Sega and Censorship

Playing Last Battle the other day, I felt extremely sad how they cut out the exploding heads from the Japanese version. I thought it was odd since later on the Genesis had such a great legacy as being more adult than Nintendo.

Of course we all know the Mortal Kombat blood story, and also the racist changes to the intro of Street Fighter 2, but I wonder what other games on the Genesis were censored seemingly at random?

Mystic Defender got some censorship, I think the only change in regards to that were some color changes in a few of the enemies.

Battletoads & Double Dragon

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Originally Posted by Nunzio

Playing Last Battle the other day, I felt extremely sad how they cut out the exploding heads from the Japanese version. I thought it was odd since later on the Genesis had such a great legacy as being more adult than Nintendo.

Of course we all know the Mortal Kombat blood story, and also the racist changes to the intro of Street Fighter 2, but I wonder what other games on the Genesis were censored seemingly at random?

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Well it got censored only in the west. Fist of the North Star was an extremely bloody anime, so the game reflected that in its original japanese version. It's Sega of America who were pussies :P

I would've been satisfied with them just sticking to the Fist of the Northstar thematic. The resulting dialog made an ambiguously proud bunch of the main characters.

Come to think of it (not to throw this thread off track, just to add), I can't believe such nonsense went on until the last generation (perhaps even now). I'm talking specifically about Castle Shikigami '1' (Shikigami No Shiro). Appart from the dreadful cover art, Part 1 on the PS2 was released as Mobile Light Force 2 (a purported sequel to Mobile Light Force '1'--AKA Gunbird '1'--on the PS1); the rightful sequel of Gunbird (Mobile Light Force '1' for the PS1 in North America) having been released in its propper form for the Dreamcast as Gunbird 2 in America much earlier than the purported sequel of Gunbird '1' (Mobile Light Force '1') for the PS2 (which they called Mobile Light 2, even though it was really Castle Shikigami '1'). What were they thinking doing such things so late into the game? Globalization through the interwebthingy was already in full force by then. It was literally like grabbing the original (Japanese) version of a Dragon Quest sequel and releasing it in the states as a direct Final Fantasy sequel. 'As if the fans wouldn't notice. :?

I thought the SFII thing was dumb!
White dude punching another white dude = okay.
White dude punching a black dude = THAT'S RACIST!
I'm surprised Balrog didn't end up with a last minute palette swap, or most of the cast for that matter, seeing how a pixelated white dude hitting a pixelated non-white dude is bad. While they were at it, they could have changed Chun-li's sex, because male on female violence being a hot button and all, and the poor girl has to defend herself against an otherwise all male cast.

As milquetoast as 1990s watchdog groups were, I'm surprised that stuff didn't happen...

I think the real question is, why were you playing Last Battle? That game is abject tosh.

Stormlord has titties.

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Originally Posted by Mr Smith

I think the real question is, why were you playing Last Battle? That game is abject tosh.

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I am a closet Fist of the North Star fanatic. I think the game would be way more playable if heads exploded.

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Originally Posted by QuickSciFi

I would've been satisfied with them just sticking to the Fist of the Northstar thematic. The resulting dialog made an ambiguously proud bunch of the main characters.

Come to think of it (not to throw this thread off track, just to add), I can't believe such nonsense went on until the last generation (perhaps even now). I'm talking specifically about Castle Shikigami '1' (Shikigami No Shiro). Appart from the dreadful cover art, Part 1 on the PS2 was released as Mobile Light Force 2 (a purported sequel to Mobile Light Force '1'--AKA Gunbird '1'--on the PS1); the rightful sequel of Gunbird (Mobile Light Force '1' for the PS1 in North America) having been released in its propper form for the Dreamcast as Gunbird 2 in America much earlier than the purported sequel of Gunbird '1' (Mobile Light Force '1') for the PS2 (which they called Mobile Light 2, even though it was really Castle Shikigami '1'). What were they thinking doing such things so late into the game? Globalization through the interwebthingy was already in full force by then. It was literally like grabbing the original (Japanese) version of a Dragon Quest sequel and releasing it in the states as a direct Final Fantasy sequel. 'As if the fans wouldn't notice. :?

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Because american execs think anime is evil and american audiences are not prepared to understand it :P

there was racism in SOR?

The European version of Two Crude Dudes has GREEN, yes GREEN dogs! I think that some pet-protection association might be involved! ahahaha

The US version of Exile was censored too (some nudity and other stuff)...
The western version o Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle has been censored too! During the "jo-ken-po" battles the loser do not lose its pants anymore... He is actually crushed by a big bell instead!

US version of Streets of Rage 2 has the infamous underwear censorship!

Western versions of DJ Boy were censored due to racism...

Official translation of Phantasy Star 2 was kinda puritan! But we have a great fan re-translation done by perverted types.

Exploding heads wouldn't make Last Battle's retarded dungeon levels any less annoying.

Western versions of Streets of Rage 3 have some lame censorship too.

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Originally Posted by ApolloBoy

Mystic Defender got some censorship, I think the only change in regards to that were some color changes in a few of the enemies.

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There is also a naked girl in the ending sequence that has been clothed in the second revision of the game.

Then there's Castlevania: The New Generation.

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Originally Posted by wikipedia

Castlevania: Bloodlines underwent censorship during localization to PAL regions in Europe and Australia. The word blood was kept out of the title at the time. Therefore, the title was altered to Castlevania: The New Generation. When the game starts, the blood from the bottom of the title screen was changed to water. Another thing that was changed for the title screen is that the North American and Japanese versions had blood dripping effects from the title to the blood pool, but in the European version, the title screen just faded in through pixailated text and had no blue water dripping effect. The zombies were changed from pink to green to make them less gruesome. In the European version, Eric's spear does not impale him after he dies. There was a rearrangement of enemy placement as well, making the difficulty either easier or harder depending on where in the game the player is. Also, only some sub-bosses use the life bar meter to show damage, whereas others don't.
Despite Australia being part of the PAL region, Sega Australia, the distributor of Konami's products on the Mega Drive used an uncensored version of The New Generation, with almost everything intact to be as close as possible to the Japanese version.

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