NoE (seemingly) cuts Bravely Second's bad ends from sidequests.

[Something Amyss]

That's why I always find the slippery slope arguments in these discussions to be wholly unconvincing, we have had far more edited abominations than this. If anything, they've gotten better with localizations over the years, the 90's were a wild time where anime, manga, and video games from Japan were almost laughably bad, even the translations were often poor, if they weren't just straight up relabeling different games a la super Mario bros. 2.

If anything, we are in one of the best periods for translations or localizations. I can get stuff digitally now that wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of ever coming to the u.s., and of much higher translation/localization quality from the majority of stuff 15 years ago.

And honestly, the 80s were probably worse than the 90s, so it really looks like things are getting better. That's the thing about a slippery slope: it actually has to lead somewhere.

And yeah, I mean, I remember when I was a kid there would occasionally be news of a game that was Japan only, and I'd be bummed. Now we have a much better chance of seeing some form of release. Christ, we may finally be getting Mother 3 (which makes me curious as to how they're going to do it). And while we're at it, how awesome is it that we can legally stream hundreds or even thousands of anime series from our homes, rather than trying to hunt down loose VHS tapes to complete our collections? Yeah. I'm old.

I remember a time when subtitled anime was practically unheard of in a retail shop and heavy edits to video games were common. Perspective makes this stuff a lot less scary.

But honestly, I think we all have a pretty good idea of why this slippery slope idea is being pushed.

 

[Musou Tensei]

So instead of making it more obvious, giving more hints or whatever to make the game more enjoyable, they simply removed content (and possible replayability), I guess that's of course cheaper and easier, and it's some lazy shit, and I hate lazy shit like that almost as much as censorship.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Man, I knew that guy @n0e was bad news! He just gets hired by the Escapist and the next thing you know he's cutting up our games, trying to take away our endings!

I know he said he wanted to improve things around here, but I didn't think he meant to do it by erasing all the bad endings from games.

 

[NPC009]

So instead of making it more obvious, giving more hints or whatever to make the game more enjoyable, they simply removed content (and possible replayability), I guess that's of course cheaper and easier, and it's some lazy shit, and I hate lazy shit like that almost as much as censorship.

Eh, you don't actually know what exactly was changed and if adding hints would have been a been possible/a good idea.

From what I gathered, this is what it's like in the Japanese version:
You've got one or more quests you can do at multiple points in the stories. When you activate certain events and what choices you make affects the outcome of that quest. However, there is no indication what kind of timing is involved, so, as a player, you're stumbling in the dark. Japanese players did not like this.

It doesn't sound like something that could be solved by giving town NPC's more dialogue so they can hint at things. At that point in the game you're probably traveling around and there is no guarantee you'll stumble upon the right hint at the right time. Another solution would be building in clear instructions in the hints the game gives, but not everyone would be happy with the hand-holding. A problem with both these solutions is that they may involve giving NPCs information they can't really have, or, you know, some incredibly ham-fisted writing. "Boy, I wonder how and A and B in town X are doing!" (times the number of events affected by progression)

Another thing, how varied are these endings actually? For instance, if it's just an unimportant character dying and a line of dialogue changing as a result, how important is the availability of that ending actually? In the case of the example in the Gamefaqs thread it's just a simple line of text that's added if you make the same choices twice (however, the direct outcome of the quest is still the same). That does not sound like a big deal.

 

[EternallyBored]

That's why I always find the slippery slope arguments in these discussions to be wholly unconvincing, we have had far more edited abominations than this. If anything, they've gotten better with localizations over the years, the 90's were a wild time where anime, manga, and video games from Japan were almost laughably bad, even the translations were often poor, if they weren't just straight up relabeling different games a la super Mario bros. 2.

If anything, we are in one of the best periods for translations or localizations. I can get stuff digitally now that wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of ever coming to the u.s., and of much higher translation/localization quality from the majority of stuff 15 years ago.

And honestly, the 80s were probably worse than the 90s, so it really looks like things are getting better. That's the thing about a slippery slope: it actually has to lead somewhere.

And yeah, I mean, I remember when I was a kid there would occasionally be news of a game that was Japan only, and I'd be bummed. Now we have a much better chance of seeing some form of release. Christ, we may finally be getting Mother 3 (which makes me curious as to how they're going to do it). And while we're at it, how awesome is it that we can legally stream hundreds or even thousands of anime series from our homes, rather than trying to hunt down loose VHS tapes to complete our collections? Yeah. I'm old.

I remember a time when subtitled anime was practically unheard of in a retail shop and heavy edits to video games were common. Perspective makes this stuff a lot less scary.

But honestly, I think we all have a pretty good idea of why this slippery slope idea is being pushed.

I remember growing up in a smallish city where the only way to get anime was to go to blockbuster to rent one of their three VHS tapes of heavily edited episodes of Ranma 1/2 and Dragonball Z, I had to drive for about 45-60 minutes if I wanted to find anything more than the worst dubbed trash, and making a trip to California was pretty much the only way to find anything other than the mainstream stuff.

I also remember when the PS1 first came out and the cheap cost of discs drove a wave of cheap imports that took games and didn't even translate them, just pulled dialogue out of their ass based on what was going on on the screen, with voice acting done by people who had obviously never done any professional voice acting in their life.

It was terrible and exciting in a way, without high speed internet you hung out in early era message boards trying to work out translations and plot synopsis based on some college Freshman's Japanese 101 text books, or trying to decipher if the property had anything preserved from its original Japanese release.

Stuff did improve in some ways from the 80's to 90's, as the 80's had almost no quality control and little in the way of content being brought over outside of a few animes, whatever Nintendo was willing to approve, and what you could import. In the 80's I lived in Hawaii so I probably had way more access to that stuff than kids on the mainland, but it took until I started hanging out on the internet in the 90's to realize just how different the anime and manga I had grown up with was changed from its original Japanese release.

The slippery slope arguement is one that, really, I do understand is mostly being used as a bludgeon to push talking points in the internet shouting match that has been flaring up since the Fire Emblem, DOAX 3, and Street Fighter stuff all happened close to each other. Though, it's one that is hard for me to picture anyone over the age of 20 being able to seriously look back at how localizations and translations used to be done and seriously think that we are going down a slope, especially in Nintendo's case, where they have been pulling shenanigans like this since the 80's.

 

[Musou Tensei]

Meh. Frankly sometimes people need a smack in the face from the mods and I needed one last night.

For what though? I read everything you wrote (I think) and unless I skipped over something I saw nothing that warrants a warning.

 

[Something Amyss]

I remember growing up in a smallish city where the only way to get anime was to go to blockbuster to rent one of their three VHS tapes of heavily edited episodes of Ranma 1/2 and Dragonball Z, I had to drive for about 45-60 minutes if I wanted to find anything more than the worst dubbed trash, and making a trip to California was pretty much the only way to find anything other than the mainstream stuff.

One of the interesting things to me is specifically that without shows like Voltron or Saber Rider or even later entries like Power Rangers (not anime, but same idea) or Teknoman, a lot of people wouldn't have gotten into anime at all. I'm a huge Tekkaman Blade fan, and while it's not Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon, Teknoman was evidently the first "anime" for a lot of people. And, I mean, it's not as good as the original (in part because they chop off like a dozen episodes), but if Saban hadn't run Teknoman in 1995, I wouldn't have even known about Tekkaman Blade.

Similarly, Saban's the only reason I've watched any Super Sentai or Kamen Rider. They just weren't on my radar until my younger brother started watching Power Rangers.

Edited Japanese media may have actually been necessary for the mainstream success of the wider assortment of Japanese media we have today. I'm betting a lot of people upset that these games have been "censored" for kids were kids who got their first taste of such stuff through "censored" material once. I can't even talk about this specific instance, because it appears it may have been because the game's sidequests were poorly received.

I also remember when the PS1 first came out and the cheap cost of discs drove a wave of cheap imports that took games and didn't even translate them, just pulled dialogue out of their ass based on what was going on on the screen, with voice acting done by people who had obviously never done any professional voice acting in their life.

God, but sometimes, that was half the fun. My friends and I would get together and mock those games mercilessly.

The slippery slope arguement is one that, really, I do understand is mostly being used as a bludgeon to push talking points in the internet shouting match that has been flaring up since the Fire Emblem, DOAX 3, and Street Fighter stuff all happened close to each other. Though, it's one that is hard for me to picture anyone over the age of 20 being able to seriously look back at how localizations and translations used to be done and seriously think that we are going down a slope, especially in Nintendo's case, where they have been pulling shenanigans like this since the 80's.[/quote]

It's been going on longer than that. It's roughly the same people who were upset in 2014 and roughly the same people who were upset in 2012. IT's more video game tribalism than any concern about a given issue.

The irony is the "slippery slope" argument that's being made is one they should therefore also take responsibility for, because there have been counter examples of men being covered up to deafening silence from the anti-censorship crowd. Samew with LGBT content. OIne can only conclude that if allowing the changes we're okay with leads down this path, that they're contributors. But "do as I say, not as I do" has been a big thing for the last four years.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The argument of crappy dubs needing to exist to introduce people to the medium is a vey interesting one. I have a unique perspective to this as I grew up in Greece with Greek dubs of anime which were actually never shown in the US as well as the more known titles. Greek dubs didn't censor anything, they just did language and translation changes. The music and songs and every reference and japanesy special move name were retained. Due to this I object to the notion that you HAD to butcher all these anime series to get the mainstream folks to bother wih them. I was lucky enough to have my dad run a vhs shop so he'd bring me anime tapes growin up, the original 70s Getta Robo was my absolute favorite and there was nothing edited out., I could karaoke it's intro in Japanese from age 5.

Just because these dubs got you into anime it doesn't mean they were the only thing that could have done so.

Iga no Kabamaru, Plawres Sanshirou, Mazinger X, Macross: Ai oboete imasu ka, Jura Tripper, Windaria, just to name a couple of the uncensored shows I grew up with, being shown on public tv uncensored. I fail to see how monstrosities like "Robotech" are superior at getting people into anime as no kid in my school or vicinity did not know or like some of these series and there was no societal stigma associated with loving anime either. Literally everyone in my generation knew of dragonball, as we had been watching it since 1995, having dbz budokai in middle school was a thing that made you cool. That's the environment that uncensored anime shown often on tv fostered so excuse me for not settling for less.

You aren't required to grind unless you're trying to do the vampire class quest earlier than you need, nor are you required to have some specific classes to beat bosses. Strategy always trumps broken skill combos like dark knights with blood drain spamming their op hp skils and regaining the lost hp back.

The 4-Valkyrie team with Hermes Shoes disagrees.

If your entire team is faster than your opponent, you can just spam Jump and you're completely invincible. He can't hit you, and you'll just Jump on him until he dies.

It's how I killed the secret boss.

If you're faster, shouldn't he hit you on the way down after your jump hits him, since the jump hit also will go off first? Unless jump attacks had an always goes last clause that I'm overlooking I guess. Heh, makes sense though since valkyries are dragoons and what do dragoons do if not slay dragons!

 

[MCerberus]

I smell the hand of the ESRB in this. They're becoming nearly as bad as the MPAA

 

[EternallyBored]

I smell the hand of the ESRB in this. They're becoming nearly as bad as the MPAA

That makes no sense, what does the ESRB have to do with this? It's not out in the U.S. yet, the edits being talked about are to the European version, hence why the title mentions the NoE (Nintendo of Europe) branch. The ESRB has no power in Europe, I don't think they have a unified rating board, I know the UK has PEGI,. We don't have any confirmation that the same edits will be in the American version as NoE and NoA sometimes handle their localizations differently.

Also, The content being claimed as edited out isnt anything graphic, it's off screen deaths accomanied by text, given the fantasy violence of the game, I seriously doubt some bloodless death would knock the game into a higher age bracket.

 

[Erttheking]

Meh. Frankly sometimes people need a smack in the face from the mods and I needed one last night.

For what though? I read everything you wrote (I think) and unless I skipped over something I saw nothing that warrants a warning.

Accusing someone of talking shit is, ironically, talking shit.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

If you're faster, shouldn't he hit you on the way down after your jump hits him, since the jump hit also will go off first? Unless jump attacks had an always goes last clause that I'm overlooking I guess. Heh, makes sense though since valkyries are dragoons and what do dragoons do if not slay dragons!

I think the way it works is that he forfeits his attack the turn you come down because he can't choose a target.

Or something, I don't know. All I know is that it works.

 

[Silvanus]

This is disappointing. I had half a mind to buy this game (still do), and it will admittedly irk me to know there's another more complete version out there somewhere, which I can't play.

Can I just say, too, that posters really shouldn't be blaming eachother quite so bitterly over this. The developers did it. They made the choice. The consumers only ever bought what they wanted or gave feed-back or what-have-you-- which is exactly what is expected from consumers; it's their one job.

If you don't like the change (as I don't, as most people here don't), then don't blame other people for liking/disliking what you don't like/dislike.

 

[MCerberus]

I smell the hand of the ESRB in this. They're becoming nearly as bad as the MPAA

That makes no sense, what does the ESRB have to do with this? It's not out in the U.S. yet, the edits being talked about are to the European version, hence why the title mentions the NoE (Nintendo of Europe) branch. The ESRB has no power in Europe, I don't think they have a unified rating board, I know the UK has PEGI,. We don't have any confirmation that the same edits will be in the American version as NoE and NoA sometimes handle their localizations differently.

Also, The content being claimed as edited out isnt anything graphic, it's off screen deaths accomanied by text, given the fantasy violence of the game, I seriously doubt some bloodless death would knock the game into a higher age bracket.

Ah, so it's PEGI, the ESRB's stuffy, prude brother. The rating boards are famous for being staffed with people who barely know what a game is nevertheless gamers who apply their personal hangups regardless of context or actual ratings guidance. They're essentially Mrs. Lovejoy from the Simpsons and threaten companies with ratings that would kill their games if they don't absolutely and completely fit their world view. Oh, and it's corrupt. Seems that people with bigger wallets get free passes.

Like the G rating, you'll notice E ratings and equivalents are going extinct because unless it's a grey paste devoid of conflict, it will offend someone on the ratings board.

 

[EternallyBored]

I smell the hand of the ESRB in this. They're becoming nearly as bad as the MPAA

That makes no sense, what does the ESRB have to do with this? It's not out in the U.S. yet, the edits being talked about are to the European version, hence why the title mentions the NoE (Nintendo of Europe) branch. The ESRB has no power in Europe, I don't think they have a unified rating board, I know the UK has PEGI,. We don't have any confirmation that the same edits will be in the American version as NoE and NoA sometimes handle their localizations differently.

Also, The content being claimed as edited out isnt anything graphic, it's off screen deaths accomanied by text, given the fantasy violence of the game, I seriously doubt some bloodless death would knock the game into a higher age bracket.

Ah, so it's PEGI, the ESRB's stuffy, prude brother. The rating boards are famous for being staffed with people who barely know what a game is nevertheless gamers who apply their personal hangups regardless of context or actual ratings guidance. They're essentially Mrs. Lovejoy from the Simpsons and threaten companies with ratings that would kill their games if they don't absolutely and completely fit their world view. Oh, and it's corrupt. Seems that people with bigger wallets get free passes.

Like the G rating, you'll notice E ratings and equivalents are going extinct because unless it's a grey paste devoid of conflict, it will offend someone on the ratings board.

I think your confused about what exactly the MPAA does that makes them corrupt, it's got nothing to do with E/G ratings, and I seriously doubt Nintendo is shooting for an E rating with Bravely Second. The bludgeon the MPAA uses, and people accuse the ESRB of using, is rating games/movies as AO/NC-17 as many theaters won't show them or stores wont sell them.

I very much doubt the ESRB or PEGI has anything to do with this, as Bravely Second isn't skirting the line on a Mature/AO rating, or whatever the European equivalent is. The only possibility would be if NoE was purposely trying to shoot for an E or E10, which they obviously aren't as PEGI gave them a rating of 12 and up after cutting the content, unless you seriously think they were threatening a 18+ rating with some bloodless sprite character deaths.

I think your conclusion is kind of reaching for straws here, the game got the rough equivalent to a T rating, and unless PEGI is MASSIVELY different from the ESRB, even if you believe its corrupt, its a stretch to see them as trying to threaten Nintendo with an M or AO rating for this game, nobody would believe the game deserved that rating.

Given that Nintendo has been known to cut stuff in the past for silly reasons like difficulty, or streamlining, and the game has been getting lukewarm ratings in Japan, roughly 3/5 stars, I would bet this is more solely Nintendo's (or more specifically Nintendo of Europe's) fault than them trying to fit some kind of specific PEGI/ESRB rating.

EDIT: as an aside, E is still the most common rating handed out by the ESRB, making up 37% of the ESRB's ratings for 2015, including the E10+ rating as another 23% means that exactly 60% of all video games released in 2015 were judged by the ESRB to be suitable for ages 10 and under. That's far from what I call going extinct, and looking at the list of E rated 2015 games reveals a lot of titles that are more than just "grey paste".

 

[Pinkilicious]

Happy now? People kept quiet when some skimpy clothes got removed from Fatal Frame 5, people kept quite when NoA removed stuff from Xenoblade X, less but still too many people kept quiet (and even defended it) when Fire Emblem Fates was butchered, and people still kept quiet when Bravely Second got a class changed and clothes altered.
And now "actual" content got cut out for whatever stupid reason, you allowed censorship to happen and gave those companies the signal that you don't care, that it's okay to remove and alter content, now enjoy your award.

Ah yes, if only they'd gone full assault like this last year, vidya really could have been saved!
So much warning ahead of time, and yet...

Good thing the PC Mustard Chefs never had to worry about this, ever!

(because they know the moment they do, everyone will pirate the fixed version!)
Well, in the olden days our big problems were software/hardware conflicts. These days it's "expecting the fans to finish the rest of the game"
Still, Fallout's a more complete title than FE or BS though!

The argument of crappy dubs needing to exist to introduce people to the medium is a vey interesting one. I have a unique perspective to this as I grew up in Greece with Greek dubs of anime which were actually never shown in the US as well as the more known titles. Greek dubs didn't censor anything, they just did language and translation changes. The music and songs and every reference and japanesy special move name were retained. Due to this I object to the notion that you HAD to butcher all these anime series to get the mainstream folks to bother wih them. I was lucky enough to have my dad run a vhs shop so he'd bring me anime tapes growin up, the original 70s Getta Robo was my absolute favorite and there was nothing edited out., I could karaoke it's intro in Japanese from age 5.

Just because these dubs got you into anime it doesn't mean they were the only thing that could have done so.

Iga no Kabamaru, Plawres Sanshirou, Mazinger X, Macross: Ai oboete imasu ka, Jura Tripper, Windaria, just to name a couple of the uncensored shows I grew up with, being shown on public tv uncensored. I fail to see how monstrosities like "Robotech" are superior at getting people into anime as no kid in my school or vicinity did not know or like some of these series and there was no societal stigma associated with loving anime either. Literally everyone in my generation knew of dragonball, as we had been watching it since 1995, having dbz budokai in middle school was a thing that made you cool. That's the environment that uncensored anime shown often on tv fostered so excuse me for not settling for less.

oh, great comparison. That's how most of it came to Romania too! I've heard that's one of the big reasons why anime hasn't died out in South America either, they get the real deal! I'm not sure how it works, but streams of new anime also translate into revitalised gaming and manga communities too, even if something in one has nothing in the others. Feels all snug and interlinked, instead of compartmentalised and stigmatised like the US does! Like most recently there was a bunch of "Swords&sorcery in the modern age" clones that took off from Sword Art (adult-themed and non) and that put a shot in the arm of the mugen community somehow.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The argument of crappy dubs needing to exist to introduce people to the medium is a vey interesting one. I have a unique perspective to this as I grew up in Greece with Greek dubs of anime which were actually never shown in the US as well as the more known titles. Greek dubs didn't censor anything, they just did language and translation changes. The music and songs and every reference and japanesy special move name were retained. Due to this I object to the notion that you HAD to butcher all these anime series to get the mainstream folks to bother wih them. I was lucky enough to have my dad run a vhs shop so he'd bring me anime tapes growin up, the original 70s Getta Robo was my absolute favorite and there was nothing edited out., I could karaoke it's intro in Japanese from age 5.

Just because these dubs got you into anime it doesn't mean they were the only thing that could have done so.

Iga no Kabamaru, Plawres Sanshirou, Mazinger X, Macross: Ai oboete imasu ka, Jura Tripper, Windaria, just to name a couple of the uncensored shows I grew up with, being shown on public tv uncensored. I fail to see how monstrosities like "Robotech" are superior at getting people into anime as no kid in my school or vicinity did not know or like some of these series and there was no societal stigma associated with loving anime either. Literally everyone in my generation knew of dragonball, as we had been watching it since 1995, having dbz budokai in middle school was a thing that made you cool. That's the environment that uncensored anime shown often on tv fostered so excuse me for not settling for less.

oh, great comparison. That's how most of it came to Romania too! I've heard that's one of the big reasons why anime hasn't died out in South America either, they get the real deal! I'm not sure how it works, but streams of new anime also translate into revitalised gaming and manga communities too, even if something in one has nothing in the others. Feels all snug and interlinked, instead of compartmentalised and stigmatised like the US does! Like most recently there was a bunch of "Swords&sorcery in the modern age" clones that took off from Sword Art (adult-themed and non) and that put a shot in the arm of the mugen community somehow.

You're entirely correct, the term for that is media mix. It's the mix of animeish games and manga and anime and all that cool stuff which share the common element of being Japanese hence having a lot of idiosyncrasy not found elsewhere.


The core problem with American perspectives here is that America is the exception but they come to it as though it's the rule. America makes its own animation, albeit the popular stuff is either immensely childish or audacious and satyrical like south park, stuff like the boondocks is sadly quite rare. Anyways, the point is most countries do NOT have their own animation made in that nation with that scale or budget. Greece didn't and I bet Romania and south america doesn't either, hence they're left with foreign shows and no national bias to preferirng their own shows like how the American audience is predisposed to. Basically, selling Anime in america is uniquely difficult and has to battle with nationalistic tendencies in the audience, to do this, it decided to americanize rather than take it head on, so it became the sorry and sad crap that things like robotech and 4kids one piece and kaze no tani no nausicaa are examples of.

Just because that's how you have to sell anime to an american mainstream audience, it doesn't mean that no other way is viable. France is the biggest anime cosumption nation outside Japan and a lot of the shows poorer EU cojntries got and get even now are obtained through France, proving there is another viable way too. We're not ignorant of history or under 20, we just grew up with original makafushigi adventure playing in our dragonball and original We Are playing instead of the one piece rap, (incidentally, one piece, the biggest shonen anime and manga in the world, struggles in america exactly because of that dub btw). You can't fault people for not settling for dubs when that's their context.