5 Video Games Censored For Being Too Christian

[TexasTowelie]

Bible Fight

You can't turn on the news these days without listening to someone with a pizza place or a tire store or something beating their breast about how Christians are being driven from America. They are under attack! For the most part the rest of us just roll our eyes and get on with our day because we know you can't claim to be an oppressed minority when you make up 78 percent of the population.

Here's something weird, though... for many years Christianity actually was heavily suppressed in one major aspect of American life; video games. See, games in the '80s and '90s were made in Japan, where they are way less lung up on this whole monotheism thing and are therefore much more comfortable dropping Christian symbolism into games. However, Nintendo of America, who for all intents and purposes controlled the home video game market here through the 16-bit era, had a strict "no religion" policy on every release. As a result every ounce of Christ was blasted from an emerging artistic medium, and as so many over-zealous Christian like to claim it was indeed because they were afraid of offending people and losing market share.

So this one's on me, Christians. Here's five times you were absolutely right about the Lord being censored.



Illusion of Gaia was one of those SNES RPGs that wasn't Final Fantasy, and it's generally only remembered by the more hardcore adventure nerds despite being a stellar title. In the town of South Cape you find a building labeled a school, but as you can clearly see from the screenshot above it's meant to be a church. In the original Japanese release that large statue was actually a crucifix. The teacher is also pretty obviously meant to be a monk. It's a minor part of the game, but significant. As is...

Read more: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/artattack/2015/04/5_games_censored_for_being_too_christian.php

[Bjorn Against]

1. Wow, I played every game on that list when I was younger

Ok, I guess I never played Bible Fight but all the others I did. I would try Bible Fight just for the laughs however because I find the idea of Noah breaking out the Kung Fu moves against Jesus hilarious.

I did not know the ones I played had religious themes removed, but considering it is Nintendo it does not surprise me. More recently Nintendo banned the game The Binding of Isaac from their platforms because Isaac's mother in the game is a rabid right-wing Christian fundamentalist who tries to kill her own son because she believes God wants her to.

While the game was censored by Nintendo it is still available on PC as well as Sony and Microsoft consoles.

Nintendo does not like religion on their platforms, Sony and Microsoft will allow it. When religion does appear in games however it is usually a critical view of religion, games that have tried to proselytize have almost always bombed.

[Lordquinton]

3. isaac was also kept off nintendo for many other reasons

Had it just beenbthe religion they might have maee it, but the nudity, toilet humor and rather graphic imagery pushed it too far. And the creator refused to change any of it.

[Humanist_Activist]

2. Its not so much anti-Christian as anti-religion in general, to remove some controversy...

Also, this is Nintendo of American who was the culprit for many of the NES and SNES titles that were censored. They also censored nudity, drug and alcohol use in many early titles, though a few fell through the cracks and were released here, more or less intact. For example, compare the censorship of Castlevania with Castlevania 3, though there are some aesthetic differences.

Also, the author seems to show an interesting, uhm, bias here, The Legend of Zelda is NOT a Christian game series, that has to be the stupidest thing I ever heard. First off, there are 3 goddesses that created that universe, and while yes, the Bible was a term used in the Japanese version of the game, and a cross is present on Link's shield, that's for aesthetic purposes. The creator of the Legend of Zelda also created this Japanese exclusive game, Devil World:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_World

Not to mention if The Legend of Zelda is a Christian video game, Starfox is a Shinto video game, its creator having been inspired by visiting a Shinto temple. Same guy who made Legend of Zelda too.

Also, bear in mind, many of these games were released in Europe intact but not in North America. The reason given is generally to not offend Christians here.

In Japan, religion is treated as another aesthetic, and they happily will adopt many of the trappings of many religions for the looks or the story. Less than 10% of Japan is Christian, most of it is Shinto and Buddhist.

[Lordquinton]

4. they view Christianity the same way we view the greek religion

They have the right idea imo

[Humanist_Activist]

5. Nintendo of America was crazy for a while, they would even censor all references to gods...

angels, demons, etc. in many cases. Even if those gods were from Greek, Roman, Germanic or other religions that are either extinct or irrelevant.