Fire Emblem Engage, a new entry in the Fire Emblem franchise, has faced censorship in the West. The game’s English localization has attempted to remove gendered language and problematic romance lines for minor characters. The censorship affects conversations during romance, with some of the conversations involving 17-year-old Alear being prevented from marrying over a dozen characters.
Fire Emblem Engage’s English localization drew backlash from fans who believe it has censored the game’s romance lines. Some fans believe that only some romances were censored to avoid appearing like Alear was marrying a minor. Others believe that the game has completely re-wrote one character’s support to be less creepy.
The censorship of romantic S support conversations broke a trend set by Awakening, and it is unclear if Fire Emblem Engage is still censored in the West. However, the game’s English localization has drew backlash from fans who believe that the game has been censored in some way in the West.
In conclusion, Fire Emblem Engage has faced censorship in the West, with some fans expressing disappointment in the changes made to the game’s script and the censorship of romantic S support conversations.
📹 How Fire Emblem Engage Is Changed Outside Japan
This video takes a look at look at how the Nintendo Switch game Fire Emblem Engage was changed outside of Japan. Comments …
Is Fire Emblem Awakening censored?
The scene with Tharja in a bikini was changed for the American release. In the American version, a black curtain is added, so you can’t see Tharja’s butt. Fire Emblem Awakening is a Japanese RPG released on April 19, 2012.
Censored. USA Censorship. The scene with Tharja in a bikini was changed for the American release. In the American version, a black curtain is added, so you can’t see Tharja’s butt. The scene where Tharja says, “And why is it…nngh…riding so far up my behind?” was changed to, “And does it…nngh…have to be quite so constrictive?” All international censorship applies to the USA release. The scene where Nowi says, “Tharja, you’re so boingy!” was changed to, “Tharja, it’s so nice and shiny!”; The scene where Nowi says, “Didn’t you hear me?” I said you’re boingy! It was changed to Did you hear me? I said it’s nice and shiny!; The scene where Nowi says You know! Your figure! Your hips and other parts! Boingy! Changed to You know! Your hair! It’s sleek, shiny, and stylish!; The scene where Tharja says “Gods.” Where do you learn such things? It was changed to Gods. Is that a compliment? The scene where Nowi says, “Soo…can I see them?” Your boingy bits. It was changed to Soo…can I comb it? Oh please, say I can…; The scene where Tharja says There must be others with more exciting hair than me. Hey, Chrom! Tharja said I should ask you about her boingy bits. Hey, Chrom! Tharja wants to know what you think about her. The scene where Tharja says, “I changed my mind.” No more asking about boingy bits. It was changed to “I changed my mind.” No more asking about my hair. The scene where Nowi says Boo. Tell me what your boingy bits feel like. Are they soft? It was changed to Boo. If I can’t comb it, can you at least tell me what it feels like to touch?; The scene where Nowi says I heard some men talking about your hair…; The scene where Nowi says They said your boingy bits are white as snow and soft as pillows.
Is there no romance in Fire Emblem Engage?
You can’t romance a companion until later in the game. The event happens in a side story that starts after the plot twist where Alear becomes an Emblem. Some paralogues require you to fight your Emblems to unlock their max bond level. You don’t fight Alear, but you can give the pact ring to any companion with an “A” rank to romance them. It’s not just romance. Alear can bond with characters regardless of gender. Some of these bonds will be romantic, while others will be platonic. A male Alear can bond with big daddy thiccums Vander, but since he’s one of the platonic options, you’ll have to rely on your own ideas to do the romantic heavy lifting. I romanced the dancer Seadall because he was the cutest person I had the highest rank with. When you give the ring to your chosen, they’ll leave you a memento on the desk in Alears chambers. I got a scarf. Seadall likes scarves.
Is it okay to start with Fire Emblem Engage?
Fire Emblem Engage has its own story. It doesn’t tie into the previous games. It’s a standalone game. You’ll see some references to previous games, but you don’t need to know what happened in them to understand these characters. It’s interesting that Nintendo and Intelligent Systems paid so much respect to the series with Engage, since the game doesn’t mark a major anniversary or event. It doesn’t try anything new with the franchise. It goes back to some classic parts of the franchise and is a return to form. The marketing made it seem like the heroes from previous games were the main characters, but that’s not true. You can play the games that these heroes have come from if you want to explore the rest of the series. You don’t need to play the other games to understand Fire Emblem Engage. Play them because you want to!
Is Fire Emblem Engage good or bad?
It’s fun, but it could be better. That’s why Fire Emblem fans aren’t respected. The games are just products to sell waifu images, not art.
Which Fire Emblem game is the darkest?
The game features the Battle of Belhalla, one of the series’ most horrific events. Sigurd is betrayed and killed by his allies. His army is bombarded by Meteor spells. Genealogy of the Holy War is dark and bleak from start to finish, which makes it stand out from other games.
Why did Fire Emblem Engage fail?
The best parts of Fire Emblem: Three Houses weren’t in Fire Emblem Engage. The two games were made at about the same time. Three Houses was free to make new things, but Engage was more like the old games. Engage felt like a step back after Three Houses. The biggest problem with Fire Emblem Engage is its story. It doesn’t have the same elements as Three Houses, which made it a hit and made Fire Emblem one of Nintendo’s most profitable franchises. There were few real relationships in Engage. Generals and their units mostly met in cutscenes, but this was underdeveloped. Characters drifted in and out of scenes, making them superfluous to the storyline. The dialogue was bad and didn’t help the plot. The main characters, returning Fire Emblem characters, and especially the villains were boring and just there to move the plot along. This might have worked in a stronger story, but fans wanted the storytelling style of Three Houses. Some character relationships were created in Engage. For example, characters could find out they had family, but this happened suddenly. They didn’t have a good reason to engage the audience, and they seemed like cheap tricks to create drama. Characters died without developing, making plot points feel hollow. Three Houses made it easy to talk to every character because anyone could contribute to the story and the world. Bad dialogue made conversations a chore.
Is Three Houses better than Engage?
Thanks. Engage has better gameplay but less customization and isn’t as replayable. Formerly known as maro_man. Three Houses has a better story, characters, and ways to play/replay, while Engage has better gameplay and visuals.
Why is Fire Emblem Engage censored?
Romantic references in the dialogue were changed during localization to tone down the sexuality. This affects nearly every minor character and a number of older characters involved in such interactions. (Note: Veyne thinks her supporters are romantic.)
Where to find it uncensored. The Japanese version is uncensored. There is also an uncensored English patch mod.
Fire Emblem Engages Western Release Allegedly Gutting All Romance With Minors by Rift, Sankaku Complex. 2023-01-17.
Is Fire Emblem Engage disappointing?
These new gameplay mechanics were satisfying, but not enough to make up for the rest of the game’s shortcomings. Fans of the older games liked the new mechanics, but fans of the newer games didn’t. Fire Emblem Engage’s combat was risky, but the game’s characters, story, and social elements were not. ESRB T for Teen: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes.
Can I romance in Fire Emblem Engage?
You can’t romance a companion until later in the game. The event happens in a side story that starts after the plot twist where Alear becomes an Emblem. Some paralogues require you to fight your Emblems to unlock their max bond level. You don’t fight Alear, but you can give the pact ring to any companion with an “A” rank to romance them. It’s not just romance. Alear can bond with characters regardless of gender. Some of these bonds will be romantic, while others will be platonic. A male Alear can bond with big daddy thiccums Vander, but since he’s one of the platonic options, you’ll have to rely on your own ideas to do the romantic heavy lifting. I romanced the dancer Seadall because he was the cutest person I had the highest rank with. When you give the ring to your chosen, they’ll leave you a memento on the desk in Alears chambers. I got a scarf. Seadall likes scarves.
Is Fire Emblem Engage for kids?
Fire Emblem: Engage is a great game that adds to a great franchise. The game has violence, but no blood. It’s fantasy violence. You fight in a turn-based system, controlling your characters on the map. The game deals with serious topics like brainwashing and the destruction of a village. The enemies are called the Corrupted, and it’s clear they’re reanimated corpses. However, there are no graphic wounds or blood. There is a little language, mainly “bastard” and “hell.” Some female characters (like Zephia) wear low-cut clothes that show cleavage. There’s no nudity or sex. Some characters die, but they’re not pointless. They all help the story. The main character never kills anyone. The combat is strategic. I’d recommend the game for 13, but someone younger could play it if they’re mature. Rosado is a male side character who dresses and acts like a woman. The game is fantastic and is about friendship and trust. I just got it and it is fun, but I haven’t played much. So far, it’s not bad. It’s a fun game with great maps and decent balancing. Characters have almost no good writing, and the story is bland and cheesy. The game never tries to be serious, except for one sad moment that is more funny than anything. The presentation is amazing, but the music is not good, and the character design looks silly compared to the rest of the series. I think an 11-year-old would like this game because it’s similar to what I liked at that age. It’s not very deep, but I see it as the Saturday morning cartoon of Fire Emblem. The map design is worth seeing.
Can I get married in Fire Emblem Engage?
That being said, the game is still heavily character-focused, giving everyone their own arcs, and the support storylines between the protagonist and their followers tend toward the romantic. The game even features a marriage in all but name with the pact ring system.
Once the player has units at A-rank, theyre given a pact ring, which they can use to push a unit to S rank. They can only do this once, and the accompanying cutscene, for most characters, paints it as an engagement: a lifelong commitment of mutual devotion.
Fire Emblem Engage also ensures not to limit pact ring options with the player characters gender. All characters are available, and they react the same to the proposal, whether the player chooses to be a man or a woman.
In the end, it depends on what the player is looking for. They wont get the same mechanics from marriage, but theyll still get the character connections and chances for shipping.
📹 Nintendo CENSORED Fire Emblem Engage?!
With Fire Emblem Engage having just launched on the Nintendo Switch, I read that not only is Alear prevented from marriage with …
My biggest peeves with this Localization are: Sometimes characters say long sentences in Japanese but in English the line geta gutted entirely or reverse, theh insert a long statement not present in the japanese script, and its not for context, they often skip one important line or insert a line that changes the meaning of a scene. Other is the voice direction, some of the more quirky characters have extremely agitated voices where the original dub has those same characters do a more serious voice with the ocassional quirky line. Alfred is a big victim of the latter, Yunaka is also made way more cartoony in her intro, she went from some high pitched lines to almost every line of hers being her quirk.
1: There was a huge emphasis on removing gendered language or any references to gender standards, roles, etc in the English version. Goldmary got hit alot in this regard, since so many of her supports with other female characters have to do with how she’s a very conventionally attractive woman and quite aware of this, but Rosado got hit with this as well. In some of his supports he talks about how pretty much everyone dresses like he does at the village he’s from and that he just likes being cute, where in English, a very big emphasis is placed on the “gender not mattering” part of his supports. 2: A bunch of Paired Endings got changed. Everyone knows about Anna and probably Hortensia at this point, but it wasn’t just them who got changed. Every character who is under 18 at any point in the game (mind you, the only way people even found out character ages was via data-mining, it was not available in the actual game in anyway) had their paired ending with Alear changed to be strictly platonic, usually with accompanying support changes as well. For example, Celinne’s S-Support was specifically changed to add her calling Alear her true friend at the end in order to make it not romantic, rather than simply cutting off after she admits to returning his affections. There’s a bunch of other stuff too. Frankly, the localization of this game is absolutely atrocious and as that TVTropes page mentions, reeks of Translation with an Agenda.
A lot of localisation changes I found very annoying. It ultimately gives people a different version of a character and gives players a different view of them and at times make those characters weirder than they actually are. I personally set audio and voices to JP and texts to ENG and so it becomes really annoying to hear a dialogue but see it be completely different to what was being said.
I think there IS one graphical censor and it’s on all versions. Enemy Berserkers are uncensored compared to the main hero cast when they use the class. You can get to see them during the Main Menu when you idle for long for Class Previews. The main cast has black edits over their entire body where skin was shown unlike the enemy Berserkers. funny enough, under their knees, it’s not blacked out at all. Both Male and Females have this change compared to the enemies.
I hate how talking about losing weight has turned taboo. As someone who used to be obese I absolutely hate the ‘health at every size’ propaganda. And now messages about having a desirable body type are being censored. I genuinely feel like the Framme Goldmary support would’ve been my favorite support if it was just kept the same in the English version. I hope that, although extremely unlikely, in later games, stuff about weight loss and maintaining a desirable body arnt censored
With some of those dialogue changes, I’m reminded of an art class I took where we covered Berger’s Ways of Seeing (the article also is on YT in parts). “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” It’s a fun little trek into art that arguably even predicted and discussed issues around stuff (notably oversaturation of imagery) that we’d eventually see in the internet age back all the way in the early 70s. Side note translation wise: Typically when you see “gender” pop up in JP to ENG the original word used is “seibetsu” 性別 which means sex, gender, distinction of sex. I blame the 90s puritans/overcautious translators for that being spread over sex. The point about the puppy still stands though.
Goldmary being embarrassed about gaining weight is totally understandable. She doesn’t want anyone to make fun of her. But why would you replace that conversation with her getting embarrassed about someone noticing her making a silly facial expression? That’s gotta be one of the dumbest script changes that I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t even make any sense. I have never played a single Fire Emblem game before, but I’ve heard that poor English localizations are pretty common with these games. Is that true, FE fans?
hello, I’m a Japanese FE fan. Thank you so much for making this article. I quite enjoyed this game, so I also started playing in English, and I realised the differences. Especially in the pact ring events and the wake up events. its so sad that FE fans living overseas can not get the real romantic stories…
That last one about her stressing out for gaining weight to her making a silly face is just the dumbest change ever. When did a girl wanting to stay in shape become a taboo in storytelling? Maybe Nintendo of America was worried about causing outrage from freaks on twitter or that there are people in NoA Treehouse who themselves are those freaks from twitter.
There is only one release worldwide..no matter if you get the Asia, JP or US version. There are no graphical changes, but to get it uncensored you have to set voice and subtitles to Japanese.. Even the JP version has English subtitles(as mention in the digital store), but it’s the same garbage localisation.
I think there’s a “graphical censorship” if you even can call it as that, to be honest I’m not really sure if they actually changed it or not in the localizations but it goes in par with the changes of the dialogues of the S supports so it can be the case, anyways, as you know there’s a final artwork of every character when you give them the pact ring and gain the equivalent of an S support with them, I noticed that coincidentally the characters that get a platonic or “best friend” relationship at the end are wearing the ring in their middle finger or are not wearing the ring at all, they are just holding it somehow, but with the characters with which you actually get a romantic relationship they are wearing the ring in the ring finger in the final artwork … I mean, that cannot be a coincidence, they should have even edited the arts to fit the changes in dialogues in the localization as well, it would make sense
While playing FE Engage I picked Japanese voices and English text (because I like to listen to Japanese but am not yet well versed enough in it to understand it completely). But because of this setting and my limited knowledge of the Japanese language (I regularly watch subbed anime) I kept feeling like the text and voices didn’t line up at all times (with some of these times it feeling completely wrong). Which made it somewhat frustrating because I wanted to understand what they were actually saying (to the point I would relisten to a voice line multiple times to try to understand what they were actually saying). But because of my lack of fully understanding Japanese I couldn’t really be sure if this was the case, so I’m somewhat relieved that the strange feeling I had that told me that it didn’t line up was somewhat right.
I remember someone was complaining about the writing because he said the dialog was using Japanese as the basis for sentence structure and that the translation made characters talk like a literal translation from Japanese which made the English sound unnatural. Meanwhile I’m like “a fair number of times I’m pretty sure the Japanese and English aren’t even saying the same thing.”
At least all of the spiteful and stupid localization decisions in this game can be circumvented by having a passing understanding of another language. The original game is right there on the cart; we just have to go into ‘settings’ and change the language. That’s a massive step up from Fates and Tokyo Mirage Sessions, where we only have access to a severely neutered game with a stupid translation if we waste our money on buying the US version.
First of all, it’s good to have you back to your content Censored Gaming. I hope things are starting to look up for you even a little bit in the real world. Remember that your health and life are important, so I understand if it’s something you need to take care of. And secondly, given the current state of Western entertainment and how much it wants to sanitize everything, and fire emblem’s history of censorship, I knew full well what was going to happen to this game so I didn’t even bother with it. But the scope of how much was changed is just insane and makes even less sense. It’s not even about character ages anymore, but they flat-out redid a lot of characters personalities until they were almost completely different from the original. This is the one thing I cannot and will not ever support. If this is how things were going to be then they should have kept this in Japan or not have made the game the way it was to begin with. I’m looking for authentic products not this butchered nonsense.
Goldmary is the character that change the most between north american and Japan, Goldmary in Japanese is obsessed with being eye candy she loves being the center of attention specially around male soldiers while in north America she looks delusional about how everyone is mesmerized by her which, despite not being bad, is really odd. I’m not saying that one is better than another and I can understand why they change it having a character with that kind of characteristics shouldn’t have to be problematic even more considering the amount of character that are male and do the same (Like subaki from fire emblem fates for example)
I haven’t played the JP version of Path of Radiance for Gamecube (only played EN version and am not aware of any changes for sensitivity for EN version even back then), but with that story being pretty grim I hope it never gets a remake/remaster for fear or needing to change the dialogue and bits of the story “for a modern audience”.
Huh… I really do find it odd that they would remove the, “smiling while doing chores makes you more likeable” bit but kept in the part about her underwear, even if worded differently. Being a Nintendo title… I would have thought the underwear remark would have been the bit removed. Aw well. Smiles and sings while I do my chores.
Cultural differences are interesting. Typically sexual or gendered things are the most likely elements to be censored in western releases. Think of Poison in Final Fight, Birdo in SMB2, Vivian in Paper Mario: TTYD and more. But violence is censored in Japanese releases of games, even if the game is Japanese to begin with. Resident Evil since after 4 or 5 and especially if it has anything to do with beheadings or hangings.
I think it’s very silly to have removed all references to romance in the english version, especially since being able to choose your waifu n shit and pairing up characters has been a thing in fire emblem since the 90’s. Regardless of how you feel about specific cases, I’m pretty sure most people can agree that wiping it across the board is a bit of a strange decision.
I think the main thing that makes me slightly mad is if the translators change it up I usually don’t get the same experience as the other person would. When I buy a product I want all the good the bad etc of the product. I don’t want something censored because I might not agree with it. Sometimes the things translators censor or change are so massive it loses all its meaning and it bugs me. That’s why I started learning japanese about 6 days ago and honestly I’ve seen so many things that just don’t fit that makes me go why would they change this? The original made more sense. I think they are getting more in the old mindset of “We have to dumb it down so westerners understand it or there too sensitive to handle this” mentality they had like back when they made some of the older japanese films I watched as a kid.
Sadly this kind of practice is commonplace nowadays due to factors outside the production teams control. The localization team or the producers giving them their instructions probably felt it necessary to file down any edges that might offend anyone in releases outside of Japan. As we all know especially in western media practically any edge can trigger a shitstorm. As such the safe option is to just change the script even if it risks turning most characters into insignifcant blobs of mostly the same personality.
I’m not upset about Louis’s change, but the way people talk about it has me a bit… uncomfortable. I’m an autistic woman, and honestly I find Louis pretty relatable? The overly polite language, and preferring to watch other people rather than engage in things myself – it’s really easy to read him as autistic, too! And another common thing with autistic people is that of eye contact: either doing it too much, or not enough, but all-around not being able to intuitively sense what other people want. And the really frustrating thing is, even subtle mistakes can lead to people becoming really unnerved and considering you ‘creepy.’ I’ve seen this a lot with autistic men, being shamed just sorta for being around in public and being autistic. I obviously care about other women’s comfort, but I think we can have some nuance here and acknowledge competing needs? So when people call Japanese Louis a ‘creeper’ simply because he has unusual hobbies and watches people, that… feels really shitty. We literally KNOW that he’s not stalking anyone and has no big sexual component to it or anything. It’s literally just that acting ‘weird’ is enough to get you called that. And I sorta don’t like that at all. :/ Just, I keep seeing people saying that the ‘women’s perspective’ on this is that JP Louis sucks, and I just wanted to remind everyone that neurotypical women aren’t the only women out there, lol. Autistic women are women, too, and we’re worth listening to.
I said this in another comment section and I’ll say it again. If the problem is that the publishers fear that some people will freak out over an arbitrary age of a fictional character based on looks alone, then I’d say to just go the way of H-Games’ official localizers and put a disclaimer when booting up stating that “every character is over 18 and everything being portrayed is purely fictional”. Tho, on a closer look there seems to be a lot more than just the removal of romance. And to that I say: Time to bust out that Duo-Lingo marathon
Man that localization team gotta go, and I gotta learn me some Japanese. Some of the OG lines are removing themes I’d have wanted to explore. Also kind of unrelated, but somehow Framme and Clanne are supposed to be 16 while Alear is 17. The ages are way off from the design of some of the units. Goldmary especially got done dirty since trying (way too hard) to attract a man is clearly a part of her character that western dialogue totally ignores. I doubt your list is exhaustive.
for the MOST part… the translations ARE accurate (trust me i know Japanese) howeeeeveer when it comes to romantic nuances THATS where the localization messes a lot of things up. Like how they changed Luis admiring women in japanese to just “liking looking at people” in english. thats just one instance out of many
The censorship is what I expected even if it is unfortunate but I’m more disappointed that each entry seems to get more ridiculous with the story and particularly in this entry character design. Shadows of Valentia was hands down just incredible in story and style and three houses at least kept the grounded fantasy visual style even if the story was pretty simple.
I’m currently playing this game in JP voice&sub. Then I started to watch youtube playthrough articles for chapters I’ve already cleared and I was so confused. I don’t understand why they changed those characters. I know they did localize Three houses and censored few scenes but at least censorship in TH was not THIS bad. I was originally thinking that I might switch the language to English for my 2nd playthrough, but now I’m seriously doubt that I’d actually do that.
One thing I’d like to point out with this is (and you did mention it in the article) is that these decisions are often handed down from management. I’ve been seeing a lot of hate online for this sort of censorship aimed towards translators and localizers, and while I’m sure some of them agree with the decisions to censor the material that’s not usually the case and they are just doing their jobs.
Script changes in the localization have been a thing for a while, but I find it more irritating in Engage than ever. It might be due to the fact that my Japanese has gotten leaps better than when I played 3 Houses though. Every time a character says something and the english subs say something clearly different I groan. The amount of times I thought “that’s literally not what they said.” is getting too much. Still enjoying the game though.
I used to love the Fire Emblem games, yet I have not bought one in years since they censorship tends to change the character’s intended personality. Not to mention the features they have taken out of the games because “western” audiences would not “relate”. No game should ever be censored, don’t like it? don’t buy it.
wow Louise and Rosado’s jp conversation was way better than the english one. I guess they’re scared of offending oversensitive people though. Such a shame. Oh yes goldmerry and weight. I dont thing there’s anything wrong with wanting to be aware of ones weight. Its respectable to want to maintain how you look.
While the changes probably don’t bother me that much, it’s interesting to see nonetheless what gets censored. Especially because I can’t really understand why they would Censor Yunaka and Goldmary’s support. It’s pretty Tame for what I was suspecting the original was. I can understand why they might have censored Louis, since to the west, his original version of the hobby seems pretty creepy. Personally, while I like the censored version of Louis’s personality more, I would prefer if they had just kept the original personality intact. Reminder understanding is not accepting, I just find it interesting what they did choose to censor
They also removed instances of women being called words like beautiful. In the English version when Celica is awakened Celine says “Emblem Celica, how beautiful” whereas in English she says marvelous instead. It should come as no surprise to anyone here that the head localizer has pronouns in his Twitter bio. Along with so many other bells and whistles that should be a gargantuan red flag to anyone looking to hire a localizer. I don’t know what they were thinking hiring someone like that.
This is truly pathetic. Just when we thought the treehouse days of ridiculous changes were over you see crap like this that would make 4kids proud. I might be have been willing to give this a pass if it was a ratings issue and they had to get it to a E10+ or something but for a T rated game these changes are ridiculous and preposterous.
Is it actually changed in this way outside Japan or just in the English translation? Because if it’s the latter that WILL be the last straw that gets me to start polishing up that rusty Japanese. Saw some of the wokies on Twitter complain how learning JP to avoid “Woke” translations was all kinds of problematic so I wanted to do it anyways.
I’ll never understand why Nintendo Treehouse or whoever does the localization always does things like this. I’ve seen people say it’s to prevent outrage overseas.. but most of those people probably wouldn’t play the game anyway? I’ve been playing Three Houses off and on with the Japanese dub and I can see what people are talking about. Granted I don’t understand everything outside of the English subtitles, but I get the gist of it in some instances. I don’t think it makes these games unplayable, just odd with these changes.
The game looks fun, but the more I hear of the changes, the less I want to play. It reminds me of Bravely Second. I played Bravely Default, absolutely loved it, then looked up the next game. The amount of censorship and changes made to the NA release turned me off super hard from getting it, and I don’t even want to get Bravely Default 2 either.
Glad you’re back and able to make articles again! What the heck kind of dialogue was that? If they’re going to toss out the Japanese script and just make all the lines up, they could at least make up something that sounds like it was spoken by an actual human. Jeeze, those clips were absolutely grating. I’ve had people tell me this game has good English voice acting, but that was just dreadful. It feels like I’m perusal a high school play put on by kids whose only acting reference is bad anime dubs. I’m hearing some rumblings that Octopath Traveler II has had a lot of it’s text toned down for the English version. If that’s true, that could make for an interesting article in the future.
From the sound of things a lot of this is super weird to change, but on certain occasions I understand no wanting to go through the social media drama people would create. I can see the reason for the small change in the Yunaka and Goldmary C support and I can honestly understand the Louis changes because tbh I find the guy creepy in general, but most of these changes explain why so many interactions feel off and weird for no reason
Yuck, I only got the game because a friend of mine accidentally bought it 2 times. I’ll play the game in German or French and see whether these changes are present there as well. I really hope they did their own translation from Japanese and didn’t just translate from the English version. :/ I’ve almost completely stopped buying JRPGs in recent years. It’s just not worth it anymore… I need to hit the Japanese textbooks again.
Fire emblem has such a strange localization problem where one game is good like awakening and 3 houses where it’s more a translation and some add Ons are good to the cast while fates and engage are just a parody at times for no reason and change characters like Effie. Also double funny is fates makes Elise 18 with Leo Calling her an adult yet they get mad people want to marry her by already getting the ok in less than a minute of dialogue. WHO MADE HER 18 THEN? such double think with zero thoughts to people. Engage feels hollow to me more than just the localization so I’ll probably not play it much when I start 3houses
I’m just glad we have dual-audio so we can listen to the Japanese. The more I learn and understand, the more I wonder why they do some minor changes to the dialogue. Not all of it is bad, or out of character.. but some things could be more literal and be fine.. but they get changed. Just interesting how they choose to flavor things in translation in general.
I’m sure this will get lost on people because the english is even more censored, but I get the distinct impression from these scenes that the japanese versions is also slowly getting sanitized or “modernized”. There’s something off about all these characters and I’m seeing it more and more with modern major japanese releases.
See, at first I didn’t care about the censorship, if I didn’t know it was there I didn’t care, but now that he showed the examples of the supports now I care. I wondered why the supports were mostly terrible and wondering what the hell they were talking about half the time, now I know that the whole context of the conversation was changed to not make sense anymore.
honestly I get most of the changes but it would have been nice if they were able to localize it while also not changing the original meaning too much. for example I get that localizers would want to not have goldmary talk about her weight like that since it implies anorexic tendencies but I feel what would have worked too would be to place an emphasis on the fact that it’s not her weight that makes her annoyed but the fact that she might not seem as “perfect” in the eyes of others, which would reinforce her reveling in the idea of being the perfect “tradwife”
I had made the choice to play this game with the Japanese audio after finding out some actors I didn’t like were in the main English cast (some Funimation actors). I had noticed that audio really wasn’t matching up when a character would say something much longer in Japanese and the English line was super short, like Framme and Vander’s support. And honestly? This actually makes me pretty mad. Censorship is an incredibly insulting and disrespectful practice when it comes to localizations, and I’ve never liked it. Yes, some things would probably weird me out a little bit, like being able to support any of the underage characters like Clanne or Framme. But I’d rather the options still be there in the game; I have no interest in supporting them so it doesn’t affect me if it’s there. I want the game to be as it is, I want to EXPERIENCE it as it is. I’m an adult and I’m not some frail little damsel with weak sensibilities. Give me EVERYTHING, even if it’s problematic. Part of this issue with the censorship is what makes me super sad that we’ll probably never get a Genealogy of the Holy War remake because people will get their knickers in a twist over Deirdre and Arvis’s incest. I never got to play that game but I really wanted to after playing FEH and learning about the characters.
I’ll say it, there is one support out there where I feel like the localization team got the character better than the Japanese script writer. That being Lucina and Goldmary where Lucina suddenly feels like wanting Goldmary’s body type after Goldmary praises herself whereas in the English she just says she envies her elegance. I can’t help but feel like this is a Fates type of support where A character will say something out of character to make B character’s shtick land. But that’s really the only I got example and is probably a coincidence of all things.
I mean even if the dialogue was fixed. the story is still kinda bad. so long as no visual aspects are nerfed I say whatever in this rare case. Because honestly the visuals are pretty much all this game has going for. Besides you know… the game being streamlined and kinda new to the franchise friendly.
Yeah there aren’t any graphical changes because Nintendo has just given NOA final say and all the visuals worldwide now. So if NOA doesn’t like a design they have carte blanche to just censor it for every version of the game so nobody can ever see it. Nintendo of Japan’s creative team is now under the thumb of the insane puritans that work at NOA. Nintendo is essentially rotting from the inside out at this point. Every new release will have blander and blander characters till someone puts a stop to it.
This is a cool article. I think in general it just has to do with cultural differences. Japnese culture has a lot of things that just wouldn’t make much sense in english and vise versa. They do this a lot with anime too. Some of it goes over the top (like good ole 4kidz) but most of the time it’s just trying to make japanese things make sense in an english context which a lot of the time is impossible so they translators go for the closest similar dialog
yeah that’s why if you understand japanese,it’s very helpfull when u play jrpg.that’s why i always empahis people to play in the original language dub.if u play japanese game please use japanese dub and when u play western game please use english dub. because when u play on dub usualy the story,character personality and even the entire game is different when u play on english dub.50% of the story and character personality will be different if u play on dub then the original creator create.the only game that i can say have 95% literal translation without change is trial of cold steel series,the rest of jrpg is not.basicaly you play different game game with people who use eng dub and people who use eng sub with japanese understanding
Looking in from the outside it looks to me like Fire Emblem Engage is trying to replicate the success of Awakening while incorporating some mechanics seemingly adapted from Fates. The Engage Mechanic seems like an adaptation of the Dragon Vein mechanic from Fates, and the heavier combat focus in comparison to Three Houses is reminiscent of the style of gameplay established in Awakening that also inspired the base mechanics of Fates. These things on their own don’t necessarily make for a better or worse Fire Emblem game, but from what I can see having not played it, it seems to be wattered down in the story department, and beefed up in the complexity of combat. Story is arguably one of the most important aspects of a Fire Emblem game for me. Awakening is still my favourite game in the series because its narrative is gripping the whole way through, unlike how the story of Three Houses loses steam in the second half. If I am mislead and the story of Engage is decent, then perhaps I’ll try it. Otherwise, I’m not sold.
I really don’t give a shit about “grooming” when we’re talking about a 16-17 year old line drawing. If you changed their canon age to 22, I wouldn’t blink an eye cause they visually look mature enough. Now, I would definitely question you if you found, for example, the girls from Lucky Star sexually attractive even though they’re 18 in the books. It’s weird that these romanceable characters were ever considered to slightly under 18 to begin with, just make them all legal adults to avoid the bad press. It’s likely just a societal thing over in Japan.
I’m not one to easily criticize, but this localization team did not do well at all. The changes have really taken away from what little connection you could have with the characters in the game. While yes, Three Houses and Engage are two vastly different games, they are still two entries from the same franchise. I feel like one was made for adults with a brilliant mature story that was cohesive and not damaged terribly by the changes it made. Engage looks like it was genuinely made for pre-teens and children. From the art styles, to the story, to how the characters interact, it seems like that is the goal audience of this game. If you compared the two I would only think they are alike because they are strategic RPGs and they both have a character potentially named Byleth in them. The localization of this game has been disappointing to put it mildly. I am curious about who put the restraint on them however. It wasn’t Nintendo or Intelligent Systems. Was it the company themselves and their beliefs? Or an outside source worried about the financial impact? Or another entirely different issue? We probably won’t know, but I truly hope from the ground up, that the overall tone of this game ages about 10 years. From the localization to everything else.
I’m really chocked, espacially about Rosado…. In japanese he’s seiyuu is Aoi Shouta, ( my favorite artist ever ). But the english voice is… I mean, It’s not Rosado at all. Aoi Shouta give him a reallt female voice because of the character himself… It’s changing evrything. And, that useless censored one more time… Now I know why some conversations are so strange.
The child supports being toned down makes sense, but the supports of characters who are the same age as Alear being made platonic kinda makes very little sense tbh. Alear is supposed to biologically be 17 so Alear not being able to have relationships with people their own age is weird considering they can date a literal old man.
Thanks for article, but why you used trash dub instead original voices? It’s too jarring to watch. Btw there’s is an uncesor patch that is aiming to fix all these braindead changes. But it was already censored by admins on gamebanana. Censored uncensord patch. Anyway AI will make them jobless. You can literally tell the CHAT GPT to translate text accurately, with Japanese culture, honorifics and name order kept intact and it WILL translate it like this without any pathetic excuses. The best part of it is that Chaat GPT is already mindblowing in terms of translation accuracy, and it will only improve in time. “Localizers” will soon see that they have no place in this world anymore.
Christ the stuff with romance could of been solved by aging characters like framme up by 2 years, she does not look 16 no damn character in this game looks like a kid except the characters that are clearly and intentionally meant to be kids such as Anna and Jean. The problem within will always be the same American snowflakes, not western snowflakes, AMERICAN. The Americans think their laws are absolute and trump other countries, characters like framme are considered adults where I live for example.
I am playing the game and l, for all of it’s entirety, I was so frustrated by the localization, thinking “maybe they didn’t have enough resources or the translators just use a crappy program” since, if you even understand a bit of japanese, the voices are completely different from subtitles. And now you tell me was done with the intent. Well, I guess someone doesn’t want my money anymore. Tired of this bs. Thanks for this article, you got a sub here
I just hate how jovial and happy everyone is in this game. The Rewinf crystal has infinite charges on normal difficulty and so right off the bat it makes what’s was a convent way to quickly back in the game without resenting the console to feel like more of a handicap. It also doesn’t make any sence why there are so many supposed minors with squeaky voices on the cast. The censorship make you question whether or not the story sucks or if it’s all been watered down. I just wanted to see Ike in a modern fire emblem game!
Honest Its not as terrible as Fire Emblem Fates controversial Translation changes but man….some of these dialogue changes are weird like, some of these scenarios are ones people would be familiar with after all I don’t see why change the part about perusal girls and saying to a male member with femine looks that he looks cute that last one its confusing mostly, if the character in question its still in the game, why change the context? it isn’t right to call him cute?
I’m a little lost on the romance omissions here. Is romance between all characters rewritten? Just romance involving minors? Probably should have included some examples of this, honestly. Either way, I’m so confused. Is the world outside of Japan in such a bad state that romance is considered taboo now??
I’ve recently come to notice that the same people that complain about colonialism on twitter are also the ones that push for Americanization in ports of Japanese games. “We changed the orignal context of this scene because we thought it would be gross to american audiences” Why don’t more people realise how disgusting this mindset is? I men ffs some of these characters aren’t even the same in the localization, it’s almost as horrid as Fates’ was.
I find the changes this time to be especially perplexing. Without knowing of the originals, it’s fine, but like, I seriously don’t get the removal of anything referring to beauty or especially romance. I get this weird impression the localisers have either never been in school or college before (because god forbid teen or childhood romance), or it’s because they themselves as adults, don’t want to try writing or ahem translating romance between characters younger than them. Honestly, I do kinda want to download that fan-patch that more or less restores the original text, though I might need to dig to find it as it got removed because of um… well, they had a good reason, most certainly…
I’m not sure how accurate the character ages are. I think they exist soley in the game files and some of them just don’t seem accurate like Vander who’s listed as being 45 despite looking 70, Saphir who is 35 despite looking mid 50s to mid 60s and of course Alear who is listed as being 17 even though the story states multiple times that they’re over 1000
Engage is a great game but I really wish that localization teams would knock it off with garbage like this. These changes are not for the sake of cultural differences. These changes are clearly and explicitly politically charged in nature. It isn’t a localizers job to completely change the source material to fit into their personal (often extremely narrow) political views. It’s their job to make minor edits in order for the overarching ideas to be understandable across different cultures. Yet somewhere along the way localization has been tainted and ruined. Truly a shame.
This is really disappointing. Some of these localised versions don’t even make sense until you see the full original Japanese version to understand what the conversation was meant to be. I can’t even think of a legitimately good reason to make these changes. Shameful work from the localisation; they should stick to translation.
The first changes were really subtle and didn’t really bothered me, but that conversation about gaining weight that became a total nonsensical gibberish about a facial expression was really stupid. I get it that it might be a sensible topic for some, but why not just make the other girl sound more reassuring?
censorship is purely evil. all that can arise from it is a watered down or inaccurate or misleading ( deceptive) representation of the product in question. cant help but wonder why it ever existed in the first place, as if something is not appropriate for an age group or whatever, they shouldn’t be seeing it in the first place, and functioning adults should be allowed to make their own decisions
Makes sense. I’m assuming these rewrites are boundless. The story and even moreso the interactions between characters is unbearable and cringe a lot of the time. Moreso every new game it seems, but it sounds like the Japanese version would have at least had at least a few points that I would have laughed at.
I say we spread the word. While constantly asking (and using as a hashtag) “Where’s The Love?” and other such things. One thing we know about these madlads is that they’re prone to outbursts. If those of Treehouse were to lose their cool and snap, Nintendo is bound to notice that something’s wrong with their employees.
This is not the first time that the official translator mutilates the dialogues of a game. Now, the fans are asking that no translation work be delivered to her again for any game, or that the companies inform who is responsible for the localization to find out if she is the one involved and not buy the game. (sorry for my English. I used a translator)
was gonna say this on the octopath article, bu might as well put it here. wtf is wrong with diety innuendo jokes? hello, are you saying no one likes the stand-up late night comedy shows, dave chapelle’s and other comedians, black, white, women, and man jokes? please cease infantilizing us, treehouse, Square Enix of America, Etc.,
Fire Emblem’s setting is a fantasy-inspired foreign world; why does their society have to mirror ours? If the game developers made a game that took place in Afghanistan, would the localizers remove the constraint of women not being allowed to show their faces or be seen in public without male chaperones? Would they remove child marriages? Would they remove the death penalty for homosexuality?
Stop this censorship. If the Japanese developers produce a product i want THAT product and not a watered down western version. Just translate it 1 to 1 as close as possible. God i hate censorship. I want to embrace other cultures and their way of doing things. But some idiots think that we need different versions… unbelievable.