Censorship: A Series Killing Disease

An author for Oprainfall shares their opinion now how badly Bravely Second: End Layer (Bravely Default's sequel) was censored, and the massive amount of changes that happened to the game.

There were a lot of big changes, like removing endings, changing classes, and more. Check out the link for all the details of what was edited, censored, and removed from Bravely Second: End Layer.

The worst part is, that Jenae R was a big fan of the first game, but the censorship and edits were so bad in Bravely Second's localization, that they just flat out dropped the game. It's very sad to see localization companies disrespect the original developer's intentions, specially in cases like this where localizers feel they have to "westernize" a game and "remove 'problematic' content".

I'll never understand that attitude. People play Japanese games because they want to play Japanese games. They don't want to play a Western RPG, they want to play a Japanese RPG. Yes, it'll have some moments that you might not understand, maybe there will be some jokes you don't get. But when a Japanese game makes a joke you don't understand due to cultural differences, it's a great chance to understand what makes that joke funny in another culture, and to learn about it some more.

I've always hated censorship and heavy handed localization too, and it can absolutely destroy games. And worse, I never know if I should buy it and support the Japanese developers, or skip it and not support the awful localization.

My hope is that at some time, we'll see localizations stop being like Bravely Second and keep more of the original developer's game in tact. Because lets be honest, if you like Japanese games as much as I do, you don't want to play some Western remix of the game. You want the game as original as you can find it while being able to understand it.