An image that’s been circulating since early last month when Square Enix’s Bravely Default came out for European 3DS demonstrates how Japan’s nearly naked 15-year-olds become Europe’s slightly more sensibly dressed 18-year-olds.
Reader eiffel65 sent in a link to the image above, which shows the Japanese version of Square Enix’s role-playing game on the right, and the more subdued European version on the other right, AKA left. The clothing is less revealing, in case you missed it. Certain characters have also had their ages increased to 18 from 15. There’s a good chance the European version is the same one we’ll be getting in North America, though knowing my country they might take it further and make them 35-year-old nuns.
This is pretty much par for the course when it comes to Western localisation of story-heavy Japanese games. We have to make sure no one under 18 can be considered sexy. We have to strip the innuendo from the conversations, as mentioned in IGN’s article on the image, to keep our children from getting dangerously aroused to the point of self immolation.
I am fine with this. If I need it sexier, I can always write fan fiction. What bothers me is why the hell we have to wait until February 7 for Bravely Default in the States. *taps foot impatiently*
Comments
14 responses to “Our Bravely Default Isn’t As Young And Undressed As Japan’s”
Ehh not to fussed about the clothing and age changes if I wanted to see the characters nearly naked it only takes a couple clicks for rule 34 to do so…and further destroy my childhood while it’s at it T_T. What kind of bugs me is reports that some sexual innuendo jokes were taken out, they can be pretty funny sometimes and it’s the little things that make a game more enjoyable.
If they’re 118 then why not just keep the costumes? Sheesh people are so scared of sexualising fictional characters like this. The West is ridiculous.
The clothing is still in the game, just less skin. (the left ones are the ones in our game).
I think that’s his (and my point below)
If the fuss was the costumes were too fanservicey for younger characters and they increased the characters age why the wardrobe change? It’s not like those costumes (the jp ones) are any more or less fanservicey for characters in the 18+ range in games anyway….
You can either do the wardrobe change since their 15 or raise the age so it’s not an issue. Doing both smacks of the usual “western sensibilities”
The age change wouldnt nessecarily have a huge effect due to some of the case law handed down in Australia recently, I’m sure merika/euro and some states are probably similar.
Also, you never know what will set the Australian censorship board, i mean, classification board off, Nintendo probably wanted to keep a M raiting, rather than a MA one. Especially if it was due to something so tiny and insignificant.
Don’t go blaming Squenix for this, the game was localized by Nintendo.
As someone who is enjoying the crap out of this game, I really couldn’t care less. If you buy the game for the scantily clad under-age animated characters, you have issues…
They are not under age in our games anyway. Ringabell saying the shit he talks about at 15 would be pretty creepy.
Right up until you meet the red mage and their little chats and you realise that Ringabel has a child’s view of relationships which makes the 15yo age seem about right. Also
Suck it America, we got a big release before you for once now you can feel the pain of waiting months for something to come out and having the entire story slowly but surely spoiled
Also pt.2 (probably a spoiler if you get the reference)
Major Carter “Colonel, is something wrong?
Col. O’niell “Oh yeah…something…”
Pretty sure ringabell just isn’t cool with date rape at that part.
As a food for thought..
Presumably the change was because the outfits where too fan servicey for a 15 yr old. So if they “increased” the age to 18+ or whatever why the change in outfits? Not like that style of fanservice outfits isn’t already prevalent in “older” characters xD
OR make the costumes less fan servicey and keep the old age….
*shrugs*
argh, that other right sentence made my head hurt.
Wow, this explains all the dialogue explaining how sexy that costume is. When I finally saw it I was suprised how it wasn’t that revealing.
On one hand, I hate it when self-righteous puritans try to tell people what they can and can’t look at. On the other… this game uses that chibi-fied character style from the early DS FF remakes, so there’s nothing even remotely titillating about it. I actually thought the characters were in their early teens until Edea and co mentioned being in their 20s.