Rising Star on censorship claim

By Games Industry.biz Published 13 December, 2007

No More Heroes is as intended.

The MD of Rising Star Games, Martin Defries, has responded to criticism levelled at the company following the announcement that forthcoming title No More Heroes would differ in content to the US edition.

According to earlier reports the version of the game released in the US will include a higher level of blood and gore effects in the combat - something which some took to mean that the game was being censored in Europe.

But Defries has told GamesIndustry.biz that those claims are wide of the mark, because the European edition will be identical to the one just released in Japan, localisation notwithstanding.

"There are two versions of No More Heroes that are going to be published in the West," he said.

"Ours, which will be drawn down from our parent company, Marvelous Interactive, which is directly from the Japanese iteration of the game, and there will be a version in the US that is a full-on gore, beheadings, dismemberment…and it seems some confusion has come to the fore in the past few days as to which version Rising Star Games will publish.

"Why the decision [to add in additional gory detail to the US release] has been made is a difficult one for me to comment on - that's a Ubisoft decision for the North American market.

"We've always drawn down our games from Japan, we tailor them in language, in text and audio, and nothing else."

A joint statement issued by the game's designer Goichi Suda (better known as Suda 51) and Marvelous Digital president Yahsiro Wada reads as follows:

"First, let me say how honoured I am that everyone in Europe is expecting No More Heroes. The sales point of this game is action. Both I and Wada-san have concentrated on making the best possible action game for Nintendo Wii.

"We have chosen to release in Europe the same version as has shipped in Japan considering the broadly growing Wii market. We are certain you will definitely enjoy playing it."

Rising Star Games will publish the European edition of No More Heroes in February 2008, while the different US edition will be published by Ubisoft.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • spidermanalf #1 4 years ago

    I wonder if killing people with my wiimote will teach me how to stab people in real life?

    Oooooh first!
    Edited by 1 at 13/12/07 @ 14:25

  • Gurgeh #2 4 years ago

    Sank without trace in Japan, sadly enough

  • kissthestick #3 4 years ago

    still doesnt make sense

  • Chaote-Imagicka #4 4 years ago

    I call BS, Suda51 said the game was supposed to be gorier than Manhunt 2. Everyone knows that the Japanese retail version is censored in comparison to what the creatives wanted.

  • rock27gr #5 4 years ago

    So they claim that it was UBISOFTs decision to ADD things to the game? Haha, what a joke!

    And the Suda quote does not verify this; it just restates Rising Star's decision to release the censored version.

    I guess this will net them a 15 certificate rather than 18, so they hope to have more sales.

    However, with such a niche title, I bet it costs them more sales than it makes them. After all, 18 never hurt GTA sales.

  • Kyle #6 4 years ago

    Regardless of who's censoring it the bottom line is we're getting a censored version.

    Maybe they're afraid of the over zealous German censors or the controversy surrounding the Manhunt 2 ban?

    Or maybe giving us the American version involves more work and they're just lazy...

  • thiswaynow #7 4 years ago

    Less gore is the way to go, if the Americans need to see masses of blood to enjoy the game, that's their problem. Perhaps Europe and Japan are slightly more civilised places.

  • toy_brain #8 4 years ago

    I'm not really buying the reasoning for releasing the 'censored' version in Japan. Sure it might get a 'Z' rating but that's what those Simple2000 Zombie Zone/Zombie Hunters (someone else can provide the propper Japanese names, I'd only get the spelling horribly wrong) games got, and they are some of D3's most succesfull games. (and the levels of violence are roughly similar).
    The Z rating certainly dosent seem to be the 'kiss of death' that the American 'AO' rating is.
    Odd.

    Either way I'm not bothered, I'd play the game whichever option they went for......If I could actually buy a Wii anywhere!
    Edited by 1 at 13/12/07 @ 14:48

  • The_Inquisitor #9 4 years ago

    If what he's saying is true, then the US are getting a bastardised version. Either way, whichever side of the fence (or pond) you are on, it's a bit confounded.
    What about keeping to the developers true vision?

  • kangarootoo #10 4 years ago

    "So they claim that it was UBISOFTs decision to ADD things to the game? Haha, what a joke!"

    Why is that so hard to believe? Because you don't want to believe it? Well thats humanity for you.

    "And the Suda quote does not verify this; it just restates Rising Star's decision to release the censored version."

    Why is one quote valid and another is not? Again it seems like you are giving credence to the one that you want to believe.


    "Regardless of who's censoring it the bottom line is we're getting a censored version."

    But if this latest info is true, we AREN'T getting the censored version. Did you even read the article?

    If a film publisher re-released Bambi but added in loads of gore during the hunt scene, would the original then become the "censored version"? Of course not.

  • Killerbee #11 4 years ago

    Hmmm... i don't really buy into the argument that anyone - least of all a publisher like Ubisoft - would actually add gore and violence into a game to cater for a specific market.

    Then again, I wouldn't feel too aggreived that Europe is getting the reduced-gore version the Japanese got - which was, after all, the native game the others are derived from. If the game is good, it'll still be good whether its got extra blood in it or not.

  • AcidSnake #12 4 years ago

    The forums seem to say though that the version without blood also lacks animations making the game experience feel disjointed...
    Although I don't really care about blood, if the animations are borked it's a bit more serious...

  • rock27gr #13 4 years ago

    @ kangarootoo

    I don't beleive a publisher, especially Ubisoft, would have gone to the trouble of asking that a game is made more gory, particularly a game that not only isn't an in-house production, but it isne;t even commisioned by them, and is only being published by them in one region.

    But if you want more proof, you only have to read some Suda interviews of the past, were he has claimed that NMH will be more violent than even Manhunt 2.

    Plus the disjoined and missing animations in the censored versions tend to verify exactly this; that it IS a censored version.

  • kangarootoo #14 4 years ago

    @rock27gr

    Well fair enough, I don't know the background. People on the internet accusing others of lying always gets my back up (conspiracy theories are almost always nonsense). Maybe I am guilty of a reverse conspiracy theory (ooh, the clever buggers).

    Hmmm, not sure what else I have to say on the matter. Bloody liars made me look a proper gullible tit.

  • toy_brain #15 4 years ago

    "Hmmm... i don't really buy into the argument that anyone - least of all a publisher like Ubisoft - would actually add gore and violence into a game to cater for a specific market."

    Remember Decapattack?
    That was an odd one.

  • Gurgeh #16 4 years ago

    "(conspiracy theories are almost always nonsense)"

    then you see stuff like the lawsuit filed by Kohnke against Perpetual Entertainment this week which has the following:

    "Kohnke's public relations campaign was successful in creating pre-release 'buzz' around Gods & Heroes, and in convincing reviewers to write positive reviews about the game . ... Kohnke would receive an incentive compensation payment of up to $280,000 after the launch of Gods & Heroes."

    So a PR firm expects payment of up to $280,000 for, amongst other things, convincing reviewers to write positive reviews. And Kohnke work with a *lot* of game companies.

    Trust is in short supply these days.

  • progearspec #17 4 years ago

    @ Gurgeh

    Maybe the Japanese want the bloody version?

  • SimonM7 #18 4 years ago

    The gore isn't Ubisoft's initiative, that's something Suda talked up loooong ago, how it'd be released in its "full glory" in the US while the japanese version would be cleaner.

    What I'd like to know is.. Firstly who's going after this game for blood and guts. It's so stylized you'd get similar thrills from beheadings in a south park episode. And secondly; what could it possibly add to the overall appeal of the game? To me, the way the characters disolve into those ash like puffs is a lot MORE stylish than having blood spray all over. In trailers I just thought the splats looked stupid.

    But then maybe that's just me.
    Edited by 2 at 13/12/07 @ 17:56

  • rock27gr #19 4 years ago

    Well for a game that includes finishing moves, the fact that these are performed on thin air (since the opponent has long before vaporised) is indeed a gameplay issue to me!

    It's not just the blood that's been removed you know, read the article again.

  • smelly #20 4 years ago

    We're getting the same version as the original japanese game. Stop yer bloody whining.

    Personally i couldnt give a shit whether it has blood or not, as i play games for the game itself - not for titulation of seeing some red pixels.

  • toy_brain #21 4 years ago

    "Well for a game that includes finishing moves, the fact that these are performed on thin air (since the opponent has long before vaporised) is indeed a gameplay issue to me!"

    You got a link to some vids that show this? because I've checked youtube, and all the vids of the Japanese version look fine to me, with enemies disintergrating at the point of the final impact.

  • Skeletor #22 4 years ago

    US Version = Suda's original version
    JP/EU version = toned down version to get lower rating

    Rising star are a bunch of greedy fucks and don't even have the balls to admit it. No money from me.

  • TheJuriel #23 4 years ago

    Bull. Lame justification for getting a toned-down version.

  • Kazzahdrane #24 4 years ago

    Indeed, this is total BS. The game was clearly censored for Japan and Europe is getting that version too.

    And for those arguing that "it's just blood", from the videos and hands-on so far, it would be like taking the blood splatters out of films like Kill Bill. It's part of the artistic direction and I'm pissed off that as Europeans we won't be able to enjoy the game as it was meant to be played.

    I don't even blame the Germans, they've been getting their own version of games/banning games for years. I blame the Wii selling so much (I'm not one of these high and mighty hardcore gamers that for some reason thinks this dirties gaming though) and developers deciding they want to sell to every single casual owner.

    As someone already pointed out, an 18 cert didn't hurt the GTA games at retail!

  • L42yB #25 4 years ago

    /imports

  • Skeletor #26 4 years ago

    @L24yB
    If you don't own a US Wii importing will get you nowhere...thanks to Nintendos strict policy on regioncoding - unlike certain other consoles;-)
    What remains is a truely fucked up situation for people who are stuck on PAL Wiis and want to play the uncensored version. Might be worth to wait and see if a Modchip turns out to be the solution.
    Edited by 1 at 14/12/07 @ 13:12

  • mukki #27 4 years ago

    if the game is censored it would suck...

    man censorship is evil....


    =/