This is a bad day when people from /jp/ come flooding over here.
Anyways in the future maybe you shouldn’t bring over games which have to be censored even if the censorship is barely noticeable.
@DetectiveConan
@Duke Jukem
It’s really great that you guys are posting on topic here! I think it speaks great for this forums members.
Actually, they’ve been quite polite on this topic. They’re notably upset and it seems like all they’re getting is marketing mumbo-jumbo (well, Shingo /did/ do a good job, so, not him) and Regular Forum posters spouting rude shit. This is not a /b/ raid or anything… You’d /know/ if it was.
Again, Peter, please tell me why I should believe you’ll inform us in the future when the evidence shows otherwise.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2738
Quote Peter Payne, Wed Jul 26, 2006 2:51 am:
"I apologize to everyone who is upset by the (very small) changes made to the game, which were completely and absolutely necessary for us to release the game. Perhaps I should have posted beforehand, essentially asking fans if they’d prefer to have the game cancelled, or the small changes made. I will do so in the future (although it would only affect the fans who happen to be active readers on this BBS – someone who didn’t happen to read a post here would feel equally slighted)…
I am honestly very sorry that I didn’t make a post about the changes ahead of time. It was not my intention to hide anything and really, the changes amount to something like 0.03% of the game. And really, we had no choice but to make the changes we made.
I welcome your feedback!"
Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:35 pm, same thread:
"I’ve been following the discussions. I apologise again for not signaling that there would be some changes to the game, and in the future I promise that I will leave notes here if changes are going to be made. On the other hand, we had no choice, and I hope that we can count on the understanding of fans on this one. Well, the choice was make some changes to some of the graphics, or don’t release the game.
The issue is that “nothing” is illegal in the U.S., and yet “everything” potentially is. It’s all a grey area, which is how it’s set up, to create maximum FUD. We are always concerned about the direction of the so-called reasonable countries like the U.S. as things progress politically. We all know that these games are harmless fun, but still, in order that we can continue to bring you games you will enjoy in the future, we have to be realistic about things sometimes.
Really, there was no way we could leave that segment in the game. Again, I apologize for not mentioning it here."
Lamuness, same thread, Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:32 am, upon locking thread:
“in closing, i am pretty sure peter has learned his lesson this time and will consult with you guys if anything needs to be butchered”.
About the age issue: Her age is fairly clear. Everything about her situation screams 14/15 years old at the oldest. If someone pulls “1st year of college” from the context, they are clearly not paying attention.
I guess the main issue is the Peach Princess snafu, since nowhere else seems to have had that uncensored tag on it. It would have been nice to be pre-informed, but eh… I guess I am one of the rare people that doesn’t get all riled up over something so small. Of their ten year history, there are 2 instances of “uninformed” censoring. These people complaining must not know of the continued “censoring” or contextual localisation efforts made with “mainstream” games over the years. Guess I just got used to it.
In a world where MangaGamers exists, the bolded part seems slightly less valid. Of course, I imagine Peter understands this, and added the second part (rules of English) as a dig at MangaGamers.
I don’t get why it was ok to feature explicit, back alley anal sex with Nekoko (among other things) in Yume Miru Kusuri, when she’s clearly underage as well, but they felt the need to censor scenes that weren’t even sexual in nature with Matsuri in Family Project.
On that I’d say because it’s pretty specific within KK itself that Mats is underage where YMK uses that lovely ‘gakuen’ reference.
Well, technically mangagamer is Dutch, right? They have far less restrictive laws in regards to sexuality compared to the US.
Sudo: the entire context of the game in YMK was askew to begin with. The “joke”, even in the original, is that all individuals are 20 because of DIET. Also, unlike this game, the ages for these characters can be construed at 18 (end of high school). Except maybe the sister… but then the joke comes into affect there.
They’re getting help from some fan translators that had already made some English patches of a few N+ games. That wouldn’t won’t stop them from making changes like these, though.
Y’know… It’s interesting. I’ve started reading the /jp/ thread and Anonymous makes a couple of very good points…
Now, granted, there’s no way to prove these ‘allegations’, and I certainly hope that this is not JAST’s reasoning, but trust is a funny thing… It takes a very long time to earn it and it can be lost in a split second, as is the case now. Shingo even said it himself that it will be hard getting the public’s trust back. It will also take a long time of provable actions on JAST’s part. C’mon Peter and company. Do the right thing from now on. I’m not gonna go so far as to say that Anonymous is speaking the truth b/c, frankly, I don’t know and there’s no way that you guys are gonna admit to it if it were true. So, I’m just going to have to hope that it really /was/ an honest mistake. However, you’re gonna have to work 10 times as hard to make sure that ‘mistakes’ like these don’t happen… ESPECIALLY with the Nitro+ games.
We’ll all be watching.
This is the reason why the horse should NEVER be assumed dead.
I’d say the first thing that should come out of anyone’s mouth when a future title has been released be “have there been any content cuts?”
The point is that Nekoko is not ‘clearly’ underaged at all - she doesn’t have to be, because, ahem, Yume Miru Kusuri’s story does not require that she be underaged. You can’t visually determine the age of a drawn character. That’s all there is to it - you can’t do it. There’s the 5??? (in short, that the ‘height’ of a character’s head can’t be >1/5 of their total body height) and other restrictions, but Nekoko obeys all of them.
Kazoku Keikaku’s story DOES require Matsuri to be underaged at the start of the game. And she is. That’s fine, originally, because the game doesn’t have a H scene with her at that age, but if you really think that’s going to fly in the US…
Joke or not, they still showed his little sister naked several times, in addition to the sex scenes I mentioned previously. You can’t just have different censorship guidelines like that.
Difference being is that by the “laws of the game” she is 18 or older. Even in the original that rant is present. In this game, there is no such statement made and all the context points to her being “under-age”.
There actually is a little blurb about everyone being over the age of 18 in Family Project. It’s made by Hiroshi, something regarding the EoCS guidelines.
I have to agree with you. I have a copy of Yubisaki Milk Tea, and it has plenty of sexual content of underage girls. There is a scene with a naked middle school girl, and her nipples are fully drawn. I bought this at my local book store. I simply cannot sympathise with JAST’s ridiculous censorship.
As much as I hate to side with the more childish invasion of cowardish anons. Some of them have a point. Even though I’m aware there is a purpose of saying that everyone is 18+ it gets kind of stupid when playing games like YMK, or Casual Romance Club. The main characters sister in YMK is clearly underaged, to the point of maybe 10ish years old. And Amanda in CRC which not only LOOKS underaged, but she is also mentioned as underaged several, several times. In fact, her entire story is based on the fact that she is underaged, and how she wants to be like whats her face when she “grows up.” Not that any of this matters in the end because you can ignore the text and focus on their DFC’s. It’s more amusing than anything, to be so insanely wrong about characters ages in some of these games. If you give an excuse for their ages, as some of you have, you are obviously in denial.
Mangagamer isn’t based in the US. JAST is. JAST has to abide by US law. Mangagamer does not.
I, for one, am satisfied by the official response to this mess. They had to censor the game for legal reasons. They made a series of PR mistakes. They responded by offering full refunds to fans that demand it, even if they’ve already played through the game. Life moves on. If you’re still not satisfied (and I don’t think there’s anyone reason not to be, if you merely feel lied to), then simply don’t preorder games in the future.
I’m highly disturbed by the notion that “if you can’t bring the game over completely unaltered, don’t even bother licensing it.” That just baffles me. I want the highest quality games possible. Letting silly things like the need to alter a couple CGs prevent one of the best visual novels on the Japanese market from getting licensed is madness to me. The English market is starving for quality games. Whether you’re willing to purchase a censored game is up to you; but I don’t want to miss out on quality games because of someone else’s misguided indignation.
Now, for what I’m still concerned about: the precedent this sets. Are there any plans to censor Demonbane in a similar manner? More generally, how does JAST plan to deal with the lolicon and rape issue in the future? Avoid licensing games with lolis and rape (Saya no Uta comes to mind here)? Censor them graphically? Censor the text? Remove routes? I don’t really know much about the X-change 3 issue (wasn’t around then, and still don’t care about the game anyway). In this case, the reasons for censoring seemed to be more scenario-related than graphics related. Peach Princess previously released Jewel Knights Crusaders, which had an extremely young looking character in it (Hisui iirc). If JAST were to release that game again, would that game be censored considering the current political climate? More generally, are games with very young-looking characters ok, but any scenario references that they’re minors is not ok? For example, if the character is not human (and has lived far longer than a mortal) but looks extremely young, is that ok?
I’ve only recently found the joys of bishoujo games. I’ve played games that were fully censored. I’ve played games with spelling typos. I’ve even played ones with buggy gameplay that all but broke them. But was it the end of the world? No.
I haven’t ordered Family Project yet, but I plan to. I can overlook one little scene being edited for content and I can forgive an honest human mistake for advertising it in a different light.
And I can - and surely will - enjoy the game.