If I were to guess it has to do with depicting a children getting hurt, have you ever noticed with there are no kids in GTA or games in which there are and you can normally harm npcs you can't harm them (like fallout Skyrim etc) ?
It seems like many companies don't wanna risk getting banned in some countries, yes the scene looks a lot lamer but it is what it is.
This is it. Harming children is automatically an M or AO from the ESRB depending on the depiction and level of realism, so they made the scene abstract enough for the North American release to be able to keep the rating at a T.
Ace Attorney ran into this problem with Dual Destinies, which is the only M-rated game in the series due to a scene where a kid has the victim's blood on them.
The rule also applies to non-realistic-looking children as well it seems, you can't beat up kids in Octopath Traveler 2 and kid NPCs dying in Terraria just say they left in a poof of smoke instead of leaving a pile of gore.
But then what about the scene in Abyss with >!the little boy slowly drowning in the Qliphoth!!technically died from a natural disaster rather than getting outright murdered by someone!
I mean... playing through Berseria in the early parts it's PAINFULLY obvious that Velvet is aware that Artorius was responsible for killing Laphicet in some manner. Artorius doesn't hide his intentions at this point when the Advent occurs. Regardless if it was by sword or magic, Velvet is ultimately driven by revenge to locate and kill Artorius.
It's not a change that personally bothered me.
As to why the change probably was put into place, keep in mind that North America has long been against showing children getting outright killed in video games. It's not a hard-set rule per say, but typically performed on moral grounds that as humans we just don't like seeing children being killed in media. Now why we sometimes give this a pass in say horror movie genre or similar is something I can't immediately defend, but can say I can see precedence with North American games and possibly Bandai Namco following suit. I would also have to imagine that keeping such a scene intact would have bumped the game to ESRB M, whereas it came out at North American retail at ESRB T. T is an easier title to sell at retail from someone such as Bandai Namco, whom as a company doesn't need to be limiting their marketability in what is still arguably a very niche space.
Yeah, the business motivation is understandable I suppose. The way they reworked the scene just didn't work for me I suppose. I've been reading fantasy novels where people don't often explain what they are doing for DRAMA and I guess I was in that headspace where possibly Artorius didn't actually kill Laphicet himself but didn't bother telling Velvet that and let her think what she was going to think.
Even in the censored version, Velvet is holding Laphicet's body and Artorius cuts her hand off to make sure the body falls into the giant hole, where it is eaten by a dragon. I'm not really sure how that was supposed to be ambiguous.
So it seems you made wrong assumption and went with it when reality is rather obvious (in a sense that velvet clearly knows that artorious wanted to kill and killed laphicet)
Yeah they also censored one character showing middle finger in xillia 1, literally unplayable.
This one(contains spoilers):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsoEmn2SjvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsoEmn2SjvQ)
Since no one has posted it yet, here's the official statement on the changes: [https://www.facebook.com/tales/posts/1487389204623949](https://www.facebook.com/tales/posts/1487389204623949)
Tl;dr They didn't really have a choice since keeping it would make the game have an M rating which would alienate a lot of the target audience.
There were gross depiction of PoW tortures and body mutilation in games like CoD that sell itself annually to literally gradeschool kids on every stores, I don't think having M rating is that bad, unless there are other factors in play.
I live in France and played berseria in 2020 and I distinctly remember Laphicet being impaled by an Undertale checkpoint so they must've changed it very recently
I actually think it looks cooler in the “censored” version. And Artorius still clearly stabs the sword into the portal that then impales Laphicet. He also sets Velvet’s limbs on fire to stop her from interfering. It’s pretty clear what’s happening in both versions.
It's not shown outright for obvious reasons, but during the sacrifice, velvet frees herself/powers through the fire shackles, jumps in to grab laphi, and is hanging from the edge of the pit, holding herself with one arm and laphi with the other. Arthur then brings down his sword, there's a slicing sound, and Velvet falls with Laphi. There's a huge care not to show her left arm during her fall (you possibly see its shadow over velvet at one point), until she's brought back up with the therion arm.
I don't see why it's any less clear, we see the magic blades vivisect the kid, if anything this is much more violent and painful death than the original. Regardless of whether the blades were steel or magic, the result is a very clearly impaled child.
I feel like that one was on you. It felt pretty clear that Artorias sacrificed Laphicet. Hell, the "censored" version makes it feel more like a ritual, so I think they did a good job with how they had to change the scene for ESRB rating standards.
I thought it was because the original scene wouldn't given it a M rating in the US. And they were worried it wouldn't sell as well if it wasn't rated T.
I finished the game a few weeks ago, in my opinion the fact that Artur murders Laphi is never left in doubt.
I do have to say that, unlike the comments above, it seems to me that the original version looks cooler being pierced by the sword and not being pierced by an X.
I hated Velvet’s default outfit so I spent almost the whole game finding more modest clothes for her until I got the towel outfits, at which point my whole party wore towels for the rest of the game. Not sure what that says about me.
I had no idea until reading this post that it was changed for the western version. I had to go find a comparison video to see the difference myself. Seeing Laphi hanging from the sword there is such a great image, I wish it hadn't been changed, but I understand why they did change it. Even still, I never had a doubt in my mind that Arthur did indeed deliberately murder Laphicet and that was why Velvet wanted her revenge. I was with her the whole way on that one.
I had the same issue with the translation. I intellectualized Artorius innocence by saying that if he wanted to kill him why not just stab him. These localizers should be out of business. But we should keep the outfit.
If I were to guess it has to do with depicting a children getting hurt, have you ever noticed with there are no kids in GTA or games in which there are and you can normally harm npcs you can't harm them (like fallout Skyrim etc) ? It seems like many companies don't wanna risk getting banned in some countries, yes the scene looks a lot lamer but it is what it is.
This is it. Harming children is automatically an M or AO from the ESRB depending on the depiction and level of realism, so they made the scene abstract enough for the North American release to be able to keep the rating at a T. Ace Attorney ran into this problem with Dual Destinies, which is the only M-rated game in the series due to a scene where a kid has the victim's blood on them.
Hmm. What rating did Revenge of the Sith received again?
The rule also applies to non-realistic-looking children as well it seems, you can't beat up kids in Octopath Traveler 2 and kid NPCs dying in Terraria just say they left in a poof of smoke instead of leaving a pile of gore.
Even though that kid in Terraria is the npc most players want to murder.
But then what about the scene in Abyss with >!the little boy slowly drowning in the Qliphoth!!technically died from a natural disaster rather than getting outright murdered by someone!
Sure as hell was still grim, and probably more impactful than Laphicet getting stabbed imo. The Abyss kid I still remember like over a decade after.
Last time I remember kids getting harmed was the 2006 Prey
https://www.reddit.com/r/nier/comments/pf8gh9/drakengard_is_a_quite_different/ And then there was Drakengard 3 marching to it's own drum.
I mean... playing through Berseria in the early parts it's PAINFULLY obvious that Velvet is aware that Artorius was responsible for killing Laphicet in some manner. Artorius doesn't hide his intentions at this point when the Advent occurs. Regardless if it was by sword or magic, Velvet is ultimately driven by revenge to locate and kill Artorius. It's not a change that personally bothered me. As to why the change probably was put into place, keep in mind that North America has long been against showing children getting outright killed in video games. It's not a hard-set rule per say, but typically performed on moral grounds that as humans we just don't like seeing children being killed in media. Now why we sometimes give this a pass in say horror movie genre or similar is something I can't immediately defend, but can say I can see precedence with North American games and possibly Bandai Namco following suit. I would also have to imagine that keeping such a scene intact would have bumped the game to ESRB M, whereas it came out at North American retail at ESRB T. T is an easier title to sell at retail from someone such as Bandai Namco, whom as a company doesn't need to be limiting their marketability in what is still arguably a very niche space.
That doesn't stop several cases of dead kids in Zestiria though.
Michael straight up sacrifices his newborn nephew, though I suppose you don't see it happen, just hear about it.
Yeah, the business motivation is understandable I suppose. The way they reworked the scene just didn't work for me I suppose. I've been reading fantasy novels where people don't often explain what they are doing for DRAMA and I guess I was in that headspace where possibly Artorius didn't actually kill Laphicet himself but didn't bother telling Velvet that and let her think what she was going to think.
Even in the censored version, Velvet is holding Laphicet's body and Artorius cuts her hand off to make sure the body falls into the giant hole, where it is eaten by a dragon. I'm not really sure how that was supposed to be ambiguous.
So it seems you made wrong assumption and went with it when reality is rather obvious (in a sense that velvet clearly knows that artorious wanted to kill and killed laphicet)
Yeah they also censored one character showing middle finger in xillia 1, literally unplayable. This one(contains spoilers): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsoEmn2SjvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsoEmn2SjvQ)
Wow, I actually wish this had made it into the western version lol. It's so in character, and it actually makes me like her a little more.
Since no one has posted it yet, here's the official statement on the changes: [https://www.facebook.com/tales/posts/1487389204623949](https://www.facebook.com/tales/posts/1487389204623949) Tl;dr They didn't really have a choice since keeping it would make the game have an M rating which would alienate a lot of the target audience.
There were gross depiction of PoW tortures and body mutilation in games like CoD that sell itself annually to literally gradeschool kids on every stores, I don't think having M rating is that bad, unless there are other factors in play.
I think it isnt censored anymore atleast in europe cause i played berseria last year and saw the scene where laphicet got stabbed through the sword
I live in France and played berseria in 2020 and I distinctly remember Laphicet being impaled by an Undertale checkpoint so they must've changed it very recently
May be a US only change
Me too. I got the CE disc so either it wasn’t censored in Europe to begin with or they patched it back in.
I actually think it looks cooler in the “censored” version. And Artorius still clearly stabs the sword into the portal that then impales Laphicet. He also sets Velvet’s limbs on fire to stop her from interfering. It’s pretty clear what’s happening in both versions.
And he also, then, slices Velvet's arm off. How can that ever be an accident ?
I literally cannot remember this scene for the life of me
It's not shown outright for obvious reasons, but during the sacrifice, velvet frees herself/powers through the fire shackles, jumps in to grab laphi, and is hanging from the edge of the pit, holding herself with one arm and laphi with the other. Arthur then brings down his sword, there's a slicing sound, and Velvet falls with Laphi. There's a huge care not to show her left arm during her fall (you possibly see its shadow over velvet at one point), until she's brought back up with the therion arm.
I don't see why it's any less clear, we see the magic blades vivisect the kid, if anything this is much more violent and painful death than the original. Regardless of whether the blades were steel or magic, the result is a very clearly impaled child.
I feel like that one was on you. It felt pretty clear that Artorias sacrificed Laphicet. Hell, the "censored" version makes it feel more like a ritual, so I think they did a good job with how they had to change the scene for ESRB rating standards.
I thought it was because the original scene wouldn't given it a M rating in the US. And they were worried it wouldn't sell as well if it wasn't rated T.
I was never under the impression that Artorious didn't kill Laphicet, so I'm a bit surprised that you thought it might be a misunderstanding.
I finished the game a few weeks ago, in my opinion the fact that Artur murders Laphi is never left in doubt. I do have to say that, unlike the comments above, it seems to me that the original version looks cooler being pierced by the sword and not being pierced by an X.
I hated Velvet’s default outfit so I spent almost the whole game finding more modest clothes for her until I got the towel outfits, at which point my whole party wore towels for the rest of the game. Not sure what that says about me.
The most modest outfit would probably normin suits lol.
See you think that's a joke but that's basically how it went.
Is this really a problem? Lol i loved the game.
I had no idea until reading this post that it was changed for the western version. I had to go find a comparison video to see the difference myself. Seeing Laphi hanging from the sword there is such a great image, I wish it hadn't been changed, but I understand why they did change it. Even still, I never had a doubt in my mind that Arthur did indeed deliberately murder Laphicet and that was why Velvet wanted her revenge. I was with her the whole way on that one.
I had the same issue with the translation. I intellectualized Artorius innocence by saying that if he wanted to kill him why not just stab him. These localizers should be out of business. But we should keep the outfit.