Now, just what sort of stuff may have been deemed too offensive in a franchise that’s
actually had every single game given the E For Everyone rating?
To kick things off with a series-wide change, Gracie, a fashion-loving giraffe, and Saharah,
a carpet-selling camel, have appeared in multiple games in the series.
They have also been censored in every one of these games.
You see, if you hadn’t guessed by the way they act, both of these characters are girls
as indicated by many pieces of dialogue.
Well, that’s unless you’re playing the Japanese versions.
Over in Japan, the pair are actually males are speak in an extremely feminine manner.
It even says so over on the official site.
Notice the male symbols next to their portraits?
It seems that Nintendo may have deemed them not following conventional gender roles too
inappropriate for Western territories.
Again due to Nintendo’s attitude towards what’s appropriate and not for different
cultures, massive changes were made to Jane.
Whilst she doesn’t look too much like one in the West, Jane is a gorilla.
Over in Japan though, they look like this.
To avoid any similarities with racist stereotypes of black people, Jane had her dark face, big
nose and lips, as well as their tired eyes completely altered.
This time for a change that was made in the original Japanese version as well.
Fans of the series will surely recognise Resseti over here, who’s definitely one character
that’s hard to forget.
Upon booting up the game after resetting the console, they would pop up to scream at you
about the dangers of resetting – hence the name Resseti.
In Animal Crossing New Leaf though, the character is made optional, with them only appearing
if you build a new centre for them.
This followed reports that Nintendo had been receiving of them scaring certain players
and even making some cry.
Before moving on to the last edit, I’d just like to point out something that actually
DIDN’T get censored in New Leaf that you may surprise you a little.
Whilst it is a famous real life statue, the in-game version of Michelangelo’s David
was allowed to have his penis proudly hang out with zero censorship, in this E For Everyone
rated title.
Anyway, to finish up with the last thing that was changed to avoid causing offense is an
alteration that was again made to the 3DS’ Animal Crossing New Leaf.
The game contains a tanning feature, where, by staying in the sun for extended periods
of time, your character’s skin would get darker and darker.
Now, I think it’d best to leave the explanation, of how this feature ended up causing so much
offense, up to Chris Pranger, who worked on the localisation team and spoke about his
experience over on episode 76 of
Part-Time Gamers’ podcast.