Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@SoulsBourne128 Not sure if those are so unpopular, sounds like your are speaking with a lot of common sense.

@KratosMD Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. As long as it doesn’t affect the overall story or is done for a nefarious reason, I don’t mind. Reading some of the comment sections on articles... I’d say we’re definitely the minority 😂

@KratosMD I agree somewhat. The vast majority I don’t care about a lot. Now, something like the Katherine Remake is different. Sony didn’t do that, but they facially changed the narrative for the 3 new character who is trans to not be offensive. At that point the whole narrative and it’s intent, artistic intent, and purpose is just getting changed. That one is more than a scene. If it’s changing the narrative by a decent degree, it’s an issue, but otherwise I agree; bringing myself to care about the stuff in Suran Kengara or a little more steam in Nekopara, I just don’t care. I’m not desperate for a bit of skin. It’s only when the narrative is getting a decent change I care. (One of the Yakuza games had way too many side missions removed too I think I too.)

@Jaz007 I dunno, the removed dialogue from Catherine was truly abhorrent and made several speedrunners who’ve supported the game for years since it came out quit. It was fairly necessary to change it at that point. I mean, the character Erica, who’s a trans woman throughout the entire game, was referred to in the credits as Eric Anderson (Erica). It’s rather obvious why people were upset. Also, in one of the endings, without spoilers, a character changes the world to give everyone a ‘better life’. In that world, Erica hasn’t transitioned and is seemingly living a fulfilled life as a man. Atlus seriously dropped the ball and that wasn’t even the character from the trailers with all the controversy since they’re not transgender at all, just a ‘trap’ for want of a better word.

@nessisonett That was the creator's intent. Those changes completely changed the meaning of the game. Whether anyone agrees with it or not, it's no longer the game the creator made in the NA release. A lot of what's added was made pointless. If that's what he thinks and said, that's what should be said in the game in the NA release. His viewpoint shouldn't be silenced because the country changed. You said as long as it doesn't affect the overall story, but now you agree with that type of censorship because it's something you personally disagree with.

So, with the proviso that we're not discussing obviously immoral government-imposed censorship (because censorship advocates typically enjoy erecting that strawman in these discussions), but private companies censoring themselves or other private companies/individuals, my general standards are as such:

• Artistic and intellectual freedom are inherently good and help to promote human flourishing. These goods cannot easily exist within a social framework where others are limiting their ability to think or express themselves as they please. Thus, restrictions on expression should be limited only to the degree that it helps maintain basic social cohesion (thus why I would be opposed, for example, to hardcore porn being televised on a channel targeted to children).
• In any free society, people can and will disagree about all manner of things. Social standards that people claim to be universal are almost never actually functionally universal. As such, censoring a product to align with "cultural standards" is impossible, and usually means that a creator or company is censoring their product to appease the demands of special interests who should have no more say over what you are able to consume than I do.
• Censoring media or products along these lines promotes only certain viewpoint and moral standards, which inhibits one's ability to self-actualize by being exposed to dissenting viewpoints and standards.
• When it's the norm for certain types of viewpoints or beliefs in a culture to be censored while others are promoted, it both produces a chilling effect that makes people afraid to engage with different sorts of ideas AND, in the case of "problematic ideas," such as, say, beliefs about racial supremacy, drives discussion of them underground. This might sound like a good thing to some people, but the problem is that silencing an idea never actually gets rid of it: it just robs a society of the ability to engage with and challenge it, and leaves people susceptible to it because they're not intellectually prepared to counter it.
• In the case of public pressure campaigns for something to be censored, doing so both sets a terrible precedent ("harass me enough in public or on social media and I'll cave to your demands") and whets the appetites of cultural totalitarians to impose more control over others. Because, at the end of the day, the natural tendency of the censor is to attempt to expand their influence and range of control as much as possible, founded as it is on the ability to control what other people have access to. This makes it more likely that the same control freaks and totalitarians you ceded ground to before will continue to attempt the reshaping of the world around them in their own image.

You can probably infer my general position on censorship controversies from what I've just stated. In essence, I'm a liberal to my core, and maintain an unshakable conviction in the good that comes from liberty, both artistic and cultural.

@Jaz007 At the same time, I didn’t mention the clearly transphobic things Vincent says because that’s how his character is written and reflects attitudes of men like him. The difference between that and Yakuza 3’s removed substory is that Kiryu is elsewhere remarkably open and accepting of basically everyone around him, including another trans character with a deep backstory. That’s why the substory with a trans woman portrayed as a brute who’s forcing Kiryu to sleep with her while he calls her ‘it’ just feels out of place. The game does have a disclaimer at the start saying that it reflects the attitudes of people in 2009 but honestly, that one in particular just wouldn’t have added anything at all. It would only detract from Kiryu’s character.

Speaking apart from my own previously expressed convictions about censorship, and particularly as someone who doesn't fit neatly into a cishet paradigm, I'm not hugely sad to see the "predatory gays" scene from Persona 5 get dumped. It's a really unfortunate trope in Japanese fiction (and is also unfortunately common with lesbian characters as well; Kunihiko Ikuhara's bizarre Yurikuma Arashi was almost wholly dedicated to satirizing this trope).

I'm not hugely comfortable with it being censored by rogue elements in Atlus' localization team, though. If a change must happen to the work, it should be orchestrated by people associated with the original production. Liberties should only be taken in localization when it comes to aiding audience comprehension and understanding of something, like when jokes sometimes need to be completely rewritten so that they can make sense in English.

@nessisonett It's kinda the same deal though, the context of his character and what it be meant to mean is removed. You're saying it's okay to have the subject, but if it's censored to fit your view on it. You're saying it's a good thing that the entire narrative has been changed by censorship since it fits your personal view on the subject. That's supporting censorship plain and simple. This is how censorship ends coming for stories you don't think should be censored get censored, when you starting shutting out disagreeable viewpoints.
@Ralizah Dang, Atlus censored the localization of P5R too? Man, they're on a roll....This is forming bad localization pattern.

@Ralizah Didn’t realise they’d removed that scene. It really did jar to be fair, it was such a random scene that added literally nothing to the plot other than a throwaway joke at gay people’s expense. As much as localisation teams should keep the artistic vision intact, sometimes changing smaller things to make the game more palatable is a good thing. Obviously sometimes that leads to massively hampered versions of the game but Atlus games seem to always have at least one dodgy joke in there, that utterly contradicts the message of the game.

@Jaz007 @nessisonett Well, they're altering the dialogue, so it has the same effect. The scene is staying the same in Japanese, though.

It doesn't really bother me like, say, Tokyo Mirage Sessions's censorship did, which drastically changes part of the storyline and, in general, does a really bad job of visually censoring the game. If stuff is going to be changed, all I ask is that it not be painfully obvious where those changes were made.

Nintendo, at least, wised up about how to prevent these controversies from happening in the future: they develop games with an international audience in mind from the start now, so if any changes are made, the public will never get to know about them because they happen early in development.

Unpopular Opinion: Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire/Gen 3 was the best Pokémon Generation

@KratosMD Gen 4 was awesome and i would love Switch remakes of some of the older games because the worlds are so nice

still wont stop people moaning about them though

@KratosMD Gen 4 is hands down my favourite just because of the double whammy of Platinum and HeartGold not to mention loads of good spin offs. I would happily replay them over most of the later ones.

Anything after the first 150 (maybe 151) Pokemon is just sacrilege.

Hmm, Gen 5 (Black/White) has the best Pokémon hands down, followed by Gen 3 - although Gen 4 has the best starters. White and Soul Silver are my favourite games in the series and helped me rediscover my love for it. I appreciated Ruby/Sapphire a lot more while playing the Alpha/Omega remake compared to the GBA original. It's an excellent remake!

@KratosMD Guess it's why this is called the unpopular gaming opinions thread. 😂

@mookysam I really did like Gen 5 but everything afterwards ruined it so much that I haven’t even bought the new ones. I used to be really active on Smogon and the like but dropped off once Megas destroyed the game.

Gen 4 is one of my least favorite gens (although these last couple of gens are giving it major competition). D/P were boring and I never really liked Johto as a region.

Black & White were fantastic, though. They had the sort of narrative complexity and character development I've always wanted to see in a Pokemon game, and I really enjoyed the "soft reboot" approach.

I know it's not a popular opinion, but I thought Gen VI was really solid, too. X/Y were HUGE steps up for the franchise and featured the best multiplayer suite seen to date, and OR/AS are very solid remakes.

on another note and talking about gens am i the only person who can't stand playing Red/Blue and Gold/Silver anymore, great games for the time but after all the other gens they are so slow and clunky they just aint fun anymore, the remakes Fire Red/Leaf Green and Heart Gold/Soul Silver are much more fun to play, the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire remakes are great too but i don't count them as separate or new generations,

@Ralizah X/Y were awesome and so was Sun and Moon, not got a Switch yet so i can't say anything about Sword and Shield but i should be getting one soon