I'm afraid of JSRF HD. Here's why (warning, includes politics):

[Schorl]

There are many reactionaries inside the gaming community nowadays who like to spam american politics into everything. Including japanese games.
If Jet Set Radio Future HD was announced these days, outside of the clowns at Kotaku, Polygon etc. whining about characters such as Rhyth and Gum wearing short skirts, you would see a lot of people in the "anti woke" community calling this game "SJW propaganda" because of its hip hop and punk themes.

Also, I'd like to point the hypocricy of Eurogamer for making articles about how "Jet Set Radio may not be around us anymore, but it's still influencial" and not covering up Jet Set Sona.

[AJN Pain Olympics]

Doubt any of this would happen

[Schorl]

Originally posted by ⇝AJN☢PLATINUM⇜:

Doubt any of this would happen

I hope it won't happen, but there are people that have this mentality unfortunately.
I don't want JSR to be a victim of this "culture war" BS.

[HyperDebtRay]

Originally posted by ⇝AJN☢PLATINUM⇜:

Doubt any of this would happen

People keep saying this, but it does happen countless times to many games.
Don't believe me?
Just look on twitter at the trail of destruction at the hands of the perpetually offended asking to sterilize games with censorship, identity politics or cancellation.

[NullPointerException]

You all can just ignore any politics talk or backlash by the noonereallycares trope and yet you choose to worry before anything even happening. Epic gamer moment here.

[Dingus]

People care what game journalists have to say?

[Schorl]

Originally posted by hendsome:

You all can just ignore any politics talk or backlash by the noonereallycares trope and yet you choose to worry before anything even happening. Epic gamer moment here.

Dude, this even happened to Resident Evil. I thought that Japanese games were safe from this stuff. (except if we talk about Dead Or Alive Volleyball games, which are not available on other regions because of said controversies)

[Schorl]

Originally posted by Dingus:

People care what game journalists have to say?

You have a point, but if they end up causing trouble because of what they write?

[A Robot Named Ruby]

Y'all say that folks don't get up in arms over little things like these, but does anybody else remember when Kotaku got all butt-hurt about mishearing a racial slur in the full version of Last Surprise?

[Schorl]

Originally posted by Robb:

Y'all say that folks don't get up in arms over little things like these, but does anybody else remember when Kotaku got all butt-hurt about mishearing a racial slur in the full version of Last Surprise?

Thanks to Laura Dale Kate, who wrote the article and played victim afterwards. I remember listening to her alongside Jim Sterling and MiracleOfSound on The Podquisition. I'm glad I stopped listening to this podcast.

[GuRu Asaki]

I thought mk & gta would be safe, due to they fought this stuff off for so many years...

But MK11 is so bad right now, its not even the same Game shown by the Trailers anymore...

Remakes, are hit by this, too...

If JSR Future was done like JSR today
it would prob be a huge mistake, because of the huge problem in the Gaming Industry today...

Even though I would buy it Day 1 if it got Released...

Even Final Fantasy VII ReMake has been hit bad by this, too...

I want a copy of JSR Future as much as anyone else on PC in the same Format, & Treatment that JSR got, but asking for it now would not get you a Game you would be happy with...

[snlᴉʇnɐNɔᴉɯsoƆ]

Let there be drama. Makes things popular.

[ChickenBerryPie]

You're thinking way too much about this dude

[HeavyNBrutalAF]

I feel this is very paranoid on your part. The "culture war" is nonsense made up by right-wingers who feed off fringe aspects of some radical people making a big stink about nothing. It's called the "nut-picking" fallacy. Because these right-wing types thrived on that kind of content, it's really all they have now that Gamergate and it's offshoots have all pretty much died away, so they are desperate to start up ♥♥♥♥ again like anyone cares, even if it means generating clickbait. It's not 2014 anymore and it's time to move on. This is not a real issue.

[Polyh3dron]

None of this would happen.

[it's a gabe]

It wouldn't happen because JSR was never positioned to appeal to a specific American demographic, not to mention the cultural context around it.

And for the record, such political issues form around very specific games, such as some Western ones, AAA blockbuster releases (which are designed to appeal to as many people as possible, hence why there's so much controversy around them), and ones that are designed to appeal to marginalized demographics in a pandering way (Read Only Memories with its cringe wokeness comes to mind, but that's the kind of game the most conservative gamer would stay away from anyway).

There are, however, plenty of examples of popular games with such "controversial" elements that end up not defining them (except when someone says they don't want ANY politics in their games, which is completely dismissive of something like Bioshock or Deus Ex, for example).

To name a few:

- FFXV: The issue around the party members is silly but understandable, and at the end of the day, no one likes Luna cuz she's horribly written but I've also never seen anyone having a problem with the other female characters, not even because of the way they dress. Although, I think most people can agree that they're all criminally undeveloped, even if you factor in all of the adjacent media that's supposed to give the game some context. That's a whole conversation I don't think we need to get into in this thread, though.

- Disgaea: Kinda niche, I'll admit, but extremely popular. These games have a thin layer of social-political commentary that only adds to the story instead of being pandering. Some might find the characters annoying (I know a lot of people dislike Seraphina's attitude) but given time, they become so fleshed out that their annoying ticks become endearing (again, Seraphina, who's supposed to be annoying but underneath all of her egocentrism, she has a heart of gold). I've never seen anyone having a problem with the way the female characters dress, I guess in part cuz male characters receive the same treatment and there's even an extremely ambiguous class in all mainline games.

- NieR: Automata: Although I believe it might exist, I have never seen conversations around how 2B and A2 and most female characters LOOK cuz at the end of the day, they're much more than the way they dress. I have, however, seen conversations around Taro's weird decisions with the script, such as 9S having a massive boner for 2B or 2B's operative having a crush (another female android, which I think was Taro's attempt to be horny and woke all at the same time and even I cringe at that) that didn't reciprocate her feelings. If anything, people criticize 9S a lot more than they would ever 2B until they get to play as him. Automata does look like Fanservice: The Game but there's so much to it that it becomes accessible even to those who would be turned off by 2B. I'm a great example of that cuz at first I was appalled by having her butt front and center due to the default camera position when you dash, but I adjusted that and as she grew as a character, I actually came to enjoy her character design despite my liberal and feminist tendencies.

- Devil May Cry 5: There's no denying that the female characters could very easily be the target of the "no-miniskirt" debacle, but if that ever happened, it was massively overshadowed by all the discussions surrounding the male characters. Nico, in particular, should've been a massive target but she's so damn cool that anyone who hates her for the way she dresses is pushing it too far for the sake of being PC. If anything, her costume fits her personality to a T. Again, I thought I'd be hypercritical of her because of her character design but right after that first trailer I fell in love with her and I couldn't care if she had her tiddies bouncing around so long as she's more than that, which she is.

- MGS5: I have to bring it up cuz everyone (besides the horned up nerds) have a problem with Quiet's design. And the root of the issue is Kojima's excuse for it. I think it was Jim Sterling who said he'd have much more respect if he just said "yeah, I'm horny and I want her to be half-naked" instead of "she breathes through her skin, so she's The End but not really cuz she's a woman and omg yeah I'm horny." That and the fact she was meant to be cosplayed, which worked. I do find her design to be cringe af, but at the same time she must be one of the most interesting characters in that game (which isn't saying much, but anyway). No one dismisses MGS5 for that, though. That game has other problems and the way Quiet is portrayed pales in comparison to them. We just facepalm every time she tries to seduce us in the chopper because, OF COURSE, Kojima had to be so horned up that she can't sit her butt still for five minutes.

We also gotta understand why Suda51 games might be the target of such conversations, though. I mean, that "dating" minigame in Killer is Dead? Yikes. That's even worse than the Sword Art Online sleepover scenes, which are so tame and innocent beside KiD. Killer is Dead does set a dangerous precedent, especially for teens cuz they are impressionable. But the character design in the JSR series don't invite such a conversation cuz this and JSRF just aren't that kind of game. The females don't have "skimpy" outfits because they're being sexualized, but because they look cool in them. I bet a lot of females would agree, but unfortunately, either they're afraid to come forward for fear of backlash or their support is lost in the sea of Anita Sarkeesian clones having an issue with the Beyond Good and Evil MC wearing a tank top.

For the record, I understand your concern. And as someone who has criticized developers sexualizing female characters specifically because they're women, I don't think that would be a problem with a JSRF remaster. There are actually a lot of female characters who wear little to nothing who I like far more than the male characters, even though boobs do nothing for me.

The political thing is a silly concern, though. It's not pandering to any demographic any more than Disgaea or more cerebral games such as the aforementioned Bioshock and Deus Ex. Ubisoft games and how they try too hard to deflect politics nowadays (even though their scenarios invite such conversations) is where this issue belongs.