GTA SA - Strange Japanese Censorship - Feat. BadgerGoodger

Hey everyone, Badger here of Badger Goodger on YouTube, And in this video we are going to look at the strange Japanese censorship in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. But first let’s dive into the history of why censorship was implemented in the first place. The Japanese version of the game was announced in June 2005 and people went crazy, because the game was meant to be out already in fall. Despite being released so soon, the platform for this game was listed as “undecided”. To release this game i

n Japan, Rockstar Games continued to work with the well known company Capcom. This Japanese company had previously helped them publish and distribute GTA 3 and GTA Vice City in Japan, but when it came time for San Andreas to be released there, everything went horribly wrong. Back in those early years, despite the fact that all video games in Japan were divided by age ratings, these ratings were just recommendations and for the most part they were ignored. As a result, minors in Japan could easil

y get and play adult games and it became a huge problem for Rockstar. Why? Because, as some sources stated, gamers of all ages had no problems getting their hands on Grand Theft Auto 3, where the youngsters could create mayhem doing whatever they want, even if it was just virtual. In other words, the society didn’t like that there was no control over that. To solve this problem, officials in the Kanagawa prefecture, and later the Saitama prefecture decided to list GTA 3 under “harmful publicatio

n,” prohibiting by law the selling of this game in these regions to anyone under the age of 18. Back then no one had a clue what was going to be next with the GTA series in Japan, but this wasn’t the only problem for Rockstar. Around that time, this company was dealing with the Hot Coffee scandal and its tremendous consequences. To remind you, this scandal began to heat up when people found a way to activate hidden adult content in San Andreas, which caused them a lot of legal problems, and it c

aused the game to be pulled from stores. Eventually Rockstar stated that they were going to release a new fixed version of the game, and revealed that Japanese release was delayed until January 2006. Thanks to the Hot Coffee scandal and the domestic GTA 3 measures, people in Japan started having discussions about how they could regulate such cruel video games and prevent minors from buying them in the future. And in the end, two countermeasures were introduced. First of all, Sony Computer Entert

ainment, stated that they had tightened up their own internal regulations towards Playstation 2 games. Secondly, Japan’s Computer Entertainment Rating Organization, otherwise simply known as “CERO”, decided to overhaul their evaluation system and introduced a completely new rating, “CERO Z”. This new rating showed that the title contains explicit content and is banned for sale to any person under the age of 18. What’s more important is the fact that this rating is regulated by law while the rest

of the ratings were still used as recommendations. Thanks to these ongoing tensions, the release of San Andreas was put on hold in Japan. But back then, nobody knew that this had happened. No one even had a clue what was going on around the game, as no one wrote about it in the press, and people kept waiting for the official statement. In May 2006, after half a year of silence, Capcom suddenly released a statement saying that the game was going to be launched at the end of the year, adding that

the domestic release has been postponed, as they say, due to “cruel video game regulations”. The president of Capcom, Kenzo Tsujimoto, personally stated that they were still investigating this problem and would release the game on PlayStation 2 after removing the sexual content, which caused problems in the US, and that after that the game will be inspected, as they say, by the “game industry association”. Later in November 2006, people found out that the domestic release in Japan was postponed

again, but this time until January 2007. The reason for that was because of Sony Computer Entertainment. They reviewed the game and demanded Rockstar to make more than 60 changes to their game, to which the developers angrily said: “What was the point of making the CERO Z rating, if we're going to censor these things anyways?” And they had to obey Sony, because this was the only way to get their game released in Japan, at least on the Playstation 2. So, let’s finally see what they had to change

in their game. The first thing that the censors didn’t like at all was unjustified violence towards innocent pedestrians in this game. In response to that, the developers had to change two rules in getting a one star wanted level. First of all, as soon as you shoot someone with a gun in this version, you will immediately get a one star wanted level as punishment. This rule involves explosions too, because technically the game recognises them as bullets. The second rule involves torching someone

on the streets. You will immediately get one star for that, too. In the original version, the game gives you 1 star for these crimes by taking in mind various real-time factors. One of them, for instance, is a flag if a cop saw this crime or not. Or, in other words, it mostly depends on your luck. Thanks to censorship, this complex system for these crimes was ruined. No matter what, Japanese players will always get a wanted level for committing them. Let’s talk about the consequences of this ch

ange. First of all, Japanese players won’t hear a police radio after committing these crimes anymore. Who knows, maybe the developers broke something in the code, or maybe they disabled the police radio intentionally. In any event, you won’t hear it any more like you would in the original game…. Also, you’ll get a wanted level even if you shoot a dead body in this version…. Once again, it’s hard to tell if they did this intentionally, or if they introduced yet another bug. Sometimes, the game go

es nuts thanks to these measures. Just take a look at the HUD. This now happens during some missions which have a script to reset police attention. On the other hand, the censors didn’t ask the developers to implement the same measures to melee weapons. This means that the game won’t punish you in the same way for using something like a fire extinguisher on people…. even if it looks totally wrong. Heck, the developers didn’t even change the rules for other crimes in this version, either. The Jap

anese version is totally fine with the rest of them unless you did them too much, like in the original game. Does this mean that Sony cared only about using guns in the Japanese version? Don’t you find this kinda strange? You might agree that this measure is kinda stupid, because shooting plays a big part in this game. The game becomes more challenging to play because of this. While we would have no problems with progressing further, Japanese players would constantly have to deal with the law, a

nd I bet it was just too annoying for them. Sometimes you just have to do some strange stuff to avoid more problems in this version. But this wasn’t the only measure to prevent players from causing unnecessary violence. If you take down peds in this version, they don’t drop any money in this version. So if you’re running low on cash, it’s now pointless to whack poor civilians to get a reward. And I guess this is what the censors wanted to prevent. Can anyone explain to us how prohibiting us from

using our legs during any fights can reduce unnecessary violence in this game? The sad thing is, as soon as your opponent hits the ground, Carl will continue to use his arms instead of his legs like he would normally do in the original game. Thanks to this strange measure, the developers had to disable special ground attacks in this version, too. You could learn these ground attacks by beating 3 different coaches in 3 different gyms around the state. Interesting thing is, after the coach is def

eated, the game won’t even show you how to perform the special ground attack any more. The coach just skips this part and, I bet Japanese players would have never known that Carl can actually use his legs in a fight. Well, you know what? You can’t even beat fallen peds with your melee weapons, either. As always, CJ will now kindly wait for them to get up. As you can see, the fight in this version takes much longer, and it looks more like a mess. For some reason, someone didn’t like the idea that

the player can interact with fallen people, so they tried their best to disable all possibilities of being able to do that. They even predicted that the players could use their guns and disabled the goofy animations when you shot at them. Less fun by doing so, I guess. Interestingly, as soon as you eliminate your enemy in this version, the crosshair won’t lock onto their body anymore. Instead, the game disables the auto aim for you. Maybe someone didn’t want the player to see a black health ind

ication? Or maybe they didn’t want them to shoot a few extra bullets into bodies, which was always an unnecessary thing to do? Who knows. Furthermore, the Japanese version has no special animations for making headshots. In other words, if in the original game the head kinda explodes, then in the Japanese release it stays on their shoulders, making less blood here and there. We all know that when CJ is burning, he is yelling and screaming in the original version... But I guess someone thought tha

t even that was too much and decided to make Carl silent while he was burning... Heck, if you noticed, CJ doesn’t even move his mouth anymore! What a brave man! Interestingly enough, we can say the same thing about peds too. If in the original version they run away and scream…. ...then in Japanese version they still run away, but silently. But you know what’s funnier? Someone didn’t like the bone cracking sound when you drive over peds. In Japanese version, this sound is disabled and it sounds l

ike this... And finally, the Japanese version doesn’t count how many pedestrians you wasted during your game progression, meaning that players there won’t see the “Total legitimate kills” count in their stats menu. Now let’s talk about the missions in this game. Trust me, there is a lot to talk about, because apparently Sony wasn’t keen to see some missions where your main goal to progress further is by harming innocent peds. To avoid having to remove these missions, Rockstar had to change their

plot, which they did in a very strange way. One of these missions is “555 We Tip”, where we have to get the District Attorney’s car and put some illegal stuff inside of it in our garage. But before doing so we have to get a valet uniform by wasting one of the ordinary workers in the underground parking lot. This didn’t suit Sony at all. Can you guess how the developers managed to solve this issue? Well, the Japanese subtitles state that the valet we are going to waste belongs to the Ballas, and

instead of killing him, the game tells you to steal his uniform. Yes, it sounds stupid, but at least Japanese folks won’t feel strange for whacking a rival gang member in order to get his uniform. This is how Rockstar Games was allowed to keep this mission. The next mission which was denied by the censors was the “Deconstruction” mission, which was always weird in the first place. Just think about it, someone at the construction site nearby insults Carl’s sister Kendl. Carl goes nuts because of

this and decides to take revenge on them by entirely ruining the construction site and wasting those pesky workers, who insulted Kendl. Sounds quite extreme, don’t you think? But it’s not as extreme in the Japanese version, because the game now states that this construction site belongs to the “Ballas.” So instead of unjustified violence towards ordinary workers, now you’re basically fighting against your rival enemies in a gang war or something. As funny as it sounds, the censors were okay wit

h that and allowed Rockstar to keep this mission. And let’s not forget about the “Architectural Espionage” mission from the Caligula’s Casino heist mission strand. During this mission, you have to photograph Caligula’s blueprints in the “Planning department”, but if you don’t have the camera, then the game will kindly ask you to take one from nearby tourists. What a mess. And yes, you are totally right. Once again Japanese subtitles claim that these tourists are members of the Ballas, and it sou

nds crazy too. As you can see, the Japanese version of the game tells players that the Ballas are much more powerful than in the original plot of the game. Not only do they control some hoods in Los Santos, but they’re also rooted in various legitimate businesses around the entire state of San Andreas. Heck, the Japanese version tells us that this is a multicultural gang now, I guess. Don’t you think that it kinda ruins the original story of the game? But sometimes the developers did their job a

little bit better. I’m talking about the seventh Quarry mission, where we have to get rid of a cop and his police bike before the police come. I guess you remember how exactly we had to deal with this problem, and it’s no surprise that Sony didn’t like it much. Thankfully, this time the developers managed to solve this issue quite well. The game tells Japanese players to dispose of the mannequin and fake(!)cop bike you used to deceive the enemy before the real cops show up! Honestly, I like thi

s approach of censoring the game much better, because at least it doesn’t break the main plot of the game, but what do you think about it? However, the censorship didn’t always mean that the mission would stay in the game. I’m talking about the fourth quarry mission, which was cut from the Japanese version. During this mission, we have to get rid of three bombers for ruining the quarry business, and I’m pretty sure you know exactly how we dealt with this problem, too. You know what? By manually

loading this mission, we can see that the developers actually tried to censor this mission by telling players that they have to burn the bombers' goods, and by goods, they meant belongings or evidence left by bombers. Of course, the player would hardly believe that, as this isn’t what they’d see in the Dumper’s bed, and Sony gave a big “NO” to it. So instead of trying to come up with something else, the developers decided to completely get rid of this mission. You probably wouldn’t be surprised

if I told you that the censors weren’t really satisfied with the famous two player rampages. In the end, something was cut and something was changed. Let’s talk about it. As you might have guessed, the developers had to remove two rampages where the player's mission is to eliminate ordinary peds on streets. As a result, you won't find their pickups on the streets anymore. This includes the rampage near the Los Santos Police Headquarters and this one in Las Venturas near The Camel's Toe Casino. T

hankfully, Japanese players can still enjoy the rest of the rampages in their game, but in order to achieve that, Rockstar Games had to change these missions’ plots, and as usual, they had to do it in a strange way. When the game asks us to destroy some vehicles, the Japanese version specifies that the city is full of enemy gangster cars, and only then does it ask us to destroy them. You might ask, did they really become “Gangster cars”? Because I only see ordinary pedestrians behind the wheel,

nothing was changed in this mission apart from the text. During another rampage, the game asks us to destroy some bikes. Yet again, the Japanese version specifies that the city is full of enemy gang bikes before it asks us to destroy them. Yes, I agree that it sounds quite stupid, but these changes were approved, and no one cared that the player still sees ordinary people riding them. Fun fact, they actually tried to censor those cut rampages too. In the first cut rampage the word “pedestrian” w

as changed to “enemies”, but the second rampage, for some reason, still mentions “pedestrians.” I wonder why. Anyway, despite the fact that they can still play some of these rampages, the game doesn’t track their stats during these missions anymore. As a result, their version is missing these 7 stats, and according to the leftover text, they didn’t even try to censor them. As you can see, the developers had to change a lot in their game to please Sony, and by the way, Sony didn’t like even a lot

of the small details in several missions.. One of these small details was left in the famous “Reuniting the Families” mission, where near the end of the mission we have this glorious scene with a helicopter and a cop. Despite the fact that these animations look goofy and awkward, Sony demanded that Rockstar get rid of this inexcusable scene, which they did, but once again very poorly. Just look at this mess; here you see that the helicopter is going to hit the poor cop and bam, the game suddenl

y skips that scene while playing slaughtering sound effects in the background. Let’s take a look at this scene one more time. I’m almost certain that they censored this part in a rush, because they didn’t even bother to fix this following quote, which now cuts near the end. The next small detail that the censors didn’t like was in the iconic mission by the name of “Body Harvest,” where we have to steal a combine for Truth. I bet you remember that during this mission we have a chance to drive ove

r peds with this beast and transform poor rednecks into minced meat. I want to remind you that this mission has a special script, which allows you to see their parts flying from a spreader. I guess Sony was furious to see such content in their domestic release and demanded Rockstar to remove this feature once and for all. As you can see, you can still drive over peds in this version, but no parts will ever fly from the spreader. And, I guess they were okay with the bloody smoke and allowed Rocks

tar to keep it. Because why not? The next change is rather strange and you can find it during the “Madd Dogg” mission. To remind you, the goal of this mission was to save this drunk rapper from falling on the solid ground by stealing Walton with a bed full of boxes. As funny as it sounds, the censors weren’t happy how close the camera shows Madd Dogg landing on these boxes, and that is why in the Japanese version it stays far behind. I’m wondering what was the real reason to ask for this change?

Were they not satisfied with seeing a bloody fountain? If that was the case, they could have simply asked the developers to delete it, which apparently they did. Strange. And now we’re finally almost done talking about violence changes in this version. But I must admit, it is kinda strange to see that the stealth knife attack is still presented in this version. Honestly, it looks way worse than the rest of the content they had to censor. But hey, I guess the censors knew their job better. What

is more interesting is that the game didn’t have so much trouble with the blood. Yes, in some places they had to lower its amount, but in general the blood remains untouched. The next big topic we’re going to talk about here involves problematic adult content, which Rockstar Games had to change only in the Japanese release. First of all, Sony demanded them to get rid of the famous Pimping submission, which we could always trigger by entering any Broadway throughout the game. As a result, Japanes

e gamers can’t entertain themselves by driving various girls to their clients and dealing with all kinds of problems, such as beating unpaying or ungrateful customers. Due to this strange measure, Japanese players can’t earn a meaningless bonus for completing the final level anymore…. well you know, that kind of a bonus, when girls suddenly start to pay you for having fun in the car during the night. On the other hand, this side mission is no longer required in order to achieve 100% completion,

and if they care about that bonus, then they can simply enter a well known cheat code. Like this. Interesting thing is, Rockstar actually tried to save this sub-mission by changing its name to “Temporary worker”, which sounds, well, ridiculous. Heck, even the girls were called “temporary workers” during this mission, hoping that Sony would allow them to keep this mission in this way. Looks like Sony didn’t like the idea of this side mission, and Rockstar had to cut it from the game. We can under

stand their decision, I guess. Actually no, because they allowed Rockstar to keep the “Jizzy” mission. Should I mention that we’re doing almost the same things during this so-called controversial mission? But this time, censoring the text worked. First of all, the Japanese release gently hides the girls’ real profession by simply referring to each of them as a “woman” or “Jizzy’s woman.” What’s more sad is they even had to cut all inappropriate references, like changing the pimpmobile to a car i

n the text. On the other hand, the game doesn’t hide the fact that we have to waste the pimp in Hashbury after we dropped off Jizzy’s girl to a preacher. However, later in the game the Japanese subtitles claim that this pimp is actually pretending to be a pimp calling him an imposter. Looks like the developers forgot to censor that first string. And I find it quite funny that the game now specifies that the preacher is corrupt, because why not. And finally, take a look at these lines, where the

original game mentions punters, who attacked Jizzy’s worker. I hope I don’t need to pronounce this translated sentence out loud. This is some strange censorship. By the way, did you notice that Sony didn’t ask the developers to cut the ability to have some fun with a temporary worker in your car? You might be wondering, did they just miss this feature while reviewing the game? Well, no, because apparently they asked Rockstar to make this scene silent... And to remind you, this is how it should w

ork in the original game.. Do you want to know what else the censors didn’t like? Well, the famous controversial “Gone Courting” cutscene, where Catalina demands Carl to come in her house and have some fun by using a rack and a little bit of torture…. Thankfully, Japanese gamers don’t need to imagine what our friends are doing during that funny speech, because the developers had to end the cutscene after Carl enters her house. Simple as that. As a downside of this cut, the dialogue that Catalina

and Carl have after the cutscene became pretty much pointless. And now let’s return to mysteries. Did you know that by entering some stripclubs in the Japanese version, the game will state that these places are actually clubs? You might be wondering, did they really become clubs? Well, not really as nothing was changed here. Should I mention that this place doesn’t even look like a club? Who are they trying to fool? Speaking of textures, the censors didn’t like that there were adult shops aroun

d the state, and they kindly asked Rockstar to get rid of them. As you can see, the solution was quite simple. All they did was to remove controversial text from the textures and that’s it. If you were wondering, they didn’t forget to censor the second iteration of this place, either, meaning that Sony’s demands in this question were pretty harsh. Guess what Japanese players see by entering its one sole interior? Yup, they see that they are entering the shop. However, it isn’t that hard to guess

what this place is about because, once again, no one forced Rockstar to change the interior of this place. What’s more interesting is how they didn’t like some of the peds in this game, either. As a result, the developers had to censor two ped textures and replace the controversial character model in the “Jizzy” mission with another less vulgar looking ped. Back then, Sony was very harsh and asked Rockstar to change a lot of stuff in this game. But the question remains, how could they miss this

adult shop near the “Royal Casino” which remains completely uncensored? Funny thing is, you can perfectly see its sign during the “Madd Dogg'' cutscene and I wonder if someone was punished for this fail. I have a strange feeling that everything was censored in a rush in this release, which is why it’s not surprising to find flaws like this. This also could explain why the mission “Key to Her Heart” still mentions that this place is actually the adult shop and not a regular shop as the game is t

rying to tell us. But this isn’t the end. The developers also had to replace Candy Suxxx’s poster with something less vulgar. Previously they did it in the Japanese version of Vice City, and now you can see it in San Andreas. The sad thing is, there was already a palm tree poster in the original game meaning that they just reused an old texture, which makes for a smaller variety of posters in the game. Remember when I said that they probably did everything in a rush? Well, they forgot to replace

this controversial texture in the adult shop. How ironic. Do you remember that by dating girlfriends in this game, they will eventually ask you to follow them inside and drink coffee with them? Take a look at the subtitles. The original game drops a pretty big hint that Carl should expect a surprise soon, and this is true, because by accepting this generous offer, your in-game camera will shake and you’ll hear interesting quotes from inside… Despite the fact that it looks, well... okay…. Sony s

till demanded them to change this moment. Now the subtitles tell you that “It was really fun today ... wouldn't you like to drink coffee at home?” And by accepting this offer you will see this boring scene…. I guess Japanese people really thought that they were drinking coffee during that scene. What a mess…. The same fate awaited the good ol’ “Key to Her Heart” mission, where the developers had to butcher the shaking camera scene too. Just like that.... On the bright side, the rest of this miss

ion remains pretty much the same and I bet you know how crazy it was in the original game especially this dude with a purple balloon in his hands. Funny enough, no matter how hard Sony tried to control the situation, Japanese players can still see these adult animations in the crack den interior during the “Cleaning the Hood” mission. So yeah, nice job. But we are not done here yet. Don’t forget that Japanese censors always demanded to hide various references to drugs in their domestic releases

and San Andreas wasn’t an exception. Everyone is totally okay with that, but to be honest, Rockstar did it quite poorly and I will show you why. Let’s take a look at the “Body Harvest” mission, which starts with this awkward scene with Tenpenny using a water pipe and talking nonsense to Carl as he is hallucinating or something. As you might expect, this scene didn’t please Sony, and this is why the Japanese version of the cutscene starts right after Tenpenny asks Truth to come in. By the way, th

is is how this scene looks in the original version… And this is how it looks in its Japanese counterpart…. As you already noticed, they removed all sound effects, all smoke particles and even the water pipe from Tenpenny’s hands. Nice job, Rockstar, now all we can see is Tenpenny holding something invisible in his hands. Do you know what they did when, later in the scene, Tenpenny uses this pipe in front of the camera? Well, instead of removing this sequence, the camera shows us Carl, and once a

gain, you hear no sound effects in the background. Unfortunately, by censoring this cutscene like that, they created a huge problem. Japanese players now won’t understand why Tenpenny is acting so weird, constantly giggling, coughing and barely able to pronounce. Instead of trying to save that Rockstar vibe in the cutscene, they did their best to get rid of every single evidence of drug use here… The next mission that was changed due to the drug measures was the opening scene during the “Ice Col

d Killa” mission… In order to hide the fact that people are doing this on the stage, the developers yet again had to shorten its beginning, which was an easy thing to do. As easy as it was to remove this magical powder from the game, it looks more like a napkin anyway. And don’t forget about this pipe in the girl's hands, which she doesn’t even use. Every single evidence of drugs in the scene had to be removed. Luckily for them, these were pretty simple changes to make. Also, “The Meat Business”

cutscene starts a little bit later in the Japanese version, too, because, well, you perfectly know why. This is how this scene looks in the original version… Did you notice that Ken is also missing the tube in his hands now? I think they did that more as a precaution, because later in this scene, the developers, once again, decided to focus the camera on something else rather than on sniffing Ken. Honestly, I am a little bit upset, because this time they didn’t remove the sniffing sound effect

from the cutscene audio. Also, you won’t find this following scene with Maccer in the Japanese version... As you can see, instead of messing around with the camera and sound files, they had chosen to completely remove this part from the game once and for all. And you know what? There was absolutely no need for the camera to be zoomed in Japanese version for the entire time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a bug that was caused by censoring that controversial scene we were talking about. Let’s ta

ke a look now at the mission “Beat Down on B Dup,” because that one received some nasty cuts too. The sad thing is, the developers didn’t care much and removed almost 40 seconds from the cutscene’s intro, where B-Dup’s girl insists that Sweet tastes the product, and she almost succeeded if Carl didn’t interrupt them by asking Sweet why he was going to do that. The Japanese version of this cutscene starts somewhere in the middle while Carl and Sweet are arguing in between. I think you would agree

with me that this cutscene became pretty much meaningless. Originally, the whole idea of it was to show us that all problems in the hood were caused by the drugs. Sweet even points at the pipe on the table during his monologue to emphasize his thoughts. A pipe which, of course, is now missing in the Japanese version of the game. Thanks to the censorship, the whole idea of this mission sadly became unclear. The last mission that suffered from this kind of censorship was the final mission, “End o

f the Line,” and, as usual, it was done very poorly. For some reason, the famous cutscene before meeting Big Smoke starts a little bit later, but honestly, there was no point for them to shorten it in the beginning. Perhaps this was another bug? Yet again, you won’t see any smoking stuff in the scene like this water pipe, but there’s something else I want to show. In the original version, there’s this scene when, during the conversation, Smoke suddenly throws his controller on the floor and deci

des to take a hit. Obviously, the censors weren’t going to approve of this. Instead of doing something with the camera, the developers decided to completely remove this scene from the game and, oh boy, they did it as badly as they could. So here is Smoke sitting and playing the game talking calmly with Carl and, bam, he suddenly appears in front of Carl arguing with him very loudly. This was not something I cut or edited. It was done like that by Rockstar Games. Pretty professional, huh? Of cour

se they could have done it much better and we saw some good examples in other cutscenes. They could have at least used that part where he stands up from a sofa. Why not? There is nothing controversial about showing that. They must have been in a serious rush to just get the game out in Japan if they were willing to leave in a scene like that. But it doesn’t change the fact that Sony was pretty strict about showing drugs in the Japanese version of the game. And did you know that they apparently a

sked Rockstar to censor the game’s subtitles, too? For instance, “Smoke’s Crack Palace” was renamed to “Smoke’s Fortress” in Japan’s version. And the well known “Crack Den” in Idlewood was changed to “Vicious Den”. In the previously mentioned “555 We Tip” mission, the word “drugs” was replaced with the word “gift” or “presents”. As a result, Japanese players put “presents” in the District Attorney’s car wondering what was so special about them in the end. During the mission “Are you going to San

Fierro” when the game tells you to destroy the weed, the Japanese version states that you have to just torch fields without telling you exactly what we’re destroying. At the end of the mission “Grove 4 Life,” when Sweet rewards us with some cash, he tells us that it was probably drug money. While in the Japanese version he says that it was probably “dirty money.” The same fate awaited this golden conversation with Ryder…. The Japanese subtitles claim that CJ told Ryder that he was too stupid si

nce the age of ten and that this is why he didn’t finish high school, to which he calmly answers “no” adding that he was too intelligent. You might call that ridiculous. We call it censorship. But anyways, sometimes the subtitles weren’t censored at all. If a Japanese player knows English, then they can easily find where the developers had to censor the subtitles, because the audio was never censored in this version. Okay, no more talking about censorship. Let’s finally speak about the exclusive

features that were introduced in Japanese version of the game. As always, Rockstar Games had to slightly change in-game controls for this specific target audience. When they press “circle” on their controller, the game now understands it as “yes” and “X” as “no”. As you can see, it’s quite different from our typical scheme, because “yes” for us was always “cross” and triangle was “No”. It’s not surprising that Rockstar did this. In case you didn’t know, it’s a common practice to change controls

like that for the Japanese market, and you can read more about it by pausing the video. Since this game was published and distributed by Capcom in Japan, the developers had to add two new intro screens in the intro; one with the age warning and the second with the Capcom logo. I also want to note that their version only supports the Japanese language by default, and you can’t even change it because the rest of the languages were cut, and the option to change them is missing from the code. As yo

u could see throughout the video, it isn’t really a full Japanese localisation, as some strings remain in English, and do you know why? #https://legendsoflocalization.com/common-problems-when-translating-games-into-japanese/ It turns out that it’s a long-lived tradition to keep the English text in Japanese releases, because as this interesting article states, when a Japanese localisation features no English text at all, it feels very weird and awkward. This expectation or acceptance of English e

specially applies to menu, where you can perfectly navigate without even knowing the Japanese language. and other graphical user interface elements. However, if you look carefully, then you’ll notice that they actually changed some English strings, and it was very common in this version too. Instead of showing you the typical “Mission Passed” and “Respect +”, the Japanese version uses “Mission Completed” and “Respect Up”. By entering Madd Dogg’s safehouse, we can clearly see that they got rid of

the slang by replacing the word “crib” with “mansion”. Usually they replaced these words with synonyms. As Japanese people told me, they tried to use more familiar English words, so people could understand these labels better. Easy as that. But I must admit that sometimes they did it pretty irrationally. If we see “Cheat Activated”, then they just see “On,” and this raises a lot of questions. And that concludes the Japanese version, but before ending this video, I want to show you one more inte

resting tidbit about this release. In 2010, Take-Two had finally opened offices in Tokyo and announced that they were going to publish future games in Japan by themselves without Capcom or any other 3rd party companies. Thanks to that, in 2011, Rockstar Games re-released GTA San Andreas and other old games under the “Rockstar Classics” label in Japan. It’s hard to believe, but it seems that they used an older build for this new release dating from 2006. I mean, just look at the dates, almost all

files from this new release are older by three weeks than in the original Japanese release. Originally, I thought that it was some kind of bug, but then I noticed that there is no censorship by entering the adult shop. Later, I realised that the “Crack Den” in this newer release has no censorship, either. What’s more interesting is that “Smoke’s Fortress” in this version is called “Smoke’s Crack Fortress”. So they still used an alternative name, but it actually has the word “Crack” in it. And i

nstead of a club, the game tells you that it actually is a strip club like in the original game! However the rest of the strip clubs were already renamed to “Night clubs”. What’s more interesting is that the older release has one extra bug fix in the game scripts, which is missing in this new release. And this is what I managed to find about this newer Japanese release. I’m 99% sure that people in 2011 got a real pre-release Japanese version from 2006 and that blows my mind. It’s not an error wi

th the dates, because since Capcom was not involved anymore, they had to change the intro and the date perfectly shows that they did it in 2011, as well as the splash screen. What does it mean for us? Well, we can perfectly see that they were still censoring the game in November 2006 making final polishings in the text. On the other hand, it tells us that they had like three weeks to fix those stupid bugs they introduced by censoring the game, but they didn’t bother to do that. They also didn’t

bother to polish their official Japanese strategy guide. This book, for some reason, has less censorship than they implemented in the game. If you want to read more about it, then it’s best to pause the video right now. For more videos related to GTA, including beta subjects & analyses as well as commentary and analysis on Rockstar and other topics, be sure to check out my channel, Badger Goodger. Don’t forget to follow both Vadim and I on Twitter. This has been Badger, and I hope you have a gre

at day out there. Stay safe, everyone.