Suda 51 approved Europe's bloodless No More Heroes

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Dec 13th 2007 10:00AM

Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi "Suda 51" Suda has made himself a target for fans angered by a recent display of perceived censorship in the European version of upcoming sword swinger, No More Heroes. Much like its Japanese counterpart, No More Euros has been scrubbed clean of blood, rewarding each violent slash with a spectacular gush of coins. In that sense, it couldn't be a more accurate metaphorical representation of the hitman motif that carries over from Suda 51's Killer 7.

Regardless, a statement issued by Goichi Suda and Marvelous president Yashiro Wada hopes to divert the outrage away from publisher Rising Star games, noting that the decision was made "to release in Europe the same version as has shipped in Japan considering the broadly growing Wii market." Apparently, said broadly growing Wii market is entirely separate from that in America, where it's perfectly alright to add blood to the localized No More Heroes. A pretty weak justification then, likely conjured up to avoid a possible BBFC ban-trum.

Source

Tags: Censorship, Grasshopper, Killer7, No-More-Heroes, NoMoreHeroes, Suda-51, Suda51, Wii

Reader Comments (37)

Europeans should be happy they are actually getting it in a respectable time period

LOL its come down to Europe begging for scraps

its probably all just to avoid a manhunt 2-esque scandal. shouldnt really change how awesome this game is tho.

I really don't see what the big deal is. They removed content to ensure ratings board approval. Its not the first time this kind of thing has happened.

To be honest it doesn't make a difference. I've played through the japanese version of the game.(yes yes hacked wii = imports). The nice thing is that all dialog is in english so i didn't miss out on the story or all the funny ass dialog.(including a great joke at Duke Nukem Forever's expense) But the fact that there isn't any blood lends itself to the style. Am i still going to play it with blood? fuck yeah. Is it going to change my opinion of the game? Fuck no. The game is amazing on its own. Some of the most unique story and game play elements.

oh and i'm not some suda fanboy. Maybe after this game, but i never played Killer 7 or anything. So europe whether or not there is blood. Put this game on your next to buy list. Anyone with a wii should at least play this game once.

Imagine...If we really did bleed coins, all emo kids would be rich.

I thought most emos were rich.

Man you know how it goes: Sex is ok over there, violence is ok over here. Nothing to see here, move along.

Europe is fine with violence really, it's just America that goes over the top with sex.

Joystiq still havn't mentioned that Manhunt 2's appeal got lifted? They won the appeal in case you didn't know. And if you need blood in a game to make it good then you are very, very fucking shallow.

Unless this happened today, the only appeal they won is the preliminary appeal. Thats the appeal they have to win before they can REALLY appeal it.

Aint bureaucracy great?

The only difference is the blood is black, not red. Hardly worth throwing a tantrum over. The game is already fairly stylized so I doubt it even stands out as being odd.

Does the game really need blood to be fun, or good? I watched the first 10 minutes of the game, it was the Japanese version I am pretty sure (sans blood) and the lack of blood doesn't bother me at all. In fact, with the style of the graphics, I don't see how blood is going to help it.

I will say that one of the things I was greatly annoyed at when Capcom took over the SNK fighting game properties, is that they moved from blood to the stupid little stars for impact. I didn't mind it horribly on the KOF series, but it was just plain WRONG in Samurai Showdown.

My point is this - "cut us, do we not bleed?" If my character is doing something that's going to cause someone to bleed massively, it looks hokey to me when the on-screen effect looks like I just whacked the guy with a kendo stick instead of a katana.

So, I'm not sure how much blood folks are referencing in the American version, but if it's a SWORD game, there had better be SOME bleeding. I don't particularly care if it's Kill Bill over-the-top "gee, the human body can't hold that much can it?" - but I do want there to be at least a reasonable amount of blood shed for blade/bullet impacts in games.

Wait, is it black blood, dust or coins? I'm heard it three different ways now. So confusing.

I may as well toss in mine - they bleed kittens.

I would actually prefer the european bloodless version s since the U.S. version is overly bloody. It's like popping a huge balloon filled with blood sometimes.

This is the way I'm seeing the problem right now. People (mainly ratings boards and governments) are seeing the Wii as a child's toy or the new equivalent to a family board game, so they are getting extremely nit-picky over what they will rate on the Wii. Basically, it's come down to, if it's not a shooter it can't have blood. At least, that's how it looks to me.

Regardless of whether or not I'm right in my view, it's still annoying that games are getting banned for violent content when movies like Saw and Hostel are rated R for crap that's at least a couple dozen times more violent. Kids aren't going to be any more likely to buy a sword and try to kill people with it if they played a game on the Wii that had blood in it, though they may be slightly more used to the slicing motions.

But... the fatalities in MK!!!

Europeans complain a lot...

You get free health care, who cares if your games are late and censored.

The healthcare is usually delayed as well.

The BBFC have banned precisely 2 games, ever. Games such as Dead Rising and Suda51's own Killer 7 got BBFC ratings with full blood effects; the lack of blood is far more likely to be a calculated attempt to get a rating in Germany and a lower rating from PEGI.

I'm really really hacked off (oh the punnery) at this.

The style has been kill-bill esque through out, emphasis on over-the-top blood splatter etc. I feel this change is pointless. And it's this pointless change of the style annoys me so much that I might not buy it.

I'm generally pissed off at the way the gaming industry treats europe. Especially in this day and age.

The change is technically the US release. Japan and Europe have the same look. Americans like blood, so it will sell more, plain and simple.

That's why i think there is a lot of potential for either Ubisoft or Activision (now that they have acquired Vivendi Universal) to get into the console market. European console companies that are well-known in the other markets would be able to kick ass in Europe and keep up elsewhere

can no games ever have blood again? thanks a lot manhunt 2

This sucks. No, not the fact that it's bloodless in Europe... it sucks that it's gushing gore from every orifice over here in the states.

I don't want all of my games to be bleeding like a hemophiliac in a blender. Sometimes I just want to play an action game that's been stylized: a game where slashing the enemies makes coins appear, where big explosions spawn score-boosting fruit pickups, where enemies disappear in a shower of fireworks...

Please, Suda 51, bring the states a version of No More Heroes that I can actually stomach playing. Bring us the bloodless version!

I read this story very differently elsewhere. According to GamesIndustry.biz the European version is the same as the original Japanese version, and it was in fact Ubisoft's idea to put gore into the American version. It seems that the Japanese and European versions aren't censored, but merely that the American version has added gore effects from Ubisoft.

That's why it's "perceived" censorship. With Suda 51 approving, it's clear the American version is the odd one out. However, the reason people are getting peeved is that it's deemed okay for America to get a bloody version, but not Europe. And the reasoning behind the decision is pretty hokey -- it's no secret that it's tough to sell a violent game in Japan (you don't want the Cero Z-rating). So that leaves Europe, and I doubt Rising Star wants to risk going through another violent Wii game saga with the BBFC.

According to Rising Star it's not a case of the American version being deemed okay and the European version not, it's a case of Ubisoft adding in gore. That's the impression I get from the GI article, anyway. Your source for this story doesn't mention Ubisoft at all.

Wrong. Look at the original Beta GDC footage, the blood was already there and this was way before Ubi-Soft was the publisher.

They are just doing this because the UK is now called "Nanny Town"

Well, you have to look at it this way -- to fans it appears that the American game is the only one that CAN get blood added to it. If you want a bloody version of the game, you can only find it in America. You can be sure that Suda is okay with Ubisoft adding blood to the game (if it is indeed solely their decision), and to many that seems like the right move for it.

If blood is okay in the US version, why isn't there at least an option for it in the other Western version of it? Furthermore, Suda 51 has made several comments about how violent he wanted this game to be. So what if the "original" Japanese version was gore-free? It just so happens excessively violent games are frowned upon there too. I'm not convinced a bloodless game is what the designer really wanted -- the American version will likely be the definitive one because it doesn't have to deal with violence issues to the degree it has to in other regions.

This just seems like a big sticky mess to me, Suda claims to support the bloodless version, and he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to just take an alteration of his art lying down, so it can be implied through this that he doesn't particularly care about the blood, but then again he may just be being deferential for commercial purposes

The point, however, is that the game will kick ass either way

Now that we can agree on. :)

The funny thing is that there are european rating systems outthere that don't care that much about blood either. Meaning the game could still be declared evil just because you kill dozens of human like enemies for reward.

Suda can approve or explain what he wants, I think he targeted a certain audience and was gaining lots of attention by making bold statements about the violence in the game...

So if you place a large bowl of fresh pig blood on your balcony and suddenly replace it with pudding. You are now left with many confused mosquitos.

Sudas "approval" doesn't change anything. The decision to remove the blood in Europe only strenghtens the kiddy and casual image the Wii has here.

Remember back in the good ol' days when games actually came with these little things called "options"?

Yes I know it sounds crazy, but there was once a time when they let the people playing the damn game decide the settings. Is it that hard to put a little checkbox in the options panel to enable/disable blood?

Suda 51 approved Europe's bloodless No More Heroes

Reader Comments (37)

Posted: Dec 13th 2007 10:04AM (Unverified) said

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