This video delves into Nintendo's censorship of Pikmin 1 and 2 on the Nintendo Switch. It's technically not censorship, but censorship sounds better for the title.
I'm not really sure about anything else, but I did hear about the fact that Louie's Grandma mentioning his dad was actually a translation error. Take that with a grain of salt though.
Yeah that’s why it was changed. Same with “aunt”… also a mistranslation. Japanese to english is one of those rougher journeys. I feel like people forget that a lot.
You could read the censored version of Louie's grandma's mail as a darker euphemism. The reality is that she forced Louie to eat bugs, but in this version, she knows society would disapprove, so she gaslights Louie with "we ate a bug or two".
Something worth noting is that the Pikmin switch versions are built off of the European versions, which already had these translations changes due to the pegi system being a lot more strict with their ratings (for example any type of gambling makes the game 18+ alone) Edit: I’m completely wrong, the censorship in the dialogue wasn’t in the pal version, my bad.
@@kingyeti15 12+ actually, probably because this was before the pegi rating bump gambling upped to 18+. I’m guessing NOE was just playing it safe with Pikmin 2 in order to prevent it from getting a higher pegi rating then they would like. Either way, how olimar’s wife lost the money would of have to be changed to anything for else the switch port since gambling now currently put games at a pegi rating of 18+ anyways
@@gamerweeb1 oh, I could of sworn some of the changes were from the European version, my bad. I still think of these changes were done just because of the age ratings being more stricter now than in 2004, beside the removal of Louie’s dad, that was definitely just them wanting to fix a translation error.
Well, should gamers stop buying remakes/remasters of retro triple AAA games (including the Nintendo ones) and instead, start buying indie games and AA games?
@Java_Protogen Okay first of all, I'm not one of those toxic people/weak-minded people. Second of all, I'm becoming a indie game developer. And third of all, I love girls with big titties.
As someone who is also a bit disheartened with the change, it's mostly just nostalgia and silliness as well as some childlike weird feeling that maybe Pikmin could exist in the real world with the real world brands being pictured
A few people brought some things up in the comment section so I'll address them here - Louie's Dad was actually a mistranslation, he wasn't in the original Japanese script. - The tutorial cutscenes on the title screen were removed from Pikmin 1 and 2 - The Wollywog got it's name changed in every region for the Switch version, unlike the Wii version which only censored it for the European release. I forgot to mention this in the video as I thought it was completely censored on Wii - Caustic Dweevil was renamed to the Hydro Dweevil
@@Jigen0 God bless Nintendo's laziness for it prevents censorship. Btw Metroid Prime was fantastic but it did remove a couple things and change others. The thermal visor is a downgrade and they removed lighting effects from projectiles.
@goblez5900 I saw a comment from one of the original developers explaining how these effects were originally done and that replicating on the Switch would not exactly be possible. For the thermal visor, there was some trickery on the GameCube that made this effect very cheap, but on Switch it is rendering the whole world again and very expensive.
@@secret333plays I I saw that too but to be honest its beyond insane that lighting effects are somehow harder to render now than they were 20 years ago. Tbh that just shows the competency crisis in the modern tech/gaming industries.
I agree with the removal of "slackers". "Imbeciles" (as the president calls Olimar and Louie in the Switch port of Pikmin 3) is clearly a better word to address your employees!
Well, _GEE,_ I guess if Olimar's wife had written that she'd killed their son and daughter and fed them to Bulby after going insane from Olimar's absence, it'd be okay to keep in the game, _if_ they made it clear that Olimar's wife's filicide _was a bad thing._ Great logic, ENIAC. 😲🧠
I do think the line "declare your love and bankruptcy" is actually funnier than the original, but otherwise a lot of the changes are completely unnecessary.
looking at the mail page in the pikmin wiki damn there's a lot more censorship. All mentions of Olimar's daughter wanting to be a 'proper lady', Olimar's son seeing 'cute girls' at the hot springs, them forgetting to feed the dog. and all the spam mails have had their links removed even though they were all for official nintendo websites. very lame, and quite silly censorship.
I assume this was not a purposeful change, but the lead instrument sample for the cave themes “concrete 1” and “Flooded Stump” are missing in the Switch version. No idea why.
One thing I feel like noting is that, according to the wiki, the Arboreal Frippery is actually a leaf from a Japanese maple tree. The leaf in real life can apparently be green OR red, which I get from one of the pictures in the wiki's gallery showing a red leaf and calling it a Japanese maple leaf.
I think that the thing about Louie's father is, if I am not wrong, that he isn't mentioned at all in the original Japanese version. He was only added in translations. So he isn't being censored, that case was a more accurate retranslation.
As a survivor of parental abuse, I find some of that censorship very offensive. All it does is invalidate people's trauma and shield abusive parents from being held accountable. It's important for people to know that child abuse is not okay. It shows them how much trauma during the most important years of your life is harmful to your development.
has anyone checked with the japanese text? the "love" always being changed to "soul" makes me think this might be a case of fixing the translation of the game, like we already know happened with the mention of Louie's dad. idk how the fuck louie suffering child abuse and olimar's wife getting broke from a gambling addiction would be translation errors but these at least kinda make sense to censor in a very nintendo logic of "absolutely no mentions of x and y, no exceptions", it would be an extremely nintendo move to have absurd and strict rules like these for making changes on games.
This is likely more the Treehouse than Nintendo as a whole. And yes, they must not see it as a good thing anymore. They have been caught with baffling changes and bizarre standards for censoring for over 10 years now. They likely wanted to remove any instances of heterosexuality in the game for the sake of inclusivity, which is why the rings are ungendered now, as they were clearing inferred to be wedding rings. But some of the other stuff is a bit weird, and this isn't the only game affected. They have also almost tanked entire series because of their translation changes. Metroid Other M almost killed the series, and they are the primary reason it failed (the story is WAY different in Japanese). The first Xenoblade was not done by them due to its rough journey to the west, but its sequel Xenoblade X was, and it became pretty infamous for it. Though its possible that its failure could be attributed to being on the WiiU, its also likely that their translation Meddling poisoned the well for people interested in it. Its much more profitable sequel on the Switch was also not translated by them iirc. TMS #FE, the SMT/Persona and Fire Emblem crossover game was also killed by them, but it was still considered a fun game so fans wanted a "true" version of it to be released in hopes that one that was properly translated and uncensored and got another shot on the Switch would end up selling well. It was instead more censored, and the other countries also got the censored version (even with script changes being retranslated back into Japanese!) so it failed even worse than the WiiU version somehow despite actually having a fanbase by then. The Fire Emblem series was nearly dead and was saved by Awakening (which did have changes, but didn't go as far as they do now), but then the very next game, Fates, they went all in on changes, and it became infamous for its terrible translation to the point that the game(s?) underperformed, and that even caused the next game to perform worse due to the stigma around Fates. That game, Valentia, was even translated by a different studio which actually made it really good and that gave it a positive reception that then led to the Switch game to perform even better (and was also not translated by Treehouse). The newest game, engage, I'm not sure if it sold well but it did have massive changes, including replacing a side story section mentioning someone being too young for a relationship and that they should wait until they are older, replaced with some random joke. This might have been done for inclusivity as well, as many people are pushing for the idea that underage people are capable of consenting to that sort of thing, so the story might have been changed to not go against that idea and offend those people. Not all Nintendo games are translated by them, as you can see with Fire Emblem flip flopping between them and other localizers. And they seem to be able to control themselves with Mario (at least as far as I'm aware), but anything that is meant to be for more mature audiences are usually stripped of their maturity for some reason. It also seems like either Nintendo lets them do this stuff because they are convinced its what the American audience wants or are completely unaware of it. For instance, Other M was fairly well received in Japan, so the director was confused by its reception in America, likely because he wasn't aware of all the changes and thinks the story is still the same.
@@quibquiberton4184 there is a video called "the other M that never was" that goes over the changes as well as how they likely made the mistake in the first place (though some are unexplainable, like the relationship between Adam and Samus is pretty much the opposite somehow). It also gives a brief history of the other translation mistakes throughout the series (though typically minor) and how they all culminated in making Other M's translation worse for adhering to them. There are sources all over the place for the other games I mentioned so it's harder to point to one specific thing, but that video is pretty comprehensive for Other M. This is also the earliest I can find the treehouse actively messing up the translation to the detriment of the game, so it's not as bad as what they've done in recent times, but it's a "death by a thousand cuts" thing (except for a few real bad standouts). Its not until FE Fates that they ruined a game again (though I heard Awakening also took some liberties with the translating, but not enough to ruin it).
@@GBDupree Watched the video, very interesting, thanks for the recommendation. However, I'm having trouble finding confirmation of who did Other M's English translation. All I can find is an unsourced Reddit thread claiming Nintendo Company Limited localized it themselves rather than handing it off to NOA Treehouse.
@@quibquiberton4184 Wasn't that the name of Treehouse prior to the rebranding (I think the name "Treehouse" is only like 10 years old now)? I'm pretty sure its Nintendo's in-house translating team, and the team would later be renamed to Treehouse? I thought the credits mentioned a lot of the same names, but maybe I'm misremembering.
I'm glad they got rid of the offensive slur, "slackers". It's often difficult for people known to be slackers to find employment. Especially when they put their slacker status on their resume.
It's worth noting that the sales pitch for the Husband and Wife gemstones was changed to say that any pairing of the two would work, rather than the male and female specifically. This implies the odd change was due to not wanting to suggest gay marriage isn't valid... which is rather funny. I don't think anyone gay or not got the idea the ship was homophobic or something. I suppose it checks out with modern marketing though, lmao.
Yeah I noticed that too when reading the sales pitch. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for inclusiveness, but I still kinda feel the name change was still a bit much of a course correction. It’s not a huge deal at the end of the day, the idea that the two rings are meant to be a pairing of soulmates is still intact even if it’s in a somewhat unorthodox way.
@@s_callahan yeah same, it feels rather unnecessary. It doesn't matter all that much in the end, but given Nintendo very rarely makes queer characters (and if they do they try to avoid expressing it) I don't even get what the point of this was..?
ESG is disgusting as fuck! As a matter of fact, should we warn Ken Akamastu and others/creators in Japan that terrible things (such as ESG, global standard, censorship, ect) are happening in Japan?
Just from the examples shown in this video, any mention of heterosexuality and love was removed except the one time Olimar still gets to mention his wife is when its a sexual reference. The wedding rings no longer mentioning gender was an obvious one. But its likely this isn't Nintendo as a whole, but mostly just the Treehouse who have been butchering the translations for over 10 years now. Sometimes to the degree that it actively loses sales for the game. Its primarily because of them that Metroid Other M failed so hard that the series almost died. They also hurt FE: Fates a lot (ironically right after Awakening just managed to save the series), which then made the next Fire Emblem underperform until the Switch's popularity saved the series again (with an FE that wasn't translated by the Treehouse no less). They have also been more direct in their changes nowadays, actively changing more than just the text, and even having the developers do it so that all regions get censored preemptively.
Can anyone confirm if that's true? The Wedding rings being ungendered is too suspicious to me to think that was just a correct translation. Like surely the original translation didn't just add "love" to a bunch of things, and then the Japanese never used it once.
@@GBDupree Maybe it's less the original adding the word "love" and more the rerelease being more diverse in the words used, so like less repetitive, because in translation there are of course synonyms to consider like "love" could be "devotion", "affection", "kindness", etc
It still baffles me how the original games managed to get an E rating. Even more baffling how the censored versions have an E 10+ rating, really shows how much ESRB standarts have changed over the years. Also you forgot to mention the wollyhop's and wolpole's namechange now being in all regions.
What's funny is that it seems nintindo is getting rated more strictly today, while microsoft and sony can put damn near anything in and always get at least 1 rating lower than would be expected.
@@genemelendez368 That clears some things up. Also I find it that pal versions are still their original 3+, even though for Pikmin 1 for Gamecube Pegi didn't exist yet, heck even Pikmin 3 Wii u & deluxe, and even Pikmin 4 has a 3+ rating.
As much as I get changing the wollywog's name due to it being a bad word in as far as I remember europe im still gonna call them wollywogs and wogpoles since im not european
Some of these didn't need to be removed at all. This is just removing lore for no reason. I think it just makes the characters have less personality which kinda sucks. I hope they don't do updates to remove even more from Pikmin 2's piklopedia...
That's why they were so insistent on removing the word 'love' everywhere, it's a statement, and it kills me inside because this is one of my top favorite games
I always thought louie was just a nutcase because he ate bugs but the fact his grandma forced him to eat them is a bit sad and actually gives his character depth. Sad they removed that as I never finished pikmin 2 on the wii so I never saw that dialogue.
I think the issue with the mamuda log is the implication that there wasn't a mosquito/olimars wife was abusive bc a lot of the logs from her in pikmin 2 portray her as mean and greedy- with the context of those two things now in the same package it might be an issue. That's just my thoughts though
Modern Nintendo be like: UAHHHH NOOO WE CAN'T PUT REFERENCES TO UN-HOLY BED TIME IN OUR CHRISTIAN GAMES!!! My brother in Christ you literally used to run sex hotels.
one minor change i noticed was the vlassic pickle lid becoming a lid for jam, changing its treasure name from "gherkin gate" to "flavor gate" or something like that, i guess I don't see why they couldn't have just changed the texture to some generic nonexistent brand of pickles like they did all the other stuff and keep the pickle pun.
Why would and alien planet have minuscule human like creatures that eat alien carrots and use human like technology? Heck, they could be alien mosquitoes!
The mention of Louie's father is actually a mistranslation from the Japanese versions, the Louie's grandma was asking for him to talk to her more often not his father
I honestly feel the only decent change, besides the possible interpretation of Louie's grandmother's words being interpreted as gaslighting, is the "declare your love and bankruptcy, all at once!" change. The joke isn't quite the same, but I honestly still found it funny. The rest of the changes need to go though.
Nintendo removed every mention of the word " love " because a random guy in the censorship department got divorced for constantly playing a beep sound effect every time an extended family member that he didn't like tried to talk to him.
ESG is disgustingly terrifying! Should we warn Ken Akamastu and others in Japan that terrible things (such as ESG, global standard, censorship, ect) are happening in Japan?
@@internetguy7319 No, you never had a sense of humor. Morons like you don't even know how to interpret relationship problem jokes in any way other than the way you just said right now. You would be shitting and pissing your pants in ecstasy over the same thing with the genders reversed.
The Pikmin mamuta log entry really upset me because it was one of my favourite lines from the first game, it's the line I remembered the most, but I guess it's the price we have to pay for Pikmin to finally thrive financially with the entire franchise now available on Switch
The Japanese description of arboreal frippery is actually a reference to its cannabis-like appearance. Olimar describes how people use it to go to sleep.
Something worth noting is for some reason they didn't censor the small amount of blood that appears when a pikmin is stabbed by a Burrow-nit. (Hense why the switch port is E10+ and says "Mild Blood" in the esrb description.)
Not buying the remasters because unnecessary changes like this give the game less soul. The changes to the Gemstar Husband and Wife treasures especially irk me.
You can't have something resembling wedding rings being gendered anymore, I guess. Wouldn't want the kids to see something as horrible as a man and woman being able to exist together in harmony, the HORROR!
The thing is as well, Pikmin has never sold well at all in its entire history, and Miyamoto has apparently been just as frustrated by this (Pikmin was his last new creation), so even if you wanted to justify more Pikmin games by supporting them with a purchase, just look at the absolute state of what we got with Pikmin 4 in the end. A game that couldn't even decide if it wanted to be a reboot, so did neither (which is worse) and pandered to every game in the series as a sort of twisted greatest hits, whilst at the same time torturing the only people that ever supported the series by destroying the brilliant controls and catering endless fucking dialogue to bring in new blood, instead. If a new Pikmin game every decade means that the series has to constantly be held back by retarded changes, then there is no point to the series at all, anymore. Might as well just fucking pirate them and let modders go to town fixing everything and making new, better content and features. The Ultra Spicy mod for Pikmin 3 is superb.
" The husbands' tears collection. woman cry with joy, men just cry at the price. " me: nothing can top that. "The husbands' tears collection. declare your love and bankruptcy all at once. " me: i was right, nothing can top the original punchline.
While i think the removal of the original punchline is pretty uncesecary, i personally prefer the new punchline. It reads more corporate which is funny.
Yeah, I noticed this when I played the Switch Pikmin 2 port, was very bothered by it. Just kind of saddens me to see it. Whoever the writers were that wrote the replacement dialogue are awful writers too, I could almost always tell whenever there was new dialogue because they had no ability to match the "voice" of the original dialogue/notes. I do wonder as well if this was just something done in the English translations, or if a similar scope of changes were made in the Japanese versions.
In the switch version for Pikmin 2 in Louie's notes for the recipe for cooking the Empress Bublax, they removed the word "Obese" with Large if I'm correct
After seeing the video and some comments the only notable changes for me are. 1 Dialogue more in line with the original Japanese version. 2 Changing the product placement in the second game. 3 The characterisation of Olimar's Wife. 4 Weird and unneeded change to the Mamuta voyage log in the first game. Not sure if the last two points are because of the first, but the only change that stands out is Olimar's wife changed from a lottery addict to "oops lost all the moneys from a pickpocket"
Original GameCube version is the definitive version. 😄 I never really liked remasters. (aka remakes) They always remove what makes a game so memorable. That's why I never buy remakes. You can go one step further, and get faithful translation patches from fans, that stays faithful to the original Japanese dialogue. Japanese versions are just always funnier, darker, and just better overall.
Tbh a pickpocket could have stolen the family credit card from Olimar’s wife and spent it all to the point where they had no money in the bank, so that’s a possible reason the change works
I'm surprised they didn't make a spam joke about some random Nigerian prince asking for money. But instead, it'd be a Koppait prince asking for fruits with the promise of paying back. Not as impactful, but the joke is that the Koppaits are picky eaters when it comes to food, never mind that they eat and populate like rabbits.
Agreed. Pikmin 4- whilst honestly still equal to the rest of the series, was a blight on the franchise and a sign that the future (if its another 10 years) doesn't look good for the series, at all.
It’s a sad backstory that you slowly unravel over the course of the first 2 games that Olimar loves his kids but his wife is unbearable and he’s probably happier on PNF-404
One thing I never understood is why the Wollywog, Yellow Wollywog, and the Wogpole were renamed Wollyhop, Yellow Wollyhop and Wolpole in the Switch version of 1 and 2
@@mchanna06 Even then, it's still stupid to censor since it's not even a slur. It's like thinking funerals are fun because F U and N are all in the word.
@@j.k.4479 Yeah, changing it because of that is pretty weak logic. (Then again, a lot of things considered "offensive" are pretty fucking stupid.) While they're at it, they should change "Cofagrigus" as well, since it _also_ had a "bad word" in it. Oh wait... it's Pokemon so that makes it completely untouchable, my mistake.
The worst part about these ports? The controls. Who was the idiot who decided to NOT bring back the gyro-based cursor system from 3 Deluxe!? That was near-flawless, why did they remove that!? Recreating the functionality of the Wii’s pointer would’ve been so good! But no. We’re left with a control scheme that is awkward and fiddly as hell.
My first thought when learning they removed the mosquito line was that maybe it occurred to them that the planet Olimar is from with l wouldn't have mosquitos.
