For a game as popular as Final Fantasy VIII, it's surprising that more people don't know
about the changes we're about to discuss.
By changes we of course mean the censorship that was made to the game when bringing it
over from Japan.
It's unknown why most of these alterations were made, but, important to bring up is the
fact that the title was given a Teen rating over in America and an equally high rating
elsewhere in the world, so it's unlikely that the changes were made due to rating-related
reasons.
First things first, to bring up a case of... 'censorship' a lot of you are probably already
familiar with.
When using the Devour command, an ability that allows to literally eat your opponent,
a tongue in cheek "Censored...please stand by" message will appear on the screen, over
various soothing photos, obscuring the action.
To just confirm, no, nothing has actually been censored here.
The command is exactly the same in the Japanese version and it has just been added for humour.
Now that that's out of the way though, here's all of the stuff that actually "was" censored.
Many players were probably shocked the first time they saw Squall face be bloody ripped
open during the opening cinematic, after all, prior to this, the series had been relatively
tame when it comes to violence.
But, a bit of blood is in no way out of place for a Teen rated game.
However, one of the pre-rendered backgrounds in the final dungeon actually had blood severely
altered in comparison to the Japanese original.
Inside the armoury section of Ultimecia Castle, is a sword sticking out of the wall in the
top right, with vast amount of some kind of green ooze dripping from beneath it.
In Japan, on the other hand, it's not some fictional green liquid, but red blood.
More censorship to blood can be seen with the boss Gerogero.
This zombie-like creature will emerge once you do enough damage to the Fake President.
Outside of Japan though, all of its internal organs are coloured blue.
Like before, Gerogero intestines were originally a gory red making the depiction much more
violent.
Interesting to note here is that, in both the BradyGames and Piggyback Interactive official
strategy guides, the boss is seen in its original Japanese form, perhaps indicating that the
change was made late in the game's development.
A very little known fact though is that some 'special' censorship was made exclusively
for the European versions, and it all revolves around Selphie, Final Fantasy VIII's hyperactive,
teen with a dream, party member This school girl doesn't like to swing skipping
ropes around, but instead, deadly nunchaku.
However, this caused the game to run into problems with a law that had been enacted
in the United Kingdom around this time.
Due to the rise in popularity of these weapons with football hooligans and other anti-social
groups, extremely heavy restrictions were placed on their appearances in media.
This saw nunchaku removed from games such as Soul Blade and even TV's Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles.
Anyway, in Final Fantasy VIII's case, this censorship did not see the weapon's actual
physical appearance altered, but rather, any references to the weapon by the nunchaku name
were changed to "shinobou", meaning "master priest".
Alongside the name being changed in the numerous weapon magazines, you'll find that Selphie's
description is different when inflicted with the spell Scan.
As you can see, it's no longer "giant nunchaku" but "giant shinobou".
But to just finish up with one more fact about the spell Scan.
This magic is used to check up on both party members' and enemies' stats', and, as well
as the fun description entries, allow you to manipulate the camera of a 3D model of
the target.
Although, did you know that there exists a big difference between when you cast the spell
on girls rather than guys?
Whilst when viewing a female model, you are only able to rotate the camera horizontally,
for guys, you have absolute free control - enabling you to spin them on their head or do whatever
you like.
It seems that there was concern over players manipulating the girls and peeking into certain,
private areas of theirs.
The difference can be found in all regions and was done by the developers on their own
accord, so it's not censorship, but this act of removing some possible sexuality is certainly
interesting to point out.
Thank you watching.