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The X Button - Might Be Wrong

The NX has been stirring up a lot of talk with the dev kits releasing, but a lot of the commentary seems. . . ignorant? People are worried that having just bought a Wii U, it's now deemed worthless. Which is silly because it already has a number of good games, and more to come. I feel that it's highly likely the NX could come out Holiday next year, but I guess we'll see when it's made official. That would put it at an accurate time for the Wii U's life cycle though. Five or six years was normal between the last two gens, so this would be a little short, but not by much.

I'm looking forward to the NX, but I think the Wii U and especially the 3DS still have good things to come, so I'm not anxious about it~.

Todd raises some big issues about Mighty #9.

As time went on during the original Kickstarter and I thought about things, I began to wonder: were people supporting Mighty #9 because they honestly wanted another Mega Man side-scroller (which they had already gotten with Mega Man 9 and 10, and didn't seem to care much for), or were they trying to stick it to Capcom for "denying" them MML3?

As time goes on, I think it's the latter.

It seems that the people defending Nintendo & Co. on this can't wrap their heads around a very simple idea: the content that was censored is IRRELEVANT, it's the censorship itself that people are pissed at. I, for example, refuse to go along with Nintendo's idea that it knows what's best for me. They basically said "You can't handle this, sorry, you're not Japanese.", and well, I don't care about their reasons for doing so. I refuse to buy ANYTHING that was censored or self-censored. And yes, I have never (to my knowledge) bought anything video game or anime related that was watered down for a western audience.

No, it is not smart especially when the genre itself has in the past have games featuring swimsuit costumes and/or fanservice content (RE4 and Parasite Eve come to mind.). The fanbase are at least tolerant of such content and what has been said before, the intended audience. It is the fault of the parent/minor if they buy this and then get offended while brushing off the ESRB rating. It is there for a REASON. Face it, in an era where everything imported comes with everything as is, what Nintendo is doing is prudish at best.

...Also, love how you're seemingly ignoring how the swimsuit fits withing the narrative of this game because you know, one of the characters does it as a career. Yeah, you're gonna argue back saying, "but she can still wear more clothes and still deliver the message" but it doesn't especially when the whole setting is set in Japan with Japanese characters and Japanese values and sensibilities in place. I'm guessing you're unfamiliar with Fatal Frame/Project Zero because what I'm seeing here is just typical knee-jerk reactionisms to fanservice.

Except one is considered a minor in the US on a state-by-state level, there is no majority, and if there was, it would be 16 as the majority of states have that as their requirement. 18 is the age in California, where a lot of our media is made, so the "18 is age of consent in the US" is actually a cultural misconception and is really only a thing on the west coast and a few outliers. Considering that we are talking about a character being viewed with "the intent of being sexual", i'd say age of consent is the appropriate thing to go by.

That is ultimately a huge problem plaguing critiques of games: the cultural differences. As much as people try to deny it, a huge chunk of the major game developers and publishers are Japanese, a culture with HUGE differences in social norms. Thus quite a bit of translation is involved when localizing titles, even ones set in Japan like the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Let's face it, for all we cry about "censorship", if something was 100% translated straight there would be fits aplenty, even among people decrying this whole thing.

As I stated previously, this is an N17 title. Anyone who is buying or playing this should be mature enough to handle the subject matter present, including sexual elements. It would be like censoring Caligula (which has been done, and it's terrible); taking out the sex and violence of an X or NC17 movie/game is pointless as the viewers are already prepared to see such material, and if they aren't, are not obligated to view it. Censoring it comes off as needless and prudish, and makes the audience feel cheated a bit.

But yeah, we've made our points, and I thank you for being so calm and courteous in our discussions.

I just want to point out that it's not a perfect analogy: Movies rated X or NC-17 by the MPAA are not allowed to be advertised out in public or where minors are likely to see it. This essentially kills the movie's ability to be noticed by the mainstream, so the only movies able to get away with an X or NC-17 movies are indie films with very small budgets (and wouldn't advertise much anyway) or movies that get large word-of-mouth followings (like A Clockwork Orange).

Major movie studios often trim out or censor content in movies when the MPAA gives them the X or NC-17 rating, lowering them to an R rating so they can actually advertise on TV, in normal movie theaters as trailers, on billboards, and such.

This isn't even an issue regarding the people who play them or their parents or guardians. What Nintendo fears are people completely unrelated to the playerbase. They're afraid of the news discovering it, picking up on it, creating pieces condemning its sexualization of a minor, and branding Nintendo as a company that caters to pedophiles, or at the very least, associate the game with underage softcore porn in the mainstream. The last thing Nintendo wants is its own Hot Coffee scandal.

That it's set in Japan, where it's common and tolerated, doesn't make a difference. Most people outside of Japan don't know this, and they won't care. Being told about that is only going to make them think Japan is a country of depravity too.

Levitz9 wrote:

Todd raises some big issues about Mighty #9. As time went on during the original Kickstarter and I thought about things, I began to wonder: were people supporting Mighty #9 because they honestly wanted another Mega Man side-scroller (which they had already gotten with Mega Man 9 and 10, and didn't seem to care much for), or were they trying to stick it to Capcom for "denying" them MML3? As time goes on, I think it's the latter.

Do you think, then, that it's a fad for people who were kicked out of various companies to get successful crowdfunding campaigns for these successor-type games? (This is not a rhetorical question; I just wanted your opinion on the matter.)

As for me, I've never played a Mega Man Legends game. I just backed Mighty No. 9 because it looks interesting to me. Still does.

AiddonValentine wrote:

Again, violence and titillation do not mix. It's just awkward at best.

Actually they do. Quite well in fact. The horror genre has been mixing the two since the 1920's, with hardcore sex becoming a mainstay by the 70's.

Maybe it just isn't for you.

While that is true, I chose Caligula as an example because that wasn't always the case in the US. It received fairly wide release and made a lot of money (though not enough to save it; it cost a lot to make), even with terrible reviews (almost all of which were about the sex and violence). It was only around the late 70's that such ratings were denied viewings in wide release format in the US.

I understand that a lot of movies were outright banned in Europe, so I guess the US is lucky in that regard.

I can see this happening with a bigger franchise exposure like RE or Silent Hill, but Fatal Frame is niche enough, it flies under the radar of most sensationalist snoops. If they're that paranoid, it begs the question why they didn't offer another publisher, one that would obviously not make white washing their MO, a chance to release this to the West? Oh and said publisher would give a damn enough to give it a physical release while we're at it? It's clear NOA does not WANT this game within their hands and they were pressured into it a la Operation Rainfall.

A society that claims to embrace a mix of cultures and views yet it can't seem to get past its own Puritan spectres. Ah, God bless America.

Eldritcho wrote:

AiddonValentine wrote: Again, violence and titillation do not mix. It's just awkward at best. Actually they do. Quite well in fact. The horror genre has been mixing the two since the 1920's, with hardcore sex becoming a mainstay by the 70's. Maybe it just isn't for you.

No, they don't. They can occur in the same film without issue...it's just that occurring LITERALLY SIMULTANEOUSLY does not work and has historically been the realm of trashy exploitation junk. It has never, EVER worked. Again, context. Seeing scantily clad women get savaged by murderers, monsters, and (in FF's case) ghosts is not horror, it's just weird.

Seeing scantily clad women get savaged by murderers, monsters, and (in FF's case) ghosts is not horror, it's just weird.

I dislike it when a work is changed for commercial reasons, and yet I don't see the value in the game's original costumes.