Epic pictures. XD
Funnily enough, and friend and I were talking about a similar subject - basically about how games tended to be changed some way or another when released on other countries. Frankly I find it annoying, all of this censoring business and localisation...ing. At least such a thing hadn't happened in this instance, otherwise Pokemon wouldn't have taken off as much as it has had, I fear. (And looking at stuff like Tyranitar and all...). But...I wonder what they things they suggested looked like... O_o
At any rate though, look at stuff which did get changed - the latest Fire Emblem game on the DS - Shadow Dragon - reportedly had the US version easier than the Japanese version. Possibly done because they thought that the game was all too hard for us Western players - which completely misses the point of Fire Emblem being a fun game due to it being challenging, rather than being made somewhat easier and more beatable. =/
In other games, characters underwent changes visually...such as in the comments on that page, one mentions a character looking different between the Japanese and American versions. The difference - they replaced a cowboy hat. What reason is that to it - didn't look cool enough? Stuff like this appears in tv shows as well, and so forth (including the Pokemon anime - besides guns being taken out of one episode (or was it the episode altogether?), rice balls now = doughnuts, apparently) - there's a number of stuff out there that underwent such changes, big or small, many for questionable reasons.
For those who played The World Ends With You - imagine if it was passed off as, say, New York, or suddenly was Americanised, ignoring the actual place that it is set in - a district in Japan. Not that grand a thought there now, is it? Happily that isn't the case. (Although... there ARE songs that only appeared in the Japanese version...)
Although they may try to improve games for the target audience in completely different countries with such changes, many times they end up just being more of a hindrance for many. All this politically correct business and ignorance of things that don't appear in countries... well, some changes at times should be made, of course, but to make the gameplay easier, or remove cultural objects and so forth...and suggest replacing Pokemon because, darn it, electric rodents, along with turtles with cannons from their backs and fire-breathing dragons just aren't cool enough? Not something a agree upon.
