System 3's Last Ninja Collection has been hit with a delay, and the company is pointing the finger at Nintendo.
In an update posted on the project's Kickstarter page, System 3 says that "Nintendo has made serious objections to the original Rising Sun flag artwork in Last Ninja 3," and it is currently working on a solution.
"In some countries, such as Korea, this symbol is considered offensive, which is why Nintendo requires it to be removed before approval," says System 3. "On digital storefronts, this can be managed by restricting content in certain regions, but the challenge comes with the physical cartridge version, which is an open global release and not regionally locked."
While the Rising Sun flag has been around for centuries, it was adopted as the flag of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy during the Second World War and became seen as a symbol of imperialism. Because of this, it is considered a controversial image across many parts of East Asia in much the same way the Swastika is in the West. South Korea is one of the Asian nations that fell under Japanese rule during World War II.
This isn't the first time the flag has caused issues in the realm of video games. It was removed from Capcom Arcade Stadium's version of Street Fighter II and was also omitted from Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.
The veteran British company – founded all the way back in 1982 – explains that the artwork is "embedded in the original Amiga game code, and because these are emulations of the original games, we cannot simply edit the files to remove the symbol."
System 3 adds that the options are either "to remove Amiga Last Ninja 3 entirely from the cartridge, or to secure a waiver from Nintendo. We have been working hard with Nintendo to achieve the latter and will update you as soon as we have a resolution."
The company explains that this issue will also impact the PS4, PS5, and Xbox versions, "as the platform holders share similar requirements, so we are addressing it across all console versions."
It's not all bad news, however, as System 3 has announced that it plans to issue Steam codes for the collection on October 14th for those who selected the PC version.
For console backers, it says it is also "considering releasing digital codes to all backers while holding off the wider consumer release outside of Kickstarter" with the objective being "to ensure that you, our backers, get to play the full collection as planned while we work through these approval requirements with Nintendo."
The Last Ninja Collection includes The Last Ninja, Last Ninja 2, Last Ninja 3, Ninja Remix, International Karate, IK+ and Bangkok Knights. The crowdfunding campaign successfully raised £184,847.
System 3 has recently come under fire for using what appears to be AI-generated artwork in some of its games.