Ah, the Xeno franchise. It cooked up a roar of censorship years ago when it was a Sqaure franchise due to its religious connotations. But now that the game is being made by some ex-Square employees (known as Monolith) and published by Namco censorship has come to the forefront once again.

In Xenogears there were many spiritual tones that would have sent shockwaves through the Christian contingency in this country if they were translated literally from the Japanese. So Square did their homework and interpreted the words in a fashion more digestible to the English-speaking world. This process is known as Transliteration. In the end not much was changed from the overall game experience. In fact many games are transliterated in favor of a verbatim translation. Transliteration is chiefly in games that contain a lot of Japanese cultural-jokes, Popular-culture references, and Asian religious dogma. Transliteration is also used to make conversations more colloquial. A perfect example is this is in Anime. If you watch a sub-titled scene of an Anime and then went back and watched it in English you would see that the English version has more of a conversational tone to it. So overall transliteration isn't a bad thing it just depends on the company and the translators they use. Look at Victor Ireland. He tries to translate entire games on his own because of his great grasp of transliteration and the Japanese culture.

Now here we are years later and the controversy of Xenosaga is at the forefront. This time the games censorship issue isn't about the language at all. In fact Namco took extra care with the translation at that has been part of the reason for its delay in the US market. The item in question this time around is part of the in-game cinematic sequence of which about 12 or so minutes are to be cut. The scenes are of a small female character and her encounter with a murderous villain. There are some very graphic depictions of violence including self-mutilation. The problem this presents Namco with is how to convey this "evil aggressors" intent and tell some of the story without the cut-scenes. I admit after watching them myself I felt they conveyed a very strong message about the villain and a certain characters emotional attachment to another star character. The scene is a pivotal one that will change the course of the game dramatically. So is it best that Namco remove the offensive material?

On one side of the coin we could say "no" to the censorship and ask Namco for a mature rated game. Mature rated games, as rated by the ESRB, require that there be proper Identification of the individual that is purchasing the game. If parents and store-clerks did their respective jobs then we wouldn't have much of a problem with this route. As it stands at the moment Xenosaga is rated "T" for Teen and contains Blood, Gore, and Violence. So if the "T" rating is strong enough for the other gore in the game why can't it cover the unedited version of Xenosaga?

Simple answer: The graphic violence is against a child-like figure. We Americans have a strange since of what is and what is not considered obscene. So the material is strong enough to warrant an "M" rating but maybe even that wouldn't be enough. There have been times in the past that many movies (such as the Exorcist, South Park, and A Clockwork Orange no name a few) were considered so foul that they were at first given an "X" rating. So the movies get cut-up to satisfy censors and are shown with an "R" rating. But, later on some of these movies are re-released with all the original material intact and the studios sometimes even add more to film. So would the material in Xenosaga be suitable for us to inhale five years from now in an "Unedited Directors Cut"? I believe that we should have the right to choose what we want to see and the parents should have the right to protect their minor from seeing such things. That is what the ESRB was established for. So an "M" rating may cover the scenes but since it is such a gray-area there is no firm ground for Namco to stand on. They wouldn't want to face legal charges over something so trivial but it just doesn't seem right to snatch something away from us because most of America isn't as Mature as Japan. That's the message that we are being sent. Americans can't handle it but the Japanese can. It's sad really that we as adults must face the oppression of censorship in a country founded on "freedom".

On the other side of the coin Namco could release two versions. The "T" rated version and an "M" rated one. But that might be a bit expensive for the company and might cause retailer confusion. But the fact remains that at least we would have a choice.

At this time Namco has decided to go the safest route and release only a "T" rated version. We haven't been told if the scenes may just be edited with the most extreme parts removed or if they have completely removed the videos themselves.

For those interested in emailing Namco and making their voices heard on the issue you can try support2@namco.com. For snail mail send any opinions to: