LGBT characters in retro gaming

[Anonymous No.1177082]

I'm curious about this. I know Nintendo had some pretty weird censorship policies back in the day, but it seems like a few things have managed to slip under their radar. Sega, although not as strict as Nintendo, still enforced some pretty absurd acts of censorship on their games; for instance, Ash was dummied out of the U.S. localization of Streets of Rage 3.

One that bugged me most was the U.S. release of Dragon Warrior III. The only way Nintendo would agree to allow an English localization was if Enix removed the gay bar from the game. I think it was kept intact for the later GBC remake, but the ESRB consequently rated the game Teen. Really? Just because some characters identify as gay? It's not like it was a brothel house or anything.

Speaking of the ESRB imposing censorship, a similar thing happened with Harvest Moon. I think one of the games in the series allowed characters of the same gender to be married, but the developer removed this option from the U.S. release for fear that the ESRB would bump the rating up to Teen.

Were there any games that slipped ambiguous details past the radar, or that had characters who openly and explicitly identified as LGBT?

Pic sort of related?

[Anonymous No.1177098]

>>1177082
>>>/lgbt/

[Anonymous No.1177096]

Who else thinks Ms. Pacman is just Pacman moonlighting as a tranny?

[Anonymous No.1177118]

>>1177098

/lgbt/ is oriented more toward personal advice and gay / lesbian / trans generals. Gaming discussion never occurs there.

[Anonymous No.1177146]

Any questions?

[Anonymous No.1177163]

>>1177096
that would be odd, considering in Ms. Pac-Man we have cutscenes of her and Pac-Man meeting and falling in love

[Anonymous No.1177189]

>>1177096
You read VGCats.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=136

[Anonymous No.1177214]

>>1177163
In Pacman 2 they have kids

[Anonymous No.1177218]

Streets of Rage was always the most progressive and feminist series of beat em ups. You go around and beath the shit out of men and women without any differentiation or discrimination. You can even do the same as a woman. Truly a mile stone of equality gender justice.

[Anonymous No.1177226]

>>1177082

I think people put way too much thought into Birdo being Trans. It's just a little joke, really. Mario characters wear their backstory on their sleeve; for the purposes of a joke, SM@ manual Birdo/Ostro is a boy who thinks he's a girl, but every other one is effectively a girl.

[Anonymous No.1177248]

>>1177146
That's not Poison Kiss.

Also Roxy is bio.

In America it was originally post operative.

In japan she was pre-op.

It has become popularly agreed on that she is still preoperative.

[Anonymous No.1177298]

>>1177226
Actually in thousand year door the girl of the three ghost is actually a guy that thinks Mario is cute.

I know there was a hint in Phantasy Star 4 where a guy gave male characters discounts. Never knew there was a gay bar in DQ3.

[Anonymous No.1177309]

>>1177226
I like to think of Birdo as a guy even on the newer games. Seriously what is the harm of it? It not like gender play any role in a Mario game whatsoever when it came to the Yoshi-like races. "If it is a dinosaur then it can lay an egg" game logic is simple enough.

[Anonymous No.1177315]

I'm glad I still posess this particular instruction manual. Ostro and Birdos names were switched

Its actually a funny commentary on transexuals. He "thinks" hes a girl. The way they word that is hilarious.

[Anonymous No.1177330]

So, here's my two cents on Poison. Capcom was told they couldn't show a woman being beat up in a video game and so they gave a condescending look at the censors and said "Fine, fuck you, she's a transsexual. Is that better now? Is it better that you're beating up a transsexual? Does a penis make everything better?" and they assumed the player base would be intelligent enough to realize for themselves that the situation was ridiculous and that it was just a fun video game and that it's terrible to hurt people in real life regardless of their sex or gender.

Unfortunately, they were wrong about the intelligence of the public and our ability to fetishize anything. Now Poison is forever a homophobic joke or a reason to jerk off, depending on your perspective.

[Anonymous No.1177340]

>>1177309
I like to think that Birdo finally became the woman she always wanted to be.

Ultima 7 let you have gay sex in a brothel. There's always that heavily sexual shooter. I'm on my phone so have a hard time looking things up. But because of Nintendo and even Sega there was just a tiny hint at best for gay characters.

[Anonymous No.1177485]

>>1177189
And VGCats watch Drawn Together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgJ4yg9xEEc

[Anonymous No.1177491]

>>1177315
>Its actually a funny commentary on transexuals. He "thinks" hes a girl. The way they word that is hilarious.

This was written way back in the 80s, so their intention is probably a lot more innocent than you think it is.

[Anonymous No.1177510]

>>1177309

I feel the same way. There really isn't harm in it. Yoshi is a good example too. What does it really matter? Poison is a fictional character and your personal interpretation is ultimate what matters anyway, girl or trans I'm happy with both heh heh.

If there were any instances of censorship, that might suck in itself, but hell, it was probably just some stereotype anyway. I'm sure there are a lot of retro games where gays are just there for gag material.

[Anonymous No.1177569]

>>1177340
For the shooter do you mean Cho Aniki?

In Realms of Arkania Shadows over Riva I'm pretty sure the Feylamia was bi. A lot of that game had some undertones there but i haven't played it in years.

[Anonymous No.1177617]

Groove on Fight, the fourth game in Atlus' Power Instinct series, had two characters named Damian and Rudolph who were the first openly gay couple in Fighting Game history.

Also GoF is a pretty wicked game.

[Anonymous No.1177625]

Daraku Tenshi: the fallen angels is an extremely obscure fighter released in 98
one of the fighters is yurien, a guy who dresses like his sister, yurian

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/daraku/daraku2.htm

[Anonymous No.1177629]

Im completely fine with those ratings OP, children don't need to be exposed to that kind of thing, particularly in a way that encourages it. It would be like if dragon warrior 3 had characters talking about their foot fetishes or something, it's just not a topic kids need to hear about, a t rating is just fine

>>1177491

>implying birdo doesn't have a mental illness

[Anonymous No.1177647]

>>1177629
Death, suicide, sacrifice sure that's ok. But a guy hitting on another guy THE KIDS!!!
The rating system in every media is completely flawed. How old were you for your first rated R movie?
And Nintendo most likely thought it was a funny joke. They never really thought the gay right movement was actually going to be as big as it is now.

[Anonymous No.1177650]

>>1177647
>FALLING FOR BAIT

Stop posting, please.

[Anonymous No.1177659]

>>1177647

The rating system is indeed arbitrary and kids will generally see whatever media they want, but sex and violence are entirely different and that should be a factor in ratings- even a child has context for violence, this person is hurting another person (or themselves) because reasons, it makes sense to them. Sex doesn't, they don't know what it is or what its for or why these people are acting the way they do, their bodies literally aren't ready. Id rather my kids know what sex is before they know what gay is quite honestly, the topic doesn't need any more obfuscation or confusion at that point

[Anonymous No.1177661]

>>1177650

>he disagrees so it must be bait

why don't you go someplace where you can downvote the bad men away

[Anonymous No.1177662]

>>1177647
children are susceptible to such things as gay propaganda because its not natural.

[Anonymous No.1177663]

>>1177082
>T for teen
you know what, nobody except the faggiest fags want kids to learn about homosex. hell most people don't even want kids to know about normal and productive hetero sex until their teens. So get over it. T for teen is the correct rating.

[Anonymous No.1177676]

>>1177661
STAY THY CAUSTIC WIT, O MIGHTY KEYBOARD WARRIOR!

[Anonymous No.1177679]

>>1177659
Study shown that most kids (pre teen) will see 2 gays as just normal dating. And I never said sex I just said a gay hitting on another gay. I personally see no different between a hetero couple and a homosexual couple dating. The idea that somehow if they see two guys holding hands will somehow destroy the kids ability to ever have a normal life is stupid at the very least.

[Anonymous No.1177689]

>>1177663
This, I don't mean to be homophobic but I'd rather not have my hypothetical kids learn about homosexuality, let alone any sexuality, until they're at a proper age. That's why I don't care for openly gay characters in children's media, unless it's never stated and is subtle like Mr. Simmons from Hey Arnold, where it doesn't affect his character or any episodes.

[Anonymous No.1177687]

>>1177330

>capcom was told they couldn't show a woman being beat up in a game

Source, what about chun-li? Hell, the first 2 seconds of double dragon?

[Anonymous No.1177707]

>>1177298
Vivian in the Japanese Paper Mario 2 was actually pretty progressive... sort of. She's insulted by her sisters when they call her a man, but by the end of the game the characters accept that she wants to be identified as female.

[Anonymous No.1177708]

>>1177330
Wrong, her early design drawings clearly have "newhalf" (i.e. transsexual) written on them.

[Anonymous No.1177715]

>>1177679

>The idea that somehow if they see two guys holding hands will somehow destroy the kids ability to ever have a normal life is stupid at the very least.

It won't do that, what it will do is alter their perception of adult relationships and gender roles as well as muddle their already misinformed ideas about sex, just because gays exist doesn't mean they should be normalized- there's a difference between tolerance and acceptance and gays are not universally entitled to the latter, nobody is. The point is kids should be given a chance to have some foundational knowledge of how adult relationships work before you start throwing in fetishes/alt-orientations like they're normal, some of us want our children to reproduce and bombarding them with gay acceptance culture before they even know what gay is isn't helping

[Anonymous No.1177713]

>>1177707
Kind of wish Nintendo actually did it that way here. But I guess it would destroy Nintendo's "Family" image.

[Anonymous No.1177725]

>>1177715
But no study shown that is the case at all. Take gay adoption for instance. All study clearly shows that the kid is perfectly normal and have normal relationships. And I think kids can handle a stupid line like "hi there cutie" from a guy in an NES RPG.

[Anonymous No.1177734]

>>1177689
>I'd rather not have my hypothetical kids learn about homosexuality

Newsflash: Kids start out gay long before they blossom into adults. By sheltering them from learning about sexuality, you're just ostracizing them racking their malleable young minds with self-loathing, depression and social anxiety. I should know. I grew up not having anyone to identify with because not only did my parents impose a very strict church-going lifestyle on my siblings and me, but the media (at the time) avoided homosexuality like the plague. I thought I had done something wrong, or committed some kind of crime. I was stuck with these feelings and there was no one around to explain them to me, much less were their any sort of role models for me to look up to.

Your attitude is reactionary bullshit, and the exact reason why these idiots like the ESRB were founded in the first place. They want to pacify your ignorance at the expense of ostracizing all the people and things you fear or don't understand. Seriously, fuck you.

[Anonymous No.1177745]

Can we talk about the characters instead of the politics?

While there's nothing concrete, I strongly suspect that Magnus from Ogre Battle 64 is gay for Yumil. Think about it: almost every person around his age, except Dio, has some sort of love interest in another character, when you dig deeper into their side stories. And given how focused he is on Yumil throughout the story... well... Unless I missed something on my playthroughs, which is entirely possible given how much side shit you can miss in that game.

[Anonymous No.1177752]

>>1177725

Studies mean very little with such social/subjective subject matter, particularly when it comes to child psychology, they often don't even publish anything quantitative and it's just "these kids said theyre fine"- not that you've cited anything anyways

>>1177734

Newsflash: Just because you're gay doesn't mean everyone else is, most people don't have "those feelings" and certainly don't want you exposing our kids to them, if anyone is being reactionary it's you. How the hell does a kid "start out gay" anyways, do you just instictually know you like dicks and assholes before you even know what gay people do with them, before you even know what sex is you've already got an orientation?

[Anonymous No.1177760]

>>1177734
I just feel we shouldn't explore sexuality for games aimed at children. I don't think it's an E for Everyone topic. Nowadays we have an E10+ rating, but back then T was the next highest up, so I felt that while a game nowadays shouldn't be rated teen for having homosexuality -- E10+ would suffice -- I don't hold fault with it being rated teen back then. I do sympathize if your childhood was tough as a result, but I feel we should wait until a certain age to show any kind of sexuality.

Besides, nobody looks at ratings these days anymore, so it's not like it's a big deal if something gets rated higher for having sexual content, if parents will buy GTAV for their kids they aren't going to bat an eye at something teen rated.

[Anonymous No.1177759]

>>1177745
Well half of OP's post was a rant on the ESRB on treating any form of homosexuality as T. But I agree. I know of Phantasy Star 2 >>1177298 is wrong it's 2 not 4. Another is Fallout 2 if I remember right. The problem is that Japan had (and still has) a strong grasp on the video game market and tend to think of homosexuality as a weird thing. And so they see it as a joke more then a real thing. That's why most Japanese games that have gay characters are VERY stereotypical super flamboyantly effeminate with a girly look and also never looking like a gay bear.

[Anonymous No.1177763]

>>1177752
>How the hell does a kid "start out gay" anyways, do you just instictually know you like dicks and assholes before you even know what gay people do with them, before you even know what sex is you've already got an orientation?
It's actually been shown that most kids has some idea of their sexuality by around age 8-10.

[Anonymous No.1177764]

>>1177629
>>1177689
Would you zealously protect children from concepts like "marriage" and "kissing" and "being in love"? Or do those only become "sexual" when two genders aren't involved?

[Anonymous No.1177769]

I'm no longer so convinced that Birdo was ever a gender-confused character. From what I've seen, it was often just seen as improper to have the main character fight female boss characters, especially if they looked human and if the MC was male. I wouldn't be surprised if things were changed for the US so that anyone female in such scenarios simply became male.

[Anonymous No.1177770]

How did no one mention Final Fantasy 7?

[Anonymous No.1177772]

>>1177764
queers are mentally ill i dont want them tellling my kids thats okay

[Anonymous No.1177771]

>>1177764
...you know, that's a good point, I don't have a counter to that. I guess we should just keep all that out of E rated games.

[Anonymous No.1177774]

>>1177752
>and certainly don't want you exposing our kids to them

Your kids are just as likely as any other to be gay or bisexual. What then? Are you going to keep enforcing your preferred gender roles on them as if it will magically "cure" them of their affliction? Well, good luck. My father and I are estranged now.

>How the hell does a kid "start out gay"
You realize you have an exclusive attraction to members of the same sex, much like you may have realized you have an exclusive attraction to members of the opposite sex. It's pretty simple. Granted, I didn't always know there was a label to describe this, but the feelings were always there. I even tried to force myself to like girls because that's what everyone expected me to do. It was impossible.

[Anonymous No.1177778]

>>1177764

>Or do those only become "sexual" when two genders aren't involved?

They're sort of inherently sexual so no, but when two genders are involved it reinforces a healthy idea of gender roles and displays a model for a productive and ideal relationship- whereas when one gender is involved it's at odds with their biological insticts and can confuse them about the purpose for relationships and their roles in the context of one

[Anonymous No.1177785]

>>1177774

Well I sympathize with your situation but I still think it's almost entirely environmental- whether social factors or hormonal imbalances due to a chemical-laden first-world diet I just don't think we're naturally wired that way. That's a bit besides the point though- I just want my children to be healthy and productive members of society that will continue my lineage, I have no delusions about "curing afflictions" should they ever come out as gay at a certain point, but I do think a child's mind is extraordinarily malleable even in terms of orientation

[Anonymous No.1177786]

>>1177769
>I wouldn't be surprised if things were changed for the US so that anyone female in such scenarios simply became male.
Nope, the whole "thinks he's a girl" thing was there as far back as Doki Doki Panic.

[Anonymous No.1177793]

>>1177785
damn son. Basically articulated my thoughts in a way I can't

[Anonymous No.1177796]

>>1177785
>I can't put myself in your shoes, so I'm going to make up a wild theory and convince myself it's the truth, despite how strongly these other people insist they were simply born this way

Which is bullshit. I can't begin to fathom why some guys are attracted to girls, but I don't try to convince myself it's unnatural, or that it's all one big elaborate lie. I just accept that human behaviors are often full of feelings that are mutually exclusive to one another. We don't have the capacity to understand things that are that far outside of ourselves, because each person is wired differently. For me to know what it feels like to be a heterosexual man would involve some serious rewiring of my cognitive pathways. It would be like grafting a different personality onto my brain.

>I just want my children to be healthy and productive members of society that will continue my lineage

Nothing about being gay or bisexual is unhealthy, and we're capable of reproduction. What's stopping me from seeking a surrogate mother, or simply jizzing in a cup and letting her impregnate herself with it? It may be unorthodox, but it works. There's also adoption.

Leading by influence won't affect anything. I grew up in a heavily Christianized heteronormative household. I believed I was supposed to be attracted to girls, eventually get married and start a family of my own. It's never what I actually wanted, nor did I have any capacity to experience those needs and attractions myself. It was an oppressive childhood. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I even thought about suicide. There seemed to be way to reconcile between who I was and who my parented wanted me to be, so it seemed like the only escape. I hope you aren't ignorant enough to put your children through the same thing. Better yet, I hope you don't reproduce period.

[Anonymous No.1177801]

>>1177785

>Scientifical evidence proves that gay people are born gay
>I know better

[Anonymous No.1177840]

Let's just keep politics out of this. The purpose of this discussion is to gather data about early censorship trends, and how LGBT people were (or weren't) represented in retro gaming. So if this doesn't pertain to you or it offends your sensitivities in some way, hide the thread and move on. It wouldn't be fair to have the entire discussion deleted just because a few people want to seize every opportunity to vocalize hatred and bigotry.

That said, some of the earliest examples of gay options in games I can think of are mostly computer RPGs, such as Ultima VII or The Sims. Computer gaming wasn't really subject to heavy censorship at the time, even though games like Doom or Duke Nukem were often the focus of controversy due to graphic violence or promoting "Satanism." Console gaming on the other hand was a tighter market. You had to be on good terms with Nintendo, Sega or whoever else owned the console you wanted to develop for, and they were pretty strict about ensuring any title that appeared on their consoles was "family friendly."

[Anonymous No.1177865]

>>1177118
Really? I always figured it was another porn board, but I've never been there.

[Anonymous No.1177867]

>>1177840
>" LGBT people were (or weren't) represented in retro gaming"

Relatively few retro games represented heterosexual people either. Most of them are nonsexual and don't deal with relationships.

[Anonymous No.1177876]

>>1177708
Well, I'll be damned. I had always heard it was the North American Capcom team being squeamish about women getting beat up. Interesting.