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Nintendo Finds Religion
Greg Noe — Tue, 08/17/2010 - 6:00am
Nintendo and censorship used to go together like peanut butter and
jelly. There are dozens of examples of changes between Japanese and
North American versions of Nintendo console games, along with a handful
of tales of U.S. and European developers being forced to alter their
game in some way to receive the all-important Nintendo Seal of Quality.
The hammer has let up over the past few years though, and I didn't
really realize this until I started playing Dragon Quest IX.
Nintendo and censorship used to go together like peanut butter and
jelly. There are dozens of examples of changes between Japanese and
North American versions of Nintendo console games, along with a handful
of tales of U.S. and European developers being forced to alter their
game in some way to receive the all-important Nintendo Seal of Quality.
The hammer has let up over the past few years though, and I didn't
really realize this until I started playing Dragon Quest IX.
Dragon Quest IX, while developed by the good folks at Level 5, was published by Nintendo outside of Japan. It's an enormous game with buckets of text, and since I'm about 80% of the way through the game, I can honestly say Nintendo did a stellar job translating it for English speakers. There are puns galore and not a single character, item, or town name is wasted potential. Of course, I was greatly impressed by the fan translation of Mother 3 which was done by a single guy, so maybe my standards are low.
What surprises me the most about Dragon Quest IX (besides it actually being a really good game) is that the storyline pretty much made it intact on its trek across the ocean. There are churches, priests, God, heaven, guardian angels, the whole gambit. Characters pray and have faith in the Almighty and you start the game as an angel watching over a village. It sure doesn't feel like the same Nintendo from the Super Nintendo era.
For those who haven't played the game, it's not overdone, it's simply the backdrop of the game. It's weird imagining how butchered Dragon Quest IX would have had to have been to release this 10-15 years ago. I don't think it would have been possible, in all honesty, and this would have just been another JRPG that was never released outside of Japan. How do you possibly spin a tale about an angel falling from heaven to become a hero on earth? All while saving his game at the local church and battling meowgicians?
Thanks to its great story and engrossing gameplay, I'm still loving Dragon Quest IX even after putting over 30 hours into it. Check out the links above for some excellent history in Nintendo censorship.
I've played a million games, and I've rocked them all.
Copyright 2007-2012 Greg Noe. All rights reserved.
Comments
DQ and its religion
...or should that be reLEGION? See, I can make punny monsters too.
I played, but never beat Dragon Quest VIII. Dragon Quest IX shares a lot of similarities to its predecessor, both in looks and style. However, I can't recall religion being so heavy and in-your-face in DQXIII. Sure, you still had to pray at a church to save your game, and there were a couple of abbeys to visit and priests to converse with, but the main quest was never so into the Almighty and capturing magical fruit (hello, Adam; hello, Eve) and gathering benevolence from lowly villagers to appease a great glowing tree. Yet, despite its overbearing nature, the religion in DQ9 doesn't bother me, and I know why--there's so much other stuff to keep me busy. I can do side quests, I can grind for levels, I can grind for alchemy items, I can make alchemy items, I can explore bookshelves or old caves or treasure maps...and so on. I'm about 45 hours in, and just passed a part that was All Religion, All the Time. It *was* tough to sit through, but now I'm once again free to do whatever I want.
Also, I feel like I should mention I use a priest in my party of 4 and he's a great healer/buffer, but he's also mighty with a spear. This ain't no normal priest to say the least.
Motivation
I never understood what the motivation behind doing this was... Were they afraid of offending Christians or non-Christians? I can't really see either being offended by a video game reference to God.
In the SNES era, Breath of Fire 2 managed to escape scrutiny... I mean, (spoilers) you're basically fighting an evil version of the Catholic church at the end. That, and the last boss has an uncanny resemblance to Jesus. (end spoilers)
A recent contradiction...
Sin & Punishment Star Successor apparently had some pseudo-religious references cut from the game. An entity known as "God" in Japanese was changed to "The Creators" for the west. Whatever you call it, it was never actually seen in the game and was barely mentioned more than two or three times, so I guess maybe they decided it would be easy to change, unlike in DQIX where the overarching theme and setting are sort of religious.
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