This isn't going to be a full review of this one, and it's largely surrounding the current controversy surrounding Vivian. I tend to miss a lot of information about games I'm excited about because the moment I want a game, I tend to block out as much as I can so I can experience the game as fresh as possible. So I was late to the stuff regarding Vivian.
I want to be clear, I have not researched it enough to tell you for sure what is happening here, but as far as I know, we have two sides. What we do know is that, in the US release, Vivian is now a trans woman. And this is where we have the two viewpoints, or at least the two that are relevant to me. To be upfront, I don't care if a character is Trans or not. What I do care about is whether or not someone is shoving their beliefs into someone else's game, and that is where the issue here lies.
An idea that has existed for years now, well before this remake, was that Nintendo of America had changed the original intent to censor Vivian being a trans character. I will say I never really questioned the idea before, back in the day Nintendo was very censorious with the content brought over. That said, it was also well before I took time to look into these things. I simply bring it up to point out that this isn't a new thing brought up just because of the remake.
That said, we see a lot of people now going into detail about aspects of Japanese Culture and various terms, saying that the term people claim is why Vivian is Trans isn't actually that at all, but simply a term used in Japanese Culture to define Femboys, or men who dress up as cute girls. And yes, there is a distinct difference. Even American Drag Queens aren't women, they are men who dress up as women. That's the entire genesis of that term. The real thing this boils down to is what side do you believe? Was this correcting the censorship of the past, or is this modern-day localizer trying to stick their own beliefs into someone else's work?
The thing is, a lot of your online activists, including localizers, have made some absurd statements about characters being trans before. The big one was Samus of Metroid fame, where many tried to claim she was trans based on what was laughable evidence that amounted to a rough translation of a Japanese forum post, not even anything official, and claiming her trans because of her size despite that also having an explanation outside of that. I'll let you all do your research about this, as right now it's largely taking place on Twitter and I am not digging up several different tweets and threads related to both topics, but my belief is it's likely the latter of the option, and had I known about the change I wouldn't have picked this game up despite wanting to play it. Wouldn't be the first time I dropped a game I was excited for because of localization issues, and it won't be the last.
I don't care what your thoughts are on the trans issues, if you are going to bring something over it's your responsibility to keep it as close as possible to the intent of the original language. If Vivian was trans in the Japanese, that's how she should stay. If not, he's just a pretty ghost boy and that's how he should stay.
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STOPI played super mario when i was a kid, this game is a legend it never dies it never gets old m
Trannys in a Mario game. What a time to be alive.