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Bravely Default censored for western release

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BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
I'm sure the discussion is already in this thread but surely the trigger that there were changes were the two obvious points : the age change and the costume changes.

Beyond that - people are then arguing about the changing of some sexual innuendo based on what people who have played both version are saying.

I really seriously doubt people would give a flying toss if it was JUST the removal of the innuendos
The innuendos are the only thing that concerned me because 1. ages of the characters in most games doesn't concern me 2. if I get this game I don't see myself using the costumes shown in the OP for my characters (though it has been pointed out one is story based, but it would still not be my choice to use it).

While I am aware that Japanese wordplay and puns are not always easy to translate often effort is made to keep the same tone with the translation and hopefully come up with an equivalent joke. The idea that all sexual innuendo was removed gave the impression that the game had lost some of it's light hearted edge and as someone who likes a bit of light heartedness in his games that was a bit sad to hear. Obviously not something that would make me not buy the game but still something that I think could have been handled better.

However those who have played the game have pointed out that the article's claims are nonsense and innuendos are still rife in the game so we can only conclude the ones missing were just too japanese punny to localise with another pun.
 
Anyone below 18 is a child in the US.

But I'm sure we're all reasonable enough to discern that there's a pretty goddamn big difference between sexualized older teens and 8 year olds, yes? Especially considering that, in the US and many other countries, some of those characters are legal.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Okay
a.)if the number doesn't matter at all then why would anyone give any kind of fuck that it was changed on either side of this debate
and b.)a character's age can be a pretty important part of their characterization.

People are up in arms over the fact that an imaginary 15 year old, who got changed to 18 for NA anyway, is being sexualized. The actual number doesn't mean jack shit and very rarely ever does in fictional works. Nobody should be bringing up the age of the characters, as in they're too young, in regards to the characters being sexualized. Now if you want to talk about the chibi art being sexualized, that's a separate issue.

In a fictional world, does the issue of the character being 15/16 compared to 18/19 matter at all? How does that affect their characterization? It doesn't.

This was a pointless change to make puritans feel better about their own values.

Yes. If the characters were toddlers, would you not relate to them differently?

If nobody told you the character's age, would anything change? If the number was completely wiped out from all media pertaining to the game, would anything change?
 

Zane

Member
But I'm sure we're all reasonable enough to discern that there's a pretty goddamn big difference between sexualized older teens and 8 year olds, yes? Especially considering that, in the US and many other countries, some of those characters are legal.

I'm of the opinion that there is a gigantic difference in a sexualized 17 y/o and a sexualized 18 y/o
 

V AA D E R

Neo Member
Really don't understand why this thread is as long as it is...what they chose to censor isn't even a major issue.

When Gears of War 2 was released in Japan they got rid of nearly all the dialogue due to the heavy vulgarities, and replaced it with cheesier lines. They removed all the gore, made the locust/cog bleed fake looking purple gunk, etc. THAT is an example of awful localization, although to my knowledge they did it to comply with Japanese rules.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
If nobody told you the character's age, would anything change? If the number was completely wiped out from all media pertaining to the game, would anything change?

Would it? Again, the developers certainly thought it was worth including. Like blood type for Japan they apparently thought it was something that would effect the player
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Yes they do. If they don't, then the game failed to emotionally resonate with you.
What? I don't care about what age Mario is supposed to be, I don't care how old the Bad Dudes in Bad Dudes are, I don't even care how old "I'm" supposed to be in New Leaf and I've played that for 400 hours. How can you say what I should be concerned about?
 

Glass Rebel

Member
Holy crap. It all falls into place now. The outfits are temporary and only serve a purpose in the story from a narrative point of view.

Thank you for sharing this. This thread could've pretty much ended on page 1 if more people knew the context behind those outfits.

You know this isn't true :lol

Anyway, I think the discussion would be slightly less pointless if it revolved around what actually happens in the game.
 

Nibiru

Banned
Funny thing. They aren't children. They are 18+ now for western audiences. So, why should any other editing occur? If you continue to persist that they aren't 18 when they have clearly made the effort to make them as such, I can make the argument that the rest of the edits are silly.

If they are 18, there is no need to edit anything else (costumes, innuendo) or remove one completely. If they are 15, then the other changes are understood. Both? Kind of silly. Especially since the game is still (seemingly) rife with innuendo.

Haha gimme a break. I get it some people are into the whole Loli thing but they need to stop with all the semantics and just be true to themselves as to why they like it. These caricatures are childlike and that's that. It's like in the mmo Tera the lore stated that the kiddie toons the Elin were ageless or immortal. Like that instantly made it ok that they were half naked kids.

Imo of the edits made to the Bravely Default characters the age is the most ridiculous one I mean who are we kidding they aren't 18.
 

royox

Member
The article in the OP makes it sound like they removed all innuendos from the game which is why people thought that was editing gone too far. It was only when people who have the game clarified the issue that it was dropped. Really the OP should edit his posts to clarify this.


LOL. If the game was censored Ringabel could not even speak. Every line of him is about searching for girls or "come with me baby I will teach you my secrets".

The Red Mage part too....it's about raping teens!
 

CorvoSol

Member
No.

These threads explode because of the silly name calling and generalization.

Anyone who doesn't get super outraged or even slightly like it are pedos or creepers. Then you got tools calling out people because of their avatars and then morons calling the artist a child molester.

These threads explode because they get so goddam toxic so fast. People, from both "sides", end up ignoring a lot of good points because of this.

This thread has left the main point 20 pages ago. People are too fucking quick to just drive-by with "lol look at this pedo shit...these nerds are mad because they can't jerk off to their kiddy porn lolololol" and it kills any chance at a conversation. Equally sad because those fools then never return to the thread and had nothign of value to add to it.

Thank you for saying this. I wanted to say it, but I probably couldn't have done it as concisely.
 
Funny thing. They aren't children. They are 18+ now for western audiences. So, why should any other editing occur? If you continue to persist that they aren't 18 when they have clearly made the effort to make them as such, I can make the argument that the rest of the edits are silly.

If they are 18, there is no need to edit anything else (costumes, innuendo) or remove one completely. If they are 15, then the other changes are understood. Both? Kind of silly. Especially since the game is still (seemingly) rife with innuendo.

There's an NPC who's either a lesbian or crossdresser (which I think is the intent and I may be missing something that makes it obvious) standing in Florem in the English version of the game. And Ringabel still hits on pretty much everything female (and there's comments about him being awake all night in Florem too). So they haven't removed much in the way of possible controversial material in the dialogue at least or if they have then the original was way less subtle than anything I've heard about it.
 

Zane

Member
What? I don't care about what age Mario is supposed to be, I don't care how old the Bad Dudes in Bad Dudes are, I don't even care how old "I'm" supposed to be in New Leaf and I've played that for 400 hours. How can you say what I should be concerned about?

Yes and those games don't have grand sweeping stories whose characters stay with you for 40+ hours. All you have shown me is those three games did not resonate on a deeply emotional level. If they had, you would be concerned about the ages of the characters
 

Mik317

Member
Haha gimme a break. I get it some people are into the whole Loli thing but they need to stop with all the semantics and just be true to themselves as to why they like it. These caricatures are childlike and that's that. It's like in the mmo Tera the lore stated that the kiddie toons the Elin were ageless or immortal. Like that instantly made it ok that they were half naked kids.

Imo of the edits made to the Bravely Default characters the age is the most ridiculous one I mean who are we kidding they aren't 18.

It's like my posts are being ignored.

No.

The idea behind the style was to be a callback to the old sprites of FF. The game is meant to be a love letter to that era...artstyle and all.

The idea isn't to make them look like kids. It is to make them look like 3d versions of those sprites of old.

The fact that people are overlooking this is mindboggling. I thought it was super obvious.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Yes. I wouldn't think the developers were presenting to me a sexualized fifteen year old girl.

Now they're presenting a sexualized eighteen year old. So why are any of the other changes necessary?

Well the law is a part of my culture and certainly affects how I view the world around me as well as the people and media (such as video games) that inhabit it

A child by almost every definition I can find, is between the age of a toddler and puberty. Anything afterwards is a teenager.
 

Moonlight

Banned
Yes and those games don't have grand sweeping stories whose characters stay with you for 40+ hours. All you have shown me is those three games did not resonate on a deeply emotional level. If they had, you would be concerned about the ages of the characters
To this day, I literally have no idea how old Terra is supposed to be in Final Fantasy VI. I don't know how old Edgar, Locke, or Celes is. I've played FFVI countless times, and for as much as the game 'resonated' with me, I never gave a fuck about how, specifically, old they were. There was a point where I did not need to understand anything more than 'adult', 'teen', or 'kid'.

But I guess I never really understood or appreciated FFVI because I never bothered to concern myself over how old they were. I... what?
 
Yes and those games don't have grand sweeping stories whose characters stay with you for 40+ hours. All you have shown me is those three games did not resonate on a deeply emotional level. If they had, you would be concerned about the ages of the characters

BD is mostly FF5 with a twist, not the kind of thing that "resonates on an emotional level" regardless of how much time you spend playing it.
 

_hekk05

Banned
Haha gimme a break. I get it some people are into the whole Loli thing but they need to stop with all the semantics and just be true to themselves as to why they like it. These caricatures are childlike and that's that. It's like in the mmo Tera the lore stated that the kiddie toons the Elin were ageless or immortal. Like that instantly made it ok that they were half naked kids.

Imo of the edits made to the Bravely Default characters the age is the most ridiculous one I mean who are we kidding they aren't 18.

They're chibi art. Caricatures, as you so eloquently put it.

The flaw in your argument is that these caricatures exaggerate and oversimplify aspects of the character. In doing so, it should be impossible for you to guess the age of these characters. In fact, the chibi art could as easily pass for young adults in their 20s.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Haha gimme a break. I get it some people are into the whole Loli thing but they need to stop with all the semantics and just be true to themselves as to why they like it. These caricatures are childlike and that's that. It's like in the mmo Tera the lore stated that the kiddie toons the Elin were ageless or immortal. Like that instantly made it ok that they were half naked kids.

Imo of the edits made to the Bravely Default characters the age is the most ridiculous one I mean who are we kidding they aren't 18.

gWapJwb.gif


I'm pretty fucking sure none of these characters are lolis.
 
People are up in arms over the fact that an imaginary 15 year old, who got changed to 18 for NA anyway, is being sexualized. The actual number doesn't mean jack shit and very rarely ever does in fictional works. Nobody should be bringing up the age of the characters, as in they're too young, in regards to the characters being sexualized. Now if you want to talk about the chibi art being sexualized, that's a separate issue.

In a fictional world, does the issue of the character being 15/16 compared to 18/19 matter at all? How does that affect their characterization? It doesn't.

This was a pointless change to make puritans feel better about their own values.



If nobody told you the character's age, would anything change? If the number was completely wiped out from all media pertaining to the game, would anything change?


Of course the age is important. Because it's what defines the characters. We're talking about fiction. So to portray your characters, you're supposed to detail them. Giving informations on them. If you told me they were 12 years old, then I would have no choice but to accept that they are and that's your vision. Now if you tell me that they're 18 years old, it makes me think they are adults and I have to accept that they are adults since it's your vision. Now if there were no ages involved, that would be to the reader to imagine what they think is more likely. And I think that making them older was a good idea.
 

striferser

Huge Nickleback Fan
The costume are better on western release :0
Not sure how to feel about the innuendo though...,well, i hope the loc team make better joke or something...
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Now they're presenting a sexualized eighteen year old. So why are any of the other changes necessary?

The other changes "necessary"? I'm not sure if they were "necessary" although I think I appreciate them. Because even if I'm not "bothered" necessarily I still often find the "innuendo" and "fan-service" that these things take to be tacky and annoying.

The costume design in conjunction with the age is disturbing, and I've been trying to argue for the people who feel that way against a half dozen posters, yourself included, taking the stance "its not real man, why do you care about it at all?".

The costume design by itself I just find kind of tasteless, although I hear its contextualized in the game in a way that might be interesting. Looking forward to finding out just what they do.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Yes and those games don't have grand sweeping stories whose characters stay with you for 40+ hours. All you have shown me is those three games did not resonate on a deeply emotional level. If they had, you would be concerned about the ages of the characters
You are still honestly trying to argue what my personal opinion should be when it comes to games? When it comes to ages I may need to know roughly how old they are to understand a story plot like say an ex soldier who is getting on in his year but I just need to know he is old rather than specifically 56 years, 4 months and 23 days old.
 

Nibiru

Banned
The idea behind the style was to be a callback to the old sprites of FF. The game is meant to be a love letter to that era...artstyle and all.

The idea isn't to make them look like kids. It is to make them look like 3d versions of those sprites of old.

The fact that people are overlooking this is mindboggling. I thought it was super obvious.

I disagree with what you think. The love letter stuff is nonsense imo there are hundreds of rpgs that are love letters to that style of rpg and they don't have half naked pre-teens.
 
Haha gimme a break. I get it some people are into the whole Loli thing but they need to stop with all the semantics and just be true to themselves as to why they like it. These caricatures are childlike and that's that. It's like in the mmo Tera the lore stated that the kiddie toons the Elin were ageless or immortal. Like that instantly made it ok that they were half naked kids.

Imo of the edits made to the Bravely Default characters the age is the most ridiculous one I mean who are we kidding they aren't 18.



Of course they are 18 years old if the game say so. That's not because it is chibi style that they are children since the game make a difference in term of proportions between children, teenagers, adults and elders.
 
Yes and those games don't have grand sweeping stories whose characters stay with you for 40+ hours. All you have shown me is those three games did not resonate on a deeply emotional level. If they had, you would be concerned about the ages of the characters

Their characters make an impression but the exact age you could place on them doesn't. Frankly when you get down to it, if you look at their speech patterns and back story (small village in a backwater kindgom, idealistic and somewhat sheltered "princess", amnesiac and a cloistered priestess/nun) their ages could run from anything past 15ish to the early 20s by equivalency to modern society. This is true of of the teenage protagonists of almost every JRPG ever.
 

Zane

Member
To this day, I literally have no idea how old Terra is supposed to be in Final Fantasy VI. I don't know how old Edgar, Locke, or Celes is. I've played FFVI countless times, and for as much as the game 'resonated' with me, I never gave a fuck about how, specifically, old they were. There was a point where I did not need to understand anything more than 'adult', 'teen', or 'kid'.

But I guess I never really understood or appreciated FFVI because I never bothered to concern myself over how old they were. I... what?

You had a general idea and what's important is you made a judgement in your head to determine their approximate age. The approximate ages of these characters had a huge affect on their characters and how you related to them. Whether you realized it or not. This, I promise you
 

_hekk05

Banned
http://i.imgur.com/gWapJwb.gif

I'm pretty fucking sure none of these characters are lolis.

Unfortunately, technically he's right. Loli is an abbreviation of lolita. A person who is sexually attracted to lolitas is deemed to have a lolita complex.

Lolita complex includes paedophilia, the sexual attraction to prepubescents, hebephilia, the attraction to pubescents, and ephebophilia, the attraction to young adolescents.

If we fix the ages of the characters to 15 or 16, as in the Japanese version, it would be technically correct to call them lolis.
 

Zane

Member
You are still honestly trying to argue what my personal opinion should be when it comes to games? When it comes to ages I may need to know roughly how old they are to understand a story plot like say an ex soldier who is getting on in his year but I just need to know he is old

Why do you need to know he's old if ages don't matter?
 
I disagree with what you think. The love letter stuff is nonsense imo there are hundreds of rpgs that are love letters to that style of rpg and they don't have half naked pre-teens.


It's not about what he thinks but more like facts. Now you can disagree with facts, but that's another matter. Also the game isnt about pre-teens or half naked people you know. Just because there's a bonus costume doesn't change the whole game.
 
Thanks. It just burns me up that someone feels like I have to be 'protected' from human anatomy. My backlog is too huge for me to support this.



Flash news: It's not really about you being protected, more like western habits and ratings + marketing. Now if you want to miss a great game for such lame reasons...
 

Nibiru

Banned
They're chibi art. Caricatures, as you so eloquently put it.

This is not fair. The issue is the skimpy outfits on what appears to be children by the majority of the planet so editing them in the west made sense. The characters are 15 dude and they are sexualized. This angle of trying to call a duck not a duck is lame.

I know what Chibi is and it is not all sexualized and if I can be frank I think the Chibi that is sexualized uses the Chibi defense as a way to skirt censors.
 

FryHole

Member
Just wondering - did we have this debate to this level of intensity when the Game of Thrones TV show bunked the ages of the younger cast up by a few years? And are the same people in this thread who are against the original Japanese cut of this game equally angry at Martin's original ages?
 

Glass Rebel

Member
This is not fair. The issue is the skimpy outfits on what appears to be children by the majority of the planet so editing them in the west made sense. The characters are 15 dude and they are sexualized. This angle of trying to call a duck not a duck is lame.

I know what Chibi is and it is not all sexualized and if I can be frank I think the Chibi that is sexualized uses the Chibi defense as a way to skirt censors.

Most of the game isn't like this and the bikini makes sense in a story context and the themes pushed during that specific arc.
 
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