Star Ocean devs alter costume in anticipation of ‘western criticism’

It’s not a Star Lake…

In an interview with 4Gamer (translated by NicheGamer), members of the Star Ocean 5 team spoke about Western game critics and sexuality in Japanese games — specifically, how it relates to Star Ocean character Miki. Even more specifically, how it relates to her underwear.

“Recently, there’s been a lot of flak from overseas countries saying that if you put teens in ‘sexual’ underwear, it’s not good. So we increased the amount of clothing,” said Star Ocean 5 producer Shuichi Kobayashi. You can see the original version here and the revised version here. Game director Hiroshi Ogawa jokingly referred to the change as “distressing.”

“Recently there’s been a trend in games where if you put out a character that shows a lot of skin, later on you might have to make a lot of revisions, ‘although she’s erotic, there’s not a lot of skin showing’ is the feeling you get. In fact, [Star Ocean 5] got a rating of C [ages 15 and up] by CERO,” said character designer Akira Yasuda.

Destructoid chatted with Kobayashi at E3 2015 about Star Ocean 5, where he spoke about his determination to get the game made. “I hope this isn’t going to sound arrogant — I thought if I couldn’t produce it, nobody else could,” Kobayashi said. “If this hadn’t come about, I wouldn’t be working for Square Enix now.”

Star Ocean 5 character gets less-sexy underwear ‘in Fear of Western Criticism’ [NeoGAF]