Ban and Prevent: 10 Cases of Silly Censorship in Games (Topic)

Attention, reading this material can lead to madness, egregious and depraved behavior, as well as turn into a psychopath who will go to kill kittens. In the opinion of the game censors, you will turn into at least such people by looking at the following game moments that have succumbed to censorship. Censorship in games is not new to humanity. However, instead of discussing why game censorship is a very useless and wrong thing, here are 10 cases of silly censorship in games for you to see.

Final Fight

In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo had a very strict censorship policy towards games as they positioned their console as a family product. This led to a lot of silly edits in games of the time, but most of all, Final Fight epitomizes the absurdity.

In this arcade game, you played as a former wrestler who fights crime on the streets of the fictional city of Metro City. For the release of the game on the SNES in the west, black enemies were given lighter skins. Girls Roxy and Poison were turned into male thugs Beely and Sid, and instead of restoring the health of whiskey, the heroes drank vitamins. My favorite change has befallen boss Belger. Instead of fighting you in the wheelchair he was originally in, he now fights in a chair with small wheels ... I'm still not sure why they thought these changes would make the game more palatable and family friendly. Since Japanese children have coped with such horrors, than Western ones are worse?

Earthbound

The SNES version of Earthbound has had its fair share of "family-friendly" changes, although more to avoid potential lawsuits. All cola logos were replaced in the game to avoid problems with Coca Cola, the costumes of some heroes were changed so that they did not resemble the Blues brothers. The subtitle for the game "Giygas Strikes Back" turned into "War Against Gygas", seemingly to appease Lucasfilm lawyers and avoid the analogy with Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back. Meanwhile, the Red Cross symbol has been removed from the facade of the hospital as it is copyrighted by the American Red Cross.

Mass Effect

The only country to ban Mass Effect was Singapore due to its alleged lesbian sex scene. Technically, the scene took place between a woman and a sexless being, but I don't think the censors are well versed in the intricacies of asari biology. Fortunately, the game returned to store shelves and BioWare didn't have to turn Liara into a bearded lumberjack. Outrage from gamers across Singapore has convinced the government to allow the game to be sold in stores rated M18.

Bionic Commando

There were several differences between the American and Japanese versions of the Bionic Commando. In the Japanese version, the plot revolved around a group of Nazis trying to resurrect Hitler. In fact, the game was known there as Top Secret: Hitler's Revival. For the American version, all references to Nazism have been removed. You certainly wouldn't want your kids to think the Nazis were evil. Swastikas in the game were replaced with similar symbols, and the Nazis themselves were called "villains." Instead of fighting the revived Adolf Hitler, gamers defeated the boss, nicknamed Master-D. The only catch was that Master-D still looked exactly like Hitler.

Capcom hasn't even tried to change its appearance. Nintendo didn’t want to let Hitler be part of the game’s plot, but his likeness somehow managed to get through the censorship. Ultimately, the game, which supposedly had nothing to do with Nazism, ended with a remarkably detailed animation depicting Hitler's head exploding.

Here I would also like to include all cases of censorship of the Nazis and Hitler, such as in the Wolfenstein series throughout its history in Germany, but we will probably talk about this separately.

Mortal Kombat

In 1992, the concept of killing realistic-looking human characters in a video game was quite shocking, and as a result, the game generated a lot of controversy. This controversy became even more apparent when the game was ported to home consoles in 1993. Then worried parents banded together to prevent their children from playing this in America, so Sega and Nintendo resorted to different tricks to sell the game. Sega released the game without blood, but you could enter a special code that would unlock it, but this was not disclosed. Nintendo just removed it.

More importantly, Nintendo has cut fatalities. Although she did not dispute their concept, they had no problem with characters killing each other, as long as no blood was spilled.

Vital detonation and decapitation were banned for the SNES, but Nintendo had no problem getting electrocuted, burned alive, or the character freezing their opponent into a block of ice and breaking them into tiny pieces. With Mortal Kombat, Nintendo promoted the concept that killing is acceptable as long as it's not too brutal.

Super Mario World

You may ask, what can be censored in a game as harmless as Mario? Moreover, taking into account that it is produced by Nintendo, which is raging in this regard. Well, Super Mario World in 1990 somehow found a way. In the North American version of the game, Mario and his dinosaur buddy Yoshi can jump from one flying dolphin to another in Vanilla Secret # 3. However, in the original Japanese version, Yoshi is capable of eating dolphins.

Nintendo has never explained why the international version of Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo was changed, but there is speculation as to why it happened. The first possible reason is that it was done to prevent accusations of cruelty to animals outside of Japan. The second reason is to prevent foreigners from completing the game too easily, as eating dolphins is the fastest way to complete the level.

Until Dawn

Until Dawn perfectly recreates the atmosphere of horror films about dumb youth who die in agony. The Japanese version of the game has toned down some of the shocking death scenes in the worst possible way.

In a scene where one of the characters chooses which of the other two characters will die from being cut in half with a circular saw, the death process is shown in all its glory. But in the Japanese version, the censors changed the position of the camera, and now you will not see anything.

Alas, in Japan, violent scenes, for example, from Resident Evil 4 or God of War, often fell under the knife.

Half-Life

When it comes to weird video game censorship, Germany goes to new levels. It might seem pointless to censor an M-rated game, especially if it's Half-Life. And what can be cut in the first Half-Life? As it turned out - death itself.

Yes, in the German version of Half-Life, you cannot kill a single person in the game. There is no blood or death. When you shoot an enemy, he will just sit on the ground and shake his head in frustration. This dramatically changes the role of Gordon Freeman from a scientist savior of the world to an elementary school teacher who tells enemies to sit down and reflect on their behavior.

Team Fortress 2

Continuing the theme of Valve games, the German version of Team Fortress 2 is replacing excessive violence in the game with something equally absurd. In the German version of Team Fortress 2, the dismemberment was difficult to remove, so the blood and bones from the original game were replaced with oil and springs. The German version of Team Fortress 2 turned all characters into robots.

At the very least, this does not negate the entire atmosphere of the game, as it did with Half-Life.

Final Fantasy Legend II

In the Japanese version of Final Fantasy Legend II, a notorious criminal gang was involved in drug smuggling. Since Nintendo of America's censorship policy prohibited any drug reference, the American version had to be modified. Instead of smuggling opium in the American version, the criminals were smuggling bananas! It's unclear if the bananas were illegal in the game or if the criminals were simply trying to avoid paying taxes. In any case, the prospect of interrupting the banana smuggling operation probably doesn't motivate many players. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but in my opinion banana smuggling just doesn't seem as mean as drug trafficking.

Although who knows, maybe if the criminals were not dealing with bananas, but pumpkins, it would have motivated the players better.

These are just a few of our favorite examples of censorship in games and we will definitely come back to this topic.

The Topic of Article: Ban and Prevent: 10 Cases of Silly Censorship in Games.
Author: Jake Pinkman