There's been cries of "censorship!" lately on some games coming from Japan, and it made me think:

Where do you draw the line between censorship and localization?

They are after all translating a game to a different culture, and there are things that just rub people the wrong way over here. Like how in Bravely Default the made some of the clothes less skimpy and changed the characters ages from 15 to 18. I don't I've objected to any of changes made, at least in recent games, but people have such a knee-jerk reaction to the whole thing, I wonder how far they think is okay to go with localization.

P.S.: Calling onigiris donuts is just fucking ridiculous. You don't need to pretend like other countries don't exist in your localization.

Localization is absolute bullshit. Even at its least intrusive like when they change the ages; what's the fucking point? the character still looks underage and on top of that probably wears a school uniform so excellent job on fooling absolutely nobody. But I am happy when it's just that.

What I'm not happy about is when asshats like NISA or 8-4 just straight up make their translation up, or just remove things to force some stupid memes.

I fail to see how a “different culture” is a bad thing. Different does not mean it's automatically bad.

Sometimes, changes are necessary.

For example, untranslatable jokes. In SaGa 2, for example, there is a minor character who says, written in katakana, the English words "please don't play this game". (Note that this character is a student in a classroom.) How are you supposed to translate *that* into English while preserving the joke? (Answer: You don't; they instead came up with a different one that went something like "HELLO! HOW ARE YOU? I am learning to speak English. ...How come you can understand me?" (I don't remember the last line of that exactly.))

Another case is when something is in particularly bad taste, regardless of culture. I hear the newest Fire Emblem game has a support conversation where a male character spikes the drink of a female character in order to get her to like him; I would say that is definitely crossing the line in any culture and shouldn't have been in the game in the first place. It is good that that conversation is being changed in the overseas releases because it had no business being in the game in the first place! (There's also the whole gay conversion angle to that same conversation, as if it weren't bad enough.)

On the other hand, I disagree with them removing the breast slider in the recent Xeno[something] localization.

Jokes? Maybe. This however is “I don't like it, it shouldn't be there” and it it's a pretty unsightly direction, IMO. It's not like games only show “good” things.

For me an original work shouldn't be touched.
I don't need crappy censored or localized versions.
(except for the mandatory dubbing or subtitles)

+1 This is exactly what makes localization in games such a farce.

At some point, we need to draw the line. Particularly since this is a support conversation, which is a conversation that shows the characters becoming better friends (and possibly lovers) with each other. In this case, I think it is inappropriate, as it is putting date rape (and gay conversion) in a positive light.

Now, if this had happened to a character who had been kidnapped by someone evil, that would be a different story.

article about that http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/01/nintendo-censors-controversial-gay-conversion-scene-in-fire-emblem-fates/

I need one censorship version of Etrian Odyssey games where the characters don't look like sexualized 12 year old girls. Is that possible?

edit: nevermind, ninja'd.

Since you returned, you're writing links everywhere :O

Here's what actually happens (spoilers):

http://nichegamer.com/2015/07/the-story-behind-fire-emblem-fates-completely-falsified-gay-conversion/

That was part of the inspiration for this discussion actually. You're wrong though, you should actually read the dialogue before taking someone else's word and labeling something as sexist:

http://nichegamer.com/2015/07/the-story-behind-fire-emblem-fates-completely-falsified-gay-conversion/

Ignore the author's comments here, the important thing is it has a transcript of all the interactions between these two characters in english. It can still be called problematic, but at least the male character didn't intend to trick the female character into liking him, and the female character doesn't lose her agency.
Bastard! You beat me to it!

The Fire Emblem thing was a bit of an inspiration, but I chose not to include it in the OP because I don't think we can have a proper opinion on the changes until we know what those are. All we know is that apparently, some change will be made.

Macekre!