It's disrespectful to alter Toriyama's art after he's passed, and it sucks to know that even the most legendary creators like Horii are forced to comply with these absurd complaints. Toriyama's Dragon Ball Daima is releasing in just over a week, and now I'm worried they might have meddled with his final release after his death. I hope his son ensures the integrity of his father's work.A recent Tokyo Game Show 2024 Square Enix livestream revealed a creator’s disdain for recent changes to his game.
Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, in a show promoting Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake on an interview with Shonen Jump editor-in-chief Kazuhiko Torishima, said he and Torishima were unhappy with the costume censorship changes to the remake.
“There are so many restrictions for exposed skin.”
When mentioned that the game is a work is fiction, both Horii and Torishima asked why the original costumes were a concern. Horii also mentioned that if there was more exposure, the age rating would go up and thus the game cannot be sold for all-ages, implying that it is a business decision.
Torishima said that compliance is like an “all-powerful god” like in the Dragon Quest games, when the topic came up. “It’s something that is using the name of good but is actually bad. It’s impossible every single person doesn’t feel uncomfortable. It’s fine to feel uncomfortable. Beautiful and ugly, good and evil, it depends on the person”. He also added that the Western countries’ attitude to compliance is really “narrow-minded”, where there’s a root of thinking based on religion and its influences on its sex education.
“Doing business with such a ridiculous country is frustrating. Because of that, Japan gets negatively influenced.”
Horii addressed the recent change to the remake where it removes “male” and “female” pronouns and instead replace them with “Appearance A” and “Appearance B” (or Type 1/Type 2), perplexed as to who would complain about the former.
“In Dragon Quest, you used to be able to choose between a male and female protagonist. But now you can’t choose between a man and a woman anymore. We have to call them Type 1 and Type 2. I truly wonder who is even complaining about this?” (translation via Valute News)
Anyway, this was where I was considering getting into the original Dragon Quest trilogy, so this is unfortunate. The games look pretty decent otherwise, though I've never been a fan of this "HD-2D" style, and hope that Chrono Trigger doesn't get this treatment (neither the disrespectful, bad alterations nor mediocre HD-2D development). Square really is a shadow of their former selves.