Topic: Censorship in Gaming

Genuine question.

Why is the censorship in dispatch a crime against humanity and Nintendo should be ashamed of themselves, but censorship in something like Paper Mario TTYD, Hundred Line, Final Fantasy Tactics, Dragon Quest 3, Trails in the Sky, Last Defense Academy, 13 sentinels, Fire Emblem 3 houses, Sam & Max, the messenger, Triangle Strategy, Live a Live, and Nier Automata not just ok but actively defended and hidden?

The real answer should be that none of it is ok, Japan is currently passing laws to prevent foreign interests from changing Japanese art (I know dispatch isn’t form Japan but that’s not the point).

@FrenchVaniIIuxe
Sometimes, censorship is needed to avoid the repulsion of some people reaction when they saw certain things.
It's also depend on their culture, their country and their self experience.
For example in my case and my experience, I never played Dragon Quest games and I saw there were two heroes, male and female version wearing armor suits which the female version looked more revealed her cleavage and her butt, but the English version on HD 2D version she wear nude skin color inner outfits to cover her cleavage and butt. In this case me as a newbie audience, I personally prefer her censored outfits as it looked more comfortable to watch since I don't like to see too much female cleavage exposure. That's my personal preference for female characters looking.

Also, the other case for Snack World by Level-5, there were 3 purple genies which in Japanese version they were almost naked with very minimalist outfits like male stripper and they walked with feminine way like drag queen.
But in English version, they wear black tight outfits to cover their naked body (but they still got their gay attitude). In this case, I personally prefer their censored outfits too even I usually fine with gay characters.

Another censorship in my favorite games DDR, the Japanese version of DDR used to be have some songs with English bad words as their title or lyrics such as THE WHISTLE SONG (Blow My Whistle B***h) on DDR MAX 2 Japan despite the song itself didn't even say that bad word (the original full version song mentioned that bad word). In USA version, the title get changed into THE WHISTLE SONG (Blow My Whistle BABY) since the song itself mentioned BABY, not b***h. And I personally prefer the clean / censored version as I don't want bad words songs as something I want to like.

"This forum thread is definitely not going to have a ton of back-and-forth arguments---"

@FrenchVaniIIuxe, I think it really depends on the audience. For example, Paper Mario the Thousand-Year Door. It's a game for kids, which parents will buy for their kids for Christmas, or some other situation like that. The kid audience for that game probably doesn't care about censorship as much as adults do. And also, I do remember that there was quite a bit of backlash online about the changes made in TYYD. But as usual, most people just moved on after a few weeks. I do notice that a fair amount of people complaining about censorship often end up moving on after a week or some other small amount of time, unless they're really diehard about it like you and I are (I still bring up Nintendo of America canceling the American Switch releases of the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth trilogy every once in a while because, to this day, I'm still rather pissed about what happened). I do admit that the amount of media being censored and toned down these days, especially Japanese media, is getting rather out of hand, and it is affecting some media series that I like, which is really upsetting. Though I also admit that, at the same time, like I was joking about at the start of this post, the back-and-forth arguments on the internet don't really seem to accomplish much. Yet here I am, still participating in them every once in a while 🤷‍♂️.

I dont think Nintendo's censorship was every ok the only thing during the NES days it wasnt as well known. The only way most found out about was word of mouth or Magazines which alot of kids who played video games didn't have access to. Honestly I didnt know for example that NOA covered up Medusa in the Castlevania games or in RPGs they removed cross symbols from buildings until I was a teenager and the internet was becoming norm. So back then, people honestly didnt know.

Another thing to take in consideration is there was no internet then either so complaining about it wasnt a public thing. If people did complain about it was more then likely in letters to NOA or amoungest their group of friends it wasnt like a person back then could post on a website or blog or make a YouTube video about it to complain.

So it wasnt a case of being accepted just not known.

@Nep-Nep-Freak

I agree but I’m not trying to start arguments, I’m really genuinely asking why people are treating dispatch differently from these other titles.

Code Vein 2 just released to people who paid extra and has much of the same problems as Dispatch but for some reason it’s being treated as good despite the censorship being mostly identical.

@Tasuki

That’s a good point, but now it is known and some people defend it, The entire dialogue in Nier Automata was changed but we weren’t allowed to complain. Hundred Line added lots of modern dialogue and nearly bankrupt the company.

To some extent while it was just as bad unacceptable in the 80s as it is now, back then they were trying to make it more broadly appealing and it’s hard to say if that’s why it’s being done today

Also just to be crystals clear I don’t like it for any reason malicious or otherwise.

@Nep-Nep-Freak
I keep seeing the tendency from Japanese people recently to make a lot of female characters with more exposure of their sexy body with bigger boobs and minimalist outfits, that was something that concerned me and I found it's a repulsion to me to see "hentai" looking characters, even I am a male adult people. And that was the reason I sold my xenoblade 2 for my repulsion of the big boobs female characters.
In this case, I need some censorship of female body as I prefer more coverage outfits and smaller breast size female characters.
I also played FF X-2 which the girls and LeBlanc have very sexy and cleavage exposure but I prefer not looking too much on their cleavage part as I prefer six pack barechested male characters than cleavage exposure female characters.

Some people don't want censorship, but other people want censorship to tone it down the contents that can make them get repulsed.
It depends from their culture, their country and their own experience.

@kkslider5552000

https://noisypixel.net/the-hundred-line-last-defense-academy-...

@FrenchVaniIIuxe That was last year, before the game released. You'll be relieved to know that it's gone on to become a big hit.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-hundred-line-last-defen...

In any case, people should just buy it. Sure, a few things got changed in the localization, and it's important to document that, but it's still a damn good game.

@Anti-Matter

Nothing wrong with more accessibility. Both Dispatch and Cyberpunk have built in content filters which are both rare and refreshing to see. Personally I think more devs should offer this, the problem is that when it’s forced on them by someone who does share their artistic vision and just wants to hijack their story which is what’s happening here.

Sometimes adding more features means more people can enjoy something, but other times it can water it down and really that decision should be left to developers and not localizers.

@Matt_Barber

That’s good, was hoping they’d survive to make Danganronpa 2x2.

@FrenchVaniIIuxe
I personally valued more the appropriate looking stuffs first than the artistic aspect.
I valued more morality aspect since I am from Indonesia and my country have more restrictions in censorship to keep the things in appropriate way and I personally prefer something that looks appropriate than the inappropriate looking even there are two options offered by game developers, I personally prefer the censored version without the uncensored version.

@Anti-Matter, and other people, like me, don't mind, or, dare I say, like content like that. There are plenty of games out there that do have that content, and lots of other games that don't. Not every game and its contents are going to appeal to everyone. So when people who do like that content start having fewer options, it's reasonable to be upset about it. How would you feel if your Paw Patrol, Bluey, etc. games started having big boobs and all that stuff in them? You'd probably be upset about that, and being upset about that would be reasonable, especially if that change goes against the creative direction of the creators and developers of those Paw Patrol, Bluey, etc. games. Basically what I'm trying to say is this: people who don't like suggestive material have their games, while people who do like suggestive material have their games. There's plenty of both kinds of games. But when the balance starts to shift, and the games that do have stuff like suggestive material start to be toned down, the people who do like that content have fewer options compared to the other side.

I mean, it really is food for thought: maybe, if the other side realized that they would be upset if their tamer games started having more suggestive stuff in it, then they would understand the view of the other side a bit more.

I feel like there are some different situations in your examples.

A lot of those are remakes. Remakes are allowed to change dialogue, art style, to shorten or lengthen the game, to modernize it, to allow the new devs to put their own artistic spin on it, etc. That's what a remake is. Some games (like final fantasy 7 remake) were remade to have more adult themes, some to have less, some devs simply change some things and likely didn't think too much about those issues other than to try to improve the game. So for that category I would say it simply isn't censorship, it's a new game.

Fire Emblem on the other hand is famous for slightly toning down some of the dialogue in translation to allow the game to be played by young kids in the West where age ratings are a little different. People definitely complain about this but since it is mild changes and barely effects anything, most people don't notice or care. Plus, translation always changes dialogue — there is no such thing as a 100% 'correct' translation, especially since figures of speech and even language context simply don't translate literally. People can play the game in Japanese on Switch if they really want to see the marginally different dialogue.

So why would there be more complaints about Dispatch? It's a port rather than a remake. And it's the same language — e.g. PS5 English versus Nintendo English. So unlike localization, people in one region can see two versions which makes it easier to claim one is censored. Also... there is effectively a censor button in the game you can't turn off. So the larger number of people complaining is likely because the game essentially flat out admits to being censored.

That said, I don't know if there is really an outcry or if this is just the usual game news cycle of complaining.

This whole Dispatch situation is just bizarre. Cyberpunk from my understanding has far more mature content than Dispatch, and yet came over to Switch 2 untouched. But anyway, now I'm gonna ramble about something else. I feel like discussions like this abuse the word "Censorship" to the point it loses all meaning. If Nintendo called up AdHoc and told them they had to remove the nudity and such in the game, I think that is stupid, hypocritical, and unnecessary. However, in most cases, I don't view a storefront having guidelines on what it will or will not allowed to be sold on it to be "censorship". Once again, I think it is silly and wildly hypocritical, but "censorship" still feels like a heck of a stretch. Also, tangent to my own tangent, it is shocking to me that given all the crap going on right now, that this of all things is what people choose to be mad at. Like, y'all have seen the news, I don't need to remind you. Maybe we should be a little more upset at tech billionaires running social media platforms for censoring people speaking out against the government than at a game missing some animated boobs. IDK, just my two cents. I had to go back and edit out swear words, cause I remembered you can't say that here, which is why some words may look strange lol