Bowdlerise / Video Games

#-H

• The English versions of The 7th Saga cover up nudity on some of the enemy sprites.
• In the Japanese version of Abadox, after beating the Final Boss, a live, nude Princess Maria emerges from its carcass in a bubble. In the English versions, she was given some clothes.
• ActRaiser:
  • The first game had many of its religious elements toned down outside of Japan. The plot of the Japanese version, being heavily inspired by Christianity, is that the player, God, has had their powers and strength sealed by Satan, and must regain them by doing good deeds for the people of the land to earn their worship and devotion, and defeating the gods of other religions in the process. The English versions change "God" to "The Master", and "Satan" to "Tanzra". All references to death or sacrifice were slightly toned down during translation, and all religious symbolism such as crosses, the Eye of Providence, or circled hexagrams were changed or removed as well. Satan/Tanzra had his appearance altered as well to look less demonic.
  • In ActRaiser 2, the boss of the Ice Palace had the ribbons around her chest and pubic area widened, the ghost minibosses had their horns changed to look less demonic (but also added sharp fangs), and the final stage, the Tower of Babel, was renamed to the Tower of Souls. The hexagram in the background of the boss rematch chambers was also changed to a generic symbol.
• Akatsuki Blitzkampf was altered for the arcade version: the blood from being slashed by Fritz or shot by Anonym was replaced with yellow... stuff... and the "Sieg Heil" that pops up in the background during Elektrosoldat's level 3 super was replaced with "Blitzbombe".
• Aleste:
  • The Area 1 boss of Super Aleste greets you with "Welcome to Hell!" In Space Megaforce, the North American version of the game, this got changed to "Welcome to the underworld!" Another line, "I came from the kingdom of God." was changed to "I came from the world beyond."
  • Robo Aleste: The cutscene following Stage 4 at one point shows Astaroth being summoned while bathing. In the Japanese version, there's a frame where she stands up whilst fully nude, albeit with Godiva Hair over her breasts. The international versions remove this.
• Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle has the same Janken-centric gameplay as the Master System original. In the Japanese version, the loser of a Janken match loses all of their clothes, except for various symbols covering their genitals. In the English versions, this was changed to having a weight dropped on them.
• Parodied in Alien Hominid, where turning off gore in the options menu will change all blood and gore effects into flowers instead.
• Animal Crossing:
  • Animal Crossing (2001):
    • The Tomato Juice shirt that was present in the original N64 version (Doubutsu no Mori) as well as the first Japanese GameCube version (Doubutsu no Mori+) was replaced with the Fishbone shirt in Animal Crossing and the second Japanese GameCube version (Doubutsu no Mori e+) due to the tomato juice resembling bloodstains.
    • The Pleasant Feeling Painting in the Japanese versions (a recreation of Édouard Manet's Olympia), was replaced with the Scary Painting in the English versions (a recreation of Tōshūsai Sharaku's Ōtani Oniji III in the Role of the Servant Edobei) due to the former painting's depictions of frontal female nudity as well as prostitution.
    • Chip's design was significantly changed between the Japanese and international releases due to his Japanese design resembling many racist Asian caricatures, mainly Asian Buck Teeth due to the character being a beaver. All of his appearances in later Animal Crossing games use his international design in all regions.
    • Elina had the bindi on her forehead removed in the international releases and e+.
    • Jane had her design significantly changed between the Japanese and international releases due to her original design somewhat resembling Blackface (not helped by the character in question also being a gorilla).
  • Animal Crossing: Wild World: In the European release, the Mini Mustache accessory was changed from a toothbrush mustache to a pencil mustache in order to avoid the former's association with Adolf Hitler.
• The Super Nintendo port of Another World changed the blood in some of the death animations from red to green, and also removed the clefts from the backsides of some of the aliens in the hot springs area.
• Arcana: In the English versions, the crosses on Sarah's hat and shield were changed to triangles, and the shot of a war-torn Elemen in the opening cutscene had some blood removed.
• In the SNES version of Art of Fighting, the bottles in one of the bonus rounds were made completely gray to obscure the fact that they're supposed to be beer bottles, and the Super Death Blow (which is actually a literal translation of the term "Chou Hissatsu Waza", the common Japanese term for super moves in fighting games) became the "Super Fire Blow". Mac's Bar was renamed to "Mac's Café" (the cigarette Mr. Big can be seen holding in the ending cutscene was removed), and King's exposed bra was edited so that her shirt is still on. Oddly enough, the Super Famicom version of Ryuuko no Ken 2 (Art of Fighting 2) also removed the ability to undress King and Yuri, even though that version only came out in Japan.
• The English versions of Astyanax for the NES reduce the size of Medusa's breasts during the Boss Battle with her.
• Assault Suits Valken: In the Japanese version, the final stage features a scene where the president of the nation that controls the enemy forces, upon realizing that he has been overthrown, commits suicide by shooting himself in the head with a pistol. The English version circumvents showing this by not only truncating the final stage so that the game ends before this cutscene takes place, but also writing the president out of the game's story entirely.
• Bangai-O: In the original Japan-only Nintendo 64 version, the post-Game Over screen depicted a nude Riki chasing a figure in a white cloak with a pointed hood that bore a very close resemblance to a Klansman outfit. When the Updated Re-release on the Dreamcast was released in America, the cloaked figure was replaced with Tokiko, and Riki was covered up with a shirt and shorts. The European version retains the original uncensored image.
• Banjo-Tooie:
  • In the original Nintendo 64 version, Boggy the polar bear in Hailfire Peaks is watching a DVD titled "Bear Babes 'n' Eskimos". In the Xbox Live Arcade version (which is also included in Rare Replay), the title was changed to "Bear Babes 'n' Bigfoot" due to rising concerns over the word "eskimo" being an anti-Inuit slur.
  • The cutscene after defeating Gruntilda at one point shows Humba Wumba holding up her remains. In the international versions, the remains in question are her skull (with the eyeballs still intact), but in the Japanese version, they are replaced by a sack with a similar coloration to her clothes.^note Despite this censorship, an eyeball is still shown popping out regardless of region. This was apparently done to avoid any unintentional parallels to the Kobe child murders of 1997 several years prior (as one of the victims of said crime was decapitated), an event which also affected the Japanese versions of GoldenEye (1997) and Perfect Dark.
• Baten Kaitos Origins: The English versions change the cross the main character gets tied to in the Vega Building Site into a nondescript metal block, and some of the more religious lyrics in "Chaotic Dance 2" were changed into generic vocalizations.
• Battle Blaze: In the English versions, Tesya, the Fragile Speedster, was given tights on her legs to make her outfit less revealing compared to her Japanese equivalent, Filea.
• Bionic Commando
  • The NES version is one of the most famous examples of Bowdlerisation in video game history. The plot of the Japanese version is about the Nazis attempting to use secret weapons and technology to resurrect Adolf Hitler and take over the world. As per Nintendo of America's strict content guidelines at the time, the Nazis were renamed to the "Badds", all instances of swastikas were changed, and Hitler was renamed to "Master-D"... though they never bothered to actually edit his portrait in-game, nor the scene where his head explodes.
  • The remake Bionic Commando: Rearmed remove all references to Hitler and the Nazis in both the English and Japanese versions of the game, with the bad guys simply called "the Imperials", and the Big Bad renamed to "The Leader" in English (which is also a direct translation of Hitler's title and position, "Führer"). The Leader's face is also partially obscured by a breathing mask, with the only appearance of his distinctive toothbrush mustache being in the English version when his head explodes in an even more graphic manner than the NES original.
• The SNES port of Blackthorne changes blood effects from red to green, and removes the blood from the protagonist's corpse on the Game Over screen.
• The Blue Marlin, a fishing-themed RPG for the NES, has various events that can occur while a fish is being reeled in. In the Japanese version, one of them shows the fish vomiting up its own stomach to show that it is very weak. This was censored in the American version, and the text was altered to remove mention of it as well, though the graphics for the poor thing's innards still exist in the game's data.
• Bomberman:
  • In the English versions of Bomberman II, the cross on top of the church steeple in the game's cutscenes was removed in accordance with Nintendo of America's censorship policies on religious content.
  • Bomber King: Scenario 2^note otherwise known as Blaster Master Boy (US) or Blaster Master Jr. (EU) for the Game Boy had the boss of Stage 4 changed from an alien creature vaguely resembling a snake to an actual snake, due to the original design's unintentionally phallic resemblance.
  • The English versions of Bomberman '93 remove the mug of beer that Bomberman is holding in the Eye Catch after beating the fifth boss.
  • The first Super Bomberman game for the SNES changed the appearance of the Moguchan enemy in Stage 3 completely outside of Japan. In the Japanese version, the enemy has brown skin and a large mouth with big pink lips. Because this made it look like a Blackface-Style Caricature, in all other versions, the enemy has green skin and no mouth at all instead.
• Bonk:
  • When Air Zonk was brought west, the Charge Attack was changed from a pink poop coil into a missile (though his strained facial expression while charging it was not changed), and the fusion with Moo Moo, which gives Zonk lipstick and a pair of chest-mounted Torpedo Tits that shoot breaat-shaped milk bombs, was changed to remove his lipstick, make his body more cow-like, and change the bombs so that they look less like breasts and more like generic milk containers.
  • In Bonk's Revenge for the Game Boy, the Japanese version uses a stereotypical Japanese thief outfit when Bonk is in his Stealth form, including a set of large lips. In order to avoid any resemblances to Blackface (as well as bridge the cultural gap), the English versions have him in Institutional Apparel.
• The DOS version of Boppin' had some Black Comedy elements that were significantly edited from the original Amiga version. The image of a bloody teddy bear with a knife through its torso in the intro had the blood removed and the knife replaced with a toilet plunger, the cross on the Final Boss that slowly turns into a swastika as it takes damage was removed, and the animation on the Game Over screen depicting the two main characters killing themselves was removed. The later Windows version adds the ability to toggle the censorship on or off.
• The SNES port of the first Brandish altered Dela's outfit to be less Stripperiffic in the American version.
• Bravely Default increased the characters' ages and altered the Bravo Bikini and female Vampire outfits to be slightly less revealing (by making the Bravo Bikini's panties into shorts and adding shadows under the Vampire's outfit). Interestingly, the Bravo Bikini is still considered to be the most sexy thing in the world by the characters in-game.
• Breath of Fire:
  • In Breath of Fire II, the Gold Fly says "Uh, damn..." after you defeat it. The Virtual Console re-release changes this to "Uh, darn..."
  • Breath of Fire IV was hit with this particularly severely (even compared to the rest of the Breath of Fire games, almost all of which have either suffered some Bowdlerising, dodgy translation, or both). The PlayStation international versions had a bit of fanservice (in essence, an onsen scene involving Nina and Ursula) and a scene involving Ursula preparing to drop her pants to prove her womanhood (which were not so important to the plot) cut entirely—as well as a third, ''very'' plot-important scene where Fou-lu decapitates Emperor Soniel. International versions just fade to black at the latter scene and people are left wondering just what the hell happened. It's particularly puzzling as the scene where Fou-lu actually offs Soniel is only depicted by black-on-red "washi screen" Gory Discretion Shot—very common to keep games in the equivalent of a PG rating as well as to get around Australian "blood bans"—and which would be considered quite safe for inclusion in PlayStation games of the period. In the adaptation of Breath of Fire IV published by Comic Blade Avarus there is a bit of a Take That! response to both the (relatively mild) original Japanese Bowdlerisation and the (completely censored) international PS1 and Windows versions; the "graphic novelisation" is considerably bloodier and more explicit in the depiction of that scene. Of note, the two scenes that could be seen as being at Ursula's expense aren't included at all in the manga.
• Bust a Groove: Hamm's ganguro appearance is altered to avoid similarities to blackface. Hamm's song "I luv hamburgers" replaces the line "McDonald's, Burger King, or any other place" with ""Hamburger lovers let me hear you say ho" and removes "nigga" from the end. Pinky's song "I know" has the line "Nigga move!" toned down in volume. Hiro-kun is called Hiro and is no longer smoking. Strike's hip flask is changed to a can of soda. Strike's song "Power" has references to alcohol replaced with instrumentals.
• Cadash: The game's data contains two different sets of sprites for the mermaid, one being implemented earlier than the other. The earlier sprites depict the mermaid with slightly larger breasts and visible nipples, both of which are not present on the later sprites that ended up being used in-game.
• When Caladrius got an arcade port, it replaced the existing no-deaths artwork with new ones; the old artwork is way too sexual for public arcades (featuring Clothing Damage and barely-covered personal regions), while the new artwork is entirely different and much more family-friendly. The Updated Re-release for consoles and PC, Caladrius Blaze, brings back the ero artwork, although the arcade-specific art can still be seen in Arcade Mode. Notably, none of this has to do with differences in regional censors, as the naughty content is available in all localized versions (AC is Japan-exclusive).
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: After complaints from players, an update removed the text from a picture frame in the Favela map that read "Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty" in Arabic.
• Cameltry: The SNES port (known as On the Ball in non-Japanese regions) received a few changes outside Japan. Yurika was replaced with a different (and less busty) character on the continue screen, the hourglass background had the hexagram removed, and the layout of the tenth and final stage of the Master course was completely redone due to the presence of manji in the original layout, which could easily be mistaken for swastikas. Several levels also had their names changed to remove religious references.
• In non-Japanese versions of Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, Rugal's Genocide Cutter is renamed to Destroyer Cutter in his movelist, and the accompanying voice clip when he uses it was muted. His Super Combo version of the move, Genocide Heaven, was also renamed to Total Annihilation.
• Captain Commando: The World release of the arcade version made a few changes to enemy names: the basic green mook was renamed from "Nooky" to "Wooky" (since the former is also a slang term for sexual intercourse), and the Final Boss was renamed from Genocide to Scumocide. When the game received a SNES port, a few more changes were made: some of the more violent death animations (such as being chopped in half) were removed, and the dominatrix enemies had their outfits made more modest. Further changes were made to the international versions of the SNES port as per Nintendo of America's policies: the boss of Stage 7 was renamed from "Blood" to "Boots".
• A particularly noticeable Bowdlerisation comes from Germany in the form of Carmageddon, a GTA-esque car game. Originally the protagonist could run people over, but the game makers replaced the people with zombies. According to the execs this was still not enough, so they replaced the zombies with robots. The N64 version replaced humans with zombies, and changed the blood color from red to green.
• The menu icon for the Nintendo Switch port of Carrion was changed in an update after some controversy ensued over the original menu icon's resemblance to a vagina.
• Castlevania:
  • In the English manual of the first Castlevania, the Holy Water was renamed "Firebomb" and the Boomerang's shape was changed to look less like a crucifix.
  • Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse in the US was censored to remove any nudity (the Medusa boss of the Ghost Ship was made into a male, and all nude statues were covered up). It escaped religious censorship to a degree, as the game opens up with Trevor praying in front of a cross in all regions.
  • Kid Dracula, the Lighter and Softer as well as Denser and Wackier spinoff of the Castlevania series, got some censorship when the Famicom game was rereleased as part of the Anniversary Collection. In the original Japan-only release, the first boss has a manji^note a symbol of divinity and spirituality in several religions, including Buddhism, a common religion in Japan on its cap, and since the sprites are mirrored to save space, whenever it faces right, the manji becomes a swastika, a symbol that is much more frowned upon in western culture, to say the least. All versions of the Collection (including the Japanese version) remove the manji.
    • The Mission-Pack Sequel for the Game Boy, which was released in all regions, makes the same change to the identical first boss outside of Japan, and also changes the church bell tower (with a cross on top) in the game's intro into a regular tower... but doesn't remove the sound effect of the bell ringing.
  • Super Castlevania IV: In the localized version, blood is removed from the title screen, the crosses on the gravestones in the intro have been removed, the crosses in the background of the dungeon, stables, treasury and graveyard stages have been removed, the blood in the dungeon stage is changed to green liquid, the nude statues in the main hall are changed to clothed statues, and the cross is removed from the attacking coffin enemy.
  • In Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Richter's Item Crash when he has the cross subweapon summons a giant crucifix that sweeps up across the screen repeatedly, whereas in the SNES port, Castlevania: Dracula X, he simply calls a bunch of boomerangs that fly randomly around the screen. This occurs in all regions, however, so it may have been due to technical limitations.
  • Castlevania: Bloodlines was renamed Castlevania: The New Generation in Europe to remove a reference to blood. It's also notably less gory and violent than any other version — including changing zombie flesh from red to green, removing the effect in 5-1 where the fountain's water turns to blood, changing the dripping blood hazard from Stages 1 and 6-2 into dripping water^note that still somehow hurts you — it didn't make a lot of sense for blood, but it makes even less sense for water, and removing the part of Eric's death animation where he's impaled by his own spear. The European version even goes as far as to edit the title screen to make the red blood into blue water.
  • Castlevania: Dracula X on its own received its fair share of censorship outside of Japan as well. Many blood effects were recolored or removed entirely, such as when Richter dies or during the fight with Death, and all religious crosses were removed.
  • Castlevania Chronicles: The international versions censor the art of the Succubus in the Concept Art Gallery so that no explicit nudity is shown.
• Cave Story: If Mister Traveler chooses to sleep in Chaco's bed at a specific moment, it results in a very thinly disguised one-night stand: he will wake up to find her sharing the bed with him, and with her lipstick in his inventory. This was rather clumsily bowdlerized in the 3DS version: he'll wake up to find her sleeping on the floor instead of next to him, presumably because she had nowhere else to sleep with him in her bed. However, he still gets her lipstick, so someone was not paying full attention.
• Chip's Challenge: In the Atari Lynx version, Chip only goes through the challenge because he wants to go out with Melinda to the prom (with the cover art blurb implying he's in it for the sex). In the Microsoft Windows version, this is toned down to Chip being genuinely interested in joining the Bit Busters club and proving his worth to his peers. The sequel Chip's Challenge 2 sticks with the Lynx canon.
• The Chrono series:
  • Chrono Trigger:
    • The SNES release removed all references to alcohol. There was a line that went along the lines of "But Toma, you have drunk too much soda today! You must have too much sugar in your body!" This also affected a midgame party in prehistoric times, where Crono has to beat Ayla in a drinking contest of "Skull Smash," so named because "next day, skull feel like smash." It was changed to an eating contest with "soup" in the SNES release, though it fails to explain how Lucca seemingly gets drunk on it. The DS Updated Re-release reverted this, as all references to alcohol were added back in.
    • In the Japanese and DS versions, when the party first encounters Ayla in 65,000,000 B.C., one of her lines of dialogue states that she "likes strong people, whether man or woman". This in turn causes Lucca to freak out and say that she's "not into that sort of thing", the joke being that Lucca misinterpreted her use of the word "like" as Ayla stating that she is bisexual. The SNES version writes this out completely, changing the word "like" in Ayla's dialogue to "respect" and changing Lucca's line completely to ask about where Ayla's been kept instead.
    • In the Japanese version, during the Rainbow Shell sidequest, after Marle reads the letter from Queen Guardia XXI, Ayla is very eager about knowing how to nurse babies, and asks Marle if she's sure that she's ready to nurse any children she may have in the future because she's "not too big yet", obviously alluding to how her body isn't fully developed due to her young age. The English versions change all mentions of breastfeeding to "leaving the nest" instead.
  • The Radical Dreamers Edition Updated Re-release of Chrono Cross made a few changes to the game's content: Marcy, Razzly, and Leah all had their outfits slightly changed to conceal their undergarments for the character model viewer, and Una's line towards Serge about "breaking" Leena and making her act "more ladylike" was changed so that he asks him to make her act nicer instead, as the original line could be perceived as sexist.
• Chiki Chiki Boys: In the original Japanese arcade version, starting from Round 4-1, the player would occasionally come across bikini-clad women tied up and hanging from the ceiling by rope. Upon freeing them, depending on their color, the player would either receive a kiss and a hint on an upcoming area, or just receive points. When the game was brought overseas as Mega Twins, they were removed, though their sprites were changed and their hints were completely translated. They're completely absent from the Genesis/Mega Drive port in all regions.
• Chou Dengeki Stryker: The Steam version censors nudity with mist.
• Early in the life of City of Heroes, Cryptic attempted to create a Korean-language version of the game dubbed City of Hero. Because South Koreans had an extremely negative regard for America and Americans in the early 2000's, overt references to the United States (for example, the American flag that flies over City Hall in Atlas Park) were removed. Similarly, instead of the All-American Face Statesman as the game's mascot, City of Hero used Foreshadow, the Korean leader of the superhero team W.I.S.D.O.M.
• The Chinese version of Civilization IV replaces Mao Zedong with Emperor Taizong to avoid any political controversy.
• Clubhouse Games features two examples of this: President is commonly known by some much cruder names in the West, such as "Asshole" or "Shithead", while I Doubt It is more commonly referred to as "Bullshit".
• The SNES port of The Combatribes had the blood removed from the boss portraits during their post-defeat conversations outside of Japan. One of the bosses, a Nazi cyborg, was renamed from Swastika to M. Blaster as well.
• The German versions of most Command & Conquer games replaced all infantry units with cyborgs (mostly limited to changing the voices and unit names), with a few exceptions (such as Tanya, who appears in the FMVs). Generals got the worst treatment, altering most voiceclips to sound robotic and all human faces getting edited to make them look like robots. The suicide bomber unit also got replaced by a bomb on wheels (which suddenly gets a voice when entering a civilian vehicle, as that ability was obviously overlooked).
• When Capcom's Commando (Capcom) was released in West Germany, due to European content laws regarding violence, the game was renamed to Space Invasion and all human enemies were slightly redrawn to look more like robots.
• Conker's Bad Fur Day:
  • The data of the original Nintendo 64 version contains an unused cutscene intended to take place within the "It's War!" portion of the game, where a horrified Conker walks in on two Tedi surgeons performing a vivisection on an Army squirrel. While originally present in some demos of the game, the scene was eventually Dummied Out at Nintendo's request.
  • The Updated Re-release, Conker: Live and Reloaded was heavily censored for some unknown reason. All foul language is censored by default. However, upon finishing the game, you do get the option to hear the swears uncensored, but by that point, you've already seen everything the game has to offer as there's no optional goals so it's largely pointless.
• Conquest of the Crystal Palace: The third stage and Womb Level, the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, had its appearance completely altered from the Japanese version due to the heavy presence of creatures highly resembling human infants. One of the stage's enemies, which also resembled a human infant, was changed into a creature that transforms between a zombie face, a fish-like being, and a spider.
• The early console installments of the Contra series in Europe and Australia were released under the title of Probotector, replacing the original human characters with robotic counterparts: thus the original heroes of Bill Rizer and Lance Bean became the robots RC011 and RD008, while the cast of Contra: Hard Corps were replaced by other robots with the generic names of CX1-4 (except for Browny, who was already a robot in the original version, but was still renamed). This was mainly due to a censorship law in Germany that forbade the depiction of human characters killing each other with guns, which affected the rest of the PAL region.
• In the NES game Cowboy Kid, spending a night at the Royal Suite will show a scene where Cowboy Kid is taking a shower in a full bathtub. Because he has his back to the screen, in the Japanese version, you can see his butt. This was censored in the international versions by shifting his sprite downward so that his rear end is submerged under the water where it can't be seen.
• One of Crash's deaths in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back involved him being pressed down to nothing more than a Waddling Head if he got crushed by falling/collapsing objects. Sometime before the Japanese release of the game, a murder was committed in Japan in which the murderer left only the head and feet of his victim behind. Naughty Dog feared that if the Waddling Head death animation were kept in the Japanese release, Japanese gamers would find it tasteless due to said real-life murder, so they had to cut it.
• Crime Fighters:
  • In the Japanese version of the first game, one of the street stages has a poster of a woman's lips with the text "LOVE is waiting..." and if the player approaches it, it attacks them by licking them. The international versions make it completely static, and a poster of a swimsuit ad with a gratuitous close-up of a woman's backside was also altered to no longer animate in order to tone down any sexually suggestive themes.
  • Vendetta (1991) has an enemy that only appears in the Japanese version: nude men that latch on to nearby players and attack by licking them until they're shaken off. For obvious reasons, they were completely removed elsewhere.
• Criminal Girls: The localized re-release for PS Vita, Criminal Girls: Invite Only, to avoid an AO rating, has audible comments and moans removed from the motivation mini-game, and covers the screen with a translucent pink mist. The sequel removes the audio as well, but uses slightly redrawn art (downplaying the bondage elements and making it look more consensual) instead of steam.
• Crusader: No Remorse: The German version removes blood effects, tones down the more violent deaths, and disables the ability to ignite corpses.
• Custom Robo: The English versions of the GameCube game edited out all instances of alcohol. Bogey's Bar was changed to a café, the bottles on the shelves in the background were replaced with cups and plates, and all mentions of alcohol in the script were changed to "coffee".
• Daikatana: The German version replaces all human enemies with robots.
• DanceDanceRevolution: "After The Game of Love", due to its Intercourse with You lyrics, was made an instrumental in the US series. Same with "Injection of Love".
• The creators of Danganronpa couldn't have red blood without bumping the rating up to an adults-only CERO Z, so it was changed to bright neon pink. This became an iconic part of the game's visual style, to the point that The Anime of the Game preserved it.
• Dark Chronicle: The English versions replace all instances of the word "wine" with "grape juice".
• Darkstalkers 3 has blood effects turned off by default in the diagnostics menu.
• Days Gone: In the Japanese version, the scene where Boozer has his arm burnt with a blowtorch by the Rippers had the camera angle changed to only show his face.
• When Deadly Moves was ported to the SNES from the original Genesis version, it was renamed to Power Moves in order to avoid a reference to death.
• Deadly Towers received some Bowdlerisation within its own title. In Japan, the game is known as "Mashou" (魔鐘), a.k.a "Evil Bell", but also has a homonym, 魔性, meaning "devilishness". It was intended to be translated as "Hell's Bells"^note in reference to the Eldritch Abomination-summoning magic bells that you must collect and destroy over the course of the game. Due to Nintendo of America's strict policies against religious references in games at the time, the game was renamed to Deadly Towers... which is quite odd, as overt mentions of God and devils still remain within the game's script, and the name Deadly Towers would end up being a violation of Nintendo of America's later policies prohibiting most mentions of death or killing (which are also referenced in some of the boss names, namely Cold Killer and Death Bear).
• The first four Dead or Alive games list Kasumi's age as "unknown" in her in-game bio in the American versions to get around the fact that she's canonically seventeen in them despite her Ms. Fanservice status.
• Death Road to Canada has the main protagonist of Don't Shit Your Pants as a Guest Fighter. He is named DSYP and his character blurb states he is "the star of a very popular game that I can't say the title of."
• The Dept. Heaven series has fallen prey to this in Atlus' translation. In Riviera: The Promised Land, main character Ein's speech decrying the villain was heavily toned down (the original Japanese version carried strong atheist — or as some would say, "anti-organized religion" — undertones) and is considered by many to make the scene very weak and Narm-filled. In Yggdra Union, one of the main antagonists is Flanderized heavily to make him appear less sympathetic to the player, and there were a few lines changed or added for no apparent reason. Knights in the Nightmare features Dub Induced Plotline Changes, as the translated text is often inconsistent with prior translations or abandons stylistic speech patterns, depriving characters of their individuality. There's also the arbitrary name changes. Also, Riviera actually Bowdlerised itself once — in order to keep the game's rating at CERO-A, Sting was forced to remove the bath scenes from the PSP remake. The "special edition" rerelease of the remake put them back in, but clad all the girls in bathing suits — they were going swimming, not getting naked! The fandom found this hilarious, as CGs are still included of the girls panicking when Ein arrives, leading to the meme "OH NOES! EIN SAW MY CLEAVAGE!" It's actually even more funny when you think that it is a remake from a Nintendo platform to a Sony platform.
• Devil's Crush: In the original TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine version, the localization changed the pentagrams visible throughout the main table into octagrams. This was inverted somewhat in the Genesis/Mega Drive port, Dragon's Fury, where the localization changed the hexagrams (that are used in place of the pentagrams in the original) into pentagrams. The Virtual Console release of the game and others going forward further edited them into triangles.
• Dino City, the SNES game based off of the TV movie of the same name, uses a completely redrawn (and less revealing) sprite of Cindy, the cavewoman enemy, compared to the Japanese release, Dino Wars.
• In the US version of Disgaea 2, the audio for the legendary worst ending is butchered. In the Japanese dialogue, Adell, being taken over by Overlord Zenon, eats his younger brother and sister. This is accompanied with a rather realistic audio clip of him chomping on their flesh and bones. This audio was removed from the English dub, but you can hear it by setting the speech to Japanese.
• In the Neo Geo Pocket Color game Dive Alert, the game's main submarine is known as the Armored Systematic Submarine, or "ASS" for short in the Japanese version. This acronym is actually important to the game's story, but it's also still Played for Laughs every so often, as the script occasionally makes fun of it. In the English versions, the order was swapped around, so the sub is known as the Systematic Armored Submarine, or "SAS" for short instead. Any and all jokes relating to the sub's name were removed from the script as well.
• DJ Boy: Due to controversy over Big Mama, the Recurring Boss and walking Mammy stereotype, the English releases of the Genesis/Mega Drive port make her skin pink or light brown instead of dark brown, and her ranged attack was changed from passing gas to throwing pies.
• Releases of Doki Doki Literature Club! on Sony platforms have the blood changed from pink to black in the scene where Yuri stabs herself.
• In the arcade version of Donkey Kong 3, Stanley got Eaten Alive by bugs with sinister music playing upon dying. In the NES version, however, he just dies. Though the sinister music remains.
• The Doom franchise:
  • Doom:
    • In the original PC version, the northeastern section of E1M4: Command Control had a swastika in the level geometry as a Shout-Out to Wolfenstein 3-D. Starting with v1.25, the symbol was made much more nondescript in order to avoid causing controversy.
    • The SNES port removed any textures and ornaments that depicted humans being tortured/mutilated, and also toned down the infamous Downer Ending by not showing Daisy the rabbit's decapitated head on a pike.
  • Doom II's two secret Shout-Out levels, MAP31: Wolfenstein and MAP32: Grosse, usually get censored in various capacities over the years due to the Nazi imagery they contain. The original German release completely removed them from the game, to the point where taking the secret exit in MAP15 will cause a crash to DOS instead. Later ports across all regions would either replace the offending textures with blank existing ones, edit them to remove any instances of Hitler/swastikas, and sometimes, in the case of the port included with Doom³: BFG Edition, change the enemies, music, and the level names (from "Wolfenstein" and "Grosse" to "IDKFA"^note the Cheat Code in the original DOS games that gives all weapons/keys and max health/armor/ammo and "Keen"^note in reference to how four of id Software's former star, Commander Keen, must be killed at the end of the level to proceed, respectively). The Unity ports change part of the voice clip that the SS officers say upon seeing the player: in the original, they say "Schutzstaffel!" (which is what SS stands for), but in the Unity port, they say "Schutzkämpfer!", with the second half of the clip dubbed over.
  • The Japanese version of Doom 64 changes the color of the blood splatter effect when monsters are shot from red to green, though any red blood on monster corpses and gore decorations is left intact.
  • The GBA ports of the first two games had the blood changed to green to maintain a T rating and the Nazi references in the secret levels were replaced again. Some things snuck through, however (such as the bloody status bar face when at low health, and blood already existing on Former Sergeants), and the censorship mostly affects blood the monsters shed. The Cacodemon isn't censored as it has blue blood and the Baron of Hell and Hell Knight already have green blood.
• Double Dragon:
  • The sixth stage of Double Dragon II: The Revenge is known as the Devil's Mansion in the Famicom version. The NES version renames it to the Mansion of Terror to scrub the religious reference.
  • Inverted with Super Double Dragon: a sign in Mission 6 which says "Beer" in the international version was changed to "Books" in the Japanese version. This may be an unintentional example, since Super Double Dragon was released incomplete and the Japanese version, Return of Double Dragon, uses a more completed (but still unfinished) master build.
• Dr. Chaos: The original Famicom Disk System version of the game is called "Dr. Chaos: Jigoku no Tobira", or "Dr. Chaos: The Gates of Hell". The NES version removes the subtitle.
• Dragon Ball:
  • When Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo^note Mystery of the Divine Dragon was localized as the completely unrelated Dragon Power in the US (but kept the Dragon Ball license in France), the scene where Bulma (known as Nora in the US version) gives Master Roshi her panties in exchange for one of the Dragon Balls was changed so that she gives him a sandwich instead. The red background in the resulting scene (used to show that his nose is bleeding) was also removed. A later scene where Bulma/Nora offers Master Roshi puff-puff was also changed to her offering him burgers and sandwiches.
  • The North American release of Dragon Ball: Fusions very strangely replaced all swords with...sticks. Even stranger, the special attack "Sword Attack" retains its name despite this. This is especially odd since guns and cursing remain intact.
• Dragon Knight 4, the fourth installment in a long-running series of Eroge Visual Novels for Japanese home computers, eventually received a port to the Super Famicom that mainly uses the small window where visuals are present as a means of cropping out any and all moments of explicit sex/nudity throughout the game. Some scenes are skipped entirely (including those that contain Sexposition), which has the side effect of creating Plot Holes at varying levels of severity.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest had some elements toned down in its western NES release. Holy Water was renamed to Fairy Water, any direct mentions of God in the script were made much more vague, the woman in the locked building in Garinham was rewritten so that she just hates people in general instead of only hating men, and the woman in Rimuldar who offers the player puff-puff was changed to her remarking that she "has no tomatoes today".
  • Dragon Quest II had all of its religious elements removed outside Japan. Churches were renamed to Houses of Healing with the crosses changed to stars, and the sprites for the priests were completely changed, removing the crosses they held as a result. The entrance to the second floor of Hargon's Castle had the non-damaging tiles changed from the shape of a cross to a square, and the sprite for dead party members on the overworld was changed from a coffin with a cross to a ghost.
  • Dragon Quest III:
    • The girl that gives you the puff-puff massage simply tells your fortune in the NES localization. Somewhat odd because she later asks if your shoulder feels any better, which only makes sense in the original context. The Game Boy Color version calls it a "powderpuff massage". This one is a subversion, as the context is still there.
    • A lot of religious censorship from the second game was carried over. Priest NPCs that heal the party were completely redesigned, the crosees in churches were changed to stars, and dead party member coffins became ghosts again. The king had the cross on his clothes removed, the old man sprite had its cross-shaped walking stick changed to a regular cane, and the Priest player class had the cross removed from their hat/robe and was renamed "Pilgrim". Shrines, tombstones, and overworld coffins were resprited to remove crosses. The shrines in Lancel and Necrogond had the cross-shaped tiles removed from their layouts.
    • The tavern where you recruit party members became an "eatery", and the manji in the water in the Dharma Temple was removed to avoid it being misinterpreted as a swastika.
  • Dragon Quest IV:
    • Churches were once again renamed to Houses of Healing in the NES version, and priests once again lost the crosses on their sprites and were renamed to "shamans". Cristof had the cross on his hat removed, cross-shaped grave markers were changed to tombstones, the entrance to the Royal Crypt had the giant cross-shaped steeple removed, and Holy Water was renamed "Fairy Water".
    • The girls in the casinos had the ears and tail removed from their Playboy Bunny outfits. This also extended to Vivian's battle sprite.
    • The puff-puff room is a fortune-telling room in the DS version. This doesn't really make sense, as the guy in the next room reacts appropriately. You still need to go in alone to do it, and girls can not receive it. The player also has no idea what is going on, even though he has received a fortune before.
  • Dragon Quest VIII:
    • Starting with the eighth game, many of the series' religious elements have been toned down or altered slightly to avoid any overt resemblance to Christianity or Catholicism. The crosses seen on rosaries, churches, and vestments of priests have been altered to look like a trident. Some pieces of concept art show clergy members with crosses around their necks, but don't appear in the game itself.
    • Angelo's Pearly Gates skill, known in Japan as Grand Cross, was changed from slashing enemies with a cross-shaped blast of wind to more generic beams of light. Traditionally, the skill has been associated with Priest-type characters in other games and inflicts more damage to Undead monsters. However, much later in the game, Marcello uses it against the party with its original animation intact. Both characters are mentioned as "pray[ing] to open a portal to the heavens" when using the attack. Pearly Gates would have its animation changed once again when Angelo appeared in Dragon Quest Heroes II: Twin Kings and the Prophecy's End.
    • The 3DS version changed most of Jessica's alternate outfits to be less revealing. This was in both the Japanese and English versions, and was done to appease Japan's rating board CERO (who have gotten stricter since 2003), and maintain an A rating (the equivalent of E for Everyone). This didn't really matter in the west as it still recieved a T for Teen rating.
  • Subverted in Dragon Quest Builders 2. While "The Book of Blue Prints" appears to be censored in North America due to the original name translating to "Naughty Magazine," the joke/pun comes from the usage of "Blue Prints" rather than "Blueprints" in the name as "Blue" is an old slang term for callous or smutty.
• In the NES port of Dragon Spirit:
  • In a hidden ending you can only get by dying on the intro stage, the main character wakes up in bed. In the Japanese version, he's shirtless. He's wearing pajamas in the international version.
  • The Japanese version has a hidden Easter Egg during the ending where pressing Select twenty times will flip Alicia's skirt. All other versions remove this.
• Drakengard:
  • The first game was slammed pretty heavily by this. In the original concept, the main character's sister was incestuously in love with him; the final release had him oblivious to her affections and visibly shocked and distraught upon learning of them. Angelus' genocidal racism towards humans was toned down to the generic "dragons above humans" fantasy trope, and the supporting character Leonard's being a repressed paedophile was omitted entirely.
  • Quite strange since the localized script for Drakengard 3 didn’t shy away from many sexual themes, undertones, overtones, implications and etc; yet things did end up getting cut or made it all too subtle in certain parts:
    • In the Japanese script Octa made an offhand comment that he had sex with a horse once, praising his member to be able to satisfy a Mare just fine, while in the English script Octa is also rife with comments about his grand member and how greatly it performs, there’s no mention of bestiality in it.
    • On Five’s DLC chapter, during an intermission where she checks on her Assets, when Five checks on her food provisions she tells Dito to eat well so his semen tastes better on that night. The English script has Five telling Dito to eat well so he is energetic for that night. While the sexual tone is still there, the Japanese script is much more kinky on the take.
• Another example of removal of religious references: The prototype of DuckTales had crosses on the coffins in Transylvania. In the final release, they were replaced with "R•I•P".
• The N64 port of Duke Nukem 3D was done when Nintendo was just emerging from the Video Game Censorship Ghetto, so much of its "adult content" was axed. The porn shop was turned into a gun shop, the strip club was replaced with a Duke Burger joint, the captured babes were no longer topless (and had to be saved instead of being killed), and the prison chapel was removed. It still had the somewhat stripperiffic females and gratuitous violence, garnering it an M rating. The following N64 game, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, changed the "steroids" item into "Vitamin X".
• Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal: In the localized version, four monster sealing images were altered to avoid an AO rating.
• Dynamite Headdy: Two of the game's bosses were visually overhauled outside of Japan. Rebecca, the Mini-Boss of 4-1, was originally a large mechanical doll, and Yayoi, the boss of 8-1, was originally a Geisha robot. The English versions make them much more overtly robotic in appearance, and change their names to Mons Meg and Gatekeeper, respectively. This was presumably done to avoid raising eyebrows about Headdy having to attack somewhat realistic female characters.
• E.V.O.: Search for Eden: In the Japanese version^note 46 Okuten Monogatari: Harukanaru Eden e, the "Domain of Brosasaurus" area in the third chapter has coils of feces scattered all over the ground. These were removed from the American version, though their graphics still exist in the game's data.
• In the Chinese version of The Elder Scrolls: Legends, many cards had their art edited. In many cases this meant filing down fangs/claws, removing random skulls, and giving skeletons some flesh. One of the more amusing changes is the card "Knife to the Throat" getting edited to have a stick◊ instead of a knife.
• Parodied in Elite Beat Agents, where the "Survivor" stage acts like a Bowdlerised zombie game. It features zombies who merely look like strangely-sick people, who transfer it to others via kissing, and who're cured by being shot... with peanuts!
• In the Japanese version of El Viento for the Genesis/Mega Drive, the main antagonist is Al Capone, as the game takes place in 1920s-era America. In the English versions, his name was changed to Vincente DeMarco, and the cigar he is seen smoking in some cutscenes is removed.
• The English language version of the Russian Visual Novel Everlasting Summer was initially released uncensored. But a few days later, Steam released an update which removed the option to enable adult content.
• The Evil Within 2: In the Japanese console releases, the female Lament enemies had their nipples removed.
• Evil Zone: The American release gives Erel pink leggings rather than having bare legs in the European and Japanese versions, and alters the camera angle when she performs a grab move to reduce any emphasis on her crotch.
• Exhaust Heat: The international versions remove the champagne bottles on the victory screen.
• With Exile, many items that were drugs in the original XZR II were already censored in the Japanese console versions. However, the TurboGrafx-16 translation by Working Designs also obscured the religious themes, at NEC's insistence: Christians, for instance, became "Klispins."
• Friction, one of the most violent and gorn-loaded Light Gun Games, have a setting for the home console which removes all onscreen gore, turning all the human enemies you killed into Mecha-Mooks instead.
• F-Zero:
  • Blood Falcon's vehicle is known as the Hell Hawk in the Japanese version of F-Zero X. The Western releases change its name to the Blood Hawk, which later F-Zero games adopted in all regions. Despite this, Captain Falcon's alternate costumes in the Super Smash Bros. series which give him the appearance of Blood Falcon always have "HELLHAWK" printed on the back of his jacket.
  • F-Zero: Maximum Velocity had a few Clean Dub Names instated between the eastern and western releases. The Crazy Horse vehicle was renamed to the Wind Walker, and the Dirty Joker vehicle was renamed to the Sly Joker. The Laputan Colony track was renamed to Empyrean Colony (since "la puta" means "the whore" in Spanish). J.B. Crystal and Fighting Comet's ending portraits were also slightly modified to make their shirts less revealing.
  • In the Japanese version of F-Zero GX, Roger Buster says in his post-game interview that he'll use the prize money to buy himself a beer. The English versions make it so that he just wants a drink instead.
• Factory Panic: The game's Japanese version, Ganbare Gorby!, features former Soviet Head of State Mikhail Gorbachev as the player character. Due to obvious political matters, the European and Brazilian releases change him to a generic male.
• Fallout:
  • All non-US versions of Fallout 2 completely remove children from the game so they cannot be killed. This has the consequence of making certain sidequests impossible to complete, and it makes the Den's thieving kids invisible and unable to be targeted, so they still have the ability to pickpocket the player despite being unable to be seen, making the stolen items lost forever.
  • Whenever a game is denied sale in Australia due to lacking a rating (due to it being "too much for MA" and the people in charge of giving higher ratings to video games being more than a little clueless), this will inevitably occur. The most famous is Fallout 3, where morphine became "Med-X", as the Australian censors really felt the need to protect Australian kids from getting jacked on hospital grade narcotic that is nowhere near as readily available as its illegal counterparts. For essentially the same reason, this also happened to the other versions of the game (so as to keep the rating from being AO or its foreign counterparts). The Japanese release made it impossible to nuke Megaton for sensitive reasons, as well as renaming the Fat Man as the "Nuka-Launcher".
• Family Project had an English translation done by JAST. A number of scenes involving Matsuri were censored, with underwear digitally added in any scene that involved her being remotely nude at all. It didn't help that the customers who pre-ordered this were never warned of the censorship; in fact, JAST marketed the game as FULLY UNCENSORED.
• Fatal Frame had several of its games include bikinis as unlockables. The localized version of the games always removed them, though the fifth game replaced the racier costumes with Shout-Out costumes of Zero Suit Samus and Hyrule Warriors Zelda.
• Fatal Fury:
  • The English versions of the SNES port of the first game remove the giant liquor bottle in the top-left of Duck King's stage.
  • Hilariously inverted with Garou: Mark of the Wolves, in which the character known as Marco Rodriguez in the Japanese version got renamed to Khushnood Butt for the U.S. release.
• Fate/Grand Order:
  • EMIYA Alter's skin is even darker than the regular EMIYA to illustrate how he's damaged himself by overusing his Magic Circuits, which makes him resemble an African American. When the game was released in North America, his skin was recolored to resemble the regular EMIYA, probably to avoid implications of Blackface.
  • NA players noticed that any and all references to Erice Utsumi being 14 years old have been removed from the translated version of the game... almost certainly because Erice wears an extremely revealing outfit. Her clothing itself remains unchanged though.
• In the Japanese version of Faxanadu, churches had crosses above their doors, priests^note known as "gurus" in the international releases held crosses and wore them on their clothing, and the inside of the churches had a crucifix above the altar. These were all removed for the international release, though a couple of churches did have crosses at the very top.
• FIFA 11 has a very bizarre editing on the songs in the game. They remove the line "when you and I were down on the floor" in "Rules Don't Stop" by We Are Scientists, but they remove the word "corpse" in "Flash Delirium" by MGMT. In Charlotte Gainsbourg's "Trick Pony", they remove the word "rum" in the line. "train, train/come and go/rum cocoa" and make it "train cocoa". Another odd edit is the words "under" and "from below" in "Snowflake" by Malachai, which don't even make sense in context.
• Fighters Megamix: Honey/Candy and Tokio from Fighting Vipers had their fanservicey ending images replaced with more modest pictures in the American release, and a portrait matching mini-game revealing three pictures of Janet was removed in all western versions.
• The Final Fantasy games have their fair share of censoring, especially those that appeared on Nintendo's consoles. Examples include:
  • The NES version of Final Fantasy: Spells referencing death or religion were renamed. Death became "Rub", Kill became "XXXX", and Holy became "Fade". Garland's infamous line about "knocking down" the Light Warriors is a subversion, since in the Japanese script, he tells them he'll "kick [them] all around" instead. Churches were renamed to "clinics" (since their purpose is to revive dead party members) with the crosses on top of the buildings as well as the hats of the priests removed, and the last room in the Temple of Fiends was changed from a giant hexagram to a giant triangle. The Medusa and Earth Medusa enemies were topless in the Japanese version; the English version gives them some clothes.
  • Final Fantasy II: The unreleased English NES version of the game changes the circled hexagram tile seen in certain areas into a triangle, and changes the icon for dead party members on the status screen from a cross to a tombstone. The monsters that the Emperor of Palamecia summons are explicitly stated to have come from Hell in the Japanese version of the game's prologue. All English localizations of the game change it to "the underworld" instead.
  • Final Fantasy IV:
    • Religious references were forbidden. The White Magic spell "Holy" was renamed to "White", the Devil's Road connecting Baron and Mysidia was renamed to the Serpent's Road, the Tower of Prayers was renamed to the Tower of Wishes, most of the summons had their names changed, and Rosa's "Pray" ability was one of the many character abilities to be Dummied Out in the English SNES version. Yang's class in the Japanese version is a "High Monk"; in English, he is referred to as a "Karate Man".^note This wasn't always consistent, however: one use of "holy" got through, during the Elder's first speech to Cecil after he washes up near Mysidia.
    • As an aversion, it's often assumed that early on in the game, Rosa (sick with desert fever) being said to have been "kept from falling down" at Kaipo was Never Say "Die" censorship. In reality, a look at both later translations and the Japanese version shows that this was a mistranslation. The word used (taoreru) can mean "falling down", but is more accurately translated when referring to people as having "collapsed/fainted".
    • All references to alcohol were removed as well. All pubs were changed to cafés, and one of the soldiers in Baron Castle mentions that they'll be drinking heavily in order to try and forget about their previous endeavors in Mysidia. The English translation changes the mention of drinking to "eating and laughing" instead. Interestingly enough, this particular line has yet to be officially uncensored, even in modern, less restricted translations.
    • The dancer in Baron strips to her bikini mid-dance in the Japanese version. The English versions keep her clothes on. This extends to the Game Boy Advance Updated Re-release. The English SNES version also removes the hidden Developer's Room in Dwarf Castle, presumably to prevent you from getting the Dirty Magazine item inside. All other ports keep this in, however.
    • The giant metal blade hanging above Rosa in the Tower of Zot was changed to a giant steel ball in the English versions.
    • References to Cid and Yang dying after their Heroic Sacrifices are removed. It makes Rydia's protest to Edge not to throw away his life so easily like Cid and Yang did less poignant even if the two are later revealed to be alive.
    • Square did this to themselves when the Japan-only Easy Type version of the game was released. In addition to the expected difficulty adjustment, some of the more mature themes were removed or toned down. Many more standard forms of bowdlerization (such as the dancer in Baron and the metal ball) were imported from the English version into Easy Type as well.
    • The overseas versions of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years alter Rydia, Porom, and Ursula's outfits to be less revealing.
  • Final Fantasy VI, like IV, had references to alcohol, drugs, and religion completely censored. Pubs were changed to Cafés, the Holy spell was translated as "Pearl", the summon Jihad was renamed to "Crusader", and Hell's Rider was shortened to "Rider". The Madam enemy and its Palette Swaps had the smoke removed from their pipe/cigarette. They also covered up some scantily clad sprites: Chardanook's woman form had much more Censor Steam, Goddess and Siren were edited so that the cloth wraps they wore were less revealing, and the random enemy Critic had her swimsuit enlarged, among others such as Starlet and the Power, Magic, and Lady segments of the Tower of Gods.
    • Final Fantasy VI Advance reverted some changes, such as references to alcohol, sex, and death. Siren and Chadarnook retain their censored sprites. What got removed was a scene where Celes was repeatedly punched by a prison guard. CERO tends to be more lenient towards sexual content and less lenient towards violence than the ESRB or PEGI, and they forced the scene's removal. Then Square Enix just didn't bother restoring it in the overseas version. Ironically, the punching scene was present in the heavily censored SNES version.
    • There's also the line about Edgar hoping that (ten-year-old) Relm will still be around in eight years after he finds out about her age. In the Japanese version, he says that he needs to get ahold of himself before he commits a crime. Relm's response towards his statement is also much more biting and harsh in the Japanese version. And in the SNES and PlayStation versions, Locke threatens to rip the lungs out of a man who calls him a thief. In the GBA version, he simply calls him rude, because the "rip your lungs out" was never in the original Japanese version.
    • One of the most notorious example of Bowdlerisation in the franchise is at the very beginning of the World of Ruin. In the English versions, Cid tells Celes that all of the people on the island she wakes up at have been throwing themselves off the cliff to the north to cheer themselves up during the year she's been in comatose... where in the Japanese script, they've been doing so because the doomed state of the world has made them end it all. If Cid dies, Celes will promptly attempt to follow suit (and fail, though a pigeon carrying Locke's bandanna makes her realize that her friends may still be alive, which gives her the motivation to keep living), though one has to wonder how her flinging herself off a cliff while tears fall off her face and an extremely somber rendition of her theme plays is meant to be interpreted as her cheering herself up...
  • The PC version of the original Final Fantasy VII replaces every instance of Cloud, Barret, and Cid saying "shit" as well as an instance of Tifa saying "wench" with the game's usual Symbol Swearing, though one instance of "shit" did slip through uncensored, as seen if one examines the blue lights in the Forgotten City with Cid as the party leader.
  • There was a long-standing rumor that Barinten was a bit more explicit about having raped Rafa in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy Tactics, but it was Bowdlerised for the US release. Technically, this is true; he was a bit more explicit — in the Japanese script, during the scene on the Rooftop of Riovanes Castle he refers to her as "Dear, sweet Rafa," which, given what he's saying, has rather obvious connotations... but the rumors that either she or he said it in so many words are false.
  • Final Fantasy VIII:
    • Selphie's weapon in the Japanese and American versions are nunchaku. In the European release, its name was changed to "shinobou", likely because nunchaku are illegal in the UK.
    • The boss Gerogero had its exposed internal organs changed from red in Japan to blue overseas. The blood on the walls in the armory in Ultimecia's Castle was changed from red to green as well.
    • The Remastered version of the game lifts up Rinoa's tank top and sweater to show less cleavage. A feathered sarong was also added on Siren in order to cover her nudity due to CERO's more strict modern policies, though her original design is still visible on her Triple Triad card. The Scan spell gives the ability to freely rotate enemy and party member models, though for modesty reasons, Selphie is immune to it.
    • Caraway's armband was changed from red to blue during localization to avoid any Nazi resemblance.
    • Done In-Universe with the Devour spell, where using it covers the screen with an image of a peaceful countryside with "Censored... Please Wait" written on it while sounds of eating are audible. There's nothing to be seen underneath, and it's entirely Played for Laughs.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is notable for removing a character's alcoholism but ALSO averting Frothy Mugs of Water, by means of replacing Cid's drunken slurs with dialogue about self loathing.
  • Final Fantasy XII: The Japanese version removes a scene where Penelo is being held captive in the Lhusu Mines. This was due to a prior incident in Japan where a serial killer abducted and murdered four young girls, and though the crime occurred from 1988-1989, he was not put to death until January of 2006, two months before the game's scheduled release. The scene being kept in would've required CERO to raise the game's rating, and Square Enix complied to remove it instead. Both the Japanese versions of the International Job System rerelease and the The Zodiac Age remake restore it.
  • Crisis Core had a goddess statue changed from the Japanese to English versions due to its heavy resemblance to the Virgin Mary.
  • One of the jobs for the One-Gender Race in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is called Bastard in Japan. This job was localized as Ravager, probably because it's not worth the risk arguing with the Media Watchdog or Moral Guardians.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Haurchefant's personality was changed for the English, French, and German versions of the game. Though his character type, a Chivalrous Pervert, is considered to be endearing in Japan, some of his dialogue, including complimenting the player's body and inviting them to sleep in a warm bed at his place, is commonly considered to be sexual harassment elsewhere.
  • The Chinese version of Final Fantasy XV changes Shiva's nearly nude outfit to a skin-tight shiny one, and changes skeletons and liches to be far less skeletal. Additionally, Prompto's vest tag originally had the phrase "It's a beautiful day, now watch some bastard fuck it up" in pre-release coverage. In the final game, the word "fuck" was swapped out for "mess", though the original phrase is present in the Windows Edition if the appropriate settings are enabled.
• The script of Final Fantasy Legend II got thoroughly edited (albeit nowhere as bad as its predecessor), with two parts being the most glaring examples: after the protagonist defeats Dunatis in Apollo's World, he/she/it finds his/her/its father with ally Lynn's mother, coming to the conclusion that he abandoned his/her/its mother all those years ago to have an affair. The English version makes it seem that the protagonist gets angry for no apparent reason. The second biggest edit was changing the smuggled opium in Edo to bananas (which actually gets lampshaded). In the remake for the DS, the opium gets censored again into the vague "prohibited goods".
• Final Fight:
  • The SNES version of the first game was particularly wrecked for its international version:
    • The blood effects when enemies are hit with sharp weapons were replaced with more cartoony ones.
    • Some darker-skinned enemies were made lighter in order to avoid any hints of violence against minorities.
    • The first two bosses, Damnd and Sodom were renamed "Thrasher" and "Katana" (the latter change carrying over to the character's appearance in the SNES port of Street Fighter Alpha 2).
    • The line "Oh my god!" is changed to "Oh my car!" at the end of the bonus round.
    • References to alcohol were removed (the "bar" from Round 3 became a "club", while "Beers" and "Whiskeys" became "Root Beers" and "Vitamin Es").
    • A bit where the player could eat Edi E.'s used chewing gum for a health boost was replaced with the normal chicken health boost.
    • The nude statues at the beginning of Round 5 had their breasts covered up.
    • Belger's chair had its wheels obscured in order to avoid any potential implications that the player was attacking a disabled person (his HUD portrait also had its shading adjusted to remove a small dot on his forehead that could be mistaken for a bindi).
    • The two ambiguously transgender^note Word of God regarding their gender is that there is no official stance and it's up to the player female enemies Poison and Roxy were replaced by the male Billy and Sid, a change that would carry over to the otherwise mostly uncut GBA port.
  • The Japanese arcade version also featured a scene in the intro showing Jessica in her underwear on Haggar's TV monitor, which was removed from the international releases. The SNES port redrew the scene so that it shows Jessica wearing her red dress instead in all regions. The Sega CD version alternates between the two, showing Jessica in her underwear in the Japanese version and in her red dress in the international versions.
  • The overseas version of the Sega CD port was also censored like the SNES, except while Poison and Roxy were kept in, they simply wore more modest clothing.
  • Final Fight 2: The game's two female enemies, Mary and Eliza, are swapped out for the male Leon and Robert, and the game's first boss, Won Won, loses his meat cleaver in favor of his bare hands since it makes the player bleed upon impact.
  • The third game followed suit: in the Japanese version of Final Fight 3, the G and Andore enemies have dark skin. The international versions Race Lifted them to be white instead.
• Zig-zagged with Fire Emblem:
  • In The Blazing Blade, Hector's language and (apparently) Raven and Lucius's ending were toned down, but Priscilla's feelings towards Raven were kept.
  • In The Sacred Stones, the necrophilia and some of the Ephraim/Eirika Twincest undertones were kept but the language was toned down, Ewan peeking up Amelia's skirt was changed to him laughing at a dirt stain on it and Dozla's supports with Garcia were changed from them trying different kinds of alcohol to get drunk to them trying (and failing) to use magic with hilarious results.
  • The Tellius duology toned down Ike and Soren a teeny bit (their A support was changed from "only you are precious to me" to "you're my only friend") but the nature of their relationship and Soren's feelings for Ike were still very much there. So was Heather flirting with Nephenee and other women, Tibarn and Reyson's own Ho Yay and the word "damn".
  • Awakening did away with almost all pretenses of making it a "kiddy game", leaving in almost all the language and Ho Yay and skimpy outfits and Nowi waxing perverted on Tharja's "boingy bits" (though the European version did change it to talking about her smooth shiny hair instead). Played straight in the "Summer Scramble" DLC with Tharja's bikini CG, though, censored for North America by putting a cloth in front of her rear end. Which is odd, because the game is rated T anyway - leaving the image unedited would hardly be grounds for a rating bump. The biggest change was the fact that any incestuous romantic pairings (which, unlike the Jugdral games, consist entirely of Kissing Cousins) were censored to read as "companions" on the status screen instead of "husband" or "wife." The one obvious cousin pairing is Lucina with her paternal cousin Owain, and if Lucina's father, Chrom, is also the father of either Cynthia or Kjelle, and Owain marries either of them, then the companion label also gets slapped on. Other edits include removing almost every single mention of Cordelia's A-Cup Angst, save in a few DLC conversations, and in the European version, an implied Skinship Grope featuring Nowi and Tharja is changed to mention Nowi complimenting the latter's hair instead.
  • Fire Emblem Fates:
    • The face-rubbing skinship minigame has been mostly dummied out of the Western releases. Calling your allies to your room will skip the minigame, while still playing the session completion dialogue and rewarding the support boost. Bonding with your spouse works the same way, but still keeps the minigames for waking them up and blowing away bath steam.
    • Optional swimsuits have been removed, leaving only the bath towel, and the ability to manipulate the camera in the hot springs was removed.
    • The support conversations between Male!Corrin and Soleil have been rewritten, due to the context of the supports being misinterpreted as a case of Cure Your Gays. Instead of the "magic powder" in the Japanese version, Corrin has Soleil wear a blindfold and perform a visualization exercise.
• The English SNES port of Flashback renamed Death Tower to Cyber Tower. The Japanese version retains the original name.
• Food Fantasy has a number of characters who bare flesh here or there. Many of these, particularly from early on, had these parts covered up in some way or another for the international release. (These changes were reverted at one point, only to be reinstated shortly thereafter.)
• Forgotten Worlds: In the Japanese version, Lost Worlds, the game's final shop has an extremely expensive Joke Item called the Clothes/Dress. Though its description is very vague, its only purpose is to give the player an extra one million points upon finishing the game, and if it's bought, Sylphie, the game's shopkeeper, will playfully comment on how naughty the player is being. All other releases put a Unit Stone in its place.
• For Honor: The original version of the Valkyrie's "No Touching" execution emote originally had the victim collapse onto her body with their hands landing on her breasts. In an update released shortly after, the animation was changed so that she blocks herself from the collapsed victim with her shield instead, and Ubisoft promptly released a public apology.
• Game & Watch: The Gold title Helmet was released as Headache in the United Kingdom due to vulgar connotations with the former name.
• Game & Watch Gallery:
  • In the original Game & Watch releases of Fire (Silver in 1980, Wide Screen in 1981), the jumpers who weren't caught by the player were implied to have died; they disappeared after hitting the ground, and the miss icon was a little angel. In the ports released as part of the Gallery series, they get up and storm off the right side of the screen, and the miss icon was changed to a bandage.
  • The remakes of Mario Bros. take place in a cake factory. These may have been updated from the bottling plant on classic versions to avoid possible references to beer.
  • The classic versions of Fire Attack remove The Savage Indians' headdresses, making them look more like Wild West outlaws.
• Game Boy Camera: The "Print" icon in the Print menu was a syringe in the Japanese version. It was changed to a Game Boy Printer in the international versions to avoid any potential drug references.
• Ganbare Goemon:
  • Legend Of The Mystical Ninja, the first game for the SNES, has two theater scenes that were Dummied Out in the English versions. Stage 3's theater scene, a short dance number that ends with four Ebisumarus dropping their pants and farting, was replaced with the lottery minigame^note though it's still referenced in the game's manual as well as some promotional materials, and Stage 6's theater scene, a striptease by a woman in a kimono, was replaced with the matching minigame.
  • In Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, the first N64 game, Baron, one of the main villains, is very effeminately dressed and speaks in a feminine manner. In the Japanese script, the main characters often refer to him as an okama, a Japanese term that more often than not is used as a derogatory term against crossdressers and LGBT people. The English versions avoid it by either replacing the word with more vague words such as "weirdo", or sometimes changing entire lines of dialogue to write around it.
  • The English versions of the second N64 game, Goemon's Great Adventure, changed Ebisumaru's charge attack, a fart bomb, to a "poison gas bomb". He also no longer sticks out his butt for its animation, and the color of the gas was changed from green to light orange.
• The 2.5 and 2.6 updates of Genshin Impact changed the outfits of certain female characters when appearing as NPCs and in cutscenes to less revealing alts to comply with tightening censorship laws in China. To be more specific:
  • Amber's outfit was changed to her "100% Outrider" alt, slightly lifting up her shirt to obscure her cleavage.
  • Jean's outfit was changed to her "Gunnhildr's Legacy" alt, replacing her upper torso with a completely different design that doesn't show any skin.
  • Mona's outfit was changed to her "Pact of Stars And Moon" alt, with a completely redesigned torso that removes nearly all skin and semi-transparency around her chest and stomach, and replacing her semi-transparent tights with completely opaque "thigh-high" socks.
  • Rosaria's outfit was changed to her "To The Church's Free Spirit" alt, a near-complete overhaul that primarily replaces her upper half with a design that more closely resembles a nun's dress and replaces her fishnet stockings with completely opaque cloth.
• Ghosts 'n Goblins:
  • The True Final Boss of Super Ghouls'n Ghosts is known as Samael in the Japanese version. The English versions rename him to Sardius to avoid any religious references. The crosses on the coffins in the first stage were changed into ankhs as well.
  • The English localizations of the first two Gargoyle's Quest games for the Game Boy and the NES had every instance of "demon" changed to "ghoul" or "monster", and Lucifer was renamed to Rushifell.
• Ghoul School: According to Word of God, the weapon found inside the nurse's office was originally known as the Spinal Tap, and its manual description mentioned one of its former Real Life purposes: to inject anesthetic into the spines of women to ease the pain of childbirth. This was (unsurprisingly) changed at Nintendo of America's request, and the weapon was promptly changed from a syringe to a Static Stun Gun known as the Spinal Zap in the final game.
• The Game Boy Color version of Gift (2001) was renamed to Gifty for its German release, as "gift" means "poison" in German.
• God of War:
  • God of War: In the non-PAL versions of the game, Kratos must at one point, drag a helpless man in a cage up a slope and use him as a human sacrifice to open a door, with him screaming in protest all the way through. In the PAL version, he's replaced by an ordinary zombie enemy. This made the preceding scene where you come across the bodies of two men who committed suicide rather than carry it out rather odd.
  • God of War III's Japanese release toned down many of the game's moments depicting graphic violence, dismemberment, or female nudity: Princess Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Aphrodite's handmaidens no longer have bare breasts, Hercules' death scene had his facial wounds removed, Hermes no longer has his bones protruding when his legs get chopped off, and Helios' decapitation was made so that it takes place offscreen.
• Golden Axe: The English versions of the arcade game remove the dripping blood from the character select screen.
• In the Japanese version of GoldenEye (1997), the Hunting Knife weapon, which is only obtainable via Cheat Code, was completely removed from the game. The cheat that allows the player to Dual Wield two Hunting Knives was also changed to a dual Rocket Launcher/Sniper Rifle cheat as well. This was due to the then-recent Kobe child murders in Japan, an incident where several children were murdered with knives.
• The Japanese version of Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode had its plot revolve around the return of the Nazis and the resurrection of Hitler, which were all scrubbed out of the English version (the Nazis were renamed "Drek", and Hitler was renamed "Smirk"). The rendezvous with Cherry and Maria in the Japanese version have moments with full frontal female nudity, which were cut out in the English versions by immediately cutting to the Sexy Discretion Shot afterward.^note The Japanese script even has Fourth Wall breaks in their dialogue beforehand in the form of a Content Warning, saying that if the player is a minor, they should avert their eyes before pressing B, right before they undress. This game was not completely Bowdlerised, however, as blood erupts out of enemies when shot in all regions during the sniper and first-person maze segments.
• The English translation of Granblue Fantasy tries to excise some of the pervier jokes in both the game and Grand Blues, with less than credible results. Notable examples involve Soriz trying to cop a feel on Katalina getting replaced by him attempting to steal her wallet (which is pretty violently out of character), or Eugen getting distracted in a sniping contest with Silva because the sun was shining off her knee guards and most definitely not because the wind was blowing up her miniskirt, but left in Apollo trying to whack him for it, now for no real reason.
• Grand Theft Auto:
  • The Game Boy Color ports of the first two games were heavily censored to cater for the handheld's target audience (which is perhaps mostly composed of 8 to 12-year olds or something along the lines of that), removing all references to profanity and gore. Grand Theft Auto Advance later averted this, as the game was released for the Game Boy Advance complete with all that you can expect from a typical GTA series game.
  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City contains a notable sub-plot involving a gang war between Cubans and Haitians, with the protagonist taking the Cuban's side. This kicked up a noteworthy controversy among Haitian advocacy groups who protested the game for supposedly enticing racial hatred. In response, later console versions of the game (officially Version 3.00, dubbed by fans as the 'Haitan-friendly' version) snip out virtually all dialogue and text references to Cubans and Haitians, with mission text often just referring to them as non-ethnic 'gangsters' instead. The PC version wasn't affected by these changes, though the Definitive Edition release is.
  • The 2007 Japanese release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas by Capcom went through over 60 changes to make the game acceptable for that region, which can be seen here. Those changes include, but not limited to removing all of the drug use in cutscenes (sometimes very poorly), changing some of the missions to include references to Ballas members, and the entire pimping mission being removed. When Take-Two Interactive opened up their offices in Japan, they re-released San Andreas in 2011 with much less censorship.
  • The Japanese release of Grand Theft Auto V underwent some censorship to keep an 18+ rating, including removing an instance of lower male nudity from "Scouting the Port", changing the penis tattoo Lazlow gets in "Reuniting the Family" into a rocket ship, removing a few sex scenes, and changing the infamous torture sequence in "By the Book" into a non-playable cutscene.
  • The GTA V remaster for The Ninth Generation of Console Video Games underwent some censorship such as the removal of the Creepy Crossdressers outside the Cockatoos gay bar and the removal of the Cops n Crooks game mode from Online.
  • The Definitive Edition of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City replaces the Confederate flag pattern that was originally on Phil Cassidy's shirt with a skull.
• The Gran Turismo series:
  • The series in general, being a racing game which includes real-life racing cars back in the days where tobacco and alcohol sponsorship were rampant, also removes all tobacco and alcohol decals from the cars. This is especially noticeable in the NASCAR machines included in the fifth and sixth game where the Coors Light Pole Award logo is blurred out. This example is actually common in racing games and actual motorsport.
  • The fourth game's remix of "Getting Away with Murder" by Papa Roach had the word "murder" removed and the title changed to simply "Getting Away".
• Great Greed: Several enemy sprites were changed between the Japanese and European versions: the Laserdisc was changed from a hexagram with an eye in the middle to a regular eye, the Zapper had her bare chest and abdomen covered up with armor, and the sprite for the Unfixed was completely redrawn, including removing the crosses on her plate. Additionally, the Japanese version had two mountain shacks between Caviar and Won Ton, where if the player chooses to stay at them, they would share a bed with the female party member Gum Drop in order to keep warm and promptly be put into battle with the Naughty Delusion, an enemy that takes the form of a nude woman with Godiva Hair but promptly turns into a kitsune upon death.^note Losing this fight makes the protagonist run around the mountains in order to calm down and not receive any sort of healing. This was all Dummied Out in the American version, as the mountain shacks were replaced with regular inns.
• The memetic favorite "Brain Power" was censored slightly on Groove Coaster due to one of its vocal samples mentioning "cocaine". The song's visuals — which in this case, are essentially a Lyric Video (in reference to a popular fan-made lyric video for the song), do censor the word visually with a triangular caution sign. The Nintendo Switch version of the game also bleeps out the word.
• The SNK top-down shooter Guevara, in which one plays as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro fighting to overthrow the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba, had to undergo a very significant, and understandable, redesign upon landing on American shores, where Castro's Cuba had a long-standing antagonistic relationship with the US and the anti-communist Cuban exile community was a significant political and cultural bloc. It was renamed Guerrilla War and all references to Guevara, Castro, Batista, and Cuba were scrubbed out.
• Guilty Gear XX: The original translation for the story mode of XX and #Reload, done by Majesco, borders on "Blind Idiot" Translation at certain points. Due to this, several key plot points and character nuances ended up Lost in Translation, like the explanation behind Axl's time warping abilities, Venom's loyalty for Zato actually being something more, and subtle hints towards Bridget's gender dysphoria that would be elaborated on in later games.
• Guitar Hero and Rock Band are not above editing songs to remove the cussing. If the song has a radio edit, they use that, if not, they cut the word out. The bridge of Down With The Sickness is rendered almost incomprehensible. Notably, the level of censorship in Red Hot Chili Peppers' song "Sir Psycho Sexy" in Rock Band makes you wonder why they even bothered. Entire lines of the song go missing, leading to several very awkward pauses in the vocal track.
  • The spin-off game Band Hero is positioned as being a family-friendly, E-rated installment. However, despite this remit, they still managed to include songs needing censorship at this rating. "Gasoline" by The Airborne Toxic Event removes the word "gun" from the line "bullets from a gun" (because where else would bullets come from? Plus several of the lines that remain are very sexual in the context of the song, which raises the question of why it wound up in a family game in the first place), "Pictures of You" by The Last Goodnight does the same to "a Soldier and his gun", The Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" is hacked to bits because of alcohol and sex references, and Don MacLean's "American Pie" censors "whiskey" from the line "Whiskey and rye" in the chorus (especially ridiculous since both are types of alcohol).
  • Averted by some of the last Warriors of Rock DLC songs, where some of them left "shit" in. (although other games with T ratings have been able to sparingly use minor swears, not unlike PG-13 films). The Guitar Hero franchise was officially declared dead (until Guitar Hero Live) that month, so the censorship department was probably laid off already.
• Gun Nac: The sprite of the penultimate boss was changed from a creature resembling a human fetus into a more threatening-looking alien entity.
• There exists an exceedingly rare German release of the arcade version of Gun.Smoke that changes the Wanted Posters of the stage bosses to imply that they are cyborgs instead of regular humans. This is due to German content policies that forbid minors from playing games that depict humans killing other humans with guns.
• Hades does this to the original Greek gods in regards to their incestuous relations, since experiencing such relations would make players uncomfortable.
• Half-Life was extensively censored for release in Germany, with all human opponents (Marines, etc.) being turned into robots and the NPC death animation being changed to them simply sitting down and holding their head in their hands. Looks even sillier in Counter-Strike: Source.
• Hammerin' Harry (NES): The Mini-Boss of Stage 4, the lobby attendant, was a woman in the Japanese version. In the European version, she was replaced with a guy. This may have been done to avoid depicting violence towards women (she uniquely doesn't actually start attacking you until you approach her), but the other female enemies in the stage, including the stage's boss, were left untouched between regions.
• Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite!: The Wait-Q animation was changed from Hamtaro rubbing the ground to him tapping his foot in the English versions, because the placement of Hamtaro's paw could be misinterpreted as him rubbing his crotch, only amplified by his pleased expression during. The Nut item was renamed to a Cherry in the European version to avoid any Double Entendres.
• Harvester: In the "Mystery of Motherly Love" section of the Lodge, some international releases remove two FMV cutscenes in which three children cannibalize their mother.
• Harvest Moon:
  • The Japanese release of Harvest Moon DS Cute had the heavily implied Gay Option of wooing one of the special girls into a "Best Friend" status, "marrying" her and eventually having a child with her through magical means by the Harvest King's blessing. Everything plays out exactly like a lesbian relationship but with "Best Friend" slapped on the title instead, which sat horribly with the translators and the option of marriage was removed entirely in every other version, though the "romance" (the special girls' blushing mugshots upon talking with you and the "Best Friend" heart events) were left in.
  • Alcoholic references were censored in both Harvest Moon SNES and Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. All other games keep the alcohol intact. Magical Melody is unusual because Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, which is on the same system and was released before it, has an explicit bar in it. To make it weirder, one of the notes in Magical Melody has an alcoholic reference in its name. Despite that the characters drink "soda", and "juice" in the SNES title, instead of wine.
  • In the Japanese version of Harvest Moon: Animal Parade Julien believes Candace has mistaken him for a crossdresser due to his flamboyant, androgynous fashion style. In the English version he is angry because he thinks Candace believes he's short.
• All Korean versions of the Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA games remove the song "Senbonzakura" due to its many references to when Japan and Korea were still actively at war with one another.
• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • Rare example of a game being censored in its own country: in the original PC version, there are shots of a red blood splatter on screen occasionally. When the time came for the PlayStation 2 remake, the color of the blood was censored into blue/dark colors (due to the Japanese rating system undergoing a change at the time, this was done to avoid an 18+ rating). The blood is red again in the DS remakes.
  • The console versions also often cut dialogue, particularly when discussing World War II, which leaves the Watanagashi and Matsuribayashi chapters especially lacking context for certain scenes.
• House of the Dead:
  • The Sega Saturn port of the first game changed all blood to green. However, bloody marks that appear on-screen upon being hit are still red. The arcade games also have a switch to change the blood color.
  • A behind-the-scenes article for House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn, the fifth game in the main arcade franchise, implies that the game's lack of gore (unlike its predecessors) was due to censorship. In development, enemies would be burned and show skeletal framework when damaged; in the final game, they simply flinch when shot, and upon death they evaporate into flames. Scarlet Dawn's Chinese version takes this steps further. The title was renamed to Haunted House: Scarlet Dawn. Enemies now fall over and disappear without any flame effects. Murrers, the sharp-toothed maggot-like enemies that have appeared in every mainline House of the Dead game, are absent; they have been replaced by the rat enemies exclusive to Scarlet Dawn.
• HuniePop: The Steam version, without the uncensored patch, replaces images of nudity with images of girls wearing lingerie.
• The Plus update for Hypnospace Outlaw changed Corey's GIF of Zane getting decapitated to Zane getting his teeth punched out. According to developer Jay Tholen, this was originally a one-off change he made for his young cousin, but he ended up changing the GIF for everyone because he thought it was more in character for Corey.

I-P

• In the original Famicom version of Ice Climber, the Topi enemies are seals. All other versions make them into yeti due to the taboo nature of Real Life seal clubbing. This change also extends to the Topi trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee between regions, but not in the "8-Bit Hero" microgame of WarioWare: Touched!, though it may have been deemed unnecessary due to how briefly it appears.
• If My Heart Had Wings, despite never receiving an all-ages release in Japan, had its 18+ version hacked up to an ESRB T/PEGI 12 rating by MoeNovel - this included the obvious removal of sex scenes and nudity, which aren't a huge loss for a lot of visual novels...however, a major part of one girl's route involves a friends-with-benefits relationship between her and the protagonist, which is completely removed from the North American version. Not only that, but sexual references, skimpy outfits and open-mouth kissing that T-rated JRPGs get away with on a regular basis were censored.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: In the German and French versions of the game, the character Nimdok, a former Nazi scientist, and his scenario, taking place in a concentration camp, were completely removed in accordance with German laws. However, since every character's scenario needs to be completed in order to access and complete the final part of the game, and it was not reprogrammed to account for Nimdok's absence, this renders the game Unintentionally Unwinnable.
• Ikari Warriors:
  • In the Japanese version of the original arcade release, the enemy is implied to be the Nazis, as evidenced by the swastika on the red carpet in the final stage. The international releases remove it. This censorship extends to the Japanese version of the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, where the swastika is replaced with a circle split into four sections.
  • The overseas release of Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road for the NES had a "BAR" sign changed to read "SHOP" instead due to Nintendo of America's policies on references to alcohol.
• Illusion of Gaia has a lot of references to God and the heavens replaced with "spirits" and "light", the church in South Cape was changed into a "school" and the cross inside was replaced with a goddess statue, the Fountain of Blood in the Ocean Palace was no longer referred to by its name (the liquid inside was also changed from brown to dark gray), and Biblical names are removed or altered so that they are unrecognizable (Leviathan became Riverson, etc). Also, references to a African-esque tribe in a famine-stricken region being cannibals were censored with claims that their victims died of starvation instead. However, such censorship is the least of the game's translation problems.
• The NES version of The Immortal had the gratuitous death animations toned down.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure: The German version changes the copy of Mein Kampf that can be found in the Library Room into the much more generic Biografie, though it's still stated to have been written by Adolf Hitler.
• In In the Groove, two of the Marathon Courses were originally titled "Drunk" and "Pure Hell"; these were later changed to "Drift" and "Breaking Point". A few songs had their lyrics edited for the home version, with lyrics from other lines dubbed over the offending lines. These edits were not very well done, for example the line "Lying naked on the floor" from "Torn" now sounds like "Lying chained by a whore".
  • The PS2 version is considered a Porting Disaster because the songs were subject to a surreal case of Bowdlerisation. Developer Roxor Games followed every single instruction given to them from the ESRB to cement an E rating. Lyrics such as "beware of the dark side of town" were replaced with lyrics elsewhere in the song, or heavily censored to things like "the wet side of town". This didn't affect actual gameplay, but the oddly-censored music gave the port a bad reputation. Fortunately, the PC port had the proper uncensored music, and didn't have any of the other problems the PS2 port had.
• Title example: Jet Set Radio was re-named "Jet Grind Radio" for its original American release, apparently because there was a band named Jet Set Satellite, and they were worried that they'd be associated with a game about doing graffiti and running from killer cops. This conflict was long gone by the time Jet Set Radio Future and the HD re-release of the original came out. Also, quite a few songs in both games had lyrics that were cut. For example, in "Birthday Cake", there's a verse that goes: ''It's moldy, mom, isn't it?//I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK THOUGH!" In the game, right after the "It's morning, mom..." part, it cuts right to the chorus (because you cannot use the F-bomb in a T-rated game). And "I'm Not a Model" originally had a segment about giving instructions on oral sex. It was cut in-game for obvious reasons. Surprisingly enough though, "Rockin' the Mic" by The Prunes, a song with repeated instances of "shit" ("HIP-HOP'S THE SHEIIIIT!") and even an N-word, got off uncensored.
• Kato-chan & Ken-chan, a Toilet Humour-filled TurboGrafx-16 game featuring two Japanese comedians, featuring fart attacks, crapping birds, urinating on walls, taking a dump in the bushes, etc., was changed into J.J. and Jeff for the US. The other character no longer pisses on walls or craps in bushes, the fart attack was replaced with spray paint/pepper spray, although there were still the dog/bird turds and a few other things.
• Joe & Mac: In the original arcade version of the first game, the opening cutscene shows several evil cavemen entering a hut and subsequently kidnapping some cavewomen. In the English versions of the SNES port, the cutscene ends after the cavemen enter the hut to avoid showing what could be interpreted as sexual assault. This ended up being Hand Waved in an opening text crawl that was added during the cutscene (replacing the opening staff credits in the Japanese version) by saying that instead of the cavewomen being kidnapped, they instead fled because of the poor hygiene of the cavemen.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future: In the overseas releases, when DIO is defeated in some characters' endings, he's simply thrown offscreen. In the uncensored Japanese version, his death mirrors how he dies in the original manga: his upper body explodes in a shower of blood. The uncensored death is available in the international versions in the operator's menu.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven:
    • The Stage Fatality on the Joestar Mansion stage originally ended with the defeated character being impaled on the statue of The Love Goddess in one of the game's early demos. In the final release, the screen fades to white right before any impalement can be shown.
    • In the Japanese version, Stroheim's default costume is his Nazi uniform, and his alternate costume is his cyborg form. The Nazi uniform was completely removed in the international versions, making his cyborg form his only costume.
• Just Dance has been filled with censorship approaching Band Hero levels of awkwardness at times, despite carrying the slightly more lenient "Everyone 10+" rating (a middle ground between Everyone and Teen) on most installments:
  • In Just Dance 2014, Olly Murs' Troublemaker silences out the words "hell" and "damn" during Flo Rida's segment, even though "damn" and "hell" are easily allowed in an E10+ game.
  • Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song", which is DLC in 4, censors "birthday" ("birthday suit") but not "freaking" ("I'm the freaking man"). Uhh?
  • The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" eliminates the word "cup" in "fill up my cup," which even Kidz Bop leaves uncut.
  • Also on 2014, Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" censors "cherry" from "cherry chapstick" for contextually bizarre reasons (the logical explanation is that the censors thought "cherry" meant the slang term for a woman's virginity, when really it just meant the flavor of Chapstick, so this edit makes no sense), and Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" gets chopped to hell and back (but given the song's notoriety over its premise, it deserved it [though not using the song at all would have been a more effective solution]). The pièce du résistance in lyrical editing in a video game can be heard in Ke$ha's "Come On", where words such as "Gimme", "Hooters", "Lollipop"," Screw", and "Wine"^note but not "Budweiser" have been cut to remove any sexual or drug references.
  • The song with the most words censored is, fittingly, Eminem's "Without Me" from 2021, even with the game using the clean version.
• Kabuki Quantum Fighter: The international versions remove the cigarette from a character's mouth in one cutscene.
• When Karateka got ported on the Game Boy as Master Karateka (which was only released in Japan), the titular princess Maruka did not kill you with a pistol anymore if you enter her chamber while taking a fighting stance. Instead they play the happy ending of the game regardless of the stance you take.
• Karnov: The Japanese version of the NES port features an intro showing Karnov being resurrected and chosen by God to defeat the Big Bad, as well as three different endings depending on the player's performance. All of this was removed elsewhere as per Nintendo of America's policies, and all three endings were replaced with a blank screen saying "CONGRATULATIONS!! THE END".
• Keio Flying Squadron: The main protagonist, Rami, received an Age Lift in her in-game bio. She is listed as being fourteen in the Japanese version, while in the English version, she is listed as being twenty, presumably to make her bunny girl outfit more age-appropriate in the west.
• Kendo Rage: In the Japanese version, Makeruna! Makendou, Osaki Yoritomo (a.k.a. Bob) can be seen holding a cigar in the intro. The US version changes it to a cup of coffee instead. Jo's Magical Girl Warrior outfit was also slightly edited so that she wears orange tights instead of having bare legs.
• Kenshi lampshades this in the language filter tooltip, pointing out that even without swearing you're still playing a game that lets you slaughter and enslave.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Pearl finds its way into Kingdom Hearts as the American name for King Mickey's signature spell. With the much-lessened level of censorship these days, especially on the Sony side of things, it's more likely a reference to FFVI than a strict case of Bowdlerisation — "Pearl" was the localized name for the spell "Holy", chosen because the spell looks like a bunch of exploding pearls. In Kingdom Hearts, it releases, well, shiny pearls. "Holy" also exists, and varies with the game, as does another version called "Faith".
  • The HD 1.5 ReMix remake removes the ability to see Selphie's underwear by manipulating the in-game camera.
  • Kingdom Hearts II has several localization censorings:
    • Recreating the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl where Will threatens to kill himself. In the film (and the game's Japanese version) he holds his pistol to his head, while in the American version, he doesn't even raise it from his side.
    • The Hydra from Hercules already had relatively family-friendly green blood, but that was changed to black/purple vapor (A change that was later kept for the Japan-exclusive Final Mix version).
    • On a smaller scale, Xigbar's sniping sequence was altered so that the cross-hairs looked less like cross-hairs. Xigbar's arrow-guns were also changed for the North-American and European releases. In Japan, he locked them together to make a sniper rifle. In the other versions, he just spun his guns around and peered into one really closely. For the 2.5 and 1.5+2.5 ReMix releases, he was reverted to combining his guns to create the full sniper rifle, and the original crosshairs were left intact.
    • The HD 2.5 ReMix remake removes the ability to see Kairi's underwear by manipulating the in-game camera.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: The classic pirate's song went from "drink up, me hearties, yo ho!" to "look out, he hearties, yo ho!" This was somewhat appropriate, as the lyrics changed to a retelling of the story of Dead Man's Chest and a warning about the evils involved in it. Other things in the Caribbean world were also Bowdlerised. For example, the pirate hanging nook outside Port Royal remains, but with the corpses removed, and the sign saying "pirates, ye be warned" left blank. It's a bit inconsistent, as there is mention of death, but Jack specifically says that the others had tried to "annihilate" him in the past, rather than kill him, seemingly just to make them not look quite as bad.
• The King of Dragons: In the original arcade version and the Japanese SNES version, when the player defeats the hydra boss at the end of Stage 4, their severed heads/necks (including visible flesh) slam onto the ground. The international SNES versions move the hydra's heads partially off-screen so that no gore is shown.
• The King of Fighters:
  • The King of Fighters '94: In the Japanese version, certain attacks would trigger blood effects upon making contact with the opponent. The international releases replaced them with flashes of color. In addition, Mai Shiranui had her Jiggle Physics significantly toned down in international releases.
  • The King of Fighters 2000: One of Whip's weapons, her Desert Eagle, was censored overseas, to the point where her move where she uses it is completely removed outside of Japan. This is reflected in her team's ending: in the Japanese version, there is a scene where she kills Zero by shooting him. In the international versions, Zero dies on his own. Future King of Fighters games retain her Desert Eagle, but still censor it in varying capacities.
• Kirby:
  • Kirby Super Star:
    • In the original SNES release, Wham Bam Rock, the final boss of The Great Cave Offensive, has a quite organic appearance, including a leafed ornament above its face, round golden earrings, and large orange lips. Due to the boss's Hollywood Native resemblance (only worsened by the fact that the fight takes place on a black background), when the game was remade on the DS as Kirby Super Star Ultra, its appearance was completely overhauled to be much more overtly rock-like. All cameos of Wham Bam Rock in later Kirby games also use the Kirby Super Star Ultra design.
    • Near the end of Revenge of Meta Knight, after Kirby destroys the Halberd's reactor, the crew begins to panic over the ship inevitably going down. Captain Vul and Sailor Waddle Dee quickly escape, but Axe Knight and Mace Knight state that they refuse to escape as long as Meta Knight is on board and there is still a chance to defeat Kirby. In the Japanese script, Meta Knight dryly states that they can do whatever they want if they choose to die, before silently apologizing. In the English script, he instead agrees with their plan and thanks them for their loyalty, presumably to keep the dialogue less dark for younger audiences. Come Kirby Super Star Ultra, the original line was restored, but another part of the script was censored in turn: Meta Knight's pre-battle line "Prepare to die!" was changed to "Come meet your doom!"
    • The flavor text for The Arena in the Japanese version gives Kirby the title of "the Pink Devil". The international versions change it to "the Pink Wonder" to eliminate the religious reference.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe tones down the pause menu description for Soul of Sectonia's second form slightly. The Japanese text is nearly identical to what's used in the English translation, talking about how she's fed off so many hosts that she can no longer remember her true form, and must be given eternal rest before the night ends. There is one seemingly minor change, though—it's written in the first person, while the English version rewrites it as a general description. The overall impression in the Japanese version is that Sectonia is aware of what's happening to her and is choosing to Face Death with Dignity; the English version's change paints her as more of a mindless monster that has to be given a Mercy Kill, which makes her character a bit less tragic.
  • In the remake of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, there's a mode called "Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler". The Japanese version has a few Biblical elements, such as the Ethereal Alter is being called "Room of Eden", and Magolor is described to be atoning for his sins. The English version replaced these words with less religious ones.
• The Steam release of Koikatsu Party, the international version of the H-Game Koikatsu, saw the original game's high school-related content, including clothing sets and the entirety of its story mode, stripped out to comply with the storefront's policies against depicting the sexualization of minors. Further updates would also place limits on certain body sliders in the character creator, ostensibly to prevent users from creating blatantly underaged characters.
• The Krion Conquest: In the Japanese version, Magical Doropie, completing a stage shows a unique animation where a circled hexagram covers the screen. This was removed from the English versions to avoid any unintentional references to Judaism.
• Lagoon: The international versions of the SNES port slightly edit the outfit of the priest at the church in Atland to remove his stole. The icon for the shiny ball also had the giant sparkle in its center removed, since it could be mistaken for a cross.
• Landstalker had a few of its more adult-oriented items changed to much more innocuous things outside of Japan. The Bunny Girl became the Oracle Stone, the Erotic Book became the Spellbook, the Bunny Girl Costume became the Shortcake, and the G-String became the Pawn Ticket. Additionally, a Furo Scene involving Kayla was rendered inaccessible by normal means in the English versions by adding a maid NPC in front of her room, but all of its dialogue was fully translated during localization regardless.
• The English localisation of La Pucelle removed every single crucifix/cross from the game. Considering that the plot was based around a church of demon-hunting battle nuns, that's a hell of a lot of crucifixes. The company in charge of the localisation released a statement explaining their reasoning: namely, that they were a very new and very small publisher that simply could not afford their game to be crucified by the Moral Guardians, so they preemptively gave every concession they could to 'good taste'. There were also other edits, such as removing the cigarette from Croix (but keeping his victory animation where he takes a smoke from his invisible cigarette). The American version's box was also subject to censorship as well. Instead of the original artwork of Prier standing front and center, the American cover appears to be some kind of fanart piece where she's kind of off in the corner while the other characters take prominence. This is a pretty blatant attempt to distract attention away from the fact that she has rather large breasts and thighs.
• Last Alert: Two dialogue clips between Guy and a boss, while fully dubbed during localization, were muted/cut in the final English release due to Guy's use of the word "hell".
• Last Battle for the Genesis/Mega Drive, being a localized version of a Fist of the North Star game^note more specifically, Hokuto no Ken: Shin Seikimatsu Kyuuseishu Densetsu, or "Fist of the North Star: The Legend of the Savior at the End of the New Century", had to be toned down when it was brought over. When enemies are killed in the Japanese version, their upper bodies burst into fountains of blood, and then their lower halves explode into blood as well. In Last Battle, they simply fly off the screen. However, the boss death animations were barely changed at all... except the blood was changed from red to yellow.
• Left 4 Dead:
  • While all other media from Left 4 Dead (including the game cover) features a hand with its thumb ripped off, said thumb is present, folded, on the French poster ads. Similar censorship occurred in Germany, although there the game had two covers, an outer one with the "folded" finger and the actual inner cover with the ripped-off finger. In the UK, the cover for Left 4 Dead 2 had the hand reversed, to avoid the two fingered salute.
  • Left 4 Dead 2. The Australian release was censored in order to be approved. Infected couldn't be set on fire, thus making incendiary rounds useless, a lot of the gore was removed, the appearances of Riot uncommon infected were almost non-existent, and nearly all zombies disappeared before they even hit the ground. Yes, even stuff that was in the previous game was censored. Australian review show 'Good Game' took the mickey out of it in one of their finest moments.
• The German release of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver changes the blood in the game from red to green.
• The Legendary Axe II: After the player defeats the Final Boss and sits down on the throne, a female assassin with a scimitar in hand leaps out towards the protagonist before the game quickly cuts to the credits. In the Japanese version, she's completely nude, but in all other versions, she's wearing a red leotard.
• The NES and "US Set 1" arcade versions of Legendary Wings had the stripperiffic Michelle Hart and Kevin Walker replaced by two generic guys with golden mechanical wings, as opposed to angelic feathered wings.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Book of Magic item is referred to as the Bible in the original Famicom Disk System version, and the mode that allows you to delete save files is known as "Kill Mode" in the FDS original; this was renamed to "Elimination Mode" in the NES version.
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: The dungeons are called "Temples" in the Disk System version but "Palaces" in the NES port, and the Goddess Statue was renamed "Trophy" due to Nintendo of America's then-current policy of removing religious references in games (they left the crosses in, though).
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was named as such in English because of Nintendo of America's aversion to even the most tenuous of religious themes at the time; the Japanese subtitle translates to "Triforce of the Gods". For the same reason, the "Church" was renamed to a "Sanctuary", "The Loyal Priest" there became "The Loyal Sage" (confusingly unrelated to the Seven Sages), and Agahnim's status as a "priest" was changed to that of a "wizard". A tile with a circled hexagram in the Eastern Palace was changed to a generic symbol. The "Kill Mode" option had its name changed again here, being referred to as "Erase Player" instead.
  • One game later, in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, one of the trading sequence items was changed from a mermaid's bra into her necklace, which explains why you never see any part of her except her head until she gets it back. Additionally, diving underwater near the mermaid will cause her to swim away from you. While she says that she has already looked for her necklace there in the English version, if you try doing this in the original Japanese version, the mermaid will call Link a pervert. Also, the hippo in Animal Village was originally a nude model (with visible breasts) with a towel which she pulls up when Link enters the studio. She tells you to go away when you talk to her, which explains why she's sitting on the ground facing away from Link. All of these changes would later carry on to the 2019 Nintendo Switch remake, including the Japanese version.
  • The original release of Ocarina of Time had Ganondorf cough up blood after you beat him and mortally wound him. The blood was turned green in later-produced cartridges. The vocal track in the Fire Temple was excised as it was a Muslim prayer chant, and the Gerudo symbol of the star-and-crescent was replaced with a custom symbol, again for its association with Islam; this also required the icon of the Mirror Shield to be changed. And, contrary to popular belief, the chanting and the star and crescent design were not removed as a result of public outcry, but by Nintendo to avoid public outcry and because of its rule against having any type of religious content in their games, which is the reason why a lot of crosses and crucifixes get edited.
  • In the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the jugglers in Clock Town are a pair of flamboyant Camp Gay guys who flirt with each other while practicing their act. In other versions of the game, their dialogue was completely rewritten so that they tell jokes instead. In the Japanese version, Tatl exclaims "Gods, Goddess of Time, help us!" with the first word being removed in the American version as it could be seen as a reference to real-world religion. Numerous occurrences of the word "deity" were changed as well, though the terms "guardian deity" and "protective gods" (referring to the four Giants) are both used.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds lets the priest stay a priest this time (that the plot of the game involves actual sages must have helped), but the Sanctuary is still referred to as such and references to prayer were changed to "morning preparations", although the term and concept of "gods" is used liberally, in keeping with other modern Zelda games and their mythology. Temples are called "palaces" again, but that at least may be for continuity reasons.
• LEGO Adaptation Game:
  • The introductory level of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars sugarcoats Jango Fett's death by beheading in Attack of the Clones by instead having his empty helmet fly off and into the stands, where Boba catches it like a foul ball at a baseball game. This is in contrast to the first game, which played his death and Boba's subsequent reaction completely straight.
  • LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham had a downloadable level based on Suicide Squad, which was renamed to simply be "The Squad".
• When Lemmings was ported to the SNES, the Japanese version stayed very faithful to the original Amiga version, but Nintendo of America's censorship policies required some changes be made:
  • The cross-shaped tombstones in the dirt tileset were changed to signs.
  • The cross at the beginning of "A Beast II of a Level" was changed to some nondescript planks of wood.
  • Tricky Level 21, "All the 6's", is replaced with "Ohayo Lemming san!"^note "Good Morning, Mr. Lemming!", completely redoing the level's structure and aesthetics from "666" to the level's title in hiragana (though you are still given 66 of every type of Lemming).
  • Taxing Level 3, "Heaven can wait (we hope!!!!)" was retitled "Paradise can wait (we hope!!!)," with the "HEAVEN" in the background accordingly modified.
  • "DEATH" was replaced with "TERMINATE" in the background of Taxing Level 24.
  • The ending of Taxing Mode was changed. In the Japanese version, the last Lemming that slides down the slope chafes off his tunic, revealing his bare backside and causing him to blush. In the international versions, he just slides down the slope normally like all the ones before him.
• LittleBigPlanet:
  • The first game had one Toumani Diabaté song, "Tapha Niang," excised completely by Sony, replacing with something more generic, a mere four days before its launch date, pushing back the release two weeks so that whole new, Bowdlerised discs could be distributed all over again, so that those without online access to patches might not be offended. The issue was two passages from the Koran having been set to music in the song, which is a major controversy in Islam.
  • "Rock Your Body Rock", a song included in LittleBigPlanet 2, was modified to change the intro from "let's fuck" to "let's rock".
  • The version of Royksopp's "Vision One" in LittleBigPlanet 2 is entirely instrumental. While the original song isn't profane, it contains dark lyrics about the downfall of humanity being brought on by an overreliance on technology, which were likely too intense for the lighthearted tone of the game.
    Everybody let us gaze upon the world we've created
    Let us rest our eyes upon the great machine as we wave goodbye
    Feel the evening breeze caress us while the cities are dying
    As we watch it fall into a modern state, a modern time
• Little Nemo: The Dream Master: The English versions remove the cigars that Flip and the gorilla mount can be seen smoking in the Japanese version. However, the original sprite of the smoking gorilla can still be seen in the English manual.
• Little Ninja Brothers: The Japanese version, Super Chinese 2, has a boss called "Hittora" (a Stealth Pun on Hitler and "tora", the Japanese word for "tiger"), a tiger that rides a tank while sporting a toothbrush mustache and a cap with a swastika on it. His sprites were edited elsewhere to remove the mustache and the swastika and was promptly renamed to "Tiger Tank". Additionally, a cameo of Xuan Zang from Journey to the West was removed since it involved the character getting drunk, though he (as well as Sun Wukong, who was also cut) still appear in the game's ending cast roll regardless of region.
• Little Samson: In the English versions, the boss of the river stage had her bust reduced.
• Littlewitch Romanesque: Editio Regia: H-scenes are censored in the Steam version.
• The Nintendo Switch remake of Live A Live tones down or outright removes a large amount of the more risqué elements of the original SNES game.
  • Prehistory:
    • In the SNES game, Beru will flash Pogo if he gives her certain equipment while she's hiding in a haystack in his room. In the remake, Beru instead invites Pogo into the haystack with her and what the two do in there is left to the player's imagination.
    • Gori's exposed butt when using his fart attack and Zaki's pixilated crotch when throwing his lizard loincloth as an attack are replaced with them being covered by a smiley face.
  • Twilight of Edo Japan: In the SNES game, the statue enemies (Icon of Flame, Icon of Water, and Icon of War) have appearances resembling Buddha statues. In the remake, they're changed to instead resemble Fujin.
  • Wild West:
    • In the SNES game, healing items in this chapter take the form of alcohol and cigars. In the remake, these are replaced with medicines and strips of beef jerky. As a result, the negative effects of the original items are removed.
    • In the SNES game, going up to Annie's room after first arriving in Crystal Bar results in a scene of the Sundown Kid walking in on her changing. In the remake, the scene instead has him walking in on her writing in her diary. Similarly, the chapter's Joke Item, Annie's nighties, is replaced with her diary.
  • Present Day: In the SNES game, the Great Aja's stage has the Mexican flag on the mat of the ring. In the remake, this is replaced with a skull painted with the muted colors of the flag. This is rather justified, as Mexico is very strict about the use of their flag outside of official use, especially in regards to foreigners, and likely wouldn't take kindly to it being used to represent a vulgar rudo.
  • Near Future:
    • In the SNES game, it's possible for Akira to accidentally teleport into the orphanage's bathroom while Taeko is washing herself. This is no longer possible in the remake.
    • In the SNES game, Akira gets Watanabe to steal Taeko's panties, resulting in Akira receiving two underwear related items, first being given Watanabe's own boxers, then Taeko's panties. In the remake, this is changed to Akira getting Watanabe to help him steal Taeko's pocket money, resulting in the items being changed to Taeko's pocket lint and Taeko's pouch, respectively.
  • Dominion of Hate: In the SNES game, the Bountiful Heart is portrayed as a Depraved Bisexual Abhorrent Admirer. The remake, being released in a time in which LGBTQ+ awareness is a more sensitive issue, changes him to instead be a relentless Blood Knight who pesters the heroes due to how much fun he has fighting them.
• Loren: The Amazon Princess: The Steam version censors armor and romance scenes.
• In the Lufia series, the Four Mad Gods were renamed the Sinistrals (kind of odd considering it means left-handed), their name kept for all subsequent installments. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom further had crosses on churches removed and priests' robes stripped of Christian symbols. Ditto Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, which replaced every instance of "gods" in the Japanese script with "super beings", and either removed crosses or replaced them with obelisks, but a few slipped through, particularly in "destroyed" churches. Both games also originally had the girls on Forfeit Island wear bunny costumes, which were changed to more generic outfits.
• Lunar:
  • The English versions of Lunar: The Silver Star turn the pentagram symbol on the normal transport pads into an arrow-like shape, and the hexagram transport pad in the final dungeon was changed to an octagram that somewhat resembles a compass. Xenobia had her bust reduced and her nipples removed, and the brief picture of a completely nude Luna in the game's ending had its palette altered to obscure her features. Most of these changes are reverted in the remake.
  • Lunar: Eternal Blue: Nearly all instances of pentagrams, whether they be on transport pads or for the Magic Shield spell, were changed into arrows or octagrams, though the one on top of the Blue Spire was left alone. Plantarium had some more vines added around her chest and pubic area, all shots of Lucia from the front in cutscenes had the shading on her chest around her Godiva Hair altered/removed to make her breasts less pronounced, and one image of her from the back was partially shifted down below the letterboxing to cover her bare backside. As in the first game, a nude depiction of Luna was given a different color palette, and it cuts away almost instantly after showing it, as opposed to the Japanese version showing it for several seconds. Again, most of these changes were reverted in the remake.
  • Lunar Legend gave Dark Althena pants in one scene where she's shown from the back, but oddly in her sprites and other images she's shown with her original skimpy outfit. The bath scenes are also absent, and only the G-rated bromides are included.
• MacVenture series has originally released on the Mac, then other computers of the era, then the Famicom, then the NES. As a result of that last conversion, some things certainly changed:
  • The NES port of Déjà Vu (1985) had a lot censored when it was brought west:
    • Graphically, all instances of alcohol were removed (such as the glass of scotch on the file select screen), and all instances of blood were edited out or removed entirely (the alligator in the sewer had its blood changed from red to black when it is shot, and the body in the police station is no longer lying in a pool of blood).
    • Some text was edited as well: drugs/syringes were changed to "medicine", pills were changed to "capsules", alcohol was changed to "seltzer", and the text for inspecting the chair in the police station was changed to thinly obscure the fact that it's obviously meant to be an electric chair.
    • The Japanese version shows a freaky skull whenever you get killed, with "REST IN PEACE" written underneath. The English versions change it to a tombstone... which conveniently spoils the main character's real name, Ace Harding, in a game with a Quest for Identity plot. Whoops!
  • The Famicom release of Uninvited saw the typical religious censorship of its time when it was brought west. The pentagram on the rug in the foyer became a regular star, the cross and the crucifix in the chapel became a chalice of "celestial" (read: holy) water and a strange column respectively, and the cross-shaped tombstone in The Maze was turned into a regular headstone. Some other things were changed as well: the tribal masks hanging on the wall in the master bedroom were replaced with paintings, the wine bottle on the floor of the dining hall was removed, the zombie in the prison cell no longer holds his own head (his knife also no longer has blood on it), and the zombie in The Maze no longer has one of his eyeballs dangling out of its socket.
  • Shadowgate: In the original Mac and NES releases, when the rock in the sling is used to knock the cyclops in the courtyard unconscious, the protagonist shouts "Death to the philistine!" in homage to the Biblical story of David and Goliath. The 1999 Game Boy Color port, Shadowgate Classic, removes the religious reference and changes the line to "Death to the tyrant!" instead.
• The music for the Madden NFL games is real life songs with titles that can be related to the game of football. However, some of these songs have lyrics that wouldn't be acceptable in E rated games such as Madden, so they end up with references to "non-friendly" things cut out. The worst would be the Atreyu song on the 2007 version, which is so butchered that there are, at points, several second blots where the music completely cuts out. The NHL version suffers a similar fate. Burn It to the Ground by Nickelback was rendered nearly incomprehensible due to how many words were censored.
• Magic Sword: In the Japanese and earlier World versions, using the screen-clearing magic causes an image of a red, circled hexagram with various symbols inside of it to appear on-screen. Due to its heavy resemblance to the Star of David (more specifically, the badge that the Nazis used to identify Jews during The Holocaust), the American and later World versions replace it with a lightning strike. The SNES port uses a generic screen-warping effect in all regions.
• Mahjong Gakuen: Higashi Kan Shuu Shirou Toujou, a strip mahjong game for the PC Engine, attracted a lot of controversy in Japanese game news coverage when it was initially released due to its erotic nature. This eventually led the game's developer, Sakindo, to release a censored version seven months later called Mahjong Gakuen Mild, which cuts out any and all moments of female nudity.
• Makai Island, the English version of the Famicom port of Higemaru Makaijima: Nanatsu no Shima Daibouken^note lit. "Roundbeard's Demon Island: Seven Islands of Great Adventure" had its official release cancelled, but it was still was affected by Nintendo of America's censorship policies. Some of the enemy sprites were changed in order to avoid stereotyping African peoples.
• Mana Series:
  • In Secret of Mana, the enemy Hell Hound is changed to Heck Hound. In the Mana Fortress, Killroy the robot attacks with the same mallets as Thrillboy, instead of wielding a chainsaw.
  • Angela combines this with Adaptational Modesty in Trials of Mana. In the original SNES and Super Famicom version, Angela's Love Typhoon Class Strike consists of Mooning her target, followed by blasting them with exploding hearts. She also moons the player at points throughout the story to taunt or tease other characters (especially Duran). It's also implied by her dialogue that she Sleeps in the Nude, as evidenced by her calling every male character a pervert if she is approached while in bed. In the 2020 remake, all instances and suggestions of nudity are removed, and she no longer moons her target when executing Love Typhoon. What makes this particularly strange is that because the game represents her class changes with new models rather than a simple Palette Swap, her character models are by far more revealing than her sprite in the original game. The Magus and Spellbinder especially are downright Stripperiffic.
  • The 2021 remake of Legend of Mana changed the character designs of Hamson and Roger, presumably due to a worry that their big lips somehow made them racist caricatures. Roger's lips were shrunken and his hoop earrings were removed. Hamson just had a bushy beard sloppily added. The item 'Virgin's Sigh' was also renamed to 'Damsel's Sigh.'
• The PS2 and Wii versions of Manhunt 2 had their execution scenes censored with static blurs to avoid an "Adults Only" rating, which is forbidden in console games. The PC version remained uncensored.
• For a good idea of what almost every US game on the NES or SNES had to go through to get published, see "The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion". Ironically, while the NES version of Maniac Mansion removed nude statues and references to sex, it retained the ability for the player character to blow up a live hamster in a microwave—at least, until the censors caught that.
• When the Global version of the MMORPG MapleStory got Showa, all the guns were replaced with robot-like attacks or energy blasts, and the swords were replaced with toy hammers. All the enemies were also shown transforming into monsters upon death. Fairly large changes, considering that only two maps contained monsters not unique to Showa.
• Mappy Kids: One of the levels at one point has a clothesline with several garments on it, including a white hood. Though it's meant to be a hood of one of the Masker enemies from fellow Namco franchise Rolling Thunder, it has an unfortunately close resemblance to the hood of a Ku Klux Klan uniform. Oddly, the Evercade release of the game censors it not by changing the hood's color, but removing the eye holes to obscure the fact that it's a hood.
• The Playstation version of Martha Is Dead reduces the game's depiction of gore/self-harm and references to masturbation.
• In the Japanese version of Konami's Martial Champion, Chaos is a Chinese Vampire with Wolverine Claws, and Titi^note pronounced "tee-tee"; short for Nefertiti, a real-life queen of Ancient Egypt is a Bedlah Babe. The international versions swap the names of the two characters due to the unintentional implications of a large-chested woman named Titi. Strangely, her counterpart in Otomedius, Titi XIV, did not receive a name change despite further Adaptational Skimpiness.
• The American version of the Genesis/Mega Drive port of Marvel Land had a very hexagran-like ferris wheel in one stage changed to a pentagram. The girl that gives Prince Talmit the bad news in the intro also had the bunny ears removed from her outfit.
• Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes: In the Japanese version, one of Morrigan's victory animations involves a bound Lilith descending from the top of the screen and Morrigan promptly assuming a dominatrix outfit with her back facing the screen, including her bare butt visible through her clothes. This animation was completely removed elsewhere, but it eventually made its way into all versions of Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
• McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure had the icon for the magic power-up completely changed from the Japanese version to the English version due to it originally resembling a sperm cell.
• Mega Man:
  • Classic series:
    • The Yellow Devil in the NES games was never mentioned in the games or their English-language manuals. However, at least one Nintendo Power walkthrough renamed it to the Rock Monster.
    • Mega Man V had the Final Boss renamed from Sungod to Sunstar in the English versions. While he dies in both versions, the exact method of death was changed for the English version to remove implications of suicide. In the Japanese version, Sungod deliberately triggers an explosive device hidden in his body to destroy the Wily Star; in the English version, Sunstar's reactor core is critically damaged during his fight with Mega Man, and that's what triggers the explosion.
    • At the end of Shade Man's stage in Mega Man 7, Bass utters "Damn!". The Anniversary Collection and Legacy Collection 2 rereleases changes it to "Darn!".
    • Mega Man: Battle & Chase: The original Japanese artwork for Guts Man in the Wild Arms depicts him doing a pose that heavily resembles the bras d'honneur, an equivalent to Flipping the Bird in many European countries. An alternate version with him in a different pose was created, but the instruction manual for the European release still uses the Japanese artwork.
    • Mega Man Powered Up featured a Robot Master named Oil Man. The differences in appearance between the Japanese and European/American releases can be seen here◊. Archie Comics took a different direction in depicting Oil Man by retaining his color scheme, but having his lips covered by his scarf◊. The change is likely due to Oil Man's original design being too close to Blackface.
  • The Mega Man X series, being more oriented towards older audiences, deals with serious subject matter such as war and genocide. That said, it is still not immune to Never Say "Die" censorship, as most mentions of death or killing are referred to as "retirement" instead in the English versions of the games. The Mega Man Zero games did not fall victim to this as much despite covering some of the same topics, as many mentions of death/killing were retained in the English scripts of the original Game Boy Advance releases, though there were some exceptions.^note Ciel's line in Mega Man Zero about Copy X trying to "kill" all members of the Resistance was changed to trying to "retire" them, her line in Mega Man Zero 2 about Reploids being sent to concentration camps for "execution" was changed to "retirement", etc. By the time of the release of the Zero Collection on the Nintendo DS, the ESRB became more strict about references to death/killing in E-rated games, so nearly all of them were written around in various ways to compensate. These script changes extend to the Zero/ZX Legacy Collection as well.
  • The Mega Man Zero games are not immune to more traditional forms of censorship as well, such as of violence and religion. The non-Japanese versions of the games remove any instances of Machine Blood whenever enemies are destroyed with weapons that aren't the Z-Gun, and also remove any "blood" visible in the backgrounds of stages. As for religious censorship, the Four Guardians are known as the Four Heavenly Kings in Japan, and the bat-based boss in Mega Man Zero 3 is known as Hellbat Schilt everywhere outside of America, where he is known as Devilbat Schilt instead.
  • Mega Man Legends:
    • At one point in the first game, you had to save Tron Bonne from a dog. In the Japanese version, you can either shoo it away, or kick it instead, causing it to run away squealing. In the international versions, you can only shoo it away. You were also free to kick cats and shoot birds, which would darken Mega's armor, make Roll dislike you, and hike her prices if you did it too often, all of which was removed from the American release. You can still kick the feral dogs in Old City, which was considered acceptable as the dogs attack you and a solid boot was the only way to make them back off, but you can only do it once to scare them off.
    • Again in the first game, one sidequest requires you to get a magazine for Jim. In the Japanese PlayStation version, this item is called the Erotic Magazine, and it has some rather racy images on it, as well as named references to Darkstalkers ladies Felicia and Lilith. The English versions change it into a Comic Book and make its appearance much more generic. The English versions of the Nintendo 64 port still refer to it as the Comic Book but keep the original appearance, and the Japan-only PlayStation Portable version refers to it as the Comic Book with the art from the English PlayStation version.
    • The English versions of Mega Man Legends 2 change the two Adult Magazine items that can be sold back and forth between the Shady Dealer and the Junk Store owner into the Reaverbot Eye and the Reaverbot Claw.
    • The English versions of The Misadventures of Tron Bonne change the Adult Magazine item into the Design Magazine^note though the sprite still depicts a topless woman covering her chest with her arm, and change the name of Servbot #40's skill from "H" to "Design". After it receives the magazine, the Servbot can be seen in Tron Bonne's bed: in the Japanese version, he's trying to smell it, but in the English versions, he's just jumping up and down having fun.
  • In Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan, the player could originally find a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" on a wall inside the Queen Bohemia. In international versions, to avoid referencing a real-world religion, it was changed to a generic painting of fireworks.
• Megami Tensei:
  • In the original Shin Megami Tensei I, one of the early Dream Sequences shows a bizarre ritual including two cloaked guards. In the PC Engine CD and Mega CD versions, the guards are fully nude from the neck down with Barbie Doll Anatomy, but in the Super Famicom, PlayStation, and Game Boy Advance versions, they're wearing pants.
  • Persona:
    • In the Japanese version of Persona 2, the Zombie Junkie is the reanimated corpse of a druggie who died of drug overdose. In the official translation of Eternal Punishment, he is a "junk food junkie turned zombie." The PSP remake of Persona 2 Innocent Sin, despite being advertised as being uncensored, changed Hitler to "The Fuhrer" and gave him Sunglasses and a coat to cover the Nazi uniform. Meanwhile, the Last Battalion (Nazis) were changed to The Imperial Army, and all Swastikas were removed and replaced with the Iron Cross.
    • The Chinese and Korean versions of Persona 5 remove the Rising Sun symbol on Ryuji's shoes due to the negative history/relationship between China, Korea, and Japan making the Rising Sun a very offensive symbol in non-Japanese Asian countries.
  • Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE: Kiria Kurono, a playable character and idol singer, had her idol costume censored to replace her black panties/bikini bottoms with black tights (this occurred in the Japanese release too). The English version re-wrote a lot of the Gravure Idol references, mainly in the second arc, which changed a few optional outfits as a result.
• Menace Beach was an unlicensed NES game where you had to rescue your girlfriend from Demon Dan. A year later, the same developers re-released the game as Sunday Funday to be a more family-friendly version. While the gameplay is the same, a lot of enemies and other elements were swapped out; ninjas were replaced with generic bullies, the sumo looking men were changed to large old women wearing their Sunday clothes, the Elvis Presley impersonators were replaced with plumbers, the bottles thrown out from windows got replaced with newspapers, the crazy ladies hiding in boxes were changed to old ladies that threw newspapers at you instead of kisses, and the final boss, Demon Dan, was replaced with a bear. Instead of rescuing your girlfriend, whose clothes continuously rot off as you finish levels, Sunday Funday replaces her with a Sunday school teacher that constantly nags you to get to school.
• Metal Gear:
  • The NES port of the first Metal Gear wasn't altered much, if at all. However, its notorious "FUCKM E1111 11111 11111 11111" password, which dropped the player off at the final boss with no weapons, led to Nintendo of Europe imposing an additional layer of censorship by forbidding or at least discouraging vowels from appearing anywhere in a game's password system, due to the potential for swear words to accidentally or intentionally appear within them.
  • Because of the unfortunate timing of its release (9/11), Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty had several scenes from the game removed, such as Vamp explicitly stating that his and Dead Cell's intentions of using the hydrogen bomb are actually quite different than Solidus: specifically, they planned to nuke NYC itself rather than simply cause an EMP wave over Wall Street (the latter of which was Solidus's plan), Liquid Ocelot stating that he set Arsenal Gear's course to Manhattan, the actual crash sequence for Arsenal Gear, Raiden cutting the American Flag and having it drop on Solidus's corpse after he is defeated, and a news report mentioning the Statue of Liberty's new resting place at Ellis Island.
  • All versions of Metal Gear Solid 2 after the initial US release removed and toned down blood, such as removing the open wound on the necks of the dead Marines in the Tanker Chapter.
  • In the torture scene in the Japanese release of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Strangelove uses the electric rods to tickle Big Boss rather than electrocute him. Also, the dialogue is different, and Big Boss is laughing rather than screaming. This is because the Japanese version was meant to appeal more to children as well as older gamers (in Japan, PSP is a system targeted toward all ages, unlike the US and UK, in which it is mostly targeted toward teens and adults). View the Bowdlerised cutscene here.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater went through some changes in the European and and Australian releases. You can see a full list of censorings/edits here, but to name a few examples:
    • Volgin's electricity color was changed to white (for whatever reason).
    • During the scene where Volgin realizes Big Boss was disguised as Raikov and proceeds to beat him up horribly, the electric surges are gone.
    • During the torture scene, Big Boss does not twitch as much after each electric shock, and his skeleton is not shown as much.
    • The explosion of the base holding the Shagohod is less intense.
  • The release of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance had troubles due to dismembering of humans. As a result, enemies in the game were changed to cyborgs. Additionally, the Japanese version changed the red blood to white. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots already had white blood in the cyborg characters, so Japan's censorship is somewhat justified. In fact, the lack of censorship in the US version created a Dub-Induced Plot Hole when a character is shown bleeding red blood and this is treated as a dramatic Unrobotic Reveal.
  • The Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes changes the camera angle during the scene where the bomb is being removed from Paz's stomach so that no visceral imagery is shown on-screen.
• All arcade Metal Slug games have blood effects set to "off" by default in the operator's menu in non-Japanese releases... though this doesn't actually remove them, it just changes their color to light gray.
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: In the original release of the game, "Damn!" is used in one scene as an expletive. This was changed to "No!" in the PAL versions, as was in all versions of Metroid Prime Trilogy, despite being rated Teen/12+.
• Even a game like Minesweeper was not immune to Bowdlerisation, as evidenced in 1999 when Sergio Chiodo of Italy started a campaign to ban the game internationally unless it was censored, decrying it as being insensitive to victims of Real Life minefields. Microsoft took note of this, so the versions bundled with the Italian localizations of Windows ME, 2000, and XP are renamed to "Prato fiorito"^note lit. "Flower Field", the mines are replaced with flowers, and the explosion sound upon losing is replaced with a brief jingle.
• Miracle Warriors Seal Of The Dark Lord: The original Japanese cover art depicts a band of heroes attacking a winged monster woman who is completely nude with exposed breasts. The Western cover art features a redrawn monster woman wearing body armour instead.
• Monster Monpiece: The PS Vita US/EU release has around forty cards only showing their level 1-3 evolution art, as the higher level evolution art is considered "too exposed".
• Monster Strike: North American art has been changed to be less revealing.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • In the SNES version of Mortal Kombat (1992), the blood was recolored from red to gray, Hand Waved as being "sweat". Fatalities are instead known as "finishing moves", and were also changed to be less violent, most notably Sub-Zero's decapitation Fatality being replaced with one where he throws a ball of energy at the opponent, which freezes them solid, followed by him punching them and shattering them to pieces.^note This became a standard Fatality for Sub-Zero in all games afterward, even being referenced in the movie. The only difference is that in later games, the pieces are much bloodier, and he usually takes a more hands-on approach to the shattering (in Mortal Kombat II, you must freeze the opponent yourself before performing the Fatality).
  • Mortal Kombat II: While the English version of the SNES port of the game remained entirely uncensored^note this was due to the poor reception of the censored SNES release of the first game compared to the Genesis version that could be uncensored via Cheat Code, resulting in it outselling the SNES version 3:1, the Japanese version recolors all blood green, and forces a grayscale filter whenever a Fatality is performed (except for the Stage Fatality on The Bridge). All other Japanese releases of Mortal Kombat games were completely uncensored (including the Japan-only PlayStation release of II)... until the franchise was banned in Japan outright for being too violent.
  • In Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, The Joker's fatality move is less violent in the US than elsewhere. In a pre-release version of the game shown to game journalists, Joker's Fatality went as such: he pulls out a gun and fires it, only for that gun to be a fake gun with a "BANG!" flag; after laughing like a madman and the opponent relaxes like they've been let off the hook, Joker pulls out another gun and shoots his opponent in the head. The Fatality itself was left intact in the American release version of the game, except for one small detail: when Joker does the killshot, the camera zooms in to only show him, not showing the opponent getting a lead lobotomy. A similar Fatality done by Deathstroke is also censored in the same manner in the American version of the game (the European version of the game features both Fatalities in their uncut form). The crossover game has other examples of censorship, due to the copious content restrictions influenced by the use of a family-friendly license by DC Comics. This eventually proved to be the factor that hindered sales most of all.^note By going for a T rating and hoping to get in the good graces of teenagers's parents, they displeased both young players who found it to be a dilution of past MK gore and the Moral Guardians who still went after its violence just like they did every other iteration in the series. This game can serve as an example that by trying to please everyone, you often end up leaving many unimpressed. When Warner acquired Midway, they rebooted the Mortal Kombat series and made it unprecedentedly more violent to compensate for the censored content in the previous game. In fact, Midway brought back Joker's Fatality in Mortal Kombat 9, completely uncut, as one of Shang Tsung's Fatalities (the only change being that he transforms into a generic Monster Clown beforehand).
• Mother:
  • The edits in the English version of MOTHER (known officially in its Wii U Virtual Console release as EarthBound Beginnings):
    • Religious references were removed. Gravestones and churches with mounted crosses on them either had the sprite edited to resemble a vague angelic silhouette (in the former case), or were removed outright (in the latter case). One NPC mentioning the fact that Ana lives in a church instead mentions that Ana lives in a chateau.
    • Many of the enemy sprites were slightly edited. For example, the sprites for the Gang Zombie, Shroudley, and Dr. Distorto were edited to remove any instances of blood. The female robot enemies Kelly, Nancy, and Juana had the shading on their breasts adjusted to avoid implying the presence of nipples. The Crow and B.B. Gang enemies lost the cigarettes they smoke in the Japanese version, while Teddy lost the knife he holds during the brief boss battle against him. Notably, the edited sprites carried over to the Japan-only Compilation Re-release MOTHER 1 + 2, as well as the Japanese version of the Wii U's Virtual Console release.
    • One of Lloyd's purchasable weapons, the Plasma Beam, is known as the Death Beam in the Japanese version. Likewise, the UltraBarbot and ManiacTruck enemies are called Death Barbot and Death Truck, respectively, in the original version.
    • The B.B. Gang is known as the Black Blood Gang in the Japanese version. In the English release, this was changed to the Blah-Blah Gang.
  • EarthBound (1994) received many edits as well:
    • In the beginning of MOTHER 2 (the Japanese version), Porky is worried that if his Abusive Parents find out that him and his little brother Picky are missing, he'll "be spanked 100 times". In the English version, this was changed to him saying he's "really gonna get it". After returning home and promptly being scolded, their father takes the both of them upstairs and a sound effect can be heard that differs between versions. In the Japanese version, the sound effect sounds like a crazy beating sound, while the English version changes it to miscellaneous noises. Afterwards, talking to Porky makes him complain about how his butt hurts, which was changed into him lamenting how he's "not allowed to have any dessert for the rest of the decade" in English. All of this was changed to avoid any allusions to child abuse/violence.
    • The "HH" on the Insane Cultist battle sprite was removed, and the zombie town of Threek was renamed to Threed in the English versions to avoid any unintentional references to the Ku Klux Klan, as the "HH" could be misinterpreted as "KK", and Threek can be read as Three K, as in KKK.
    • In the Japanese version, the Dept. Store Spook taunts Ness and Jeff by saying after he defeats them, they'll go to Hell, before changing his mind and saying they'll go to Heaven instead. In the English script, he stops himself from finishing his sentence.
      Dept. Store Spook: "Gwaaagh. You will be gone, and you’ll be burning in... Well, you’ll go to heaven!"
    • While foul language and the like were rewritten to be less offensive, there are two NPCs that actually say "crap". It's likely that the localizers considered the word minor enough to keep.
    • All alcohol, religion (with the exception of Paula's Pray command and the Happy Happyists), and death references (with the exception of Buzz-Buzz's line about the Starman Jr. coming "from 10,000 years in the future to kill him") were removed.
    • The standard "DRUG STORE" signs were altered to say "SHOP", though a few managed to slip past, most notably the "DRUGS" sign in Dusty Dunes Desert.
    • Ness is completely naked except for his hat in Magicant (though fortunately with Barbie Doll Anatomy). In the US version, he wears pajamas like in the game's beginning.
    • In the scene where Lardna kills Buzz-Buzz, she exclaims "It's a pesky toilet fly!" in the Japanese version. In the American version, it's "I think it's a dung beetle!". Either this is a case of Bowdlerisation, or plain "Blind Idiot" Translation. Either way she doesn't tell Buzz-Buzz to go to Hell in the English version (rather, she threatens to smash its guts out).
    • As CERO, the Japanese rating board, adopted more strict policies in games intended for children, rereleases of MOTHER 2 contain many text changes to tone down or remove excessive instances of Toilet Humour (mainly relating to vomit, feces, or other bodily functions) or mentions of death/killing. This extends to the Game Boy Advance port as part of MOTHER 1+2, the demo included as part of the Masterpieces in Dairantou Smash Brothers X^note though the five-minute time limit of said demo only allows for a small portion of the game's opening act to be played, so any notable text changes are only visible through hacking, and the Wii U Virtual Console port.
• Mugen Souls had over 100 CGs removed from its international release. Mugen Souls Z is missing a risque minigame as well.
• Mystic Defender: At the end of the game, when Damsel in Distress Alexandria appears, she is completely nude in the Japanese version. In the international versions, she was given a short pink dress, and the Korean version gives her a longer pink dress with sleeves.
• In Namco High, typing in Zoosmell Pooplord as your name results in an Easter Egg where the game declines your request with a "TRY AGAIN, SMARTBUTT". People who are acquainted with Homestuck might know that the original joke involves a word stronger than "butt".
• The NES port of NARC was hit pretty hard in order to comply with Nintendo of America's content policies. The blood splatter on the title screen was removed^note though it's just made yellow on the cover art, all blood effects were removed, the criminal organization K.R.A.K. was renamed K.W.A.K., any instances of drug use on the briefing screens were removed, the cannabis plants were changed to look more like vague plants, the porn shops in Stage 3 were made into generic stores, and Mr. Big is no longer smoking a cigar in his portrait.
• In NASCAR video games:
  • Often seen in NASCAR-themed video games if a driver or series is sponsored by a beer brand (or in earlier years; tobacco company). One early example was the first officially sanctioned NASCAR video game, Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge, was released in 1990 and its cover was censored to have the publisher's name, Konami, in place of Elliott's sponsor at the time, Coors Beer (which sponsored Elliott during his 1980s glory years racing for Melling Racing); owing largely to avoid appearances for glamorizing alcohol in a game aimed toward kids. Other examples would include various games where Rusty Wallace (sponsored by Miller Beer^note specifically, Miller Genuine Draft from 1990-94; a general Miller sponsorship from 1995-96 and Miller Lite from 1997 onwards from 1990 until his retirement in 2006; and before that was sponsored by the Kodiak brand of chewing tobacco) would have his name replace the "Miller Lite" name in the logo but was still very obviously Wallace's (or his successors, Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski) Miller Lite paint scheme.
    • The censorship could get a little incosistent, though, especially during the time the Cup Series was sponsored by Winston cigarettes. While the in-game graphics would replace the Winston Cup banners and logos with generic "NASCAR Cup Series" logos (albiet still using the Winston-originated colors and font, and even then a few trackside banners slipped through uncensored) and blurred out the Winston Cup patches on driver suits and video footage when possible, Lightning Challenge intros and announcer chatter would use still use the Winston name instead of generic replacements.
  • Between 2001 to 2005, Mark Martin was sponsored by Viagra, an erectile dysfunction drug which have led to awkward questions from children to their parents. In NASCAR Thunder 2002, his car was censored as if it was an tobacco/alcohol car with Martin's name on the hood and sides. Other games such as NASCAR Heat 2002 and later editions of EA's NASCAR games would put the manufacturer of the drug, Pfizer, instead.^note Martin did run a Pfizer-sponsored car without any mention of Viagra in real life, in 2001 and 2002 at races held at Rockingham (North Carolina) Speedway. Ironically, Viagra is left uncensored in NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. Some of Martin's merchandise from that period were also produced with just the Pfizer logo regardless of the merch's target audience.
  • From NASCAR '15: Victory Edition, NASCAR games now have explicit alcohol logos on the cars, provided the game verifies the player to be at least 21 years of age.
• When Need for Speed games started using licensed music, a few of the songs were censored to keep the E rating (or T rating, depending on the game).
  • The original versions of "Fever for the Flava" and "Goin' Down On It" by Hot Action Cop had extremely NSFW lyrics, so they were heavily rewritten when they appeared in Hot Pursuit 2.
  • Due to its Driven to Suicide lyrics, Celldweller's "One Good Reason" was made an instrumental in Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
• The non-eroge version of Nekopara Vol. 1, which was released on the Nintendo Switch with an M rating from the ESRB for "Sexual Themes", wasn't enough for Sony. The PlayStation 4 version is rated E, the Censor Steam was increased compared to the Steam version, and the breast jiggle feature was removed among other changes.
• Night Slashers: The non-Japanese versions of the game change the flesh and blood of the enemies from red to green, and the "Go!... To Hell!" HUD indicator had the second part of its animation removed.
• Ninja Gaiden:
  • The English versions of Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos for the NES remove the six-pointed star on Jacquio in cutscenes, and change it to a five-pointed star on his in-game sprite. The version that's included as part of Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the SNES changes Jacquio's blood in one cutscene from red to green.
  • Censorship of decapitation is somewhat common in Japanese releases. Among others, decapitations aren't possible in the Japanese versions of the first XBox game. The Bowdlerisation was carried to all regions in 'Ninja Gaiden 3 (2012).
• The Ninja Warriors Again: Several elements were changed in the international releases: the intro text was slightly rewritten to remove any references to the heroes assassinating the villain, blood effects were removed, and the female Kunoichi enemies were all replaced with the male Monkies.
• Nioh: The Japanese version of the game removes the ability to dismember enemies during their death animations.
• No More Heroes involves quite a bit of blood when an enemy or six die in the American version. The Japanese version replaces blood with ashes, and the European version got the same thing. In the western version, the very first boss gets his hands chopped off before being decapitated. However, in the Japanese version, Travis simply knocks his weapon out of his hands, and when he goes for the finishing blow, the boss explodes into ashes. Every single boss that dies via dismemberment explodes into ashes the same way. You can see the difference here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjJw8gul1VY. However, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle had blood in both the American and European versions. This is because Japan is less tolerant of excessive blood in video games as time goes on.
• No One Can Stop Mr. Domino: In the Japanese version, the third stage has a gag where a girl in her bedroom strips down to her bikini, and the teddy bear sitting on the floor nearby has a fountain of blood erupt from its nose. The blood was removed in all international versions (though it can still be seen while reversing the level), and the European version changed the girl's outfit so that she's still wearing her swimshirt.
• Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen: The English versions remove the hexagram the main character stands on during the character creation process.
• Oh Shit!: The game received a re-release titled Oh No! which replaces Pac-Man's "Oh shit!" scream with "Oh no!"
• OMORI: In the original blog that served as the basis for the game, Omori frequently used his laptop to look up porn and at one point was even shown getting drunk. Omori does not do any of that in the games, possibly because his age was changed to be around 12 years old.
• Onimusha: Warlords: In the Japanese version, during the Pre-Rendered Cutscene where Hecuba turns into her insect form, there's a moment where her stinger emerges from between her legs. This was cut from the international versions.
• In the arcade and Famicom versions of Operation Wolf, one of the civilians that shouldn't be shot is a woman in a bikini. The NES version covers her up by giving her a dress. Additionally, the NES version also renames the Concentration Camp level to the Prison Camp for sensitivity reasons.
• A Bowdlerised option was added in Orc Attack: Flatulent Rebellion called Magic mode to tone down the Toilet Humour. Instead of the orcs farting, they unleash magical bursts of energy that have the same effect as igniting gas.
• Pac-Land: The Namco and older Midway versions have a cross on top of the church on the "BREAK TIME" screen. This was removed in newer Midway versions and the Arcade Archives versions.
• Panic!: The US release of the game on the Sega CD removes two of the animations, one of them involving a Japanese cigarette vending machine. When the game received a Japan-only PlayStation 2 port in 2002, the developers realized that it wasn't a good idea to release a game that depicts the destruction of world landmarks, so the animations were changed to said landmarks either having diarrhea or turning into feces instead. The game's bad ending was also changed from the Statue of Liberty being buried in the middle of a desert to the Earth turning into feces and being rolled into a black hole by a giant dung beetle.
• Parappa The Rapper:
  • The American version of Um Jammer Lammy received some alterations compared to the European and Japanese versions:
    • Originally, the plot of Stage 6 is that Lammy slips on a banana peel and dies, ending up in Hell as a result. In the American release, its intro cutscene was re-animated so that Lammy's belt gets caught on a door, causing her to be slingshotted to an island instead. A lyric in Stage 1 was accordingly changed: "...so you can play in Hell" became "...so you can play on an island". The edited Stage 6 intro cutscene also cuts the part where Yoko threatens to kill Lammy with her guitar, with Lammy remarking that she's already dead because she's in Hell, so Yoko simply tells her that if she plays well, she'll let her come back to life. As for Stage 6's song, a reference to angels was changed to "my friend" in Lammy's version, and a reference to the devil was changed to "somebody" in Lammy's version and "a man" in Parappa's version.
    • In Stage 5, any of Paul Chuck's lyrics that glorified deforestation were altered (for example, "Chopping trees down for the fun" was changed to "Knowin' that we're here for the fun"), though one line didn't have its subtitles changed.
  • In Parappa The Rapper 2, the lyric "...tastes better than wine" was changed to "...you better get in line", and all lyrics/dialogue mentioning God were changed to "the man".
• The European SNES release of Parodius Da! turns the cross-shaped tombstones that the giant clowns in the second stage reveal when they're defeated into wind-up keys, removes the Birth of Venus painting in the background of the third stage, and removes the animation of the Hot Lips boss licking their lips to avoid any sexual undertones. The Bunny Girls inside the bubbles in the seventh stage also had the bunny ears and tails removed from their outfits.
• Perfect Dark:
  • As with Rare's previous N64 FPS, the Combat Knife weapon was removed in the Japanese version to once again avoid any potential references to the Kobe child murders. The Japanese version also removes the blood splatter effects when enemies are shot, the blood pool effect from dead bodies, and also makes dead bodies disappear shortly after being killed, which has the side effect of improving the game's overall performance.
  • In the Xbox Live Arcade version of the game, the "N-Bomb" weapon was renamed to the "N-Grenade" in order to avoid the unintentional reference to a racial slur.
• Phantasy Star:
  • In the Japanese version of Phantasy Star II, if a male party member asks Ustvestia to be taught the Musik technique, he'll remark that they look cute, and promptly charge them less than he would a female party member. The international versions change the line to him remarking that they look smart instead, but the gender-exclusive discount was still left in.
  • Phantasy Star IV has a late-game enemy exclusive to the Japanese version known as Acacia^note and its Palette Swap, Shadow Mirage, which has the appearance of a well-endowed, fully nude woman (albeit with Barbie Doll Anatomy). Rather than just altering its appearance to make it less revealing, the localization removes it from any and all Random Encounters where it appears, rendering it completely Dummied Out outside of Japan.
• In the Japanese version of Pieces, a jigsaw-themed Puzzle Game for the SNES, the Sea Queen is topless, with her chest always being covered by her arm. The English versions give her a top.
• Pikmin:
  • Pikmin (2001): In the original Nintendo GameCube version, the journal entry for the Mamuta has Olimar compare the eponymous creature's smack to the time a mosquito landed on his head and his wife tried to get it. In the Nintendo Switch port, this was changed to him fearing that the Mamuta's smack might crack open his helmet, likely to avoid any reference to domestic abuse.
  • Pikmin 2: The treasure earned after defeating Segmented Crawbster, a weird doll head, is worth 666 Pokos in the Japanese version. Since that number is strongly associated with Satan in Western religions, the worth was raised to 670 in the international versions of the game.
  • Pikmin 3: One of the many unorthodoxly-named real-world items that you can collect in-game is an avocado. In the Japanese version, this item is referred to as a "Crocodile Scrotum", whereas in the English versions, it's known as a "Scaly Custard".
• Pilotwings: The organization that the player must thwart in the helicopter missions to rescue hostages is known as an unnamed "drug syndicate" in the Japanese version. The international versions name them the EVIL Syndicate.
• Pocket Card Jockey: The button to speed up the horse in the final round has a whip icon on it in the Japanese version. It was replaced with a green "Go!" icon elsewhere to avoid any implications of animal abuse.
• Pocky & Rocky:
  • In the first game, the boss of Stage 4 is a topless harpy in the Japanese version. In the English versions, she was changed to an ordinary bird. The English versions of both the first game and its sequel also remove horns from any characters that have them to make them look less demonic.
  • The international releases of Pocky & Rocky Reshrined lift up Ame-No-Uzume's Impossibly-Low Neckline to conceal her cleavage.
• Pokémon:
  • General:
    • In the Japanese releases of Pokémon games, the Elite Four are appropriately known as the Four Heavenly Kings. This term was changed presumably to avoid any religious references.
  • Generation I:
    • Red's sprite◊ in the original prototype versions of Red & Green originally had him wielding a whip. His appearance was greatly altered in the final game, presumably to make him appear more child-friendly and avoid any implications of animal abuse.
    • Many trainers (Cooltrainers, Tamers, Team Rocket Grunts, Cue Balls, Sabrina) wield whips in the final versions of the first generation games. These would disappear from all later games, excluding Tamers in the Kanto remakes.
    • The old man lying on the ground preventing access to Viridian Forest until the Pokédex is acquired was passed out due to being drunk in the Japanese versions. In the English versions, he's cranky because he hasn't had his coffee yet.
    • The Cue Ball trainer class (known as the Roughneck in Generation IV and beyond) is known as the Skinhead in the Japanese versions. The name was changed to avoid any references to Neo-Nazism.
    • The Dirty Old Man staring through the window of the Celadon Gym commenting that it's full of young, pretty women had the line changed to "strong trainers" in HeartGold and SoulSilver and Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!.
    • The infamous Fuschia Gym 'Juggler' in both Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Gold and Silver, who lost his "dropped my balls" line in the remakes.
    • Gen I had a possessed woman in Lavender Town's Pokémon Tower telling you to "Give... me... your... soul...". Come the remake, she says to "Give... me... your... all...". Making this funnier and weirder is that another woman, in both versions, says "Give... me... blood..."
    • One of the Hikers on Route 10 is constantly having a laughing fit in his dialogue. After beating him, in the Japanese version, he says it's because he recently ate some "laughing mushrooms". The English versions eliminate any potential drug references by rewriting the line to him saying that he's not laughing, but rather sneezing due to hay fever.
    • The Pewter Museum of Science contains a model of a space shuttle. In the original Game Boy releases, it is described as a model of the Real Life Space Shuttle Columbia. However, when the real Space Shuttle Columbia burned up on re-entry in 2003 and killed all seven crew members, the international versions of FireRed and LeafGreen (released approximately a year later) made it a nameless space shuttle to avoid referencing a real-world tragedy. The shuttle was made nameless in all regions by Generation VII.
  • Generation II:
    • Due to the new graphical capabilities of the Game Boy Color, Pokémon Gold and Silver were the first games to edit Jynx's in-game sprites outside of Japan by making her skin purple instead of black, due to the controversy at the time over her heavy resemblance to blackface. All subsequent installments in the series would do this as well, even extending to the 3DS Virtual Console release of Pokémon Yellow.
    • In the 1997 beta, the Pokémon Remoraid and its evolution Octillery's designs more closely resembled a pistol and a tank, respectively. Upon the game's release their designs were toned down to the point where they just barely resembled weapons (making their theme barely identifiable), leading many players to wonder how they were even related.
    • 'Firebreather Dick' in the Burned Tower in Gold/Silver, who was renamed Firebreather Richard in the HeartGold and SoulSilver remakes. Which is still accurate, as "Dick" is a shorthand nickname for "Richard".
    • Interestingly, the female Swimmers (and some of the other female enemy trainers) go the other way in this. The Beauty in the original version of Gold/Silver/Crystal had her skirt lengthened and no longer winked at the player (the latter also applies to female Swimmers), but the female trainers haven't been Bowdlerised since.
    • Some other trainer classes had their sprites changed outside of Japan as well. Sages no longer pray, Mediums no longer carry prayer beads, and Fishers no longer smoke. All trainer sprites remained uncensored in the South Korean release.
    • HeartGold and SoulSilver take censorship even further. Due to changing standards from PEGI (the European video game rating board) getting more strict on gambling references, the slot machines have been completely replaced by Voltorb Flip, a Minesweeper clone (outside of Japan, anyway). Later generations bypass the issue by simply not having a Game Corner at all.
    • This isn't the first time the games have censored gambling. The Australian version of Crystal changes dialogue relating to the Game Corner to some laughably bland lines, presumably to avoid portraying gambling as exciting. These changes are absent in the Virtual Console release.
    • The Korean release of HeartGold and SoulSilver makes alterations to the outfit of the Sage trainer class (including removing the prayer beads) to reduce the religious connotations. Their name was also changed to "Ascetic", as opposed to "Monk" in the Korean versions of the original Generation II games.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire got some sprite changes outside of Japan, too. The female Psychic had her arms changed to be outstretched instead of near her face because it could be potentially misinterpreted as having her hands around her chest, and the Sailor had his pose changed due to its original resemblance to the Bras d'honneur, a very offensive gesture in many different non-English countries.
  • Generation IV:
    • In FireRed and LeafGreen, the Gamblers became "Gamers" (and thus spouted such gems as "I'm a rambling, gaming dude") on Route 8. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Gamblers returned but were renamed P.I.s in the English translation due to their clothes coincidentally resembling that of a detective. This is, however, despite the fact that they're clearly shown flipping a coin and their dialog contains gambling and probability references because the translation staff didn't bother changing the sprite and dialog to match the name change.
    • Male swimmers wear trunks in the international releases (which they ended up doing worldwide in Pokémon Black and White) instead of the speedos they had in the Japanese versions and older games, likely because the low resolution combined with their pose unintentionally made the speedo kind of hard to see in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, and for consistency with those games in the case of HeartGold and SoulSilver.
    • Registeel's sprite was changed in the non-English European releases as well as all versions of Platinum because the graphics designer gave it a pose that resembled a Nazi salute.
    • Remember that line in the ancient Sinnoh legends about how humans and Pokémon once "ate together at the same table"? In the original Japanese, they married.
    • Due to ratings boards' standards, the European version of Platinum and the Korean versions of all three Sinnoh games change the Veilstone Game Corner from a casino to an arcade with non-interactive games. Coins can be found on the machines randomly each day.
  • Surprisingly averted with the trans woman Beauty in Pokémon X and Y's Battle Chateau, who survived in international versions with slightly vaguer wording.
  • Colosseum has Rui's shirt no longer showing her navel and her skirt is no longer shorter than Dawn's.
• Predator (NES): The back of the game's box art censors the film's Tagline "If it bleeds, we can kill it" by changing "kill" to destroy, and Schaeffer's Signature Line in the ending when the Predator takes off its mask was changed from "You are one ugly motherfucker" to "You are one ugly beast".
• The SNES port of Primal Rage is the only home port to remove Chaos's "Golden Shower" fatality where he urinates on his downed opponent. If the input for it is done, a "NO" sign appears and it skips to the end of his victory animation afterwards instead.
• The English versions of the SNES port of Prince of Persia remove a scene in the game's intro that was present in the Japanese version, showing the restrained Prince being beaten unconscious by several guards while imprisoned.
• Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom:
  • In the original Japanese home computer versions as well as the Famicom version, Saladoria has a cigarette shop and a liquor store. In the NES localization, they were changed into a coffee shop and a juice bar, respectively. All graphics and Fetch Quest items related to alcohol or smoking throughout the rest of the game were also accordingly changed.
  • Near the end of Chapter 6, after the player blows up Bananda and looks through its carcass, they eventually find the kidnapped (and completely unharmed) peanut child Nutty. In the Japanese version, she's been tied up, but in the English versions, her arms are free, presumably to reduce the cruelty factor.
• Psychosis, a Shoot 'Em Up for the TurboGrafx-16 with a Surreal Horror theme, has the game's Big Bad taunt you every time you finish a level. In the English versions, he says "Come on!" with his index finger raised, but in the Japanese version, Paranoia, he's laughing while Flipping the Bird.
• Pu·Li·Ru·La: Some ways into the third stage, the player eventually runs into a doorway in between two giant legs. Open the doors, and out pops... an elephant. The World release of the arcade version, the only version of the game to be released outside of Japan, removes the legs due to the obvious comparisons that could be drawn.
• Soda Popinski from Punch-Out!! was known as Vodka Drunkenski in the arcade version. In the home console games, he has his name changed to eliminate the alcohol reference. That said, he still has dialogue that clearly references being drunk (seriously, does "I can't drive, so I'm going to walk all over you!" sound like someone who's on a sugar-caffiene rush?).
• Puyo Puyo: Back when the arcade version of Puyo Puyo (1992) received an official localization, Satan's name was changed to Dark Prince, in accordance with nigh-universal standards of removing all religious references. This reappeared when the GBA Minna de Puyo Puyo was localized as Puyo Pop, but was inconsistently reverted in the few other Puyo Puyo games to actually make it out of Japan. Puyo Puyo Tetris brings back the name change, which seems to confirm it as official.
• In the NES version of Puzznic, the screen for completing every stage in the game shows a girl in what very closely resembles a Playboy Bunny outfit, albeit without the bunny ears and tail. The international versions remove this so only the congratulatory message remains.

Q-Z

• In the N64 version of Quake, in accordance with Nintendo's censorship of religious references, the death message "You Visit the Volcano God" (death by lava) became "You Visit the Volcano Maker". Other religious references such as crucifixes were also removed.
• R-Type III: The Third Lightning: In the Japanese version, the large projectiles that the second boss fires are rather obviously meant to resemble giant sperm cells. The overseas versions change them to flying eyeballs with trailing opium nerves.
• In Race Days for the Game Boy, the girl on the menu for purchasing car upgrades wears a bikini in the Japanese version (Dirty Racing). The international versions change her outfit to a one-piece bathing suit.
• Rainbow Islands: The American version of the NES port removes the crosses from the gravestones on Monster Island.
• In the US version of Ray Crisis, the Flaming Sword-wielding Humongous Mecha boss's name was changed from Sem-Slut to Sem-Strut. Obviously, to get an E rating.
• The Japanese version of the Game Boy Color port of Rayman depicts Rayman with five fingers on each hand instead of the usual four. This is due to some of the negative connotations that four-fingered hands have in Japan.
• Resident Evil:
  • The first Resident Evil. The various FMVs in the Japanese version had gore with bloody corpses and death animations, as well as numerous instances of Chris smoking cigarettes. The Western releases were recut and used alternate footage. The PC version and some PAL releases of Director's Cut contain the original videos.
  • In the Nintendo GameCube remake of the first game, the Hunter's One-Hit Kill Deadly Lunge no longer decapitates the protagonist. And both localizations of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica lack decapitation animations, although you still hear the sound of a head exploding when you get a headshot. And in all versions of Resident Evil 5, decapitations occur offscreen via Gory Discretion Shot.
  • Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 both have naked zombies in the lab areas, but due to the low details on the models, no genitals are shown. The remakes gave the naked zombies clothing to wear since HD graphics would show zombie junk. Strangely, the remake of Resident Evil 2 gave the Lickers rendered anuses.
  • Resident Evil 4:
    • At least in the American release, Ashley exclaims "What's going on?" when being trapped against a wall during the game. However, in the demonstration video played when left idle at the menu, the same scene is shown, with the dialogue being "Oh my God! What's going on?"
    • The game also had a single enemy who unexpectedly pops out of a large oven to rush the player while on fire. This guy didn't make it into the German version, probably due to unspeakable things the Nazis did. In fact, the German version was so badly censored that German gamers largely refused to buy it, importing versions from other countries.
    • In a rare occurrence of material being censored in its native country, the original Japanese version removed all decapitation deaths, instead changing them to have the faces mutilated much like the aftermath of a Novistador's acid attack. The animation for Leon being killed by a chainsaw was also sped up.
• Revengers Of Vengeance: In the Japanese version, Battle Fantasy, the game's bars sell beer and rum. The international versions change their names to "coffee" and "cola", though glasses and bottles of what is obviously alcohol can still clearly be seen in the background.
• Richman series:
  • In the Steam version of Richman 4, probably because of Chinese censorship, the stage selections are list as "Stage 1", "Stage 2", "Stage 3" and "Stage 4" instead of "Taiwan", "China", "Japan" and "U.S.A" in the original.
  • In Richman 11, while many maps are clearly based on real-life locations, they aren't given a name of such, instead using names like "Sleepless Town" or "Angel Island". Many character dialogues and card names are also changed as a result.^note Though this only applies to the Chinese subtitles and voiceovers, both English and Japanese translations still have words that would be changed in Chinese subtitles. For example, "Thank Allah!" would be changed into "Praise for luck!", and "Scapegoat", a card that is usually depicted with a crucified man is changed to "Deflect" with an image of a shield deflecting an attack. There is even a character who has his Simplified Chinese name changed to avoid elements of gambling.
  • Exaggerated in the WeGame version of 11: Missiles, mines and bombs are replaced with magic spells like snowballs, tornadoes and bubbles, hospital and jail are replaced with cafe and library respectively, the dice is changed to one with numbers on it (akin to the ones in Mario Party), and the character mentioned above is outright removed. There are also no English words anywhere; both the "On sale" signs and the "Go" button are changed too.
• Rolan's Curse 2 for the Game Boy changed a graphic of a hexagram to a skull between regions.
• Rusty's Real Deal Baseball: The eponymous character Rusty received significant changes to his design overseas. In order to avoid any potential resemblance to racist caricatures of the Japanese, his skin was made slightly darker, his eyes were completely redrawn to be bigger and open, and his two front teeth no longer protrude from his mouth.
• Korea discourages positive portrayals of Samurai (on account of the country's various invasions and all). This affected the release of some versions of Soul Calibur, which replaced Mitsurugi with a British katana-wielding knight named Arthur (with no relation whatsoever to King Arthur). He later returned as an unlockable bonus character in Soul Calibur III, using a katana style distinct from Mitsurugi's. Some versions of the first Soul Calibur also alter one of Voldo's alternate costumes to remove a bull-shaped codpiece. This is also apparently the reason Hayate, a character from Street Fighter EX, only appeared in a single game; eventually his Super Moves were given to Garuda as a Meteor Move.
  • Samurai Shodown and The Last Blade had their names changed for Korean release.
  • Kenseiden had the map of Japan changed with a map of Korea, and the story was also adapted to reflect the change.
• Samurai Shodown: Playing the first game on an American Neo Geo AES will turn all blood effects from red to gray and disable the ability to do Finishing Moves.
• House of the Dead is banned outright in Germany. This affected Sega Superstars Tennis and all other Sega Superstars/All-Stars games, which feature a HOTD-themed court and minigames, and HOTD tracks — because it would have been too expensive to release a Germany-only version without this content, the HOTD elements are renamed "Curien Mansion" in all territories.
• In the Japanese version of Secret of the Stars, one of the game's towns is known as "Drunkards", a town with plenty of bars as well as intoxicated people with slurred speech. As per Nintendo of America's censorship policies, the town was renamed to "Sleepers", the bars were changed to coffee shops, and the townsfolk are instead constantly drowsy, requiring coffee to get through their everyday lives.
• The erotic visual novel Season of the Sakura focuses on Shuji Yamagami, a 16-year-old who's just entered high school and most of his potential love interests are around his age or younger, with only two of them being 18. To avoid possible trouble with portraying minors in sexual situations, the English localization by JAST added dialogue claiming the protagonist was entering some kind of post-high school pre-college school and claimed everyone attending was 18-years-old. This might have worked if they hadn't left in the part where Shuji mentions he is only 16, creating a Dub-Induced Plot Hole.
• Senran Kagura Burst: In the localized version, the characters' ages are removed. This is clearly just doing the bare minimum for legal reasons, as the characters still refer to each others as juniors, second-years, and seniors in the script, giving anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Japanese school system an educate guess of their ages. The series director has spoken out against Bowdlerisation in interviews, stating that the Fanservice is a part of his overall vision of the game whether people like that or not, and he'd rather not release a game at all than let it be censored.
• The beta version of Shadowrun for SNES had Kitsune saying, "What's the matter, never snuggled down with a fox? Wanna try?" This was changed in the final release to "What's the matter, never seen a fox before?" Calling the morgue a "chop shop" was also edited out.
• Shadowverse:
  • Some of the game's art was changed for the English release, most notably Isabelle's character portrait, who had the Cleavage Window over her massive breasts covered up.
  • Prince of Darkness is known as Satan in the Japanese versions of the game.
  • Carefully examining card arts between Shadowverse and their originals in Rage of Bahamut reveal several subtle changes to card arts regardless of version. For instance, Carabosse and Rapunzel were given slightly more clothing, and the chains on Harnessed Flame and Harnessed Glass were removed.
  • One of the stranger cases involves Cerberus whose card art is untouched but her leader art shows her wearing shorts instead of her usual bottom wear.
• Shadow Warrior (1997)'s UK release had the shuriken weapon replaced with darts. 3D Realms made a patch available online that would patch the game back to the original form. Regardless of which version of the game you have, the graphics for the dart weapon are actually present, even if they're not used because the game isn't the modified version.
• Shining Force: In the western versions, the podium in the churches had their cross removed, and the large cross on the wall was changed to a sun symbol.
• Side Pocket: The western versions of the NES port remove the wine bottle and wine glasses on the table in the cutscenes between stages.
• The original Silent Hill has an enemy that is exclusive to the North American version. The Grey Children do not appear in the European or Japanese versions due to their heavy resemblance to Real Life children.
• Silhouette Mirage: Many of the game's story elements and character names are based on The Bible, most of which were changed for the English release of the PlayStation version. Additionally, the Hare Wares shopkeeper had his cigar replaced with a hand, and the icon for trying to buy something without having enough money, originally depicting a burning cross, was replaced with a dragon breathing fire.
• SimAnt: When the SNES port was localized, the lighter and the pack of cigarettes in the house level were respectively changed to an eraser and a deck of playing cards.
• The Simpsons: Virtual Bart: In the SNES version's prototype, hitting every single kid in the tomato-throwing minigame will make Bart moon the camera in the ending class photo, albeit with a Censor Bar over his rear end. In the final release, he just makes a funny face instead.
• SINoALICE: The mobile version of the game changes the art for some characters to be less revealing.
• Skies of Arcadia had some minor changes made to it, but none of them affect the plot or gameplay:
  • The main drink that the Air Pirates preferred was rum; the US version changed this to a non-alcoholic juice named "loqua." Due to this, drunken characters were either edited out completely or had signs of drunkenness (such as red faces and dialogue) removed.
  • A Nasrean dancer's outfit had an added strap to her top and her pants were no longer transparent.
  • The dialogue between Vigoro and Aika when he corners her in a Valuan prison cell had the implications of him wanting to rape her toned down heavily. He was also topless in the original version of the game.
  • During the first part of the final battle, Ramirez squeezes his sword to the point that his hand bleeds. This was removed.
  • As a final note, these changes were carried over not only to the US version of the updated GameCube version, but they were bought to the Japanese version as well, and in the latter, a lot of the kanji that was used in the Dreamcast version was changed to hiragana so that younger players could read the text.
• Skyblazer: The game's story and visual/sound design are heavily inspired by Hinduism, to the point where the main character is Garuda and the main villain is Shiva in the Japanese version. The international versions remove all the religious references, and change all blood effects from red to green.
• Level 6-A in Smart Ball had the cross removed from the top of the church in the international versions.
• Many of the more violent and sexual aspects of Snatcher were toned down in the various ports between platforms, mainly involving instances of blood/gore or female nudity.
• SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos: Setting the Neo Geo's BIOS to English will remove the Jiggle Physics in Mai Shiranui's animations.
• Soccer Spirits: Character art has been changed in all versions to be less revealing due to South Korean maturity laws.
• Solomon's Key:
  • Solomon's Club changed the hexagram background tiles into "S" tiles in its localization. However, a level with blocks in the shape of a hexagram was not altered.
  • Fire 'n Ice significantly changes the layout of Stage 4-3 outside of Japan due to its slight resemblance to a swastika.
• Sonic Blast Man: The English versions of the SNES port swap out any and all female enemies with male ones to avoid depicting violence towards women.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Averted in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, where pre-release concept artwork◊ shows that the planned Genocide City Zome was going to be renamed to Cyber City Zone due to the negative real-life connotations with the former name before being cut from the game altogether.
  • Sonic Adventure: In the international versions, there is a rather innocuous billboard in Casinopolis. In the original Japanese version, this billboard was of a scantily-clad cowgirl with a fully modeled martini glass... that moaned suggestively when jumped or glided into.
  • Sonic Adventure 2: In the GameCube port, Rouge's chest bounce was toned down and her most Stripperiffic alternate multiplayer outfit was replaced with a more modest one.
  • Sonic Battle: In the Japanese version, if the game's language is set to English, there's a line in the beginning of Rouge's story where she calls Eggman a "dirty bastard" after finding out that he hacked the Central Computer. The international versions remove this from their English scripts.
• The English versions of SOS for the SNES make the ship's bar inaccessible (and two people inside (Brian Dexter and Anthony Paines) unable to be rescued later on as a result). Redwin's minor alcoholism was removed from his character, and his job status as a minister in the Japanese version was changed to him being a counselor.
• SoulBlazer: In the Japanese version, the fourth boss is Medusa, and her bare chest is fully exposed on her sprite. The international versions swap her out in favor of the male Poseidon. Lisa's hands were also removed in her ending appearance to obscure the fact that she's praying.
• The PAL versions of Soul Edge changed Li Long's weapons from nunchaku to a three sectioned staff due to a law in the UK banning the use of or depiction of weapons such as nunchaku.
• The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened very shortly after Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro for the PlayStation finished development, so the developers had to quickly delay the game and change anything that could be considered to be in poor taste. Four levels had name changes to avoid any references to planes or the World Trade Center, and the Final Boss battle against Electro was changed from being on top of the World Trade Center to being on top of two nondescript buildings connected by a bridge.
• The TurboGrafx-16 port of Splatterhouse (which was also released on the Wii's Virtual Console) was Bowdlerised, but not as badly as people might think. While a fair amount of the violent content remained intact (some of it was toned down — but that can partially be blamed on hardware limitations), there was some censorship, most notably in Level 4. The boss of the level in the arcade version is a possessed upside-down cross, surrounded by severed heads, and following its defeat, Rick moves further into the chapel where it resides and kneels before an altar with a crucifix in hand, while a hymnal theme plays and light shines into the chapel; in the console version, the cross is changed to a demonic-looking skull, and the altar is removed from the post-fight scene (though the hymnal and lighting effects inexplicably remain).
• Spyro the Dragon (1998): The Gnorc Commando enemies in the Twilight Harbor stage are equipped with machine guns that fire real bullets. In Spyro Reignited Trilogy, they instead wield Family-Friendly Firearms that shoot globs of poison.
• Star Fox:
  • Andross, the Big Bad of the franchise, is known as Andorf in Japan. According to a 2002 developer interview, the name change happened due to "Andorf" sounding very similar to "Adolf", as in Adolf Hitler.
  • The English version of Star Fox 64 changed one of Pigma Dengar's taunts against Fox from telling him his father's waiting for him in Hell to the more sadistic-sounding "Daddy screamed REAL good before he died!"
• The PSP remakes of the first and second Star Ocean games had the horizontal portions of the cross that appears during the Cure-All spell removed in their English versions.
• When Star Wars: Legacy character Darth Talon was added to Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, her outfit was edited to replace her skimpy loin cloth garment with a shorts-like garment that came down to her knees. Her skimpy bra was replaced by a less revealing bra that resembles a sports bra type garment.
• Steel Harbinger have the player's character, Miranda, in a stripperiffic metal one-piece as her main outfit, unless you're playing the European version which turns her skin-revealing attire into a long-sleeved bodysuit. Compare this cover with the one on the page.
• When Hoi Hoi: Game Boy Ban for the Game Boy was localized as Stop That Roach!, the fire weapon (used to kill roaches) was changed to an insecticide spray, presumably because the close-up of roaches in pain as they burned to death was a little much. One of the game's ending pictures, showing the two male and female protagonists having dinner, was edited slightly to change the wine bottle and glass to a pitcher and a glass of juice, respectively.
• The Genesis/Mega Drive port of Stormlord puts some clothes on the fairies, which were nude in the original Amiga version.
• Street Fighter:
  • Street Fighter II:
    • The SNES ports of World Warrior and Hyper Fighting remove the famous intro scene where a white fighter can be seen punching a black opponent in front of a crowd. The English SNES ports also alter the animation of the man in the blue coat in the background of Ken's stage due to the placement of his hand being similar to an obscene gesture. One of Balrog/Boxer's win quotes in the prototype, "My fists have your blood on them!" (a loose translation of one of his win quotes from the original Japanese arcade version) was replaced with "Get up, you wimp!" in the final game.
    • The English versions of the SNES port of The New Challengers change Sagat's loss portrait to reduce the amount of Blood from the Mouth. Also averted in this same port, as a pre-release screenshot from a Mexican magazine shows that Cammy's iconic green leotard was originally going to be changed to a onesie, effectively giving her shorts.
    • Inverted with the first Super Turbo - the secret character Gouki, meaning "proud demon", was renamed for the US version, with a more extreme term that wouldn't see much use in Japanese media - Akuma. HD Remix removed an image of the Hindu god, Ganesha, from the background of Dhalsim's stage, and replaced it with the Taj Mahal.
    • The Final Challengers is the first version of Street Fighter II to completely remove Zangief's association with the Soviet Union by removing the hammer and sickle logo from the ground of his stage.
  • The Street Fighter II installments included in Capcom Arcade Stadium remove the Rising Sun symbol from the background of E. Honda's stage to avoid offending Chinese and Korean audiences. Additionally, the flag for Fei Long's stage was changed from the Hong Kong flag to the Chinese flag due to ongoing political issues.
  • The console game based on Street Fighter quotes Guile's famous (or infamous) speech during one of the story mode cutscenes, but changes "I'm gonna kick that son of a bitch Bison's ass" to simply "I'm gonna kick Bison's butt".
  • The arcade version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 has a "regulation mode" in the operator's menu that is only off by default in the Japanese version. This toggles certain bloody visual effects, such as the blood coming from Zangief's head in his pre-stage portrait, and Rose's bloody fate in her ending.
  • Street Fighter EX:
    • In the games where he is present, D. Dark's punch throw has him grab his opponent and slit their throat. Everywhere outside of Japan as well as in certain regions of Japan itself where stricter content guidelines are present, this animation is changed or removed. Blood effects are also either red or green depending on the region.
    • Shadowgeist's Surreal Horror stage has an alternate version everywhere outside of mainland Japan due to the presence of a humanoid figure hanging by the neck in the background.
  • The English version of Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact changes the blood on Akuma's victory screen from red to green, and both 2nd Impact as well as 3rd Strike remove the blood on Urien's arm when he squeezes it for his animation when he loses a round due to a Time Over.
  • Street Fighter V:
    • Rainbow Mika's sexual taunts and fighting poses were censored. Her outfit was also pseudo-censored by ESPN when they were broadcasting EVO, as a player who was using her was forced to change her outfit out of the default one to something more modest.
    • The 1.04 update changed Cammy's model in her default leotard costume so that her nipples are no longer visible.
• Streets of Rage:
  • Streets of Rage 2 removed the Panty Shot in Blaze's jump kick sprite and the cigar in Mr. X's mouth during the final battle when it was localized from Bare Knuckle II.
  • Streets of Rage 3 has many changes in the international versions. The plot was originally about Mr. X capturing a military general and replacing him with a robot duplicate in order to stir up a war between two countries and also planting nuclear bombs around the city. Failing to beat the Final Boss on the good ending path would have the bombs explode and destroy the city, turning the ending into a Pyrrhic Victory. The story overseas changed the general into the Chief of Police, the nuclear bombs were changed into generic bombs, and a cutscene showing Axel yelling at Dr. Zan about what kind of damage the bombs could do to the city (complete with an animated scene of the city being engulfed by a bright light from the explosions) was completely removed from the international copies of the game. Camp Gay mini-boss Ash was replaced by a generic mook with more health and all the female enemies were given more clothing to cover them up. Most fans see the Japanese version as the better game due to the story not being butchered and the difficulty from enemies being consistent across all difficulty levels.
• Strider (Arcade): "You will never defeat the Lord!" had "lord" changed to "master" in some of the home versions.
• Suikoden: In the Japanese version, when Varkas and Sydonia are taken prisoner, they get tied to crosses. The international versions change the crosses to regular wooden posts.
• Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius: The Steam version removes two scenes with adult content. These scenes can be re-enabled with a patch.
• In the SNES version of Sunset Riders, the prostitutes were given more modest clothing, the cowgirl enemy as well as all of the Native American enemies were changed into regular cowboy enemies to avoid any potential genocidal overtones in Stage 6, since nearly every single enemy in the stage is Native American. Speaking of Stage 6, the boss was renamed from Chief Scalpem to the less casually racist Chief Wigwam. El Greco's pre-battle voice clip, "Die, gringo!" was also replaced with a duplicate of his death voice clip, "Adiós, amigo!". The Arcade Archives rerelease replicates some of these changes.
• The PC adventure-slash-RPG game Superhero League of Hoboken has an interesting example of Bowdlerisation being used in-game as a puzzle solution. One mission part-way through the game involves finding out why a neighboring superhero league has suddenly gone "missing"; it turns out that this particular league — comprised entirely of men — has become so enthralled by a crate full of pornographic magazines that they refuse to do their jobs. The solution? Zap the magazines with a Bowdlerising ray gun that instantly changes the magazines into much less offensive (or interesting) material. In an extension of the gag, none of your male party members are willing to pull the trigger — the only person who'll actually do it is your team's sole (at the time) female member.
• The Super Mario franchise:
  • The main series platformers:
    • Super Mario Bros. 2: The instruction manual of the NES game described Birdo as "[thinking] he's a girl who'd rather be called Birdetta". This line was removed in the instruction manual of the game's rereleases, and other games featuring Birdo simply refer to her as female to properly acknowledge her gender identity. A second example is related to the Koopa shell that is found in some grass patches: In Doki Doki Panic (the game's precursor), it is a Big Face item modeled after a ganguro head; it was changed to the Koopa shell due to its high resemblance to Blackface.
    • Super Mario Bros. 3: In the original NES and All-Stars versions of the game, the first line of the Kings' message upon completing a world is "Oh, thank heavens!". Come the game's GBA remake as Super Mario Advance 4, the line was changed to "Oh, splendid! Splendid!" to remove the religious reference, the only release of the game to make this change.
    • Super Mario World: Koopas' shell-less form is called Naked Koopa in Japan, and Beach Koopa in English; despite this, western adaptations still depicted this form as being in their underwear. Also, in the Super Mario Advance 2 remake, the game changes the word "demented" to "crazed" in the cutscene text after beating #1 Iggy's Castle because some might consider the word "demented" to be inappropriate for young audiences.
    • Super Mario All-Stars: The audience chatter on the title screen was changed in the English versions. If you listen closely to the audience chatter in the Japanese version, a male voice can be heard saying "One more beer, please!". This was altered to comply with Nintendo of America's censorship policies on references to alcohol.
    • Super Mario 64 DS: The Korean version completely removes the Rec Room option from the title screen menu, the Toad in Peach's room that allows access to the Rec Room within the game itself, and the bunnies around the castle that give out keys that unlock Rec Room minigames. This is because some of the casino-based minigames are in direct violation of Korean laws prohibiting simulated gambling in games that aren't intended exclusively for adults.
    • Super Mario Galaxy: In the Japanese version, the last main galaxy is known as Hell Prominence Galaxy. In the English-speaking versions, it was renamed Melty Molten Galaxy, despite the other language versions giving the level similar names to the original (i.e. Infernal Stroll Galaxy in the Spanish version). Also in the Japanese version, the minor level where you race against a Boo through a spooky underground course is known as Death Promenade Galaxy, while in the English localization it's called instead Boo's Boneyard Galaxy (again, this is not the case for the other language versions, which give it synonymous names like Sinister Promenade or Lethal Stroll Galaxy).
    • Super Mario Odyssey: Pre-release versions of the box art featured a shot of Mario wearing the Sombrero/Poncho outfit in the Sand Kingdom. The final box art replaced it with a shot of Mario swimming around with the Swim Goggles/Swimwear in the Lake Kingdom to avoid portraying Mexican stereotypes. Additionally, when Tencent published the game in China, due to Chinese censorship laws, the Pirate Hat/Pirate Outfit were renamed to the Noble Hat/Noble Outfit. The skull on the cap as well as the eyepatch were also removed.
  • Super Mario RPG:
    • Early on in the game, if the player inspects a certain part of Princess Toadstool's room, they can look at a peculiar item, and if the player does so later in the game after she joins the party, she'll get angry because you're going through her things. Though it's never actually shown on-screen, in the Japanese version, this item is called "Princess Peach's XXX". The English version renames it to "Toadstool's ???", due to the obvious connotations that "XXX" carries.
    • Bowser's victory pose, the bras d'honneur, is changed to Bowser holding up both fists.
    • The Wine River is renamed the Midas River outside of Japan to remove the alcohol reference.
    • One of Croco's early lines in the US version of the game is "Oh! You're a persistent bugger!" In the European rereleases, this line is changed to "Oh! You're a persistent pest!", since "bugger" is considered to be a vulgarity in UK English.
    • In the remake, Valentina's breasts won't jiggle when she's hit.
  • One of Chuck Quizmo's questions in Paper Mario 64 was to describe Mario and Luigi's relationship. In Japan the options were "Lovers", "Friends", or "Brothers". In the English version, "Lovers" was changed to "Neighbors".
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has several differences between the Japanese, European and American releases, to the point a fan translation was created to restore said removed content:
    • One of Mario's partners, Vivian, is presented as an otokonoko (a biologically male Wholesome Crossdresser who uses female pronouns, but is not considered a transgender woman) in the Japanese version. The Japanese version simply played it as a joke at her expense, while ultimately treating her as a male at the end of the day. This is never implied in the English and German translations, where she is biologically female and her sister Beldam taunting her gender identity was changed to her simply calling Vivian "pug-ugly". The French and Spanish translations kept the dialogue the same as in the Japanese version, while the Italian one turned Vivian into a proper transgender woman, turning her gender identity into a more sympathetic story rather than just a punchline.
    • In the Japanese version, the home of Larson, the bandit that steals your coins in the prologue, had a Chalk Outline of a Toad surrounded by dried blood on the floor, which was removed in all international versions.
    • Peeka, the Boo who guards the entrance to the Pianta Syndicate headquarters, and Lahla, her sister who works at the casino, had bunny ears in the original Japanese version; essentially, they were Boo Playboy Bunnies. They were changed into cat ears in all other versions of the game to remove a reference to an adult magazine, and/or because the Playboy Bunny outfit is trademarked.
    • In Chapter 5, Admiral Bobbery asks Mario to find him a bottle of Chuckola Cola. In the Japanese version, it's a bottle of wine called Vintage Red. The Italian version keeps it as wine, but due to the game keeping the recolored sprite from the American version it's called Vintage Purple.
    • TEC-XX, the computer in the X-Naut base, has a red eye in the original Japanese version. It was changed to a blue eye in western releases to avoid resemblance to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Nintendo Switch remake keeps the red eye in all countries.
    • In the Japanese version, one of the more powerful palette swaps of Dry Bones is known as Bloody Dull Bones. All other versions rename it to either Red Dull Bones or just Red Bones to avoid any violent undertones.
  • The Mario Party series:
    • Mario Party: In the Japanese version of the game, Wario and Luigi both cry "Oh my god!" whenever they suffer from a bad event. In the English version of the game, Luigi just groans and Wario says "So ein mist!"^Translation"What a bummer!" due to Nintendo of America and Europe forbidding the use of religious figures and phrases in their games at the time.
    • Mario Party 2: In the Japanese version of the game, Professor Fungi has a pipe in his mouth. It was removed in the international versions to avoid references to tobacco. Additionally, Western Land's ending cutscene in the Japanese version shows the characters wielding actual revolvers, whilst all other versions have them using toy cork shooters instead.
    • Mario Party DS: Due to South Korean content laws, that country's version of the game removed two minigames themed around simulated gambling, namely Shuffleboard Showdown and hips and Dips. Also, a part of Bowser's Pinball Machine was changed to replace its gambling-themed event into a whack-a-mole board challenge.
    • Mario Party 8: The original US and UK releases had the word "spastic" in one of Kamek's lines of dialogue (a word considered offensive in the UK because it's used as a derogatory term for someone who has epilepsy) because someone on the localisation team Did Not Do the Bloody Research. All copies in the UK had to be recalled and then Nintendo released a new print that edited the word to "erratic". A later revision in the US changed the whole line.
  • The Mario Kart series:
    • In the original Japanese version of Super Mario Kart, Bowser and Peach drink from the champagne bottle upon winning first place at the awards ceremony. It was changed in international versions to simply tossing the bottle around.
    • One of the fictional sponsors in Mario Kart 64 is called "Marioro" in Japan, a spoof of real life tobacco industry Marlboro. It was renamed "Mario Star" in the international versions.
    • The international versions of Mario Kart: Super Circuit remove the feathered headdresses on the Shy Guys in Sunset Wilds in order to avoid any negative stereotypes of indigenous peoples. When the course was brought back in Mario Kart Tour, the Shy Guys were changed to look like miners, and the tipi tents on the track were changed into prospector tents. This change occurred in all regions.
    • The 1.1.0 update of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, released less than three weeks after the game's initial launch, changed one of the victory animations of Inkling Girl due to it resembling the Bras d'honneur.
  • As seen in early prototype graphics for Yoshi's Safari, Yoshi's sprite when taking damage originally depicted him with a bloody nose. This was removed in the final game.
  • Several puzzles in Mario's Picross for the Game Boy got changed to avoid depictions of alcohol/tobacco: Puzzle 8C (Easy) was changed from a cocktail to a Boo, Puzzle 7B (Easy) was changed from a glass of wine to a top hat, Kinoko Puzzle 6H was changed from a mug of beer to a crow, and one Time Trial puzzle was changed from a cigarette in an ashtray to a rabbit.
  • In the North American version of Dr. Mario 64, Octo (one of the guest characters from Wario Land 3) has orange skin on his face and big red lips. In the later Japanese version released as part of Nintendo Puzzle Collection on the Nintendo GameCube, the skin on his face is black. The former change was done to avoid resembling Blackface, though Octo's original appearance in Wario Land 3 depicts him with black skin in all regions.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • The Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. 64 has more realistic "punch" impact sound effects for attacks. These were changed to more cartoony sound effects in the English versions to tone down the violence factor, though they can still be heard in the Sound Test menu in all regions.
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee: The DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64 is censored so it no longer mentions the word "hell" in Chunky Kong's verse, saying "heck" instead.
  • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U:
    • The female version of Corrin has some additional armor added on her legs to cover her bare inner thighs compared to her appearance in Fire Emblem Fates.
    • The game was originally going to feature a trophy of the character Tharja from Fire Emblem: Awakening,^note a T-rated game, as evidenced by a famous leak from the ESRB. However, this trophy did not make it to the final release, presumably because her Stripperiffic design (that could've been viewed from any and all angles in the Trophy Viewer) would have required the game's E10+ rating to have been pushed up to a T rating.^note It should be noted that Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the previous game, was also given a T rating, but mainly because of its Darker and Edgier presentation compared to the other games in the series. Additionally, a trophy of Lyn from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade was altered in the Japanese version of the 1.0.6 update to make it less revealing.
    • The Japanese version features a different trophy of Wonder-Pink with a different pose and darker shading on her legs to obscure her underwear.
    • Peach's underwear used to be visible under her dress in Melee and Brawl. Starting from this game, while the offending area is still modelled, the textures are removed and the surrounding space is darkened to simulate a Censor Shadow.
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:
    • Most of Mr. Game & Watch's attacks make him take the forms of characters from various Game & Watch games. One of these moves is his side smash, which has him take the form of an enemy from Fire Attack, complete with a large Native American feather on his head as seen during pre-release coverage.^note It Makes Sense in Context, as Fire Attack is about defending a wooden fortress from Native Americans that are trying to burn it down. The public quickly took notice, and lots of controversy ensued, leading Nintendo to eventually remove the feather in the final release of the game, making the attack resemble the Game & Watch Gallery 4 version of Fire Attack instead.
    • The Rising Sun symbol on Samurai Goroh's headband was replaced with the kanji for "samurai" (侍) in all regions, as it is considered a very offensive symbol in non-Japanese Asian countries such as China and Korea. The same symbol was removed from Ryuji Sakamoto's shoes in his Spirit artwork.
    • A few Spirit artworks were changed to be less revealing compared to the original artwork from their respective games. Ms. Fanservice characters Camilla (from Fire Emblem Fates) and Mythra (from Xenoblade Chronicles 2) had their artwork changed (the former had her hair lengthened and put in front of her chest to obscure her cleavage, and the latter had her Cleavage Window covered up with additional clothing as well as her bare legs covered with black tights). Mythra later recieved her censored design as an alternate costume within Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as part of a free update, where it became known as the "Massive Melee" outfit.
    • The 9.0.1 update made a small adjustment to Steve's victory animation where he eats a Cooked Porkchop. Originally, when Steve finished eating the Porkchop, he would hold it in his hand near his waist, but the angle it was being held at combined with the tilted camera perspective made it look rather phallic. The update made it so that the Porkchop disappears once he finishes eating it.
    • When Pyra and Mythra were added as DLC characters, Pyra's outfit was slightly altered by adding brown tights to cover her upper legs, while Mythra has her aforementioned Massive Melee design to stay consistent with her Spirit artwork.
    • Due to tighter restrictions imposed by the ESRB, post-release Mii Costume reveals from M-rated video game franchises do not have the franchise names displayed in the North American trailers (but are retained in the Japanese trailers, while the European ones initially retained them until the ones that came with the Kazuya DLC). The trailers for Altaïr from Assassin's Creed, Vault Boy from Fallout, Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes, the Dragonborn from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dante from Devil May Cry, and the Doom Slayer from Doom (2016) simply say "ALTAÏR", "VAULT BOY", "TRAVIS", "DRAGONBORN", "DANTE", and "DOOM SLAYER" respectively in place of the normal franchise names.
• Super Tennis: In the Japanese version, the loser of a match exclaims "SHIT". The overseas versions change it to "RATS".
• In the Japanese version of Super Valis IV, the third boss is fully nude when in her harpy form and topless when in her mermaid forms. The English versions cover her up during both.
• Tail Concerto's English localization removed any possible reference to alcoholism from the Japanese version. For example, when Waffle first encounters his grandfether Russel in the Japanese version, he's obviously drunk, and Waffle calls him out on drunk driving (in a flying aircraft, no less). The American release instead makes him "tired", with added yawns just to drive the point. This even extends to the game's photo album, as two artworks of the Pris Sisters were made inaccessable due to them drinking beer, and because photos were arranged in columns of three, that means Fool's character art photo was also removed in order to level the Photo Album out.
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Phantasia was inconsistently censored for its GBA release, mostly to remove references to/consumption of alcohol while leaving most of the remaining content intact. For one example, the party getting drunk on an overseas voyage was changed to just them having a feast, but Arche passing out and having what is obviously an Erotic Dream about Cless is kept. Any instances of hexagrams were also edited, such as when using the Indignation spell.
  • Tales of Berseria: The events of the first Scarlet Night were altered in the international releases. The original scenes depicted Artorius stabbing Laphicet through the chest with a sword. This was changed to Artorius beginning a spell that lifts Laphicet into the air, and then stabbing a magic circle with his sword, with lights going through Laphicet's body. Namco Bandai actually asked for this change to be made, to avoid an M-Rating for international releases.
• Tamagotchi: The English versions of the Game Boy game remove the cross-shaped tombstone in the background of the Downer Ending shown whenever a Tamagotchi dies.
• Team Fortress:
  • The German release of Team Fortress Classic replaces all classes with a generic robot model, making it incredibly hard to tell who's on your team and who's on the opposing team.
  • Team Fortress 2 is censored in Germany; it has the original models intact, but all gore has been replaced with gibs that cause the characters to turn into toys, mechanical objects, food, and other items upon being blown up. In the German language Meet The Team shorts, they explode into just the mechanical parts, blood is now entirely oil black, and the spines seen protruding from the necks of the disembodied heads in Meet The Soldier are now screws, implying they're all robots.^note These are the same "silly gibs" added in the game's "Birthday mode" (typically activated on or around the anniversary of the game's release, and also a server option), and when a character wears the Pyrovision Goggles.
  • The censorship of the aforementioned Left 4 Dead 2 in Australia is also lampshaded by Soldier in some of his Domination lines for the Sniper, who is also Australian:
    Soldier: Aww, am I too VIOLENT for ya, cupcake?!
    Soldier: Your country did not prepare you for the level of violence you will meet on my battlefield!
• Tengai Makyou II Manjimaru: In the original PC Engine release, one particular image of Beneth under her sheets implies that she's naked underneath, as evidenced by the fact that her nipples have shading. As time went on and CERO became more strict about implied nudity in console games, all of the various remakes and ports remove this particular detail.
• The US version of the MMORPG TERA censored the Elin models. Compare the differences here.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SNES): In the Japanese version, Canon Foreigner Aska was given a more revealing outfit, and one of her victory animations was completely changed to one more focused on Jiggle Physics.
• In Tekken 3, instead of having her top pulled off by Nina, the English version of Anna's ending has Anna walking away.
• Terraria: The Chinese mobile version changes the sprites of anything visceral, to comply with laws on showing gore or skeletons. Among other changes, the Brain of Cthulhu becomes a jellyfish-looking being, Skeletron appears to be wooden, and the Wall of Flesh looks more like it's made out of magma and obsidian than meat.
• In Test Drive 5, the song "Anarchy" by KMFDM had the line "fuck me like a whore" changed to a repeat of "knock me to the floor". In another version of the song, the two lines were replaced with "Save me from myself... let me burn in hell".
• The U.S. Sega CD version of Time Gal had the year 666 changed to 999. It also changed the text for the Time Stop option in 1941 when the plane Reika is standing on is about to kamikaze into a ship; the original version had "Pray to God". The U.S. version changed it to "Hope for luck". What's more, if this option is selected, Reika actually starts praying in the Japanese version, while the American version has her say "Please help!". She still turns into an angel after she dies regardless of region. The U.S. Sega CD version also edits some of the more lewd death animations (involving Reika losing her clothes), and excises the (above-bust) topless art of her shown in the Japanese version for beating the game on Hard.
• The PSP port of To Heart 2 is proof that not even facial expressions are safe from Bowdlerisation. And other, more sensical stuff ripe for this trope. The intended non-naughty facial expression may imply something much worse.
• Several of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games had to do some censoring of the licensed soundtrack in order to retain a Teen rating. Pro Skater 3 probably had the heaviest amount of soundtrack censorship, with songs like Guttermouth's "I'm Destroying The World" and Redman's "Let's Get Dirty" being heavily edited for foul language. Outside of curses being removed from songs, The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" had an implied reference to gun violence removed ("shoot 'em in the back now"), and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien's "If You Must" dropped a reference to hard liquor ("he had a can of O.E." ^note  O.E. being short for Olde English 800, a brand of malt liquor - apparently the issue was that the song mentioned a specific, particularly strong, brand of alcohol, since the aforementioned Guttermouth song still gets a general reference to beer by). Contemporary protests by Moral Guardians about violence in video games also led them to list the title of Agent Orange's "Bloodstains (Darkness Version)" as "Speed Kills" in Pro Skater 4. When the first three games were released on the Nintendo 64, they underwent further censorship to received E ratings from the ESRB. It's not known if this censorship was mandated by Nintendo of America or done voluntarily by Activision, but Pro Skater 3 would be released for the Nintendo GameCube in its original T-rated form.
• When the original Top Gear was released for the SNES in North America one month after the original European version, some of the more vulgar speech bubbles that come from the player's car when certain events happen during a race were censored. "What the hell??" was changed to "What the heck??", "Yo butt head!!" was changed to "Yo bone head!!", and "Kiss my ass!!" was removed entirely. Subverted for the later Japanese version, Top Racer, which replaced all the speech bubbles with small English words and phrases that'd still be easy for non-native speakers to understand, but simultaneously reinstated the "What the hell??" speech bubble.
• Track & Field II: The typewriter screen had the cigarette and ashtray removed in the international versions.
• The English localization of True Love Junai Monogatari claims the main character and his various love interests are in college, rather than high school like in the original. This is likely to avoid showing teenagers in sexual situations. What makes this ridiculous, however, is that the main character is 19 and most of his love interests are around the same age, not to mention the fact that they don't bother removing references to the characters planning to go to university next year, which would make no sense if they were already in college.
• Tuff E Nuff: In the Japanese version, Dead Dance, when characters fall below half health, their faces get visibly bloody on their sprites. This was removed in the international versions.
• The violence present in Twisted Metal: Black's storyline — eye gouging, throat-slitting, brain splattering, and the like — was so extreme, that for the PAL version, the entire story for every single character was removed. Yep, every last word.
• The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang: In the Japanese version, the game's shopkeeper is a unicorn-centaur blonde with a large bust and a Cleavage Window. The American version swaps her out for a radish-like mummified cyclops with four tentacles.
• Ufouria: The Saga: In the Japanese version, Hebereke, the crow enemies attack by dropping coils of poop. In the European version, the sprite was changed to be a 16-ton weight instead.
• The SNES port of Ultima VII: The Black Gate is often considered to be a Porting Disaster, and the heavy amounts of censorship is considered to be one of the many reasons why. All instances of murders in the game's plot are changed into kidnappings, everything in the script that either explicitly mentions or even slightly alludes to death or alcohol is completely removed, and NPCs explode in puffs of smoke instead of leaving behind bloody corpses whenever they are killed.
• In Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, the Doughnut Drake skin that provided Fat Comic Relief for the past three games was cut from the final version after the new director Paul Druckmann decided it was too offensive.
• In an interview with Toby Fox that was posted on Nintendo of Japan's website, when Undertale was being translated into Japanese, there was a slight issue involving the title of Mettaton EX's Battle Theme Music, "Death by Glamour". Directly translating the English title has it read as「グラマーに殺される」(guramaa ni korosareru), using the direct loanword for "glamour" (guramaa). However, it turns out that in Japanese, guramaa has completely different connotations, resulting in the potential alternative translation of "Death by Voluptuousness". As a result, the song's title was translated as「気勢なる死闘」(kisei naru shitou), or "A Spirited Struggle to the Death", instead.
• In the Japanese version of the Genesis/Mega Drive port of Vapor Trail, the plane's pilot can be seen smoking a cigarette during the end credits. The American version removes the smoke from the cigarette.
• In the Japanese version of Vice: Project Doom, the cutscene following Stage 6 shows the character Reese being shot in the head. The English version changes this to him being startled by a nearby explosion.
• The Japanese version of Wario Land II has penguin enemies that throw mugs of beer at Wario, making him drunk and hard to control until he goes into water. International releases change the mugs to bowling balls, and the English manual calls Wario's inebriated form "Crazy Wario".
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$: In the Japanese version of the "Fruit Fall" microgame, the "not fruit" item was a poop coil. This was changed into a diamond everywhere else... though the golden poop coil that Wario gets at the end of the "Wario's Adventure" microgame remained intact in all regions.
• Warriors of Fate, a Capcom arcade Beat 'em Up based on a manga adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, has a scene in the Japanese version where a woman hands the player her baby and asks him to take care of them, before she promptly jumps down a nearby well, presumably to her death. The World release removes this.
• The Wayne's World NES game has the film's line about "The Shitty Beatles" replaced with "The Lousy Beatles".
• Capcom's Game Boy adaptation of Who Framed Roger Rabbit had to change the weasel Smartass's name to Smarty.
• Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey:
  • Instead of actually blinding Polyphemus by stabbing his eye out, Odysseus merely puts a blanket over his head, covering his eye (though Polyphemus still screams in pain).
  • In the climax, Odysseus proving his identity is enough to make the suitors run away immediately, and he doesn't have to fight them at all.
• The Witcher was fairly heavily censored in North America (to the point of having its own, less graphic sex cards) until the Director's Cut patch was released.
• In the Chinese version of Wizard101, all skeletal characters and props in the game were fleshed or removed respectively since it is considered inappropriate to depict skeletons in Chinese culture.
• Wizardry:
  • The NES port of Wizardry I: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord had the Priest class renamed to Cleric in the English version to remove the religious reference.
  • The SNES port of Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom had several changes made during localization to fit within Nintendo of America's censorship policies. The nude female statues on the title screen were covered up, the drunken Ruby Wizard on Level 2 asks for "gifts" instead of alcohol, religious class names and items were renamed, and the more revealing female enemies were covered up.
• The SNES port of Wolfenstein 3-D had all Nazi symbols removed, Hitler changed to "the Staatmeister", all human enemies' Gratuitous German voice clips replaced with English ones, the golden cross score pickups replaced with scepters, and the attack dogs replaced with giant rats. The Mac version kept all the Nazi symbols, but changed Hitler to a generic blonde dude.
• World Heroes:
  • The SNES port of the first game renames the "Death Match" to the "Fatal Match". The European version also completely changes Brocken's outfit due to its original heavy resemblance to an SS uniform.
  • If World Heroes 2 Jet is played on a Japanese BIOS, Zeus can be seen bleeding in the cutscene after his defeat. All other regions remove the blood.
• The Chinese version of World of Warcraft. To the point where Chinese censorship often delays new content far longer than it should, much to the irritation of fans everywhere.
  • Especially with content involving death. Quite problematic, considering Wrath of the Lich King's premise was a Zombie Apocalypse. The playable undead have all the exposed bones covered by badly colored flesh — you can see exactly where the original model had holes in the flesh. The skeletons left behind when a dead character resurrects are replaced by neat, tidy graves in the Chinese version.
  • Also, due to laws against glamorizing criminals and outlaws, Rogues were renamed to what roughly translates from Mandarin to "Ne'er Do Well" to state that they're scum-of-the-earth criminals instead of any kind of heroic outlaw lawbreaker tropes.
  • Early on in Mists of Pandaria, the Monk class had to have a debuff from the Brewmaster's Keg Smash renamed from "Blackout Drunk" to "Dizzying Blows", the original intent being that the Brewmaster was forcefully making the enemy drunk enough to strike themselves, changed to just slapping them so dizzy they would hit themselves, Likely to avoid getting Blizzard in trouble in countries with strict drinking laws and avoiding the implication that it was okay for a heroic character to make people imbibe alcohol by force.
• WWE:
  • The series has done this to a degree, in terms of wrestler videos, historic footage or commentary. Several reasons exist: one is if the content is too violent or it depicts a wrestler who is with TNA (hence Jeff Jarrett and Al Snow are censored out of video on the 98 Survivor Series,) the loss of rights to the content (witness Cactus Jack's video and how all King of the Death Match video is removed,) or to avoid the dreaded WWF appearance in case the World Wildlife Fund spots an instance of it and sues. Annoyingly, rather than use historical commentary for Attitude matches Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Howard Finkle, Triple H, Dwayne Johnson, et al redid the scenes. This is annoying because they will still use WWF rather than WWE, and the F will be muted out.
  • Wrestling video games have also done various things to prevent players from making inappropriate female create-a-wrestlers.
    • The Smackdown vs Raw series allowed players to add patterns to a CAW, and they wanted to prevent players from making fake nude female wrestlers with nipples made out of the patterns. Since there wasn't any other way to prevent that, they just didn't allow patterns and designs to be added to the torso of a female CAW. So if all you wanted to do was put a logo on a T-shirt, too bad.
    • By the time the series rolled over to the WWE games, adding designs to torsos was now allowed but the patterns would go behind the CAW's breasts to prevent nipple abuse.
    • WWF Attitude and its spiritual sequels ECW Hardcore Revolution and ECW Anarchy Rulez simply added a modest black bikini to the default female CAW template. This was exceptionally pointless. For one thing, the design abuse that was possible in the WWE series wasn't possible with the Attitude series' simpler CAW feature. For another, many skimpy outfits, including multiple thong bikinis and backless tops, were available as CAW parts. They just looked really stupid with the default black bikini extending out past their edges. Especially grating is the fact that WWF Warzone, the first game in the series, was programmed so the black bikini disappeared whenever clothing was added to the CAW.
  • WWF Attitude included an option for players to bowdlerise the games for themselves, with the default "Teen Mode," and the more family friendly "Family Mode." Family Mode removed lines with profanity, visible blood, and changed a few of the theme songs ^note for example, Degeneration X's theme had the lyrics removed, Mark Henry used his first theme song instead of his "Sexual Chocolate" theme
  • When WWF No Mercy was re-released in the PAL region after the infamous data deletion glitch was repaired, visible blood was dummied out of the game.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X: In the localized version, the breast size adjustment slider has been removed, and the 13-year-old Lin wears short shorts and a chest covering if she's put into one of the more revealing outfits.
• X-Kaliber 2097, a Cyberpunk Platform Game for the SNES, had two instances of pentagrams altered when it was localized from Sword Maniac: one in a cutscene was removed, and the one the Final Boss battle takes place on was changed to a generic grid pattern. Alyx (known as Cynthia in Sword Maniac) was removed from the Final Boss's sprite as well, presumably because her pose greatly resembled crucifixion.
• All Xenosaga games suffered various levels of censorship to assure the game a T-Rating in the US. The most extreme case was in Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach zarathustra, in which all blood was digitally erased for the American release (odd, since the other games got away with some blood). This led to a specially nonsensical scene — a certain character is "trying to put the blood back" in another character's body... but her hands are completely clean. Ironically, Episode I seemed to have enough blood to put it in the M zone within the first few hours.
• Modern ports/remakes of Yakuza games tend to remove any sidequests that involve crossdressers in order to keep in line with modern cultural sensitivities.
• In the Japanese version of Yo-kai Watch, one of your classmates, Natalie, is a Huge Schoolgirl who briefly goes on a dangerous diet to try and be "glamorous". To avoid any resemblances of body shaming, this was toned down in the English version to her being dangerously obsessed with celebrities.
• Your Bizarre Adventure (a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Fan Game made with Roblox) had to rename the Stand "Sex Pistols" to "Six Pistols" to comply with Roblox's content guidelines, which prohibit any reference to sexual activity.
• The Ys series features several examples:
  • Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ Omen:
    • The English Sega Master System version repositions the title on the title screen◊ to obscure the nude goddess's body. Compare to the Japanese title screen◊.
    • In most versions, the fortuneteller Sarah was strongly implied to have died as the antagonists discovered she knew too much about their plans, so she writes a letter to tell Adol the details before she's found. In the localization of the TurboGrafx-CD version, she was said to be kidnapped, leading to a What Happened to the Mouse? situation as she's still never accounted for in any enemy strongholds.
  • Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter:
    • Zalem wears Stripperiffic clothing in the original PC-88 version of Ys II, but was given a conservative robe for the North American TurboGrafx-CD version.
    • The ending picture was changed in the international releases of the TurboGrafx-CD version by putting the goddess behind the frame to obscure her pubic area.
  • The localization of the SNES version of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys removes the crucifix from the back wall in Valestein Castle.
  • Blood effects are removed from console versions of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim published by Konami to get a lower rating from many video game rating and censorship bureaus.
• The Japan-only Sega Saturn port of YU-NO, released about a year after the original PC-98 version, shortened and toned down the sex scenes. The Windows version, despite being sold as Porn with Plot, blanked out some words in the dialogue to obscure the fact that some of them qualify as Parental Incest. The 2017 remake, the first ever official English release, removes them entirely.
• The NES Zapper got a redesign in 1989 that changes the primary color of the controller from gray to orange, due to new U.S. laws that require toy guns to be better distinguishable from real guns. Even the original gray Zapper could be considered a Bowdlerisation, as the Japanese Zapper very heavily resembled a Colt revolver. It Makes Sense in Context, as one of the first two Zapper games released in Japan, Wild Gunman, is Wild West-themed.
• Zombies Ate My Neighbors got a lot censored in its European release. While the American box art is of an old lady being scared by zombies in the background, the European box art is just miscellaneous screenshots of the game. The empty space in the high score screen was covered up with orange tiles to obscure the monsters in the background, and the Chainsaw Maniac enemy was changed into the Axe Maniac, as the Shout-Out would be to a movie that was banned in many different European countries. This change also extended to the name of the score bonus for killing all of them in a single level, and the names of levels 4, 34, and 46.

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