There has been a massive movement this year with how certain characters are depicted in video games. Most recently, we can look at Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch with the character Tracer. Within the game, select gamers spoke out against a certain pose Tracer could showoff which caused Blizzard Entertainment to quickly make adjustments. This became a big debate online as some felt that the pose was fine and developers were caving under pressure when there was no fault placed. This same issue seemed to come up with the upcoming release of Star Ocean: Integrity & Faithlessness with a character known as Miki. Through a GameSpot interview with Star Ocean: Integrity & Faithlessness producer Shuichi Kobayashi, we’re learning the real reason as to why they made some localization changes before the game launches within the west.
When news broke of a slight change being made to the character Miki in Star Ocean: Integrity & Faithlessness, it sounded as if Square Enix was afraid a certain aspect in the character design would bring criticism to the development team. This particular aspect has to do with the character’s undergarments being slightly bigger in the North American release.
It was even stated in an interview with Niche Gamer that the development team felt that they would have to make revisions to the character after it launches thus they went ahead and opted to make the adjustments. However, the truth of the matter, according to producer Shuichi Kobayashi, the changes were made simply to avoid a stronger rating.
It’s fundamentally just a ratings issue. But as for Star Ocean, it’s not that different–it’s unfortunate that a lot of people took the change in a bigger way than intended and interpreted things in a way that haven’t actually happened. But the game hasn’t changed, and the size [of the character’s underwear] hasn’t really changed, it’s really not that different than what was originally created. The essence of the game is not that part, and I really want players to not focus on that, but the rest of the gameplay. The Japanese rating system is different from that in the West and that is why these changes have to happen. Rating checks and submissions happen after most of the game is finished, so it’s inevitable that changes occur after some things are done. That’s why we had to make that kind of change this time, but it’s not that different, as much as people want to make it sound that way.
Additionally, within the interview, Shuichi Kobayashi talked about the decline in console gamers within Japan and having developers go back to their routes. Instead of focusing on video games as a global title, they would have a greater amount of success in making what they had in-mind without considering how well the title would do outside of Japan.
Star Ocean 5: Integrity & Faithlessness is set to launch within the third quarter of this year for the PlayStation 4 while it’s unknown if the PlayStation 3 version of the game will release outside of Japan.
