Upcoming Saturn Tribute Reissue To Skip Xbox Due To "Provocative Expressions"

“While there are various standards for each platform, we have repeatedly adjusted the content of the content.
We have come to the realization that some significant changes to the content of the Xbox version are necessary.”

That’s a Google translation of an extract from the City Connection announcement.

I think what they’re saying is they’ve had to tone the games down for all platforms for the re-release due to the censorship standards of the modern platform holders. They were trying to get a consistent approach to the censorship across all of the platforms but the Xbox censorship pushed them too far so they need to delay the Xbox release to give them time for the extra censorship…

UGGGHHH!!!

Any censorship of the original content is bad enough, particularly as the Saturn versions were censored from the original PC-98 releases in the first place!…

I’ve played the games on Saturn and it’s all pretty mild… The thought the we’ve regressed from then due to platform censorship standards is just depressing.

@Sketcz

“Enough is enough with this puritanical crap.”

Hallelujah.

I’d love to play modern games that genuinely challenge and shock me with their content. There’s so much scope to do this with modern games technology.

It’s utter madness as, handled in the right way (i.e. clearly labelled as adult) it would sell very well. It’s totally possible to have adult and child-friendly games on the same platform.

Same applies to all other forms of entertainment - music, films, TV, anime. Remove the content filters and label stuff properly as adult.

We’ve absolutely gone backwards on this over the last 20-30 years.

I figured they would censor this game. I've played the Saturn version, and while it is pretty mild stuff, I knew it wouldn't fly on any of the modern platforms. A shame.

@jamess it’s why I’ve spent so much time saving tapes and things and backing them up to a digital format. Because one day, the originals will be gone and in this world where one side is too PC and the other is too puritanical, the censored versions are all that will remain.

Hell, look at for example Wrestlemania III on YouTube, they have the word “midget” muted out…..or Wrestlemania VI which cuts the Piper-Bad News match ENTIRELY because of Piper painting his body half-black. Content warnings abound on Disney+ for a lot of older Disney stuff. It’s getting out of hand…..

@littlemisskittn

Me too! Just spent the last 3 months archiving old games, films, anime. Not a techie but bought a NAS to get lots of storage space. Mainly because the world is going the wrong way with censorship.

I understand that they can't just show full blown sex or bare breasts, but the Saturn version of Advanced Variable Geo was never an eroge game anyway - I'm pretty sure the only Variable Geo game with flat out porn was the very original game on PC. Advanced Variable Geo on Saturn and Playstation is essentially a sequel, and doesn't contain any R-18 stuff. The most you'll get some clothing damage, which is no more explicit than, say, when King's shirt rips off in Art Of Fighting and reveals her bra. What exactly did they want altered at this point? At least it's coming to the other platforms so 98% of people who would actually care about this game can still play it, but how bizarre.

As a fighting game, the game is pretty bad, but, like... bad games still deserve te be preserved properly.

I'm not sure it's considered "censorship" if the company privately decided not to publish the game at all. I think the game would have to exist to be censored.

Not to mention, "private censorship" (as opposed to "self censorship" or " gov't censorship) is really just the free market, right?

personally, I'm worried about government censorship. We are not threatened by multiplat games not coming to XBOX, and if it's the "wrong decision" they will feel it in either bad press, or financials, or both. but they won't.

Yet another reason to hate Microsoft, though Jaleco2 has traditionally sold terrible on Xbox anyway

I thought Sony was the most zealous about anime character censorship, followed by Nintendo.
But now there's stuff that even they are okay with, that Xbox won't allow?

@smoreon

I think the situation is that the censorship on the PlayStation and Nintendo platforms is now bad and Xbox is even worse.

I can understand that developers want to just release one version of a game across multiple platforms (in terms of game content). It makes sense. In practice however this will result in game content being watered down to meet the requirements of the platform with the most strict censorship.

From that perspective it’s good that City Connection has decided to release a separate, more censored version for Xbox.

But… that still leaves anyone interested in buying this game with a choice between playing the original versions or spending money on a watered down version.

The censorship of the platform holders therefore puts developers in a difficult situation, particularly with retro releases like this where comparisons to the original releases can be made.

In fact it’s these retro releases that are shining the light on how bad the current censorship policies of the platform holders are.

@Zeebor15 Riiight because Sony totally doesn't censor video games like Martha is Dead and several indie games that Xbox and Switch allows through uncensored.

The cancellation sucks but is somewhat understandable. Some of the cutscenes especially on the original Japanese PC versions borderline on eroticized sexual assault.

@PKDuckman Who said anything about Sony? I can hate both of them damnit, but this specifically yet another reason to hate companies based in the Seattle metro area.

I don’t understand this, basically, is this an underage character thing? Because the platform holders do allow nudity, so it can’t just be that…

I'll just play the PC-98 version on my Wii U or emulate on my Steam Deck

Rich, considering Xbox was the platform that gave us DoA Xtreme beach volley ball in the first place

@MSaturn It's a Japanese/anime game thing. Significantly stricter standards when games have "anime" looking characters, regardless of the characters' ages.

@-wc- I’d say you’re half-right. Censorship doesn’t have to be after the fact. A publisher or platform (or government) that leans on a creator to alter their creation is exercising censorship just as much as one that demands that the finished work, or portions of it, be removed or altered after it’s been published.

All major platforms practice censorship. According to this article, the game passed through PlayStation’s censorship but not Xbox’s. Companies do have the right to decide which goods to stock on their shelves, after all. Any platform that refused to censor ANYTHING would soon be flooded with content so vile that no reputable game publisher or gamer would want to be associated with it.

That said, I don’t know anything about this game, but if the other comments are accurate and we’re talking about an exposed bra, it sounds like Xbox is being silly. But I don’t own an Xbox (and apparently will never have to).

Which is hilarious because the collection is already altered to "meet platform standards" for other platforms.
This makes Xbox's decision looks godsent in comparison.

@KidRisky this is why ESRB exists and it's companies fault for not creating a solution to house in more mature or crude content apart from kid/family friendly stuff.
Even them, it won't please the credit card issuers in anyway who keeps bullying Japan on already okayed releases.

@smoreon soon every platform will meet up to Oklahoma, Texan, and Californian standards.
M-Rating won't even be a thing in the future.

@smoreon Don't fall for narratives that people peddle on the internet exclusively because getting gamers to have a Boogeyman Of The Week is how they make a living lol. I was literally going to make a joke about "but The Last True Gamer on YouTube told me it was SONY coming for all my anime tiddies, now I don't know what to believe! Mods! MODS!"

@PKDuckman The PC-98 original is not the one getting released, though, which is why the cancellation is confusing. If it was actually the version where the plot literally has "the loser gets sexually assaulted" written into the plot [no, I'm not kidding.], I'd understand a bit more. No way would that have made it onto consoles neither back in the 90s nor now - it's just not happening.

If you want eroge, and look - fine, maybe you do, I guess. Not my cup of tea, but then again games of those type are a bit dry when it comes to those aimed at my gender and sexuality of person - it's historically always been "go PC". We are not getting those games on consoles any time soon and basically never did unless they were unlicensed garbo like Divine Sealing on the Mega Drive. But, yeah, Saturn Advanced Variable Geo is just "lewd" at worst. There's no porn in it. So I don't understand. There's honestly more titilating games available to buy on all current consoles than this so I'm not going to do the Capital G Gamer thing of going "pshhh censorship amirite gamers rise up", I'm just wondering what exactly happened.

@KidRisky

You are right, but it's a broad word (perhaps too broad) that gets misused and conflated a lot. 👍 especially by people who feign concern about the "gubmint" while encouraging policy both public and private that actually censors others and worse. for example they think certain people were being "censored" by pre-X twitter because they were banned or supressed after they violated the platform's hate speech laws, yet they have no problem with the government pulling books from libraries, and telling teachers what relevant factual truths they are allowed to convey to students (or even forcing them to lie to students.)

In other words, there's an important censorship battle happening in gaming and almost all forms of media and it has nothing to do with publishers and platforms selecting for content what games they publish. ✌️👍

It won't be on swtich in the west either, Nintendo banned Culture too

@-wc- Well said. "Censorship" just became yet another word that the internet silently turned into a simile for "I don't like it". I saw many of these big "PRO FREE SPEECH! ANTI CENSORSHIP! GAMERS RISE UP!" accounts with six figure followings who spend their life making money off people's desire to always have something to be big about... actively celebrate things like Middle Eastern versions of games censoring any LGBT topics. It was "based" so it's a Win For Gamers[TM], right? A lot of this is just performative.

@PopetheRev28 Given that half the Switch's e-Shop is just shovelware softcore hentai... yeah, doubt it.

@-wc- I'm sure you mean well, but if the other platforms don't have an issue or is MS trying to censor it. Xbox is my preferred platform but this is a dumb decision to try and restrict it.

@Goj

im not saying it's not dumb, and i feel for your situation ✌️ if this is a game you were out would look forward to playing on your Xbox, that sucks! but i don't think a company saying "we don't like your terms" and skipping the platform is censorship, I don't think a platform setting its own standards is censorship, and I don't think silly standards are more censorshippy than common sense standards, just for being silly. 👍

Yeah, honestly, if it's true that at a certain point the loser of the previous battle gets sexually assaulted, it was probably censored extra on Xbox just on reputation alone. Would you want that attached to your reputation?

Honestly, f*** that noise. Most stuff is worthy of preservation, but this is just disgusting and wretched. This benefits no one, and is utter trash. Porn fricks people up. Trust me, I used to be addicted, and it hurt my relationship with everyone and everything. Just because it's from a classic console, or because it's from Japan, or because some people want to buy it does not make it worthy of preservation.

EDIT: And porn centered around rape is even worse. No, it doesn't particularly matter that it's the Saturn version. That script is still raunchy enough.

@Zedecks Video games themselves probably wouldn't be able to exist if companies had to fully appease both Californians and Texans!

@Quick_Man I didn't say anything about this agenda or that.
Is it not objectively true that:
1. Many Japanese/anime-ish games have been blocked or censored* in the past decade or so.
2. Other games have gotten away with the same stuff on a T or M rating.

*Using "censored" in this context to mean something was provably toned down or removed, regardless of whether it was caused by governments, ratings boards, company standards, etc.

@Norsaken This is just wrong. Art you don't like still deserves to be preserved. I don't particularly care for so many of these anime games that quite clearly are just pretty bad games stapled onto the main attraction - anime tiddies - either, but c'mon. You being formerly addicted to something does not mean it should be banned. I'm a recovered alcoholic, I don't slap beers out of people's hands.

@-wc- This is a matter of semantics. A private company licensing and altering the content of a Japanese game to sell to a different audience in another country could be called cultural appropriation or some specific type of cultural vandalism.
It may not be censorship in political context, but it is perfectly valid to use the term colloquially.

@Norsaken
Torturing, mutilating, violently and painfully killing innocent people is okay, but touching the private parts of criminals without their consent to rid the world of a deadly virus is where we draw the line, right?

There is no logic whatsoever that justifies banning one and not the other; this is just moral panic. Making a topic disappear from our culture does not make it cease to exist.

On the contrary, it is by approaching it in different ways, experiencing the positive and negative feelings it brings through fiction, talking about it, interacting with it that we digest and work through it and develop as a society.

Morbid curiosity is part of being human, and while we do it for entertainment, we still learn a lot from it.

@smoreon This isn’t even new for Xbox. They also blocked the release of Galgun Returns. A game that was previously a 360 exclusive.

@MG4M3R

"This is a matter of semantics"

People always say that like it nullifies the argument.
I see the irony in what I'm saying, but given that semantics literally means "the meaning of words" yes, I am talking about semantics 👍

"A private company licensing and altering the content of a Japanese game to sell to a different audience in another country could be called cultural appropriation or some specific type of cultural vandalism."

to play devil's advocate for a sec (im not pro censorship) is it really appropriation or vandalism when the "private company" in question is essentially hired by the owners of the japanese game (to simplify things a bit) to localize and distribute it?

final point, and this is what ive been saying all along: two subtly distinct things or concepts can have the same word applied, and in culture and politics, subtext is hugely important. definitions of words get smeared, concepts get lumped together through misinformation and propaganda. my argument has been a lot more nuanced than "this is censorship, this isnt" but maybe that's already apparent. ✌️

@Quick_Man

I'm really glad someone in here gets what I'm saying 1:1. cheers! ✌️

@MG4M3R I will say when he mentions the PC-98 version of this game featuring rape, he means completely uncensored and explicit rape scenes played for sexualization. I don't know where the hell you got this whole "touching someone but for the good of the world!" thing from. That's not what happens, lmao. False equivalence helps nobody here and dilutes the conversation. This is not, like, Silent Hill type storytelling here.

Again, I'm not to censor art, if that's your thing, I will leave you to your thing... buuuut I'm completely okay with that kind of tripe staying in the obscure home computer scene where it belongs and generally has stayed since the 80s.

They will wonder why they don't succeed. Then they'll keep doing what they've always done. Don't do insanity, kids.

@Quick_Man The rape thing isn't exclusive to PC98, the plot involves characters being mind-controlled by a virus and you curing the characters with your sperm. This exists in the PCEngine version and I think in the Saturn version too, the rape just isn't explicit, but at least in the PCEngine it's pretty clear what's happening because of the dubbing.