What Were They Thinking?

by Elaine Pedee

Looking through old editorials, I found out that originally Xenogears wasn't going to be released into the US due to the controversial religious content. I hadn't known about that. I'd just gotten to that part of Xenogears where the Ethos is revealed as a front for Solaris. I guess there had been a lot of talk about religious issues with this and Final Fantasy Tactics. My question is, why would they even think about not translating it? Time and realization by Square has primed its gamers to tackle controversial issues.

Not understanding? Here's my take on it. When FF1 came out, it was great! Who cared if by our standards now the game play and graphics were not great. It was a chance to take part in our own adventures! I didn't care that there was no character development in Dragon Warrior. I got to beat up things and go on adventures! That's what counted. Hence, the audience at the time was young, though I didn't get to play FF1 'til about 91 or so. (I'm 21 now. Do the math.)

But instead of just creating a great game and people just tossing it aside, a following was born. We waited eagerly for the next game, but as we waited, we got older. Our perceptions changed. We were not content with just simple hacking and slashing. In FF2 (or 4 if you wanna be realistic) the game reflected those changes. These characters were people that had to make choices. People died, turned to stone, betrayed friendships, defied their parents and on and on. It was not purely just a hack and slash game any more, but also a story. Playing was an incentive to see how the story ended. And even when Nintendo had its strict censor rules, you could sense the complex issues involved.

When FF3 (6 to the realists) came around, the audience, while consisting of new people to the genre, also contained the same people who have grown and stuck around since the first game. Since we had gotten older but still enjoyed our FF, we expected the game to mold and grow up as well. FF3 did a fairly good job of addressing lots of issues. It's not a simple game, but neither is its audience. It explored the nature of war and touched on the fact that, as Edgar says "The Empire may be wrong, but not all its citizens ARE." We have the grand sweeping romance of Locke and Celes. As a child, I probably wouldn't have cared about such a thing, but as an adult, this is realism and romance is something adults think about. We've got interracial relationships, suicide (attempted anyway), regicide, treason, homicide, questioning of personal life styles, coming of age, faith, responsibility, friendship, loyalty, and a host of other things. As older gamers, these are things we have to deal with...except for maybe killing gov't leaders..:grin:...

Even though FF7 brought on a host of people new to RPGs, there were still the cadre of older gamers. Time and experience have made us open to new challenges and issues. There was no censorship for this game. (not that I know of) No more big brother over our shoulder editing out naughty things. For some reason, I was thrilled that people actually swore in the game. Gotta love Cid for that. The game is very dark in tone, but so was the subject matter. Killing people and using people to your own ends is not a happy tone. That even touches on sexuality and peoples' personal choices in it, something not really touched on before.

We are adults now. To even THINK of not releasing something because of a controversial topic is silly. We've already seen everything. Religion is everywhere, whether people have a faith or do not. It's a topic up for discussion. And it has been discussed for thousands of years. I'll probably write a separate editorial on religion, but my point is, since Square has primed its audience on a host of complex topics, and they have to KNOW we've dealt with religion before, why did they even think religion was something above reproach? What were they thinking?