So like, what exactly has been censored?

[TheBioMan]

I'm seeing a lot of people bringing this up in the forums but I haven't seen any examples of whats been censored aside from them changing Male/female to type 1/2 if the post is to be believed.

Like has stuff been removed from the game? Has dialogue been changed? Or is this just speculation? I just want to understand what exactly people have a problem with here.

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

1. Names (of towns/characters) have been changed.

Isis changed to Ibis (This changes the reference for this matriarchal egyptian society from the Egyptian goddess Isis to make less sense in order to avoid any association with the terrorist group.)

Simon has been changed to Simao (I'm assuming this was done to make his name seem more "cultured" as he's from Portoga (reference to Portugal)).

Soo has been renamed to Persistence (Removes the reference to the Sioux Native American tribe)

2. Female Warrior (and other character designs) have been altered to make them less risque.

Female Warrior has shorts on and some cloth underneath her bra.

Female Gadabout now wears some black spandex on their legs. Imo this one seems the least egregious as they actually look a bit better in some ways.

3. Boss Trolls (and presumably other enemy designs) have been altered to remove certain resemblances.

I believe there are some other enemy designs which have gone through revision since the original DQ3, but the trolls are the only one I can recall off the top of my head and seem to be the biggest point of contention.

4. Some changes have been made to how genders ("appearance types") work.

In addition to calling them Type A / Type B (which is a very odd convention from my point of view), it's important to keep in mind that in the original DQ3, a lot of things were tied to a character's gender, such as what weapons/armor you could equip, as well as personality, which affects stat growth. It's presumed that these will be homogenized in the HD-2D Remake.

-----

This is mainly just what's confirmed so far.

[V I D A L]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02XBWDh8Oi8

[Mumblez]

Didn't even know about the bunny girls being censored, jeez.

Whats stupid is they cant even put this on a toggle

[Gamerdude535]

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

1. Names (of towns/characters) have been changed.

Isis changed to Ibis (This changes the reference for this matriarchal egyptian society from the Egyptian goddess Isis to make less sense in order to avoid any association with the terrorist group.)

Simon has been changed to Simao (I'm assuming this was done to make his name seem more "cultured" as he's from Portoga (reference to Portugal)).

Soo has been renamed to Persistence (Removes the reference to the Sioux Native American tribe)

2. Female Warrior (and other character designs) have been altered to make them less risque.

Female Warrior has shorts on and some cloth underneath her bra.

Female Gadabout now wears some black spandex on their legs. Imo this one seems the least egregious as they actually look a bit better in some ways.

3. Boss Trolls (and presumably other enemy designs) have been altered to remove certain resemblances.

I believe there are some other enemy designs which have gone through revision since the original DQ3, but the trolls are the only one I can recall off the top of my head and seem to be the biggest point of contention.

4. Some changes have been made to how genders ("appearance types") work.

In addition to calling them Type A / Type B (which is a very odd convention from my point of view), it's important to keep in mind that in the original DQ3, a lot of things were tied to a character's gender, such as what weapons/armor you could equip, as well as personality, which affects stat growth. It's presumed that these will be homogenized in the HD-2D Remake.

-----

This is mainly just what's confirmed so far.

I think Simon's name being changed is not so much censorship in that case. Also it was something that was already done for the Smart Device versions and it's ports.

[hopefuldeath]

Yeah Simon, Persistence, and MANY other things are because of the new localization style that was present on the Switch release. That's also where you got Pimiko instead of Himiko, people talking in haikus, accents, etc. Personally not a fan but that "quirkiness" is Dragon Quest's present identity in the west, to the point where a not insignificant number of people actually enjoy the series mostly because of the localization and not on its original merits. It is what it is.

Ibis is definitely censorship though since it was formerly Isis even in the previous translation(it also remains Isis in the Japanese script)

Also this might not apply to a lot of people, but there are moments in the Japanese script at least where they blatantly tiptoe around the use of gender(the word 'son' being replaced by 'child' and a joke about mistaking the female protagonist for a male being taken out to name a couple) I'd say it's obviously because of the Type A/B thing. Ironically the English dialogue shown doesn't seem to do this, but that's also because said dialogue seems to be copy and pasted from the Switch version so it's probably more so laziness than anything else. Can't guarantee if that will be the final version of dialogue. I've seen people point out the use of son in the English script as an example that they won't scrap gender from the script, but I'm like 99% sure that if they didn't have a source to copy paste from and cut corners they would have absolutely gone the same route as the Japanese script(and may still do so)

[Casual Hero]

I'm not part of the anti-censorship crusade on the forums here, but I do generally hate the localization of DQ games in the West. Idk why it has to turn everything into a pun, or make everything so goofy and silly.

The most terrible example for me is the flying bed quest in DQ 6. The boys original name is John, but the localization changes it to "Matt Tress".
Really?
They took a very emotional and poignant story, and turned it into a silly joke. That's so lame.


I also wish we used the same spell names as Japan.

I would love an overhaul of the DQ localization Bible, but idk if that will ever happen again.

[Diamonds D.]

so.... can we get modders to de-censored of these changes to the respect the original game and the creator works because it was okay back then and were sold, it should be okay now. please modders undo these changes.

[DMaster2]

Originally posted by Diamonds D.:

so.... can we get modders to de-censored of these changes to the respect the original game and the creator works because it was okay back then and were sold, it should be okay now. please modders undo these changes.

It's not ok. People playing on the switch will not be able to use the mod for example. And even if they were able to these companies need to get the memo, the paying customers don't want censorship in their products

[Sawyer]

Originally posted by TheBioMan:

I'm seeing a lot of people bringing this up in the forums but I haven't seen any examples of whats been censored aside from them changing Male/female to type 1/2 if the post is to be believed.

Like has stuff been removed from the game? Has dialogue been changed? Or is this just speculation? I just want to understand what exactly people have a problem with here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02XBWDh8Oi8

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by Diamonds D.:

so.... can we get modders to de-censored of these changes to the respect the original game and the creator works because it was okay back then and were sold, it should be okay now. please modders undo these changes.

The only thing I can say for now is that I'm hearing some rumblings within the modding community[sites.google.com]. It sounds like there is some interest.

Originally posted by DMaster2:

It's not ok. People playing on the switch will not be able to use the mod for example.

It is possible to make mods compatible for Switch[www.nexusmods.com], provided you have the right firmware on your Switch such as Atmosphere, or a flashcart device. Mods can also be used on emulators, for example.

Regarding your other point- fixing censorship is more about the long-term legacy of DQ3, not the short term financial success of this remake.

Whether people purchase this title is really no object of concern for modders.

The existance of mods is mostly intended to remedy what many consider to be an affront to the original artistic intent of the creators such as Akira Toriyama and Yuji Horii.

[Bikanel desert]

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

The existance of mods is mostly intended to remedy what many consider to be an affront to the original artistic intent of the creators such as Akira Toriyama and Yuji Horii.

and they spoke with you about the artistic intent yes?
how do you know they were against it?

[TheSausageDog]

Originally posted by Bikanel desert:

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

The existance of mods is mostly intended to remedy what many consider to be an affront to the original artistic intent of the creators such as Akira Toriyama and Yuji Horii.

and they spoke with you about the artistic intent yes?
how do you know they were against it?

This is a classless take. Akira Toriyama can't say anything about what Square-Enix are doing to his designs. He's dead. That's what makes this all the more tacky, regardless of where you stand on the issue of unnecessary censorship.

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by Bikanel desert:

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

The existance of mods is mostly intended to remedy what many consider to be an affront to the original artistic intent of the creators such as Akira Toriyama and Yuji Horii.

and they spoke with you about the artistic intent yes?
how do you know they were against it?

"what many consider to be"

While I personally believe several of the decisions made with this remake do not fall in line with the original design of DQ3, I am not a purist and don't consider my take to be the end-all be-all as far as what constitutes "faithfulness" in terms of artistic intent. That's generally going to be subjective.

That said, you can see there is a clear contingent of those who agree that the changes as they stand are a significant departure from the original designs. The motivation of said changes are up for some debate, and you well know that Akira Toriyama had many disciples at Bird Studio (and imitators alike), but from my own critical examination, some of the new monster and character designs do not seem in-line with much of Akira Toriyama's official work.

As mentioned by hopefuldeath above, some of the English localization changes are not reflected in the Japanese script. Yuji Horii has at times exercised editorial oversight over the Western localizations, but this has generally been reserved for new mainline entries. Ports and remakes often seem to be left to the discretion of other studios. In some cases, the HD-2D Remake pulled several changes from the mobile port (*modern localization done by Shloc Ltd and Keywords International).

Shloc Ltd was also invoved in Dragon Quest XI's localization, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were called upon again for this Remake and were in fact the ones responsible for the new censorship we see in the script.

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by Casual Hero:

I'm not part of the anti-censorship crusade on the forums here, but I do generally hate the localization of DQ games in the West. Idk why it has to turn everything into a pun, or make everything so goofy and silly.

The most terrible example for me is the flying bed quest in DQ 6. The boys original name is John, but the localization changes it to "Matt Tress".
Really?
They took a very emotional and poignant story, and turned it into a silly joke. That's so lame.


I also wish we used the same spell names as Japan.

I would love an overhaul of the DQ localization Bible, but idk if that will ever happen again.

Officially, I doubt they're going away from the current direction they are taking the localizations, unfortunately.

If you happen to play Dragon Quest XI, you might take a look at this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxisdefinitiveedition/mods/75

For older titles (such as DQ6), I would recommend some of the romhack/translations out there: https://www.romhacking.net/translations/344

[MelloYello]

Disgusting the west censors anything in the first place