Weeks before the Feb. 19 release of Fire Emblem Fates, a controversy surrounding one of the support characters has sprung up.
According to Nintendo World Report , a scene/conversation will be altered in the Western release of the Fire Emblem Fates that has to deal with "drugging" and "gay conversion."
The conversation in question surrounds Soleil, a support female character who is attracted to other women but her shyness gets the better of her. To help her out, your character (if you choose to be a male) puts a magical drug in her drink causing her to see your male protagonist as female and other females as male. This was done without her knowing, as she fails to recognize the protagonist at the start of the conversation.
All of this in order to give her practice talking to other women. By the end, she falls in love with your male protagonist even after she realizes you’re not a woman.
It’s obvious why this scene would be altered and Nintendo gave NWR this emailed comment regarding the change:
“ In the version of the game that ships in the U.S. and Europe, there is no expression which might be considered as gay conversion or drugging that occurs between characters.”
We at iDigitalTimes reached out to Nintendo for more clarification regarding the scene, specifically how the conversation has changed and whether they are changing Soleil’s sexual orientation from the start, or if there will be something else that helps Soleil become comfortable with other women.
Nintendo responded with the same above comment that NWR received but added this via email:
“Making changes is not unusual when we localize games, and we have indeed made changes in these games. When we localize a game we do so in order to make it appropriate for that particular territory. All our choices were made from that point of view.
In the Conquest edition a male main character created by the gamer can pair up with another male character (Niles) which ultimately leads to marriage. Similarly, in the Birthright edition, a female main character created by the gamer can pair up with and eventually marry another female character (Rhajat). Like married couples of the opposite gender, these same-sex couples enjoy the stat boosts that come with marriage, which means when they are paired up in battle they are stronger than when they are apart or paired up with another character.
In the third edition, Revelation, that will be released as DLC in the eShop on March 10, a same-sex marriage is possible regardless of the sex of your main character, as both Niles and Rhajat can be encountered in this edition.”
While Nintendo’s statement doesn’t give specifics -- to not spoil the story of Fire Emblem Fates -- it does reaffirm the same sex relationships players can have in-game and gives the specific characters and which game they are in and how Revelation will have the option to have the choice of either of the mentioned support characters as a partner.
So what do you think of the change? Let us know in the comments section below.
