Why did gaming companies in the 90's like Sega and Nintendo always neutor and remove shit like this? It's bad ass.
In the first pokemon movie in Japanese, the first thing Mewtwo asks is whether God made him. That's still the hardest hooks I've ever heard from a piece of fiction. It's harder than "Zeth wore white on the day he was to kill a king." A Tale of Two Cities eat your heart out.
In the first pokemon movie in Japanese, the first thing Mewtwo asks is whether God made him.
when the stars threw down their spears
and watered heaven with their tears:
did he smile his work to see?
did he who made the lamb make thee?
- William Blake, famed Arkanine trainer
I'm also pissed off about all the cool Japan only titles retro consoles got that still aren't translated into English or are stuck in translation development hell :negative:
The fact that Live A Live never had a localization is a crime.
There are also a lot of really bizarre early horror PC games that never got translated either.
Isn't Live a Live finally getting a localization? I seem to remember hearing something about that.
It was apparently localized for Switch back in July of this year. Yay!
There's also a huge library out there for Japanese PCs like the PC-9800
Player: I cast Holy.
GM: Noooo there are no gods in my campaign setting.
Player: But that's what my build is based on!
GM: I don't care. My setting, my rules!
Player: What if I call it "White"?
GM: Still too religious.
Player: Uh... "Pearl"?
GM: Fine.
Player: Thanks. Okay, now I cast Darkness.
GM: :honk-enraged:
It was a reaction to the Satanic Panic of the late 80s/early 90s, which ended up putting all "children's media" under a harsh spotlight from the conservative right. Nintendo wanted their image to be squeaky clean, SEGA defined their early image in opposition to Nintendo but they weren't willing to push the envelope too far, and it wasn't until gaming was large enough again that smaller devs were able to push the boundaries back out which made the major companies feel safe doing more risque stuff.
Some of it though it localization teams not respecting the original material and thinking they could improve it.
what gets me is when they needlessly change the names of stuff to something completely different for like no reason. Like a bunch of weapon names in SotN do not match the japanese names of them at all.
That's interesting, I love hearing about changes, errors, and censorship from games/movies from my childhood. It's almost like being able to experience them again for the first time in a new perspective. In that same game, the English translation tells the player that Maria and Annet are sisters, but in the original Japanese version, they aren't related.
