Gormless Noodle
Member
Oh yeah, this is without a shadow of a doubt Nintendo's handywork.
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More Changes to Bravely Second in the West
- Thread starter Kintaro
- Start date
Oh yeah, this is without a shadow of a doubt Nintendo's handywork.
PeakPointMatrix
Member
You say that like it's a bad thing. If I had any clout at Nintendo, I would do anything in my power to stop this game from being released if they left the costumes like that.
Small miracles. I'm sure hundreds of people would thank you for telling them what is appropriate to like or enjoy.
They really don't when Squenix has the final word, especially when it's being localized by a company that Squenix themselves chose.
Guys, other people than Nintendo are allowed to and have in fact made some divisive localization decisions. We don't need to get to the point where we can blame Nintendo for not bringing DOAX3 to the west.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Yeah, that's what I meant. Didn't actually know that Agnes was 17. The point stands though:
All of these character designs are for underage characters. The character models haven't noticably (to me) changed since the first one, so really, it's not very different to the US release of the first game just saying "nah, they are 3 years older", without actually representing that fact in their physical growth and making them look less like children.
I mean...come on
Seriously, Come on
SERIOUSLY
These are characters that were specificially built to look like children only to then get sexualized as all hell. That shit isn't just weird to me, I don't just dislike it, I find it indefensible. No amount of "artistic integrity" changes the fact that these outfits are created to give people sexual arousal from characters looking like children.
All of this looks dumb and if it was removed from the game then good on them.
TwEE-N-Toast
Banned
Yeah, those costumes are messed up. Why try to sexualize chibi style characters? Barf.
Gormless Noodle
Member
Velcro Fly
Member
Uh yeah those costumes I don't like so if they are changed I'm probably good with that
cosmicblizzard
Banned
Like what? Would you harass the project manager until they were removed? Would you hold the rest of the team hostage with your only demand being to remove the costumes?
Asking for a friend.
Only the first one from that image was actually an in-game costume, the rest is concept art.
Suzushiiro
Banned
My take on shit like the costume changes has always been that it's fine when you're doing it out of a legitimate belief that most of your target audience would like it better that way and complete bullshit if you're just doing it to appease people who aren't interested in playing it but would be very interested in using it as another example of how video games are making people violent and/or sexist. As someone who has no interest in this game (played the demo of the first one and it didn't do much for me) I suppose that disqualifies me from making a judgement on this one, but I'm going to guess that while most American JRPG fans would have an issue with the Japanese take on native Americans, chibis showing cleavage are whatever. But again, not entirely qualified to speak for the target audience in this case.
That said- cutting out sidequest choices/endings, if true, is absolutely fucking unforgivable, and whoever thought that was a good idea (or decided to not give the localization team enough budget to do them, if that's what happened, which is a less likely explanation considering the localizer) should be fired and never allowed to work in the industry again, because what the FUCKING fuck.
That said- cutting out sidequest choices/endings, if true, is absolutely fucking unforgivable, and whoever thought that was a good idea (or decided to not give the localization team enough budget to do them, if that's what happened, which is a less likely explanation considering the localizer) should be fired and never allowed to work in the industry again, because what the FUCKING fuck.
striferser
Huge Nickleback Fan
This is the worst. I can live with changin costume or changin minor thing, but this ain't right.
A Link to the Past
Banned
My classic JRPGs wear pants :v Or at least reasonable underwear!
Messing with side quests and such honestly doesnt surprirse me. Its just the next step. Fix some costumes? No one minds. So they probably wont mind if we make some alterations to the story in some places. Hey, they are fine with it all after all.
Bravely Second will go on to sell well and they think it is all good. Then on to the next.
Bravely Second will go on to sell well and they think it is all good. Then on to the next.
shadow2810
Member
I'm expecting someone should have finished the game by now, so which localization team is shown in the credit?
sensui-tomo
Member
removing content which reduces replayability doesnt surprise you? .... I'd be appalled by that. (i dont care about the costume changes. its so the least important issue here when content removal is a thing)
arhra
Member
Not to speak for Kintaro, but they never said they were pleased.
Merely unsurprised.
After seeing a support conversation in FE Fates localized to "...", it's hard to really be surprised by any of this shit.
Suzushiiro
Banned
I mean, a fair number of classic JRPG characters had character designs and/or sprites with outfits that were on par with the BD costumes in question as far as how much they showed, you just didn't really notice because the resolution was so low. Prime examples being Celes, whose sprite is a leotard and a cape, and Lenna's berserker outfit which was a fur bikini.
Maybe they talked about the costumes. I mean, Nintendo released Xenoblade X and has all of its side quests intact along with all the character deaths in those side quests.
Those are actually pretty decent compared to some of the designs on the picture.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I'm not referring to the finished costume, I'm referring to the fact that at one point they even considered that specific design in the concept art. It's creepy as all get out.
KiTA
Member
Wow. Fates was... bad. This... This hurts. This game was high on my hype list, and now I can't justify even buying it.
And NoA / SE US / Whatever localization company pulled this stunt will just hide behind their wall of silence about it. Shame.
Edit:
Didn't they localize BD1? It wasn't butchered.
And NoA / SE US / Whatever localization company pulled this stunt will just hide behind their wall of silence about it. Shame.
Edit:
Didn't they localize BD1? It wasn't butchered.
Tye The Czar
Member
Another? I'd say it's
In all seriousness, the latter is even beyond Final Fantasy IV for SNES levels of bastardization.
Nah, it doesn't really surprise me. Why would I be? The people who say "Well, I don't care about the costumes..." perplex me because...cuts and edits start with something simple like costumes. Something simple that many "don't care about." It is the foot in the door in my eyes. When you get your foot in the door, the next step is taken.
Personally, any and all of these edits are rather insulting to me. It's saying "This country and its customers can handle all of this, but you? You, Mr/Miss Westerner, can not. You will bitch and moan about it and we just can't deal with you. So, we'll dumb it down for ya. You may still bitch and moan, but it'll be fewer of you and our fans will drown you out."
I've stopped really posting in threads that discuss these sort of things because it really goes nowhere on forums like this. People toss insults, name call and bully (on both sides). I merely posted this one (and kept the OP rather neutral-ish to avoid starting the thread off on a bad foot) for informational purposes because while I know changes would be made, I didn't think it would be as far.
It's a shame. Really is. But customers let it happen because "its better than nothing."
It sucks. =/
Gormless Noodle
Member
They went for the outfits there too. This seems like the next logical step really and is a very, very Nintendo thing to do. I mean you could convince me SE would make (some) changes to these outfits, sure. But not these scenarios to this extent.
I don't even understand why they let Nintendo publish it at any rate, the first game sold quite well in the West last I heard.
That still doesn't make sense to change the side quests and open ended scenarios where some characters could die when Xenoblade X has all that. Even an alien laying eggs in water that people drink that use the body as a host, control them and just gross stuff all over. That's a Nintendo IP with stuff like that and murder and so on all in the localized version of the game.
I'll go out on a limb and say there is more people that find kids in sexual costumes appaling and wrong then not.
I do also question why people think it's Nintendo when Square is this big business that can do things themselves too and have this global business and know how to localize themselves too. All Nintendo is handling is marketing and publishing and I doubt they care that much to tell Square Enix to tone something down.
It's rough being Nintendo lately, haha. They can't win, even when there is no evidence that this is their wrong-doing other than a bunch of people with pre-conceived notions
And for people saying Square doesn't censor anything recently, Drakengard 3 had a scene censored were Zero brutally stabs someone else. The original scene can be found in a broadcast, but was later changed because they felt it was going a little "too far" with the violence, camera angle, and/or lines during the scene.
And for people saying Square doesn't censor anything recently, Drakengard 3 had a scene censored were Zero brutally stabs someone else. The original scene can be found in a broadcast, but was later changed because they felt it was going a little "too far" with the violence, camera angle, and/or lines during the scene.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
That's a lot of story choppin
Gormless Noodle
Member
Why is that illogical? They treat their home console base, different than their handheld base which tends to have a lot more youths on it. Why did they censor Tharya's scene in Fire Emblem Awakening but kept the outfits for the adult females in Xenoblade X the same when those show more than the FE scene did?
I also don't recall ever seeing or hearing that Square Enix ever altered their games to this extent. We also know for a fact that Nintendo did the censoring on the first Bravely Default as well. Nintendo is once again publishing the game, so why would Square Enix suddenly be handling this?
KiTA
Member
I have a simple theory about that -- Square Enix couldn't. SE USA has so much overhead that a game that merely sold 200k copies wouldn't be profitable at any realistic price point. That's why Dragon Quest takes an act of god to get a US release.
cosmicblizzard
Banned
The question is whether people see chibi as kids or not. We need a case study on this stuff because I've seen a split among people with no previous experience with anime or anime-like games. Some see them as kids and some see them as ambiguous in the way Mickey Mouse is of ambiguous age.
MHWilliams
Member
We do?
I thought we addressed this quite clearly for the first game at least, but it seems to bear repeating?
Don't forget live dismemberment!
Anyways, I went and looked up the end credits for Bravely Second and here are the localization people listed:
Localization
Lead Localization Coordinator - Wako Yokoyama
Assistant Localization Coordinators - Mitsuka Ando, Taigi Mimuro, Charlie Reid
English Translation & Localization - John Townsend, Philip Gibbon, Jillian Nonaka
Localization Editor - Tim Law
Translation Support - Paul Chandler, Joshua Duran-Carlson
Localization Manager - Shingo Hosokawa
Localization General Manager - Kazuhisa Ichigaya
Special Thanks - Raul Maria Arol Rosa, Marlene Dubois, Nicolas Terrasse, Emilie Thore
European Localization
Binari Sonori Srl - A Keywords Studio
Text Localization Director - Fabio Minazzi
Project Manager - Marco Roncon
Production Manager - Palma Cedele
PM Group Manager - Francesca Amorini
Text Localization Director - Fabio Minazzi (shows up again)
Project Manager - Marco Roncon (shows up again)
Text Project Lead - Annalisa Cocciolo
Engineer Project Lead - Mariella Baldussi
And a bunch of French/Italian/German/Spanish translators
Then Square Enix, Inc is listed with a bunch of QA roles, including for QA Translator and Localization & QA Director. Then Square Enix, Ltd is listed for more roles including Senior Manager Localisation and Project Management (Yuko Tomizawa) and Senior Localisation Producer (Alex Moresby) and Localisation Producer (Elisa Giribaldi) - and yes, "Localization" suddenly becomes "Localisation" for these roles. Keywords International LTD gets a couple Localization QA roles and finally Nintendo shows up for Executive Producer (Satoru Iwata RIP) and Coordination. Nintendo of Europe gets roles for Coordination and "Localization Quality Specialists" (5 people listed - see my note below before you jump on this please). Nintendo of America gets Coordination and Debug. Nintendo of Korea gets Coordination, Localization Management, Localization, and QA roles.
Annnnd I think that's about it. I didn't really go through the whole credits roll because the ending was playing on the side as well so no idea if I missed anything but I think that should cover most of it.
The only places where Nintendo gets mentioned in Localization is with the "Localization Quality Specialists" and with the Korean localization and I kind of doubt that the "Localization Quality Specialists" played that much of a role with the localization considering that Bravely Default ALSO had 5 "Localization Quality Specialists" listed under NoE (and they were 5 different people).
So I think we can stop blaming Nintendo for this one?
Toadthemushroom
Member
Does anyone know what Nintendo's relationship is with the game, as a publisher? As far as I understand, it's similar to how they handle Level-5's games, minus using their own resources for localisation work, so Nintendo publishes the game and markets it (as they did heavily for Bravely Default in North America).
Thus Nintendo is likely to care about how the game is perceived by ratings boards and potential marketing channels - that is, they might be aiming for a T rating in order to maximise the number of avenues in which they can market the game.
While they weren't directly involved with any cuts, what kind of say in the matter would Nintendo have had, if the above is indeed correct?
Someone else did mention Xenoblade X, though, which also received a T and didn't have any narrative content cut.
A couple questions I have too floating in my mind:
I wonder what would have happened if Bravely Second was like Bravely Default, in that the game was effectively international in terms of content - would the sidequests have been feasibly altered or would they have had to risk going for an M rating?
If a publisher doesn't get the rating they originally intended, how easy is it for them to resubmit their game to the ESRB?
Thus Nintendo is likely to care about how the game is perceived by ratings boards and potential marketing channels - that is, they might be aiming for a T rating in order to maximise the number of avenues in which they can market the game.
While they weren't directly involved with any cuts, what kind of say in the matter would Nintendo have had, if the above is indeed correct?
Someone else did mention Xenoblade X, though, which also received a T and didn't have any narrative content cut.
A couple questions I have too floating in my mind:
I wonder what would have happened if Bravely Second was like Bravely Default, in that the game was effectively international in terms of content - would the sidequests have been feasibly altered or would they have had to risk going for an M rating?
If a publisher doesn't get the rating they originally intended, how easy is it for them to resubmit their game to the ESRB?
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
That's the people who did the work, not necessarily the people who made the decisions.
antennaehead
Member
I find this whole localization situation very disappointing. I want a translation that is as faithful to the original as possible, not a dumbed down version for kids.
Glass Rebel
Member
From what I can gather it sounds like those alternate outcomes were fully voiced in the Japanese release so they probably removed them to cut localization costs. Which is ridiculous.
MHWilliams
Member
Yeah, like I said earlier, it's pretty easy to puzzle out the reasoning behind most localization decisions. This one? The best I got is maybe cost-cutting? Anything else doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things.
I don't get why they keep doing these changes, as if to appeal to some potential group of consumers who would be offended by showing off some skin or some bad ending to a quest. I've never seen anyone moan about this stuff beyond some nutjob on tumblr; yet removal of content seems to piss off more people on gaming forums, you know, the actual consumer of these games.
So instead of trying to appease some prude, how about they remove the single most offensive thing in this game to gamers? The micro-transactions. That shit is more offensive to me than anything else in the game, why not remove that? bullshit micro-transactions seems to affect sales after all.
So instead of trying to appease some prude, how about they remove the single most offensive thing in this game to gamers? The micro-transactions. That shit is more offensive to me than anything else in the game, why not remove that? bullshit micro-transactions seems to affect sales after all.
Glass Rebel
Member
I certainly would but I assume they just didn't want to be inconsistent and thought this would be the best course of action? If memory serves right, all the cutscenes in Default were voiced so I assume the same goes for Second.
Gormless Noodle
Member
So you're telling me that an external translation company who handles text and voices, calls the shots on altering content like this for a game?
From what I can tell, these optimal solutions to the quests were originally only available on new game+ in the original version. Maybe they figured since they're just putting them in the first-time playthrough and that they are the optimal solution that they can just make those solutions the only one. Maybe you also always get the optimal solution in the new game+ run, but I wouldn't know if that's the case.