Why I Participated in Torrential Downpour and My Concerns About Fire Emblem Fates, Localisations and Censorship

IMPORTANT NOTE/REQUEST: PLEASE AVOID HARASSING OR DOGPILING ANY OF THE PEOPLE MENTIONED HERE ON SOCIAL MEDIA OR ANYWHERE ELSE. THE INFORMATION I HAVE PROVIDED HERE IS STRICTLY INTENDED TO EDUCATE AND EXPLAIN MY STANCE, NOT TO START WITCH HUNTS CALLING FOR PEOPLE TO BE FIRED.

If you truly feel very strongly about the state of localisations, please consider raising awareness and sending professional mails to video game companies as a consumer instead. I am not saying nor do I believe that people aren’t allowed to hold or express negative feelings or opinions to others. But I believe insulting or targeting specific employees on Twitter etc. is unproductive, unethical and highly susceptible to be derailed into drama, so please don’t do things like that.

I am also currently on hiatus, so please do not contact me if there are new changes discovered for Fire Emblem Fates’ localisation. The list of changes I have provided is not exhaustive.

Hello. My tweets and/or writing about Fire Emblem Fates and Torrential Downpour were apparently noteworthy enough to get an enquiry from Patrick Klepek at Kotaku for his article about the game’s localisation, although in the end I wasn’t interviewed. (Personally, I liked the interview with the fan translation team, although I think the piece would have also benefited a lot from interviews with people participating in Torrential Downpour. :V) While many people were angry and distrustful of him when he reached out to me, Klepek was polite in my correspondence with him. However, I ended up writing a message (more like a long essay) in advance and have decided to publish it, albeit edited for refinement as well as to include recent information.

Let me give some backstory and explain why I did a few comparisons/ amateur re-translations for Fire Emblem Fates and participated in Torrential Downpour despite not being a Fire Emblem fan who is familiar with the series. Pardon my tl;dr but I feel it’s really important to understand the overall situation I’m seeing on my end regarding localisations as a consumer. However…

Please skip ahead to the next big heading if you only want to read about what was changed in Fire Emblem Fates for its Western release.

I’d consider myself a casual female gamer, and enjoyed Amnesia: Memories on the PC. I backed the currently ongoing Kickstarter for Beastmaster and Prince because I’m interested in otome games and want to see more of them brought over to the West.

I was really excited and was planning to get a Vita for Norn9 and Code: Realize (both otome games) because I heard about the diverse cast of heroines in the first one and the stellar story in the second one. However, I was disappointed and frustrated to find out that Aksys, the games’ publisher, did a poor job localising Norn9. When a customer questioned Aksys about Norn9’s localisation on Twitter they got blocked, which angered me further. This is also how I discovered they have also blocked other people on Twitter in the past for criticizing them about censorship and other issues too. It appears that the poor localisation of Norn9 was due to a rushed release (who demanded the strict deadlines is unknown to me, it may be out of Aksys’ hands) that was not helped by a lack of resources and manpower due to the high workload Aksys was handling at the time.

I have also discovered that a (now former) Aksys editor changed the personality and narration of the heroine of another otome game (Hakuoki for the PSP) because he thought she wasn’t a sympathetic or likable character ‘unless you like wide-eyed doormats’ and ‘clearly something had to be done’. I feel that this is disrespectful to the original writers of the game and compromises the artistic integrity of the original work, and also disrespectful to consumers for making the decision for them. It was particularly shocking to see an Aksys editor explain they have re-written games wholesale (and who coincidentally is the one who is responsible for the aforementioned blocks on Twitter). I shouldn’t have to discover this through years-old articles.

So when I see censorship and similar worries about localisation quality happening with Fire Emblem Fates and Nintendo refusing to provide straight answers, I absolutely sympathise with some fans’ angst and unhappiness. Fans (and even the press) shouldn’t have to play a completely broken game of Telephone to know what exactly has been changed and what went wrong. I know about significant changes to Fire Emblem games in the past. I do not think that these kinds of changes and censorship that have already happened and passed by largely unnoticed means that people should not do something about the situation now.

I want to do something to help spread awareness about localisation changes, localisation issues and censorship. I feel it’s unfair to laugh off or dismiss unhappiness and concerns over censorship or poor localisations as only being the concern of ‘angry, creepy nerds or weeaboos’. I believe publishers and localisers want high quality localisations too, and also believe that male-oriented fanservice and sexually suggestive fanservice in general deserves to be protected and not be censored. Censorship and poor localisations affect both niche games like otome games as well as more mainstream ones like Fire Emblem Fates.

Some people were aghast at the English screenshots of Fire Emblem Fates circulating around on social media and I wanted to compare them to the original Japanese so that people can better understand, with solid evidence and references to the original Japanese version, to what extent it was changed from the original meaning. If it wasn’t for real life commitments plus my poor Japanese, I‘d learn the ins-and-outs of the game and translate entire scenes. I’d get people fluent in Japanese and Fire Emblem games to vet my comparisons if I had to. With my passing familiarity with Fire Emblem Awakening I was able to recognize those screenshots as child unit recruitment/Paralogue scenes and quickly locate the original ones on Youtube. This is the Internet: The information is there if you know how to find it, so localisation changes are less likely to slip past gamers.

Currently, Fire Emblem Fates is known or suspected to have significant rewriting as well as changes to gameplay, such as:

1.) Removal of the headpatting minigame

2.) A five minute waiting time for castle visits, not originally present in the Japanese version

3.) The entire C rank support conversation for Saizou and Belka being changed to silence

4.) Soliel’s and Male Corrin’s B rank support conversation being changed from him secretly putting a magic powder in her drink and then revealing it to her to her being blindfolded and aware from the start

5.) Changes to Elfie/Effie’s personality based on comparing a Japanese video clip featuring her to her English audio clips.

6.) Hisame’s liking for pickles being exaggerated in the English version.

7.) Changes to personality and support conversations for Zero/Niles. The dialogue for the same-sex S rank support with Male Corrin has been changed and is now identical to the S rank support with Female Corrin.

8.) Changes to personality and support conversations for Shara/Rhajat. The dialogue for the same-sex S rank support with Female Corrin has been changed and is now identical to the S rank support with Male Corrin.

9.) Male Kana/Kanna’s S rank support conversations being changed from romantic/mutual romance to platonic/one-sided crush.

My comparisons/re-translations are here: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list and it is very likely that more will be discovered as time goes on.

Did you know that Nintendo removed the Japanese clothing brand for men in the Western version of Girls Mode 2/Style Savvy 2, among other things? As a layperson I’m currently learning about localisation on my own to understand why such things happen. My major concern from case studies like Norn9 and Blade and Soul is that it seems that some localisers and publishers are actively ignoring or blocking out customer complaints, and quashing consumer attempts to contact the developers directly about their concerns. It’s a power imbalance stemming from a sort of monopoly from localisers and publishers having the rights to publish the IP, not to mention a language barrier. This is why there’s this defeatist mentality of ‘stop complaining and be happy with what we got!’ or ‘if you complain or don’t buy this sub-quality product they won’t localize any more games or sequels!’. This shouldn’t be the case at all. I don’t think customers should resign themselves to buying from companies who treat them poorly or provide sub-quality goods. Gamers shouldn’t have to struggle against localisers and publishers to get uncensored games and good localisations. I am aware that the ESRB ratings (specifically the dreaded ‘AO’ rating) and a multitude of other factors (such as lack of context given to translators) can play a role as to why a localisation is censored or of poor quality. (Although I find this to be a very useful and interesting topic of discussion in order to understand the underlying issues and problems, I will not expound on them as I am not an expert, this is not the focus of this piece and I have written a lot already.)

I want anti-censorship to be more valued by everyone and thus more profitable for companies, prompting them to shift their values and change how they handle localisations. I don’t want localisers, publishers or whoever is responsible to get fired for censoring things or making localisation changes I disagree with. I think they are passionate people who are in the business because they love what they do even if the pay may not be high. This is why they do interviews and talk about their job in detail and engage with people on social media. I don’t think that’s a sign of someone who doesn’t care. They believe they’re doing the best they can and that they’re doing the right thing. In fact, I appreciate their candidness because otherwise I wouldn’t be aware about such changes and challenges in localisation in the first place! But personally I strongly disagree with re-writing or altering things to suit Western sensibilities and wholeheartedly oppose any form of censorship in video games, whether it be aging up underage characters, changing revealing costumes to less revealing ones or removing minigames entirely. If people truly feel that games are art, then I feel they should uphold freedom of artistic expression in video games by objecting to video game censorship in any form, even when it’s cutting out or altering controversial/risqué content that they DO dislike, or DOES morally offend them. Simple thought experiment: What if the content being removed was something you liked and looked forward to?

If localisers truly care about their work, I think they should listen to the fans’ feedback and ideally have an open, respectful dialogue to be able to give the fans’ what they want. I think they definitely shouldn’t remove or alter risqué or potentially unappealing content, such as ‘doormat’/passive, meek protagonists in otome games or the petting minigame in Fire Emblem Fates. Let the consumers decide for themselves whether they like and want such things. I don’t want a middleman to decide what’s acceptable for me to consume and remove or alter parts of a game on a moral or cultural basis before I can even play it. At the very least, make sexual content optional, like options to switch off gore. I want to play the developers’ original vision and form my own opinions.

Personally, I would like:

1.) More transparency and accountability from localisers/publishers/developers with regards to significant changes during localisation

2.) Timely responses from companies when concerns are raised by consumers about localisations instead of radio silence

And ultimately,

3.) Higher quality and uncensored localisations.

And if all else fails, at least people can still learn Japanese.