American kids have it so hard…
When it comes to entertainment,we have been getting the shitty end of the stick for as long as …well ,since entertainment became an industry. The lack of boobs in our magazines and television that is far more acceptable in Europe and Asia, the censorship that bombards the impressionable ears of our youth,poor bastards think it is cool to say “heck” or “fricken” or “f-ing”. In some cases there is no apparent reason for not releasing material stateside,more of just a “nanny nanny boo boo” because we are jerks,come on lets face it,If the world were a school yard we would be administering the wedgies and humiliation to smaller or poor countries. But in most cases we won’t receive media because of the yellow tape and shrink wrap countries have to deal with localizing or as i like to call it “formatting for the fat ,stupid American consumer” .
As a retro-gamer this has always been evident to me,case in point; keep in mind i was never really a fan of the RPG genre but back in the day when I would get Nintendo Power and SNES games could still be bought at a Toys R’ Us, I found it fishy how Final Fantasy installments went Parts 1,2,3 and f#^$% 7. I was a dumb kid granted,but i counted on one hand and ended up with seven…just saying Japan,we loved the franchise why couldnt we get the other 3??? This is one of the many slaps in the face from this “sovereign” nation (they honestly think we are stupid). Even in the early days of the NES ,when Nintendo made the second installment of the Super Mario Bros. (stop me if you heard this one) they deemed the actual game to difficult for American consumers ,granted the game was tough as shit but we could of gave it the good ol college try. Going back Final Fantasy for a second, there was a third installment on the SNES ,Mystic Quest was developed as an easier RPG for western pallets and gameplay was slashed to the bone and had the shortest running time of any FF title. The land of the rising sun decided to add insult to injury,it was also released in Japan under the name Final Fantasy USA……..rude.
Apart from keeping installments of series loved in the west,they also kept almost entire series from us. In the case of Earthbound we only received one game, known in Japan as the Mother series there was Mother for the Famicom,Mother 2 for the Super Famicom and Mother 3 on the GBA. Only the second title was released in the US and in limited numbers. Even though there has been several petitions for the titles to be translated and localized to the west, and some very popular fan translations of Mothers 1 and 3 ,if you played Earthbound ,you know how long it is and how a translation would be no easy feat . Many companies have made reproduction carts of Mother 1 or Earthbound Zero. The story of Mother making it to the US is a very sad tale,the Cartridge was actually in its prototype faze and ready for publishing,it was a finished game,but do to the very eminent SNES release most production of Nintendo games for the NES were dropped to focus on SNES titles.Some of the rumored prototypes are allegedly out there and worth a pretty penny.
The worst of the offenses,is the complete and total lack of the Parodious series in the west ,the sexy parody game of the classic Konami franchise Gradius. There has been no real reason why it has not been brought state side other than it being to sexually explicit. This is no fault of Konami, US censors are scared of lady parts it seems and would rather sweep stuff like this under the rug. Heres hoping that we as a country get some sort of break from the foreign powers that be.
