Boxer, Claw, & Dicator

Classic Fighting Games Super Street Fighter II Turbo
1

I was talking to a buddy yesterday, and it got me thinking.

There is always talk about what the reall names are for these three characters in the SF world.

I want to express why I don?t follow the US versions of the name. This might explain the POV for some.

This is much bigger than THIS IS THE USA, and THAT IS JAPAN.

For years video game companies have edited or changed this in the US versions of the games. This was really prevalent during the PS era. I am not sure if it follows for today?s industry.

Parts of games where flagrantly removed for the US versions. As if American could not handle them, or didn?t deserve them. This factor of removing was in many genre defining games.

Marvel Super Heroes: (First True Air-chain combo game, COTA had air combo?s but not as we know them today)

  • Anita (little girl the follow Donovan From the DS series ) was removed as a secret character. You could get her on the character select screen but if you picked her the game crashed.
    **
    Marvel V. Street Fighter: **(First VS. game to use the assist system)

  • The little Japanese tourist character (forgot his name) was removed as a selectable character
    **
    Final Fantasy 7: **(Redefined the Genre of RPG?s)

-Areith?s name was changed to Areis in the US version and secret enemies where removed. (They where in the bottom of a well, they had the highest agility of anything in the game and would dodge any attack, you could only kill them with poison and it would take like 4 hours, but they game you HELLA experience)
**
Final Fantasy 8:** (another Genre Defining RPG)

  • The hidden Mogel and Tomba call spells where removed (needed pocket station to unlock, US player did not get an alternative way to unlock it), and the secret fishermen?s utopia city was removed.

Castlevania SOTN: (Do I really need to explain this one)

  • Character sprites in the US version where redrawn to reveal a lot less T & A. Several Female type charters had their feminine parts covered. ? Not to mention we never got Dracula X (soon to be out on PSP)

There are several other examples that I could list.

I am a purest, not such a purest that I don?t mind things added to games and I understand the game need to be translated, but I don?t like part of games removed or changed.

I think that other players around fighting game community dislike things being changed (at least somewhat). These are some examples of changes that many people don?t like in the SF series:

Roll canceling was taken out of the XBL version of CVS2
Alpha 2 gold with all its changes to the CC system, AC?s and characters.
The home version of alpha 3 with the CC?ing taken out.
All the changes to the different home versions of ST (see wiki for details)
The frame changes on the DC version of 3s
Many people just want things the way they where made.

So, anyway this brings me to my point, about the name changes. Capcom changed the name of three characters in the SF series in bringing the series to the US.

YES, I understand why, Mike Bison had too much of a similarity to the Mike Tyson. Needless to say, it was a change none the less.

However, I come to feel that if I support and accept the changes made to SF, then I support the fact that changing things in games is ok.

It is not OK!

I wanted to play Anita, I wanted to play the Japanese tourist, I wanted to play the hidden ememies, I want the hidden mogul and tomba call spells, I wanted to create the hidden fishermen village, and GOD DAMN IT, I want to see vampire beast chicks with HUGE TITS!

I wanted all this without having to import the game or play my friends imported game (thank you SHINE!).

That is why I stick to the fact of not calling M.Bison, Balrog.

In stead I use the phrase ?Boxer, Claw, and Dictator? to describe the characters to avoid confusion in while talking about the subject in America.

I can?t bring myself to using the US name, b/c I can?t support the fact that they where changed, and changing games IS NOT OK! (at least to me)

**What are your thoughts, ideas, and counter points! I am interested in discussing.

:smile:**

2

I agree with almost all of the examples you list (damn shame about Norimaro) but not the underlying spirit of the your post. Heh. BTW Ouendan vs. Elite Beat Agents is a great case study on this issue. Search for those words on the wired games blog to see what Chris K has written about the issue.
http://blog.wired.com/games/

Uhh no. I’m a strong proponent in a case by case policy. For videogames and almost all shit in life. Sometimes a thing is not worth discussing so fuck it. But if it IS worth discussing then the various merits should be considered. In the case of ST’s Boxer Capcom made the right decision. I didn’t fully embrace the NKI naming scheme until I started chatting with a local guy who was used to the names on the asian version of the game. In normal conversation I use the american names. Barlog is fun to say, anyways.

This is a tangent but… one of these days I want to write a post about “case by case” vs. “if it’s in the game it’s ok” vis a vis banning stuff in fighting games. But very briefly:
I’ve always been pro-throws and pro-ticks since the beginning of SF2. And, you know, when I was in junior high or whatever I argued against no-throw scrubs with the “if it’s in the game” argument. Back then, however, I was young and unsophisticated. Throws are a good thing and they should be left unbanned because they make the game more interesting. The case for throws deserves to be considered on it’s merits not simply by waving ones hand and saying, “bah.” Same goes for your international changes.

Should Akuma be banned? How about Grant in Garou? Gill in third strike? Case by case bruddahs. Case by case.

3

I do see your point and where you are comming from. :china:

However, if you were to go by a case by case basis what would the factors in deciding which way to go/ what to edit?

I beleive that every example I posted is a “case by case” basis from someone’s POV. Someone somewhere decides what to or not to include in a interenational version of a game. Every chioce made was independant of the other. A differnent person from each development team went throught every element in each game and abritraily choose what to change.

Each each one of my examples, someone had some rational to make the decisions they made, and the domestic consumer was the one who lost.

The case by case basis failed in my examples. In fact they are the absolute extreme worst examples for the “case by case” POV.

If there isn’t one governing body or set of rules, then ‘case by case’ gets sloppy and presents no form of consitancy.

That is why I made my blanket statement the overall, I do not support changing game content. That way the domestic consumer does not lose.

However, truely, and honestly you brought up some very good points to prove your point, which in turn makes it very real and valid (I.E. Akuma in ST being banned. Was gill playable in the arcade??).

For the record I am not saying I am right, and can be the only right POV. I just was expressing my POV on the issue.

I think it is really cool to hear other POV’s with out it turning into a flame war :pleased:

As I said in my post, I understand why the changes to SF where made, I just not the biggest fan of that idea… it is almost like a form of censorship… which is a whole nother topic…LOL :xeye:

As for your tangent, I whole heartedly agree with you in the throwing issue. :karate:

4

As far as the three characters switching names go, i find it uneccessary.

It wouldve been easier to simply change m. Bisons name and leave dic vega and claw balrog.

Why they re-arranged the names rather than simply giving bison a new name for the US versions i do not know.

Ultimately, its been MANY years since sf2 has been out and since the names were changed. I think it is a dead issue, and should generally be accepted by now.

With the discussion of censorship in games in general, all i have to say is it often ruins the quality of the game (due to us knowing there was more) but its all legalty and editing for game ratings. whats acceptable in one country as teen rating could be rated mature in another.

Gta games edited a lot of stuff out for releases in other countries. So its not just japan release to u.s. Its visa versa too.

5

i wish you were as purist about correct spelling and grammar

honestly who gives a shit, it’s a fucking video game, it’s not important. i can understand being irritated by the changes but outright refusing to use the accepted names in america and potentially confusing people is just stupid. it’s a videogame, not a fucking sacred text.

6

LOL… So true… you should talk to my elemntry school teachers… :xeye:

In a small attempt to defend myself, I threw it all together pretty quickly… However, I don’t think it would have made much difference. HA!

I am what I am!

As far as people not caring, I’am sure most don’t. But, I just wanted to have some fun talking about it…

7

It’s an interesting issue. When it comes to serious movies or books yeah an import should be as faithful as possible to the original artistic vision while making it broadly accessible. But for more disposable pop culture stuff it gets tricky.

To me M.Bison clearly would have been no good. Particularly at this late date the name would be cheesy and dated, while Balrog (Rog!) is timeless. I think we’re talking legal issues for Capcom too.

You brought up the skin in SOTN. I feel the same way as you; I’d prefer it if that stuff were left alone. (Tho’ my main beef with the US game is the fact that they chucked a familiar or two.) But if I were working for Konami… us Americans are hysterical about showing nudity - cf. Janet Jackson @ the superbowl - moreso than anywhere outside the middle east? Seems to me they made the right decision. At least for the mid 90s.
PS Portrait of Ruin has some bare breasts. Green ones! hehe

One more: the voice acting in the american version of FFX beats the work in the japanese version by a mile. Does the localization fail to capture the auteurism in the original work? Fuck dude Square never had any artistic vision. They’ve always just churned out X-copied Dragon Quest schlock to make a buck. I’m not saying FF games aren’t fun but if the local team can tinker with it for the better (Wakka!) more power to them.

It’s hard. Life is hard. I dunno.

8

I’ve always used the Japanese names.
I hate the fact that they’re keeping the “Names that American players know and love” for SFIV.
I know and hate the American mixup.
When I’m around ppl who I think use the American crap names, I use boxer, dic, and claw.
Whenever I can, I use the original 3 names.
Also, I play Gouki, not Akuma, on sf3 (but I have to hear Akuma wins.)

9

You’re all wrong.

The boxer has to be M. Bison, because well its Mike Bison is clearly a parody of Mike Tyson.

The claw wielding Spanish assasin has to be Vega, because well it makes a helluva lot more sense than calling him Balrog.

By process of elimination Dictator should be called Balrog, but considering that he was never called that in either game, and the fact that Balrog is a stupid name I simply call him Dictator.

Obviously this system is completely untenable and when referring to them I use the occupational designation, but in my mind I’ll aways call them by what I personally consider their real names.

10

The spaniard, being a narcissist, is supposed to be called Balrog.

Did not know all that about the FF games. I mostly don’t care aout cosmetic changes, like a name here or there, but stuff being take out or gameplay aspects changed just burns.

11

I just wanted to say that I’ve never, ever, ever heard anything like that about FF7. In fact, Square usually has to re-release Final Fantasy games because the original version is incomplete, and the AMERICAN versions have the extra stuff (like, say, Emerald and Ruby weapons?). This was indeed done for FF7; they made a re-release called FF7 International.

As for ‘Aeris’, that was just an obvious translation error.

12

I hate to go in to nerd mode, but I think in English, Aerith is pronounced Aeris. So either way, it’s either gonna be spelled incorrectly, or spoken incorrectly.

13

Just because you never heard of it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…:wgrin:

As taken from the Versus Books FFVII Guige page 37.

The Mysterious Test 0 (Zero)

Whether they originated as a legitimate software test, or just a program joke, there are a few secrets in FFVII that are more lucrative that the rare Test 0 enemies.

These black dogs exist only in the well beneath t Corel Prison, and you only chance to fight them is now… You’ll never be able to fight to return to Corel Prison.

The combined HP total of these four dogs is 25 times that of the hardest boss you’ve faced so far, but you do have a chance… These dogs, luckily don’t fight back. All they do as beat on them, hour after hour, is beg you to stop.

I don’t like torturing friendly little animals any more then the next guy, but the combined total for 4000 exp, 400 AP, and 40,000 gill (!!!) these guys hold made me swallow my moral qualms real fast… After one bout with these guys you may never have to worry about money ever again!

Interested? Just wander around in the bottom of the well located in the Northern half of Corel Prison until they appear, and then get ready for a long fight. Your best bet is to just cast poison on all four of them, and then go do something else for a while… Say head down to you current book store and purchase the entire line of fine Versus books products!

Probably, other then that, you can rubber band the O button on your controller down. (Since Test 0 are good at dodge this will can take an even longer time), or if you’ve had a chance to fight enemies in the Golden Saucer area, you can use gravity bombs dropped by Flap Beat enemies to hit any one of the Test 0 for 9999 points basically cutting your battle time in half.

Note: As of press time, it appears that Test 0 has been removed from the English play station version of FFVII. As they may return in the final, or PC version, we’ve decided to leave the tip in the book. We apologies for any confusion this may cause. -ed

^^^^I am working on getting a scan for ya!

AS far as the international version. Remember how much earlier the japanese version came out. The weapons were added to the game after its intial release. There is a bit somewhere on the internet to colaborate that. Let me see if I can find that… I used to be a square-soft utlra mega FF fanboy…

14

I don’t mind using the American or Japanese names. Either way is fine by me.

Honestly I am very against calling them ridiculous generic names like Boxer, Claw, Dic/Dictator, etc. You will never hear me refer to those names. If we are currently playing the US version I’ll use US names. If we are currently playing the Japanese version I typically use Japanese names but sometimes depending on who I’m talking with then I use American names still. If I’m not currently playing the game with anything then I still default to the American names.

15

What does the name Balrog have to do with narcissism? :wonder:

16

Irony.

17

In the Vampire/Darkstalker series some characters have totally different names between version which I found odd. (I prefer the US names due to the fact that was how I was introduced to them.)

In VH, quite a few sound bytes (mostly Morrigan’s) are absent in the US version.

In VS, I’m quite sure there in some censorship between regional versions. IIRC on the Saturn version on Bishamon’s stage there is an old hag that later on in the stage has her teats flailing wild. I never seen this on the US arcade version.

18

Wow, thanks for the help. :rolleyes:

19

Balrog’s arent known to be very handsome creatures.

Know your place '08ty.

20

They’ve been raping ports for a long, long time. Anyone here old enough to remember that our Super Mario 2 isn’t the real SMB2? Or that Phantasy Star 3 had it’s parallax scrolling backgrounds removed? Etc. And I can’t even begin to count how many names have been changed needlessly over time. Like, they’ll take a perfectly decent name and change it to something odd over here…for no reason. English ports of Japanese games have been screwed up since the dawn of time.

Still, most of the time it’s just too much work to bother with deciding which names to use, or explaining what you mean. Other than with SF’s Claw, Boxer, Dictator, I generally use the english names for all games. After all, I’m rarely(aka. never) over in Japan, so it’s not much of an issue most of the time :wgrin: