Final Fantasy VI: Censorship

When Final Fantasy VI was originally released in the US it endured a fair amount of censorship. The translation was tamed down in terms of religious imagery, vulgarity, alcohol, and an attempted suicide was removed. Oddly enough they left in an imprisoned woman getting beaten for information, though that scene was eventually removed for the GBA port.

They also modified some images for overt sexuality but ended up restoring them in the PSX port. One of the minor reasons I wanted to play the PSX version on my PSP was to see if I'd notice any of these images. Well, the answer was yes, because one of the summons isn't wearing any pants at all. Siren is supposed to lure poor men in with her lovely voice, not by walking around naked. Though if the wikipedia article on sirens has anything to say about it, maybe they are known for being naked. *shrug*

Here are versions of the Siren summon from the different ports. The left is the original, the middle is the NA SNES version, and the right is from the GBA version. Apparently they were allowed to show some more skin on the GBA, but not the full monty like back on the Super Famicom.

Sometimes they just went to cover up some scantily clad goddess...

The censorship wasn't always for nudity though... Here's an anti-smoking change...

I never did understand what these fan enemies were doing with the weird stick. I thought it was a blow dart gun or something. Turns out it's a really long cigarette. I'm surprised this was edited out. I guess Nintendo didn't want to encourage young American kids to smoke but was just fine with young Japanese kids smoking? Though I'm not really sure that kids are going to do what some pixelated enemy in a video game is doing. Now in Metal Gear Solid when you have to smoke in order to be a better sniper? That I could see kids emulating...