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Ah, censorship. Is there any topic more controversial when it comes to entertainment? Well, other than certain religious figures, but we’ll ignore that *cough cough* As I was saying. In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of censorship from various companies. And don’t you give me that “it’s only censorship if the government does it” line, because censorship is censorship regardless of the source. Especially since the end result is the same (something is covered up. Something is removed. Information is restricted, and something is gone missing).

And that includes everything from having Capcom covering up R. Mika’s butt slap and Cammy’s nipples in “Street Fighter V”, to Nintendo’s past censorship cases (which includes titles such as “Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE“, “Fire Emblem Fates” with many more). And let’s not forget how Target of Australia (which is only affiliated with Target by name) pulled “GTA V” on the PS4 and “X-1” from the shelves due to “violence against women“.

And I still can’t forget the moral outrage that led to the cancellation of “Dead or Alive Xtreme 3” from being released in the West (an outcome that was most likely caused by SJW´s). Doubly so since the game always sold better in the West than it did in Japan (that might have changed with “DOAX3” though). It was on the original Xbox and the 360 after all, and neither of those systems were known for doing well in Japan. So imagine my (and probably more than a few other people´s) absolute delight when I heard that SNK had teamed up with Atlus to bring “King of Fighters XIV” out West. Furthermore, KOF XIV will be completely unchanged up on its release in the West (although “some” segments of the Internet were complaining about certain things).

So, SNK decided to do what any company in this situation would do, they… Oh, wait, they did the opposite of what most companies have done and instead doubled down on focusing on their target audience.

Nevertheless, it really feels like SNK has taken several potshots at Capcom and “Street Fighter V” with “KOF XIV” game. As Athena flashes her panties, the pirate gal from the Another World team wears a top that lets us see that she likes pink and lacy bras, Yuri Sakizaki’s finisher involves her slapping her butt while the move is going on. Well, I think you get my point. And the list goes on and on really. So tons of respect and love to SNK and Atlus for not caving in to the SJW movement in the West! (Deep Silver handles “KOF XIV” in EU, so it remains to be seen whether or not the EU version will remain uncensored. Time will tell…).

However, since SNK has a history of pushing the envelope of what they can get away within fighting games, so it’s not really all that surprising. And a perfect example of that can be found as far back as in “Fatal Fury 2” with Mai Shiranui (the original fan service fighting gal). As an aside, even though Fatal Fury games were ported to the West and put on the SNES and Sega Genesis, the Genesis port was, as usual, the more faithful of the two. This really came to a head in “Real Bout Fatal Fury Special“. In that game, if you were on a certain stage and playing as Blue Mary, if you knocked your opponent into the water at the same time that Blue Mary went out of the stage and into the water, she would then pop out of the water with her top missing.

And, no, I’m not making that up.

Sadly enough though, the good times couldn’t last forever. As changes in Japan forced SNK to censor the game for the PS2 Western re-release of “Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volume 2”. Censored Gaming has more information on this matter and other forms of censorship that the “Fatal Fury” series has undergone over the years.

Even so, in overall, the censorship that SNK has had to go through has been rather light compared to what “other companies” have gone through in recent years. It’s really showing through in “King of Fighters XIV”, how little they care about the current politically correct climate and are letting their ladies show off. I, for one, welcome this attitude and hope for two things:

1: King of Fighters XIV sells very well, to the point that it could outsell other PS4 fighting games (as this is a PS4 exclusive title) which leads to my second hope.

2: That other companies will start to realize that SNK didn’t pander to the PC movement and made tons of money in the process, and because of that outcome starts ignoring the PC movement completely as well (in short, starts following SNK´s example of how to handle SJW´s).

And oh! Just a reminder, King of Fighters XIV is on sale on August 23rd. So don´t forget to pick up the game on the release day 😉

Credit:

Robin Ek – Editor and Co-writer

***Disclaimer***

This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.



Phil Weigel

The Gaming Ground

Twitter: @SilverScarCat

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Tags: Censorship, Fighting games, King of Fighters, King of Fighters XIV, PS4, SNK