Fallout 3

In the last few weeks what little free time I have had has been completely consumed by Bethesda’s Fallout 3. While I have the PC version bought over Steam and in English, hearing of the upcoming release of a localized version for the Japanese market had me rather interested in how the game would turn out given the nature of its content. I admit, I’m rather surprised at how some things have been handled.

In the Japanese language press release, there is mention of four main changes to the Japanese version of Fallout 3 due to be released on the 5th of December. The first listed change has to do with the dismemberment of the player’s character and certain enemies that appear in the game. Specifically, any human character or ghoul that has a human name, can no longer be dismembered as a result of combat. The other enemies, including the giant insects, super mutants and, surprisingly, the feral ghouls (which are still technically humans), can still be dismembered. You may be wondering why this is. The basics are that dismemberment of human characters is not allowed, according CERO, to be depicted in game releases for the Japanese market. It’s possible that this regulation is the result of one or more incidents that occurred within Japan in the past with the most probably incident being that of a 11 year old boy who was beheaded by a 14 year old in May 1997 with the head subsequently being left at the gates of a school. Although such crimes have not directly been tied to video games, such resulting regulations are typical of Japanese knee-jerk responses to such crimes. Take for instance the suspending of the 35 year old practice of closing Chuo-dori on Sundays and holidays following the Akihabara massacre on June 8th of this year – a reaction which was proven pointless through the subsequent occurrences of similar knife attacks in other parts of Tokyo and the country as a whole.

Although no specific mention was made of it in the press release, I wonder if the named super mutants are fair game for dismemberment or not. If you’ve played Fallout 3 and been lucky enough to meet Uncle Leo out in the wastelands, you’ll probably understand my curiosity here. It’s also worth noting that the amount of blood and the Gore Packs scattered throughout the game have not been changed.

The second change isn’t all that surprising to me, although it does feel like it may have been handled poorly. During your initial travels outside the vault you will come across a town named Megaton. Here, you are supposed to receive a quest titled “Power of the Atom” in the original version of this quest, it is possible to arrive at two distinct outcomes, one considered good, the other evil. For the Japanese version, only the good outcome is now possible. The NPC required for obtaining the bad outcome, Mr. Burke, has been removed from the game. Basically this means that it is no longer possible to set of the nuclear bomb found at the center of the town. The reason behind this change does make sense, Japan, after all is the only country to have been subjected to two such detonations. A subject which is still hard for many older Japanese to talk about. And being that it is the older Japanese that make the regulations, this aspect of the game being changed is of little surprise although it could be a little disappointing to some.

While I can accept the removal of the ability to detonate the bomb, I do find it rather poor that Bethesda simply removed the NPC instead of changing the quest so that an alternative evil option was available to Japanese players. As it stands, it seems likely that Japanese gamers will now miss out on the ability to obtain a home in Tenpenny towers and will be forced to be content with the home in Megaton instead. If you have seen the home available to you in Tenpenny tower, you’ll understand why this is a little unfair to players of the Japanese version.

The third change was simply the renaming of an unspecified weapon. Unlike the previous two changes, this was not a change requested by CERO but was done voluntarily by Bethesda with the reason that it was a cultural decision. Given this, the only possible item that could have had a name change was the “Fat Man” mini-nuke launcher. And again, this choice is understandable given that the bomb dropped on Nagasaki went by the same name.

The final change, I expect, will also have annoyed a large number of players. Bethesda, citing media limitations, are not going to be including any English language content for the Japanese release. The Japanese Xbox360 version of Fallout 3 will be in Japanese only, including the radio stations. Does this mean the loss of current English-language songs played on the radio stations too? Interestingly, there was no mention of a PS3 version of Fallout 3 for Japan, which is a shame considering that media used for the PS3 can hold far more data than the Xbox360’s media, and subsequently could have offered players in Japan the option of an English vocal track and subtitles.

The only other pressing question as far as I am concerned, is why do a large number of gamers not even affected by these changes, care so much as to be rather vocal on the subject, as seen by the comments on sites such as Kotaku? Finally, for any gamers based in Japan, who wish to play the game uncut and in English, if you have a PC, you can always get the game on Steam. It’ll be cheaper too! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a wasteland to get back to.

Thanks for reading!

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