Should Persona 5 Royal remove the problematic stuff in this new version?

[Kewlmyc]

It exactly is the Song of the South argument lol





Im being sarcastic.

Its the same exact argument happening in Offtopic in regards to old racist cartoons however the majority of posters want to keep the bullshit for "educational reasons" and over here in gaming, people have common sense to delete it.

I cannot fathom how anyone cant see how both these issues are exactly the same or how someone could have an opposite view regarding the content.

Or what Dardan said:

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I don't see it as "exactly the same".

One is a video game made 3 years ago. It's relatively easy to cut out the two homophobic gay dudes as they aren't important to the story whatsoever. The Ann scenes can be rewritten since the original staff is still all there and they have access to the voice actors and all of the code. They could easily rewrite out any of Ann's issues.

In terms of original Dumbo, cutting out the crows breaks the movie. The ending of movie actively doesn't make sense anymore. The crows were always a problem, but just cutting their scenes isn't enough. The blatant racism is so deeply embedded into the material, that going in with a pair of scissors and glue doesn't really cut it. Hell, just cutting their dialogue would be better than just cutting out the entire characters. I would say either keep it as is and put a disclaimer on it, or don't even put it on the service at all (it's how I feel about Song of the South and Peter Pan as well). The original materials, voice actors, and staff aren't around anymore. If they were, if the original team decided to redraw those scenes with different characters, I'd be all for it.

The amount each of these problematic elements impact the actual story makes these two scenarios different, not "exactly the same".

 

[JB2448]

Eh. It's kinda like making an "are you a bigot?" thread.

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And bigots are seemingly responding. So yeah, still worth it.

 

[DigitalOp]

I don't see it as "exactly the same".

One is a video game made 3 years ago. It's relatively easy to cut out the two homophobic gay dudes as they aren't important to the story whatsoever. The Ann scenes can be rewritten since the original staff is still all there and they have access to the voice actors and all of the code. They could easily rewrite out any of Ann's issues.

In terms of original Dumbo, cutting out the crows breaks the movie. The ending of movie actively doesn't make sense anymore. The crows were always a problem, but just cutting their scenes isn't enough. The blatant racism is so deeply embedded into the material, that going in with a pair of scissors and glue doesn't really cut it. I would say either keep it as is and put a disclaimer on it, or don't even put it on the service at all (it's how I feel about Song of the South and Peter Pan as well). The original materials, voice actors, and staff aren't around anymore. If they were, if the original team decided to redraw those scenes with different characters, I'd be all for it.

The amount each of these problematic elements impact the actual story makes these two scenarios different, not "exactly the same".

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Story isnt more important than insulting the well being of the people being discriminated against. There is no media on planet earth that will ever be that important.

So we can agree that if cutting it "breaks" some precious classic movie, then don't even put it on the service to begin with. But funny enough, Disney is going to edit it and keep it, so no, nothing broken here apparently.

It just comes across as bullshit to me mainly. Everyone has all this empathy and understanding for discriminated groups but native/indigenous, muslim and black? Nah, gotta keep harmful shit around for some reason.

 

[Gradon]

It straight-up fucking saddens me. Hell, it could've perhaps even been used as a (probably rather shaky) way of demonstrating she's grown and is now confident in her sexuality later on in the game, but no

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It would've been acceptable if it wasn't something the protagonist and Ryuji forced upon her. Her telling the guys to fuck off, then she could say she absolutely won't do it but she has a secret plan and the decision to enact her plan would be hers and not the protags.

Don't change the layers and layers of jumpers / sweaters joke and Ann suggested and enacted the jumper joke infiltration herself with no sexual harassment.

Granted I can't remember what else happens with Yusuke but I don't remember him forcing her to strip for him? If he does then it would've needed more editing.

Ideally I would want them to remove or modify the gay couple to not be homophobic, with Ann the sexual harassment has got to go and I think the game would be a lot more palatable for me.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

It would've been acceptable if it wasn't something the protagonist and Ryuji forced upon her. Her telling the guys to fuck off, then she could say she absolutely won't do it but she has a secret plan and the decision to enact her plan would be hers and not the protags.

Don't change the layers and layers of jumpers / sweaters joke and Ann suggested and enacted the jumper joke infiltration herself with no sexual harassment.

Granted I can't remember what else happens with Yusuke but I don't remember him forcing her to strip for him? If he does then it would've needed more editing.

Ideally I would want them to remove or modify the gay couple to not be homophobic, with Ann the sexual harassment has got to go and I think the game would be a lot more palatable for me.

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Agreed, that'd be a much better scene.

 

[ASaiyan]

What kind of question is this.

Should they? 1000% Yes.

Will they? Eh. Even with Hashino off the project, I'm afraid I'm not too hopeful...

 

[AlexinChains87]

I think everything they have in the game so far from what I have played is to add depth to the character, so keep?

 

[Novel]

Atlus has had a proud history of anti-lgbt content (especially anti the G and T) and shitty treatment of women since Persona 3.

I doubt this game will change it that much. Femc's Persona 3 route is the closet thing to not getting into that trash.

 

[Deleted member 49438]

Yes they should. If anything this is an excuse to change up some of the confidant scenes so there's some new fresh stuff that is hopefully not homophobic. You'd like to think this is an obvious one, but you never know with Atlus...

 

[Canucked]

I think everything they have in the game so far from what I have played is to add depth to the character, so keep?

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The gays stereotypes have no depth, that's the point of all this.

 

[ChristianH94]

So confession: I never actually finished 5 (I'll totally play though R all the way when it comes out in a few months) but it really confused the hell out of me that the first dungeon with Kamoshida was a really well done example of how shitty sexual harassment and objectification is and then the second dungeon is like "LMaO ANN gONNa Be DRAWN NAKED BECAUSE HE THiNKS SHE'S BEAUTIFUL" almost as if that first dungeon didn't even exist. It just felt like such a bland anime trope and on top of that one that felt out of place considering what just happened not even fifteen minutes of gameplay earlier.

Guessing it gets worse as the game goes on.

 

[deepFlaw]

Nah, we have to learn from our history. If we take stuff out, its almost like we're giving these companies a free pass. We have to learn from our mistakes

Leave it it and add a disclaimer

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This isn't Song of the South or something historic, lmao. It came out in the past couple years.

Learning from their mistakes is not doing it again this time.

 

[Locust Star]

Yes please - but I don't expect them to after what they did with that new Catherine game.

 

[Mesoian]

Real talk: Because the new character is the second youngest and will no doubt have a romance based storyline and her design is generic AF (Let's go with a bunny suit...and a half jacket...and a winchester...and a regular sword...it's good enough, fuck it), I'm expecting there to be MORE gross shit in Royal.

This isn't Song of the South or something historic, lmao. It came out in the past couple years.

Learning from their mistakes is not doing it again this time.

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That's a joke from another thread.

Yes please - but I don't expect them to after what they did with that new Catherine game.

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You ain't fuckin' lying.

I think everything they have in the game so far from what I have played is to add depth to the character, so keep?

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DEPTH.

 

[Eros]

This shouldn't even be a question. Absolutely they should.

But will they? I doubt it.

 

[Meia]

Story isnt more important than insulting the well being of the people being discriminated against. There is no media on planet earth that will ever be that important.

So we can agree that if cutting it "breaks" some precious classic movie, then don't even put it on the service to begin with. But funny enough, Disney is going to edit it and keep it, so no, nothing broken here apparently.

It just comes across as bullshit to me mainly. Everyone has all this empathy and understanding for discriminated groups but native/indigenous, muslim and black? Nah, gotta keep harmful shit around for some reason.

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Ok, so if we're going to go this far, should things like Huckleberry Finn be read in schools, or burned out of existence?

 

[Sign My Guestbook!]

Shit, they might double down.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

Ok, so if we're going to go this far, should things like Huckleberry Finn be read in schools, or burned out of existence?

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Considering what that book was actually about, that's like an even more dated version of the "a movie like blazing saddles couldn't be made today" argument

 

[Canucked]

DEPTH.

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A trendsetter wouldn't be caught dead in those tacky board shorts.

 

[LavaBadger]

I would love them too, but they would have to replace so much of Ann's content throughout the game. I don't even know where they would begin. The cruel references to gay characters would be much easier to remove.

I have zero faith any of this will happen.

Ok, so if we're going to go this far, should things like Huckleberry Finn be read in schools, or burned out of existence?

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This is the example you went with? Do you know what this book is about? Why would you destroy a book that specifically attacks racism? Do you think that Persona 5 is tackling topics like sexual violence and homosexuality in a mature, progressive way?

 

[Chuck]

How about we not refer to homophobia as "problematic stuff"

 

[edryr]

Should they ? ethicaly speaking yes, but i'm against all kind of censorship, as long as it stays in the boundaries of laws. So i feel mixed. People should censor this with their wallet.
Will they ? absolutely not ( i suspect they will even add more ).

Will many people complaining about this still buy the game ? of course they will. Speak about hypochrisy...

 

[Khanimus]

It would've been acceptable if it wasn't something the protagonist and Ryuji forced upon her. Her telling the guys to fuck off, then she could say she absolutely won't do it but she has a secret plan and the decision to enact her plan would be hers and not the protags.

Don't change the layers and layers of jumpers / sweaters joke and Ann suggested and enacted the jumper joke infiltration herself with no sexual harassment.

Granted I can't remember what else happens with Yusuke but I don't remember him forcing her to strip for him? If he does then it would've needed more editing.

Ideally I would want them to remove or modify the gay couple to not be homophobic, with Ann the sexual harassment has got to go and I think the game would be a lot more palatable for me.

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The entire scenario with her stripping down isn't at literal gunpoint, but it is done under threat that if she doesn't, her and the whole crew risk having the cops called on them or something. Either way, she is absolutely being forced.

 

[LavaBadger]

I think everything they have in the game so far from what I have played is to add depth to the character, so keep?

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Not sure how far you are, but girl survives sexual abuse in one scene, is later leered at by the player characters because she's sweating through her shirt for laughs.

The disonance of these moments is unbelievable.

 

[Hikari]

Yeah, they should. If you say no to this then yikes. However, it will not happen.

 

[BillFromAccounting]

I feel bad for the people who never played P5 yet visit ResetEra, this place would make someone think that the game is just completely saturated with "problematic" stuff when it's in fact what, 10 scenes out of a thousand?

Anyways, of course they should change it but they won't.

 

[AlexinChains87]

The gays stereotypes have no depth, that's the point of all this.

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well the don't have enough time to add a whole side character to the game, I think it was supposed to be a funny scene

Not sure how far you are, but girl survives sexual abuse in one scene, is later leered at by the player characters because she's sweating through her shirt for laughs.

The disonance of these moments is unbelievable.

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Spoiler I just beat the bank palace, I remember the scene,

A trendsetter wouldn't be caught dead in those tacky board shorts.

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The story isn't about those guys, its about the main characters.

 

[Meia]

I would love them too, but they would have to replace so much of Ann's content throughout the game. I don't even know where they would begin. The cruel references to gay characters would be much easier to remove.

I have zero faith any of this will happen.



This is the example you went with? Do you know what this book is about? Why would you destroy a book that specifically attacks racism? Do you think that Persona 5 is tackling topics like sexual violence and homosexuality in a mature, progressive way?

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No, the parts in it are garbage and can be freely thrown out since they serve no purpose but "humor". Just always leery about absolutes.

More on topic, it would be flat out embarassing if they're going to be re-doing parts of the story(which is what parts of the trailer look like) and then leave that in.

 

[LavaBadger]

I feel bad for the people who never played P5 yet visit ResetEra, this place would make someone think that the game is just completely saturated with "problematic" stuff when it's in fact what, 10 scenes out of a thousand?

Anyways, of course they should change it but they won't.

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Saying something is 99% not bigoted or sexist doesn't exactly make me feel better about the 1% that still is.

 

[DigitalOp]

Ok, so if we're going to go this far, should things like Huckleberry Finn be read in schools, or burned out of existence?

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To be straight up, Ive never read Huck Finn so I cant speak on it.

But I damn sure know we shouldn't be reading Mein Kampf in school. Thats fucking antisemitic propaganda. And a simple teacher saying "this is bad" clearly isn't enough context to stop younger ones from being radicalized. So put it in a museum ,sure. College course thats relevant? fine. but it has no place in younger grades

 

[Karlinel]

Those problematic aspects seem to (I haven't played P5) add nothing to the story or gameplay, so it'd be pure common sense, let alone decency, to get rid of useless shit.

Of course, if the director insists in fucking over lgbt communities...

 

[electroaffe]

A first-year would be around 15 (same as Futaba in the original cast, or Rise in P4).

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Even worse. I think Futaba and Rise are handled okay-ish despite some alternative costumes. But Kasumi's design is quite inappropriate. She should be at least as old as the majority of the party and not a 15yr old sex object.

 

[Deleted member 5535]

Should. But it won't and I can bet my avatar on it. :/

 

[andymcc]

You:

No

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Also you:

Keep your morals away from my games.

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your post history is very telling.

Ok, so if we're going to go this far, should things like Huckleberry Finn be read in schools, or burned out of existence?

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you're trying to draw a comparison between a Japanese RPG released in the last three years that was problematic out of the gate to one of the touchstone literary works of history that was an indictment on racist behavior??

 

[Castlemadeofsand]

Is anyone here going to say no?

The answer is that they should but they won't.

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Guess there's no point in the thread then. The answer has been decided

 

[Don Fluffles]

This stuff is not "problematic." It's outdated, it's childish and counterintuitive to the series' messages. Finally, it's just plain nasty. Sega needs to assert their authority over this.

 

[André]

This stuff is not "problematic." It's outdated, it's childish and counterintuitive to the series' messages. Finally, it's just plain nasty. Sega needs to assert their authority over this.

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Yeah. I mean, in my POV someone being offended by content is never a good reason to remove it. Humor can be offensive. Culture can be offensive.

The problem is that in this specific case, the content is just stupid and serves absolutely no purpose. It's not funny, it's not clever. It's just disgusting and feels out of place with the rest of the game. Like, I understand different strokes for different folks, but I'm struggling to imagine anyone actually enjoying this. It's stupid and it hurts the game.

So if the game would be improved by removing that stuff, then in my view it's not even censorship but an actual improvement.

 

[Weltall Zero]

DEPTH.

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Such depth. So deep. Every time I see this, I'm still shocked; my mind still rejects that this could be a thing in a mainstream media product in 2017. There are not enough fuck yous for this.

I'm afraid that anyone expecting this to be changed is in for a disappointment. If Atlus gave any shits they would have removed it from the original via a patch. As long as it's a minority of us who calls out this shit, they will keep doing it.

 

[Busaiku]

Did you see how the new 14/15 year old girl is dressed.

 

[Deleted member 5491]

It should go out but it won't happen.
That people here are defending it... what is wrong with you?

 

[RigVertigo]

They should because for one, it's the right thing to do, and two, it's so small hardly anyone would notice it's gone. The folks who got a hard-on for "muh censorship" can go play P5 vanilla, hard save at that scene, and watch it over and over until the end of time.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

How about we not refer to homophobia as "problematic stuff"

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I can't speak to the thread titler but I saw it as a decent way of forming a blanket statement to include both the homophobic incidents and, say, the kinda misogynistic stuff that happens to Anne. Or, for that matter, the teacher romance stuff

 

[Mesoian]

well the don't have enough time to add a whole side character to the game, I think it was supposed to be a funny scene


Spoiler I just beat the bank palace, I remember the scene,


The story isn't about those guys, its about the main characters.

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Yes, it's supposed to be funny. The director thinks the concept of gay people being sexual predators is extremely funny, which is why it's been in every single one of his games. I hope you're not staning for that.

The stuff revolving around the main characters such as the cast weaponizing Anne's sexuality multiple times despite the fact that she actually hates it, often times because they to would rather see her naked than uphold her trust (Yosuke is a scumbag) or the fact that Ryoji has major problem with women having problems that socially and biologically aren't shared by men are never handled well and often do a lot to completely subvert the character development that they go through during their dungeons, all for a spot of tired comedy circa 1970.

 

[JB2448]

Such depth. So deep. Every time I see this, I'm still shocked; my mind still rejects that this could be a thing in a mainstream media product in 2017. There are not enough fuck yous for this.

I'm afraid that anyone expecting this to be changed is in for a disappointment. If Atlus gave any shits they would have removed it from the original via a patch. As long as it's a minority of us who calls out this shit, they will keep doing it.

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Especially with 2.7 million+ copies sold. Atlus gives zero fucks, and Sega won't put its foot down. It's frustrating as fuck.

Yes, it's supposed to be funny. The director thinks the concept of gay people being sexual predators is extremely funny, which is why it's been in every single one of his games. I hope you're not staning for that.

The stuff revolving around the main characters such as the cast weaponizing Anne's sexuality multiple times despite the fact that she actually hates it, often times because they to would rather see her naked than uphold her trust (Yosuke is a scumbag) or the fact that Ryoji has major problem with women having problems that socially and biologically aren't shared by men are never handled well and often do a lot to completely subvert the character development that they go through during their dungeons, all for a spot of tired comedy circa 1970.

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Katsura Hashino is a shitheel. Anyone who's saying otherwise at this point is arguing in bad faith.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...tsura-hashino-director-producer-atlus.100145/

 

[SirNinja]

They should remove them, obviously.

But they probably won't. Because Atlus/Hashino.

Actually, since they're putting a third semester [!!] into the game, I fully expect that they'll add some LGBT-phobic scenes in addition to keeping the existing ones.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

Of course but it wont be.
Its ATLUS

 

[deepFlaw]

Story isnt more important than insulting the well being of the people being discriminated against. There is no media on planet earth that will ever be that important.

So we can agree that if cutting it "breaks" some precious classic movie, then don't even put it on the service to begin with. But funny enough, Disney is going to edit it and keep it, so no, nothing broken here apparently.

It just comes across as bullshit to me mainly. Everyone has all this empathy and understanding for discriminated groups but native/indigenous, muslim and black? Nah, gotta keep harmful shit around for some reason.

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Ah, I see your point now. I can agree with this, then; when quoting I did not mean to say Song of the South was exempt from this logic, just that I can at least kiiiinda get "product of its time" labels for legitimately very old things. But if it's still meant for entertainment, it is just preserving something harmful for the sake of doing so.

I'd just say maybe being sarcastic in the exact way that people legitimately (frustratingly) talk about this stuff isn't always the best approach, but I guess other people got what you meant thanks to some other thread? Not everyone has that context, though...

 

[Mesoian]

So confession: I never actually finished 5 (I'll totally play though R all the way when it comes out in a few months) but it really confused the hell out of me that the first dungeon with Kamoshida was a really well done example of how shitty sexual harassment and objectification is and then the second dungeon is like "LMaO ANN gONNa Be DRAWN NAKED BECAUSE HE THiNKS SHE'S BEAUTIFUL" almost as if that first dungeon didn't even exist. It just felt like such a bland anime trope and on top of that one that felt out of place considering what just happened not even fifteen minutes of gameplay earlier.

Guessing it gets worse as the game goes on.

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It's amazing how the game really goes from "Boys will be boys is a bad justification for abuse" and then in the very next story plot, have the cast do some "boys will be boys" shit.

It's baffling.

 

[Stryder]

Should they? yes.
Do I expect them to? No
Will they? Probably not

Will i be surprised if they don't? No
will era be surprised? Yes, apparently.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yes, it's supposed to be funny. The director thinks the concept of gay people being sexual predators is extremely funny, which is why it's been in every single one of his games. I hope you're not staning for that.

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"It's supposed to be funny, guys! Why aren't you laughing at these guys with shoe polish on their faces making plantation jokes?".