For whatever strange reason, people in this field call all sorts of minor changes in the text and images to better fit regional tastes and cultural norms 'censorship'. That's not to say some of these changes aren't ill-conceived or silly but the term makes it sound like something far more sinister than what it is.
> changes aren't ill-conceived or silly but the term makes it sound like something far more sinister than what it is.
I don't think any of it is sinister, but I remember finding out about changes that watered down the game and being sad about them. It's neat that people are trying to fuse together what most people consider the good translation with more of the original intent.
Some bits of it are a bummer: Relm used a tone of speaking that was not appropriate for kids in Japan. Choosing to "clean up" her language too much alters the story.
> Relm used a tone of speaking that was not appropriate for kids in Japan. Choosing to "clean up" her language too much alters the story.
If you play the fan translation of Mother 3, there's similar effort that goes into preserving Kumatora's crass vocabulary that I really appreciated. She swears somewhat infrequently and makes a number of offhand comments that don't necessarily feel unnatural, but certainly wouldn't get approved in a first-party North American release. It's a great little touch of flavor that helps contrast her character more from the more timid Lucas and duty-bound Duster, plus a generally enjoyable curveball for a game that's earlier hours are dominated with less personable, stoic villagers.
Perhaps the people in this field would like to experience the tastes and norms of a different culture, so they don't appreciate this Bowdlerization. Would you edit Faust or the Illiad to "better fit regional tastes and cultural norms"? How about the Godfather?
Final Fantasy VI is not a game about Japanese culture. Turning onigiri into donuts is one thing, but good localization needs to help the new audience understand the story as it was interpreted by its original audience.
That said, most of the censorship in this game had little to do with "cultural norms" and a lot to do with Nintendo of America applying extremely strict standards to games, which itself had as much to do with politics and market maneuvering as it did American culture:
> Senator Lieberman: So, people actually complain that they can’t have the more violent game on the Nintendo system?
> Howard Lincoln: That’s correct. Letters and phone calls say, “Leave in the violence! You’re censoring!”
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything I wrote but Faust and the Iliad are among the most retold, re-adapted, re-interpreted stories out there. That's a good thing, as is re-translating, re-editing, re-modding and re-everything-ing old games.
But this was not a re-adaption or a re-interpretation, this was the only version available in the US, and marketed as the same game, only translated.
I honestly don't see how one could in good faith mistake a translation for a re-interpretation. What's next - because translation is somewhat subjective, that means anything goes?
Faust and the Iliad are works in the public domain with many dozens of translations, most of them trying hard to be "faithful" or "accurate" in one sense or another. When they're retold, adapted, reinterpreted, they're not usually billed as the original work, but rather a retelling or what have you. Joyce didn't stick Homer's name on Ulysses and bill it as an English version of the Odyssey (just set in Dublin to better fit regional tastes and cultural norms). Retellings, adaptations, reinterpretations aren't relevant here at all - I'm not sure why you brought them up in order to defend acts of (poor) translation.
It's almost hard to draw an analogy to other art forms, because they're considered legitimate and no one tries to do this to them. When Cien años de soledad became 100 Years of Solitude, its depiction of sexuality and themes of incest weren't excised to appeal to more conservative anglo sensibilities. When Parasite caused a sensation in the west a couple of years ago, the
version we saw didn't somehow try to pretend it was set in New York or rename Kim Ki-taek to Fred Jones or something. Even genre fiction usually gets treated better than this - something like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo lost its somewhat unwieldy original Swedish title (Män som hatar kvinnor, "Men Who Hate Women") but otherwise remained defiantly Scandinavian.
Now, I agree that nothing in FFVI specifically is all that bad (the translation has plenty of other issues though), and I agree that some people get unnecessarily bent out of shape about it; changing "pubs" to "cafes", or covering up nude statues or whatever is stupid but doesn't fundamentally change the game. But it's still stupid, and disrespectful to the original work.
I didn't bring up Faust or the Iliad, works that don't actually have anything resembling an 'original'. Still not sure what, specifically, this is a response to.
Of course the Iliad has an original. It's a poem written by Homer [1]. Feel free to read the original yourself [2] if you don't believe me.
I suppose you might interpret "Faust" as possibly referring to the general legend of Faust, but OP was almost certainly referring to Goethe's Faust, "considered by many to be...the greatest work of German literature" [3]. Likewise, as proof by existence, here's the original (in two parts) [4], [5].
Again, I did not bring Faust or the Iliad into this conversation. I don't even know what the conversation is about and how it relates to my original comment! Let's wrap this up here because at this point I'm being lectured on the classics by one person who can't spell 'Iliad' and another who thinks it was 'written by Homer' and neither can actually tell me why.
Oh for god’s sake - they were clearly brought up simply as examples of great works of literature that are often translated, and translated loyally when they are, because when translators translate great works of literature they generally try to respect the originals instead of deliberately mutilating them for the sensibilities of their audience. And I’m being scolded for saying that the Iliad was “written by Homer” instead of, what, “was composed by Homer”? “Is generally attributed to Homer”, as Wikipedia puts it? By someone who - either owning to pedantry, bad faith, or extreme ignorance - denies that “the Iliad” as an original work even exists!
This conversation is about whether it's "sinister" or not, as you put it, to make "all sorts of minor changes in the text and images to better fit regional tastes and cultural norms", and whether to call those changes "censorship". jevoten believed that these changes were, in fact, sinister, and explained why - arguing by analogy that making similar changes to works in other artforms to satisfy prudish sensibilities would be viewed as heretical. You then, seemingly, played inexplicably ignorant and focused on the fact that the particular works that they chose as examples were based on mythologies that have inspired other, independent works. The only way your confusion here makes any sense whatsoever would be if you were literally unaware of the specific works they were referring to, particularly when you said that there was "nothing resembling" an original Iliad or Faust, so, taking you at face value, I demonstrated their existence.
As for the question of what constitutes "censorship" - maybe that's what you perceived as the significant part of your comment? I suppose that'd help explain some of your frustration, not that it'd justify your bad faith argumentation or personal slights. Censorship doesn't need to be handed down by official government censors or something - it can be self-imposed, or imposed by copyright holders against the wishes of the original creator, due to political, social, or economic pressure, which is clearly the case here.
>Kefka's line when the party flees from him on chocobos was changed. In the Japanese version he says "ヒーーーー くっそ！ このかりは必ず返しますよ！", literally translated to "Arggg.... you scums! I will definitely pay you back for this!". In the overseas release, depending on the version, he either says "Son of a submariner! They'll pay for this..." (SNES/PSX version) or "Son of a sandworm! You'll pay for this..." (GBA/PC/iOS).
Wow, yeah. I don't care about that level of "censorship," especially from a "news" point of view.
The uncensored images are pretty tame, too, as in a woman in a sheet having her hips and butt partially uncovered vs. covered.
So, I'm glad people put in the effort to clean up little things like this. I'm still confused why this got upvoted.
It's probably best to think of it as a kind of domain-specific term of art. Same goes for the 'news' in HN's title - the site has about the same relationship to 'news' as USENET newsgroups, the city of Newport News or the word 'sinews'.
I'm not sure that example is censorship so much as "You spoony bard" tier creative license with the translation. It added color to the game.
One of my favorites from the same game... When Figaro Castle is set on fire, one of the imperial guards says "Fire! Fire! Heh heh heh..." implying that he is Beavis.
Changes the feel way too much, ruins the point of it being a Japanese game if it’s all just being filtered through the humor of one American who didn’t have the talent to create something that grand anyway.
Intent of the original writers should take priority over the translator wanting to put their attempts at jokes in.
That's a valid perspective, and there is legitimate difference of opinion on this -- but it's adaptation, not censorship. They changed the line but they didn't tone it down to appease people who might be offended.
Nintendo of America was way more strict about content, so a lot of RPGs would heavily self-censor just so they didn't fail approval and have to go through the long approval process again.
IMO this hack is only partly about censorship, and largely about fixing mistakes and limitations.
I love Woolsey's localizations and would rather have his than a fully accurate translation that loses its charm. But the FF6 translation was also done by a single person with limited information about the game, so there's a fair number of errors. So, I like the approach they took there where they fixed mistakes without losing the flavor.
On top of that, they fixed limitations in string length, allowing for more accurate names for spells, items, enemies, etc.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Censorship#Final_Fantas...