making conscious changes to their product classifies as censorship persay. Maybe it was done so it appeals to wider audience, regardless of cultural background. I don’t know personally.

Regardless it’s hard for me to get upset at a lot of censorship, since for the most part it seems to target a lot of the hollow attempts at titiallation, that pass off as sexuality in this industry. I’m not calling for censorship of anything certainly. It’s up to the consumer to decide what they want to play. But it’s hard to stand by a piece of media when the content is tropey and ridiculous.

@NotTelevision TMS is as divisive as Pokemon. Honestly I think the biggest problem with what happened with TMS was neither "censorship" (covering the upskirt and so forth didn't matter), but it was not just a localization change, but one that made absolutely no sense. Chapter 2 was a commentary on the pressure in Japanese idol business to push a music/screen idol into gravure/"risque" (slightly harder than softcore porn, slightly softer than hardcore porn) and trashing their reputations and careers for the quick buck...er...yen.

Ok, that makes no sense outside Japan and thus had to be localized. That's fine. The problem is they changed it into something bizarre and senseless and "non-risque-at-all", the Disney version of it, and in the context of the dungeon design, character design, and remaining dialogue that was unchanged, it really broke the chapter.

People say "censorship" but in reality that one was a victim of "exceedingly crummy localization."

@NEStalgia Thanks for making that more clear. I didn’t read it as censorship more like an alteration made in the localization process, like you said.

I’m not sure that has an exact equivalent in other countries. In the US, for instance, someone like Miley Cyrus or Nicki Minaj definitely have that appeal, but it’s hard to tell if that sort of thing comes exclusively from managers and agents or from the artists creating that image to sell more albums.

In any case, it’s a shame the change in Chapter 2 was so drastic and edgeless.

Yeah I'd say 90% of the time when people complain about censorship in games, they're actually talking about localisation, which has always been a necessary part of game releases. Still, at least the Tokyo Mirage Sessions controversy gave us this gem https://twitter.com/Sebban_E/status/731131432140210176

@NEStalgia I wouldn't even call what gravure idols do "softcore pornography." The whole point of that enterprise is that they usually exude a sense of innocent sexuality and youth, which is why they're usually not nude models. It's really similar to what used to be called "cheesecake" in America.

AV idols do porn, of course, but I don't think that was the particular niche of the industry the game was targeting.

Now, maybe I'm more cynical than I should be, but it shouldn't be difficult at all to "localize" a young celebrity woman being pushed into doing risque, sexually objectifying modeling. That's not an uncommon thing in the West.

The only proper term for the change is "censorship." The localization removed the theme entirely and replaced it, as even you pointed out, with something more 'family friendly.' It wasn't altered to aid audience understanding, but likely because Nintendo was uncomfortable publishing a game with such mature themes in it overseas, where they still maintain a certain public image.

EDIT: Actually, it's even more likely that they didn't want those themes associated with first-party IP. Especially now that Fire Emblem is becoming an increasingly 'mainstream' property.

@NotTelevision Somehow the localization team thought that "dressing like Joey Lawrence in 1995" was a suitable replacement for "becoming a gravure model". Either that or Atlus was just trolling. Could be....

@Ralizah Eh...it's softcore. I mean it's more innocent than half of what Hollywood cranks out as "family entertainment" these days, true enough, but it's the "intent" of leering at kids without even pretending to have another purpose, basically, that gives it its reputation even in Japan that the game was touching on.

But, yeah, I agree, that it shouldn't have been difficult to adapt the exact same situation to the West. And that was in the pre-Weinstein era... Gravure has some unique connotations and social implications in Japan specifically the original focuses on, but it's not like the west is that different in that regard....it's more in the details, and some dialogue tweaks really bridge the difference fine. For some reason they didn't want it to touch on serious topics in the West. Which is weird considering every other chapter does.

I don't think the term is "censorship" either. Censorship is hiding or removing content that is inappropriate/restricted for the audience. This game even left the bikini pics in the dungeon. They didn't really remove the actual risque content....they completely altered the story and events otherwise. It was definitely "localization" but not just "localization" but a content change to suit the intended audience which apparently they decided was going to be a different audience in the West than it was in Japan (and now decided Japan is that audience, too...)

I'm not sure it has to do with Nintendo's image in the west. They've published plenty of other games even in the West, including FE, that fly in the face of that image. Camilla exists. Really, everything else is fair game for them after that.

And that's tied to the FE name that TMS#FE is. It's really weird, and weird that it extended not just from Treehouse but to NCL, and then to Atlus. Treehouse sometimes does it's Puritan edits for Nintendos image, but this went all the way back to Japan and then back to Atlus. And Nintendo publishes SMT.......It's just weird all the way around. I'm sure it's not about image but about ratings and costs more than anything, but still, it's weirder than normal, and twice as weird they're doubling down on it in Japan for the re-release. I wonder what really went on there.

Of course now that gaming has entered the China market and cost saves to release one version worldwide, this should be expected to be the rule, not the exception.

I would like to see male characters on video games treated just like females on video games.
Instead of milking the sexy babes with naughty looking or try to seduce innocent girl, why don't put hunky dudes with some muscle and shirtless , also we can seduce those boys just like we seduce the girls ?
If it will not working for male gamers by normally, who cares. It might attract other gamers that have interest with same sex relationship.

@Anti-Matter That's what Bioware is for, but you refuse to play M rated games.

I can try softcore from The Sims 4.
Six pack dudes i have created, ahoy !

@Ralizah Yeah that’s a good point you bring up. To avoid a sort of backlash or controversy based on how the segment is presented. If it seems even a bit exploitative, that could be an issue.

Many would bring up Bayonetta as evidence of Nintendo publishing more “risqué” material, but she is more often seen as a model of female empowerment through sexuality, not the inverse.

I’ll still play it regardless, but I should probably beat the regular FE: 3H first.

@NEStalgia It's obviously meant to arouse sexual feelings, but it's not nearly sexual enough to be termed "softcore pornography," imo. Unless the term "pornography" just doesn't mean anything anymore. The softcore vs hardcore distinction is meant to illustrate the difference between something you might have seen on HBO twenty years ago in the middle of the night and the sort of explicit, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination content you see on specialized websites.

Camilla was well-endowed (and the camera probably lingers on her longer than is strictly necessary), but that's not the same thing as a game featuring an entire storyline around risque modeling. Also, even if the bikini pictures weren't removed, practically every other hint of the female form was, from the enemy models with voids where their cleavage used to be to that wedding bodysuit to Tsubasa's pelvic bones in one of her more revealing outfits.

I'm not saying the game wasn't poorly localized. I'm saying that a part of that is poorly implemented censorship. A lot of the changes were made to hide or remove content that was likely perceived to be "inappropriate" by the localizers. Nothing else really explains some of the changes.

@NEStalgia Haha. Can’t wait to get that part. That seems like a very Japanese approach to “localization”. Just put them into some 90s jeans and muscle shirts like that dude from Blossom.

After Catherine and P5, I’m curious what Atlas are up to with SMT V. Not sure if it has some of the writers and directors, but there were definitely some pretty out there scenarios in those games. A student inviting one his teachers, who is revealed to be a part-time sex worker, to his room stands out.

@NotTelevision To be fair to the "empowerment" idea, though, IIRC, in the original Japanese version, I believe by the end of the Chapter, Tsubasa decides to go through with it, despite the risk to her media career, feeling confident and in control of that aspect of her career (along with remaining in music, a rare real world occurrence to do both). In the Western edit she just feels empowered to dress like Joey Lawrence. Now that is true victimhood.

SMT mainline series tends not to have much dialogue at all, unlike the wordy P5 and Catherine series. It's very much a gameplay, and dare I say, Western classic CRPG type series, foremost. There's dialog. Some interesting scenarios. But generally it's a down to basics gameplay-driven series that keeps the chit-chat more around setting up the framework than building a living world like in Persona. Not to say it's "Japanese take on Western religion" isn't intriguing with some interesting situations. But it doesn't have that engaging script that the other series have.

@Ralizah Changing the costumes, cleavage, bones, etc was censoring. But the actual content/theme wasn't mere censoring, nor even necessary for the goal of censorship. It remains a weird set of decisions that could have easily stayed in place, while censoring it.

I still haven't ruled out that Treehouse said "remove all the sexual content" and what came back was a giant Atlus middle finger. I don't think anyone really cares about Tusbasa's bones, or even the wedding dress of cleavage voids. None of that affects the game or even the feel. But Chapter 2 is just so, so bad.

It doesn't break it from being one of my favorite RPGs of all time despite that though. The good parts of the game are just so good otherwise.

A JRPG that "avoids random encounters" is not refreshing, and hasn't been refreshing for a decade. It's the genre standard. People who lavish praise when a JRPG they play doesn't have them clearly haven't given the genre a chance for a very long time.

@iKhan Agreed. And I'd say it's standard enough that when I play one that does have random encounters it's kind of refreshing to enjoy the genre at its roots.

I have very little excitement for "next gen" right now. I don't think the PS4 had enough games I was interested in to consider buying until 2017. By that count, I expect the PS5 to be worth owning around 2024. Maybe 2022 because of the backwards compatibility with PS4.

@iKhan I agree. But I feel that every generation. You’ll have one launch game worth playing on the PS5, and the remainder of the time you’ll just be playing PS4 stuff on your new console.

But you know what... that’s fine. I’d rather a console have a steady stream of good games over a long period of time than come blasting out the gate, with a long period of silence.

There is no real advantage to buying consoles at though. Limited hardware stocks, expensive peripherals and games, a buggy and featureless UI (wait for the patch...), and a limited library of razzle dazzle tech showcases with average gameplay. Waiting the year and a half/ two years pays off in the end.

At least in my experience.

@NotTelevision I mostly agree, but I think it can depend.

I bought a Switch at launch because I didn't have a Wii U, and I had been hyped for Breath of the Wild since 2012 when Miyamoto casually said they started working on the next Zelda. I was also pretty starved for console Nintendo games at that point, since I was running out of Wii gems to play, and I had no intention of ever buying a Wii U.

So I can understand the diehard Sony fans who love Uncharted or the diehard Microsoft fans who love Halo, and buy the whatever platform has it. But for me, that's not really my kind of game, and it has traditionally taken a while for my kind of game to make the generation switch. For example, I on PS4 those games came with FF:XV, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter World, and Nier: Automata. The Witcher sounded neat, but it's a new genre and overall style for me, so I wouldn't go into that guns blazing.

@iKhan I agree. The PS5 looks like a more powerful PS4 pro which I also didn't upgrade to. By the same token Xbox Version twi Series X model M-2 alpha potato salad deluxe also appears just to be a more powerful Xbone. I'd rather skip both and just buy a new gaming PC as my current machine is quite old now in terms of computers. By buying a PC I have little to worry about in terms of backwards compatibility as I will be able to just get all my existing Steam games on the new machine.

Nintendo always offers something new with their machines as well as having their - in my personal opinion - overwhelming untouchable collection of exclusive series, Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, etc... all on devices that do something quite different than what came before. SNES, more buttons and a totally remade controller. N64 3D games and an analogue stick with 4 controller support out of the box. Gamecube had the Game Boy player, disks for the first time on Nintendo, Wii had motion controls, Wii U had the tablet controller and Switch combined Game Boy and Console into one machine.

But PS1-PS3, just better graphics then PS4 brought viable VR as a home console feature.
Xbox................................................. had a hard drive built in and better graphics. 360, graphics, one, graphics. The Kinect flopped and was abandoned. However Sony appears to be keeping VR alive and well despite the hype for it dying elsewhere. But I personally can't use VR comfortably nor do I find myself wishing I could. But that's a personal taste.

tl;dr I too am not interested in the next gen from Sony and MS.

@iKhan For sure. If you didn’t have a way to play BOTW beforehand than I bet your purchase felt justified. 2017 also had Xenoblade 2 and Mario Odyssey as well. One other thing the Switch did well was quickly become the replacement for the Vita, effectively making the appeal of that console drop suddenly off a cliff.

So it checked a lot of boxes immediately. I just can’t in any confidence say that the PS5 will do that. The install base is lopsided in PS4’s favor. For at least the first 6-8 months of 2021 the big 3rd party releases will be on the PS4 as well as 5.