This Final Fight video caps off over an hour of videos we’ve made about Capcom’s localization in our How the West was Worse series! Who do you want us to tackle next?
oh! really love your videos on console peripherals! perhaps you could take an angle on things that were released in Japan but not elsewhere etc - like the train controllers for densha de go - perhaps there's a video there that will appeal to yourselves and others?
Phoenix Wright! Do this next because you can't make a Capcom video about localization without talking about this gold mine of bizarre decisions. With love: a longtime fan.
Maybe a follow-up for Konami as well? There's always Bayou Billy that was made so hard for the US release it became almost unplayable. Contra III suffered as well, though not as much. Contra Hard Corps was way harder in the US release. Or maybe a different company like Natsume, who made this cool scroll-shooter called "Final Mission" with dark and awesome setup, but when released in US, they turned the plot into a complete joke and renamed the game S.C.A.T. I'm dead serious.
I think that you guys not only handled the Poison situation tactfully, but have done so for the general topics of localization, translation, and censorship as a whole throughout this series. Much of the discussion around these topics on RUclips is coated in outrage, and the nuanced nature of this series has been a fresh change of pace. Major props all around.
Ah, Los Angeles! Truly, the greatest city in the United States of America. I, for one, feel proud to live in a country with such a rich culture and history. Now let us eat a traditional American meal around the traditional American kotatsu. _Eat your hamburgers, Apollo._
To be fair, the child friendly image was mostly an NoA thing. NoA even refused to release a Miyamoto game because they felt it would threaten their child friendly image
Nintendo never really said “no violence against women”. They simply banned the PLAYER harming women. Bowser and Gannon are clearly always going to attack women.
Yeah, according to expanded fan canon, Poison gets to cavort around sticking it in just about anything, but poor Roxy is always just there, waiting. We now have a vague statement that can be stretched to allow Roxy to be a newhalf as well, so hopefully people will start commissioning quality Roxy shenanigans in the wake of this enlightening video. ;D Here would you mind signing this piece of paper describing what Roxy and Poison would like to do to Maki...
14:04 - A note on "Andore." The reason that got changed was to get past similarities to the real life person he was based on, Andre The Giant. (Pronounced AN-do-RAY in Japanese, which is similiar to the English pronunciation of Andre.) He died in 1993, so Capcom probably thought it was a good idea to drop that name going forward.
Capcom actually retconned Andore into a surname, and Hugo is just one of the Andore family of wrestling brothers. But yes, the inspiration from André the Giant should be obvious :)
The company that brought us M. Bison just seem to love to do problematic shit. And then try to fix it. I mean Capcom especially with the localization stuff is just ridiculous. then again that stuff (clearly parodying products and people) is very popular in Japan and when it gets over to America, whoa people get upset.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu Different intellectual property laws play a big role. Mike Tyson would not have prevailed in Japanese court over a likeness reuse lawsuit. In a US court he may well have won a judgement. Much easier to flip the names around. Why they involved Claw i have no idea...
@ShaunMcIsaac I once heard a theory that its just because Claw was the Spanish character and "Vega" sounds more like a Spanish name than "Balrog" does. Neither of the characters named Balrog look like they're guarding bridges in Khazad-dum though.
Capcom Japan: "Let's have the main character beat up a woman." Capcom USA: "That's probably not a good idea." Capcom Japan: "Okay, let's have them beat up a trans woman, then." Capcom USA: "Sounds good to me."
@@SuperGamer61499 TRans isnt a gender? You're a woman, you can be cis or trans. The bad thing here is that they made her a trans woman so it wasn't like "hurting a woman". when she literally is a woman, but bc shes trans they think that isn't as "bad" (bc of the bullshit of "dont beat a woman bc they're fragile"). Don't you see it?
In the intro of the international arcade version, you can hear Jessica screaming in the background with Damnd's face in the middle of the TV screen. Since you see Jessica in the intro of the Japanese version, you know she's not being raped. So the international version was WAY worse based upon what you can hear, but can't see!!! Whoa.
That feeling when you know EXACTLY which Safeway that was because you frequented it (and Dimond Center itself) quite a bit as a kid. The deepest coldest cut. Feelsgoodman.
I'd say you handled the topic of Poison just fine. If it wasn't blatantly obvious, I really like the character, and am always overjoyed when she's brought up in a Capcom game. Having her in USF4 was awesome, and I hope we'll see her playable again in another game one day.
Poison I’ve never gotten around to playing Final Fight, but I’ve always liked Poison and Roxy from afar. Having such a well known trans woman in a game is pretty cool, and even aside from that, she’s far more interesting as a character than Guy or Cody. (Also, she thicc.)
We knew the rumors that she was trans back in the 90s as kids. Information wasn't as easy to access back then, but it really didn't matter when you're a 13 year old. You'll fall inlove with anything
I really liked how you dealt with Poison, and the 'not intended, but is now' path has been used in other games and worked as well. Axton from Borderlands 2 had a glitch where dialog meant for that game's Siren would play for guys and instead of fixing the bug, they went with it and came out to say, "yeah, Axton's bisexual".
I feel like the Poison thing has to be mostly self-censorship, given that Nintendo had previously allowed Double Dragon to show Marian getting punched and Linda to be a regular enemy.
Tactfully, but maybe obliquely. I think they are missing out on why Capcom would have no official position on Poison and why Poison’s gender mattered in the first place: women and trans people get beat up. A lot. In real life. So while Derrick might see a poison’s inclusion as being representation, a lot of trans people might see it as being the game asking the player to beat up trans people. Something they might be intimately familiar with from the other side. There ISN’T a good position for Capcom in this matter.
@@JazGalaxy Or it's just a game, so whatever. Trans, no trans, transvestite from transsexual Transylvania, who cares? Everyone is getting beaten up in this beat 'em up. Why would women or trans be excluded, when in-game they're being given capabilities equal to all other enemies and playable characters? It'd be a different matter if they were being depicted as weak or helpless, but it's not the case. The best position for Capcom would have been: It's a game, it's fiction, this does not represent our thoughts, opinions or political affiliations. Carry on.
While I agree with you in theory, I don’t think ANY of this is a question about how rational people would interpret this affair. I think the question is how Capcom could navigate the tricky waters of irrational people. Now, who have a very loud voice.
@@JazGalaxy I agree they're loud but now it's to the point that there's equal amounts of backlash. Just recently, someone made a custom horrible Final Destination clone stage in Smash Bros with the Trans flag, so Nintendo removed it along with a bunch of other controversial stages (ie: dicks, a recreation of 9/11, etc) When the author started complaining about how transphobic Nintendo was, they were dogpiled by people complaining about, well first of all that the stage looked bad and was boring, and that it's so out of place to shove identity politics into a game where space animals can punch medieval swordsmen. EDIT: For those of you who thought I deleted my original comment, it's intact, just wanted to make it clear I was replying to JazGalaxy, not the OP
One minor thing you missed on Capcom's history of bumbling on the Poison gender issue was the "Wild Pack" DLC for USF4 that gave all the characters animal-themed costumes. Balrog got a buffalo costume, Ryu's a wolf, Dudley's an English bulldog, etc. They gave Poison a peacock costume. I think it's one of the better looking outfits in the bunch, but it's also somewhat problematic: "peacock" is actually only used to refer to the males of species of *peafowl*, and only male peafowls have colorful plumage (female peafowls are called "peahens" in case you were wondering). I'd chalk that up to honest ignorance on Capcom's part rather than some transphobic agenda, though.
I recognised it immediately :) Damn, Neon was a tough game. Played it a few months back (Xbox Gamepass FTW!) That 'slide' section at the start of Haunted Forest was ridiculous.. And once you made it, the next bit of the level has some ridiculous rolling spike devices.. I almost stopped playing, but came back a week later and made it through. The rest of the game was a cakewalk after this level!
What Final Fight taught me about life: You don't run from your problems. You don't talk your way through problems. You grab your problems and piledrive them until they stop moving. Then you eat a roast chicken.
I loved that conclusion, just like Wonder Woman, Poison is a great important icon to a group of people that do matter, even if their conception wasn't the best, or with the best intentions. They are here now and they rock.
I never knew Cavia made a mediocre beat'em up. Though this fits in line with all the mediocre games they've made PS: I'm a trans woman and you've managed to talk about Poison very well
It’s great to see how queer characters of the 80s/90s are still mighty interesting in 2019 ;) you handled Poison’s identity with tact and clarity: bravo!
I'm a trans woman and like, I basically agree with your stance. So I don't think you will make people angry, at least I hope not. She definitely has a huge fanbase among trans people, that's for sure (probably because she actually is an interesting character with an interesting design and personality even without the whole trans thing).
Not a woman im agender but yea she's kinda my icon. :) plus that throw where she just slaps the heck out of the opponent is sooooooooooooo satisfying Especially as a finisher
shinobody your stance is irrelevant your a sick person. A real man would not want to punch a real woman in the face ever. Back in the day of quality Christian stances, the view was perfect. u wanted raunchy shit get a sega.
Except it ruined the Maximo trilogy. I like how Capcom made them change what probably would have been the single defining thing about the game that could have been cool and in doing so basically spelled the demise of the developer. Thanks Capcom.
OK, but those notes in the code are awesome and thank you for sharing that whole section with us so we could pause the video and read it in its full glory. :) Looks like someone had a TON of really good hardware for the era--I'm counting 4 computers, a Game Boy, a stereo system (which was hundreds of dollars back then), a modem, and a Video Walkman--whatever that was. 9600 baud was pretty damn fast in 1990 (for young kids, that's about 9KB/sec. There are 1024KB in 1MB, and 1024 MB in one GB). Pretty wild to look at today, when some countries have access to 100MB/sec connections, and most Americans with cable/DSL are used to 2MB/sec!
Kind of incredible how Poison had her trans status slapped on her to avoid violence against women, as if Capcom was saying "lol trans women aren't women" but thirty years later, she's recognized for being awesome and we've embraced her as a trans icon.
Boy oh boy I was wondering how the Poison subject was going to be handled. And yeah, I'm happy with how it came out in this video. The final word near the end of the video is very important as I can think of maybe one or two other characters that can be pointed to as a trans or NGB fighters or even characters not made as a joke.
Personally I prefer the new Capcom stance of having her be whatever anyone wants. If people want her to be Trans, so be it. If they want her to be female so be it too. While it's true that there are not many Trans characters out there, the few ones that does exist do their job well, so the whether Poison is added to the roster or not doesn't make much of a difference. I'll say this though I'm with the guys on this one, the new half on the document feels a lot like a cop out, and definitely a desperate measure to run away from lawsuits. And like I said on my comment above, she's was originally designed to be female(I still curse myself for not saving the interview, I can only cite for memory and only vague things about it).
@@bloody4558 I appreciate your effort to be sensitive so I just thought I should point out, that "trans" doesn't just mean trans women, and it'd be better to say "cis" rather than "female" in this case. Just to be clear I'm not angry or upset, just trying to give some advice. Feel free to like, do discussion or questions if you like.
yo, fellow trans woman gamer here, great job with handling the coverage of Poison. I expected something potentially cringey, and was pleasantly surprised
Calling her a trans so they could dodge a lawsuit on a technicality is shady. In that sense, is Capcom promoting violence against trans people? I wouldn't say so but it all depends on how people want to spin it. It's a no win scenario they have trapped themselves into.
Most of this was said quite a while ago. Attitudes towards lgbt people have changed drastically in just the last 10 years. My favorite clip to point out this out is how hilariously poorly this aged from 2002 ruclips.net/video/pPFaNBne_8I/видео.html
You guys handled Poison really well, speaking as somebody who's questioned my own gender identity over the past few years (but landed on non-binary as a gender identity). Though I kind of want to spit ball an idea. What if Poison being transgender was only to add a bit of flavor to her character, making her stand out for something other than her physical appearance. I mean, Roxy is just her in another colour pallet appearance-wise, so adding that bit in could be another way to differentiate the characters, they could have just made them sisters after all.
Funny thing about the SNES version of Final Fight is that they removed Poison and Roxy, but their voice samples were still there. You can hear them in the sound test.
As somebody not from the US, the most interesting part to me is that you guys had games exclusive to rental chains Game renting feels like something that publishers would not want in the first place so I never thought that was a thing
What's your favorite take on Belger? Pick one! A) Cyborg Belger from _Mighty Final Fight._ B) Zombie Belger from _Final Fight Revenge._ C) Transforming Power Armor Belger from _SF Wrestlepalooza._
Great video. FF2 is my favorite of the series. Personally I think a _Yakuza_ style game but set in Metro City and populated with Capcom characters and crazy side-quests should be the future of the _Final Fight_ series. It worked for _Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise._
@@GiordanDiodato Streetwise was more influenced by GTA with generic mission design. Yakuza has crazy missions like helping a woman become a dominatrix and bartending crazy drinks. That's what I'd want, levels where you beat up deliverymen who ship Umbrella products and steal the Power Stones from a museum. Go nuts.
I don't care much what poison is honestly. She's super fun to play as in street fighter 4 and rocks that female figure and pink hair regardless of whatever localization background they give her. Either way she's awesome.
I love Poison! She's one of my favorite Street Fighter girls, and the biggest reason I went from SSF4 to USF4 when it came out. Same with why I still own SFxT.
I was nervous to watch the video because of worry of how you'd handle Poison, but you handled it very well and respectfully. The bit at the end was really nice to add. While my own opinions on Poison are mixed, she's still a rockin girl who I'll absolutely accept as a trans icon.
Yea Poison was always a super confusing one for me, always hearing things about her one way or the other over the years. But at the end of the day I do think I agree with you, seems like to me she was just intended to be a girl originally and localization make them just use the trans thing as a loop hole, which just confused the crap out of everyone, just making capcom dig that hole even deeper... and now at this point I guess she’s retconned to be trans while keeping it vague. But yea which ever way Poison is an awesome character.
Nah the "new half" note predates any localisation by years. Like literally three years. Design documents make note of that throughout final fights development. Who knows why? Or where it came from? But yeah likely she began life as a girl and for whatever reason became trans in later development. However it didn't have *anything* to do with localisation.
@@medes5597 Problem lies on the fact that Capcom has been making changes to run away from lawsuits for years, so the documents don't really prove anything for real. Remember No amount of surgery will fix sexual dimorphism between male and female bone structure, she was clearly designed as female, there's nothing that proves that the newhalf word was added there on the same day the character was originally designed, only that the final plans had the word there. Also You can easily, easily notice how the word was writen in a whole different way then the rest of the text. And by that I don't mean the fact that it was written in katakana for obvious reasons. The writing is clearly messy, a stark contrast to how everything else is pretty orderly in comparison.
@@bloody4558 Dude I'm a trans woman with hips wider than my shoulders and an hourglass/pear figure?? You obviously don't know actual trans people, probably just some pictures cis people selectively post online to be like "look, it's so obvious when someone is trans"... even though the majority of us just go through life going through gendered spaces completely unnoticed. My feet _are_ larger than a lot of women's... but so were my mother's, and we shared shoes for a long time. So I'm thinking that's probably purely hereditary rather than gendered. Same for my hands: bigger than a lot of women's, but the same size as my mother's. My father's were actually smaller in both cases. That's hardly the point you're trying to make though.
Did something happen in the editing department? Final Fight 1 on the GBA(?) wasn't properly introduced and it just seemed weird dropping into the content it provided without introducingit first.
for what it's worth, i think you did a good job explaining poison, a very heavy subject (especially with some of those quotes from capcom themselves, whoof). good on you. one point of interest, before appearing in ultra street fighter iv, poison was added to street fighter x tekken in 2012, and early builds of the game apparently had win quotes from other characters that were pretty, well, rough. these were removed before release, as a capcom rep explains in the interview with ono shown in this video www.egmnow.com/articles/news/egm-interviewyoshinori-ono/ GLAAD specifically mentions street fighter x tekken in their 2012 year in review and working with capcom too, linking to that interview www.glaad.org/blog/2012-reviewing-year-gayming i hope this is interesting
Oh jesus I had forgotten about the original win quotes against Poison from that game... I remember seeing people find out about it real time on Twitter. Those were really rough. (But also, darkly validating? As a babytrans at the time getting a lot of shit.. to see that this fictional character gets it too?? I mean I wouldn't have wanted to ACTUALLY play it with the chance of hearing hateful shit so I'm glad it was changed.. but. y'know.)
great video! I also really enjoy how the styles of SSFF and Matt complement each other. I always feel like there is genuine real life chemistry which isnt a given when it comes to channel crossovers.
Score another point for Streets of Rage 2 being the superior beat 'em up! Its localization was a lot more faithful compared to Final Fight. Streets of Rage 3 on the other hand...
yeah, don't even get us started on that homosexual ash character in BK3. SOR2 only had 2 (miner) instances of sensership: changing blaze's outfit and getting the ciggarre out of the villain's mouth (the latter seams to actually be a western stariotype for mafia bosses).
Yeah, rule 5 of Nintendo's pre-ESRB rules are flawed. Plus, Final Fight for the Super NES was forced to remove Poison and Roxy, but back on the NES, the first Double Dragon was allowed to keep Linda Lash in.
i love how just by capcom saying "she could be trans but we want it to be vague," basically the entire queer community has embraced her as a trans icon. we love to see a trans girlboss winning
I wish CAPCOM had included a mention of the MAD GEAR GANG having a cloning machine.... it would explain why and how 6 thugs all look a like on the same screen, haha!!
I'm very glad to see that the trans folk in the comments don't seem to have any qualms with Derek's comments in the video regarding Poison. I would also agree that it was handled very tastefully, and appreciate the courage needed to talk about a subject that has in a lot of ways become sort of a political taboo that some people feel can't be discussed. I personally live in a very progressive district, but I feel most of the activists here advocating for trans rights in whichever degree here, firstly a) aren't even trans, and b) don't really understand the issues, needs, or opinions of actual trans folk, and are merely activists for the sake of inclusivity and nothing more, as if trans folk are not fully capable of expressing their opinions publicly on certain issues...
Joining in with everyone else to say as a trans woman I think you handled it well. I see some people wishing you'd said the actual phrase "trans women are women" but for me all the times you said things like "there's plenty of women to play who aren't trans" made it clear enough for me. You're obviously not treating "trans" as a gender unto itself, which is what I care about. Also everything you said about Poison being a badass bombshell was good too. I'm used to some people letting the trans so-called-controversy overshadowing that. I'm curious, did you ask for any advice from your trans audience members, or were you just able to navigate this by yourself through care and empathy? Anyway, really like your videos in general, not sure if I've commented on them before, wanted to show my thanks.
Nice use of Mango Tango from DD Neon. I LOVE me some Final Fight. One of my favorite beat em up series of all time. Great video overall though I wanted to say that people unfairly give FInal Fight SNES a bad wrap. If you look at it from the perspective of when it came out, it was a phenomenal release. Huge 16 bit sprites that were ripped right from the arcade. crunchy, booming SFX, fantastic music (the SNES OST beats the pants off of the Arcade release thanks to it's varied instrumentation. Loving those horns!) plus voice acting (hearing OH MY CAR come out of my speakers back then was mind blowing.) Yes, there was slow down. Yes, Guy was missing. Yes the Industrial stage was absent. But the sacrifices made still was the end result of a really fun beat em up. And if you're missing Poison or Roxy, just import the SFC version like I did, it's super cheap. Final Fight Revenge may be goofy, but it's supposedly one of the worst to control games on the Saturn, though I haven't played it myself so I can't really comment on that. Streetwise, is exactly as you guys said: the end result of Capcom not respecting the fan base and assuming we wanted a GTA clone. You know what game I would've bought? The one they were working on prior that they scrapped. You know what game I didn't buy? Streetwise. My hope is that one day, Capcom will do two things: 1. Just come out with it and say Poison is transgendered and let that be the end of it. and 2. Release a proper sequel i.e. Final Fight 4.
Don't really feel like reliving this messy, gross era of video games again, but I just like to remind everyone that when dealing with real-world social issues, it's important to make a real effort to learn about issues involved and understand WHY something is unacceptable, or inappropriate, or iffy. Case in point, "No violence against women", a jaw-droppingly stupid edict which, if seriously implement, would've absolutely _crippled_ the development of the industry. As any feminist worthy of the title will tell you, the problem isn't raising your fists against a woman who is trying to beat you to a pulp. If she uses violence against you, responding in kind is completely acceptable. If it's a straight fight to begin with, it's a nonissue. Laws punishing violence against women, such as the relatively recent VAWA, are meant to protect women who _cannot_ fight back, _aren't_ accustomed to settling disputes by force (and these laws protect _everybody,_ regardless of what they're called). I promise you that _nobody_ in 1989 knew about Poison's "change" and wouldn't have given a crap if they did. She was an enemy you had to put down like all the other Mad Gear punks, no more, no less. Bottom line, if you want to know what feminists really think, what sets them off, what they consider unacceptable, *ask them.* You know what happens when you assume, right? _You get it wrong._ Don't go making rash decisions that they might not even see. (I'm probably never going to get a straight answer to this, but hope springs eternal, so here goes... what about _Roxy?_ Why didn't _she_ ever get the protect-the-lady treatment? She's a palette swap, for crying out loud, no one's going to miss it!)
Yeah I'm calling bullshit on the Poison trans thing. Where in the original arcade game does it even give the slightest hint that Poison is a trans woman? I mean from actually playing the game? The answer is that there is none, so that newhalf footnote was obviously just something they could whip out in case they caught some heat. In other words no-one would ever have known about it otherwise becasue who in the public at the time of the arcade game's height ever had access to those notes? Poison was just intended to be a woman, but the whole trans thing has been milked for publicity ever since. I'm all for representation in games, but not like this where minorities are basically used as (literal) punching bags.
Poison is our trans queen and we love her; trans characters historically and even today are not made with the best understanding or intentions, and when we get one like Poison, who endures a rocky history and becomes such a world wide icon, is absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for covering this!!!
The only thing that felt unfair was the notion that the controversy would be the only reason people care. No. We love her either way. She's an amazing design and a very fun character.
I like her too But Idk if it's just me or what but there's one aspect that I don't like about this.. The fact she's the enemy, not the good person The majority of pre-2010 queer representation either just makes fun of the queer person.. Or makes the queer person the enemy That's kinda unfortunate to me :/
Wow, y'all...Y'all. I gotta be honest: as a trans viewer, I was a little scared going into this video, but DAMN y'all stuck the landing. GOOD ON YOU SSFF!!!
A transvestite is a crossdresser, not the same as transgender. I think the Capcom guy tried to play down the violence against women by saying that this was just a guy dressed as a woman.
It's bad translations on top of poor handling of trans topics by the west. "Transvestite" was almost certainly "newhalf" in japanese, but that got translated poorly. Newhalf refers to pre-op transsexual women, who are legally regarded as male in Japan until surgery.
As a trans person I personally really adore Poison as a character even if everything any Capcom employee says about her makes me angry to no extent lmao. I think your point about Poison not really being intended to be a trans woman from the start is totally on base though because "newhalf" is just, a transgender slur in general. From what I know it has certain connotations to it that implies it's a term used against transgender sex workers a lot (like "trap," so I guess thanks doing a good localization job whoever named the Poison hairspray) so I would not be surprised if her inception came first and because of her design people on the ff team joked about her being "newhalf" and it just stuck or something
One thing i wanna mention is that if you have the "Capcom arcade classics" game on ps2/xbox, if you check in the Final Fight extras it will say that Poison and Roxy were always friends but Poison was originally a male who later started dressing in girl clothes now, i don't remember if that's a translation of the japanese early concept, but that information is there, you should check it out.
@@CarbonRollerCaco i could be wrong but it said roxy thought it was weird. i read this ages ago on my ps2 version of the game so i don't remember all the details
So, as much as Capcom's handling of Poison was awful, it's an amazing metaphor for the transgender woman's experience. To my mind, this makes Poison a very authentic trans woman character and probably the best representation in video games.
Oh my ca... gods! It just dawned on me. What if Capcom made a new Final Fight but more in the mold of DMC combat wise? Between Bayonetta and DMC's multiple fist weapons, we know that the hand to hand combat in a 3D beat them up can be fun, and with DMC 5's nero devil bringer, we know that they can implement a system where you can pick up an assortment of consumable weapons from the environment.
![Capcom: How the West was Worse [SSFF]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tHZ08yk6z70/mqdefault.jpg)
![Capcom: How the West was Worse [SSFF]](/img/tr.png)
![Street Fighter: How The West Was Worse (Ft. Ben from PortsCenter) [SSFF]](/img/1.gif)
This Final Fight video caps off over an hour of videos we’ve made about Capcom’s localization in our How the West was Worse series! Who do you want us to tackle next?
oh! really love your videos on console peripherals! perhaps you could take an angle on things that were released in Japan but not elsewhere etc - like the train controllers for densha de go - perhaps there's a video there that will appeal to yourselves and others?
Phoenix Wright! Do this next because you can't make a Capcom video about localization without talking about this gold mine of bizarre decisions. With love: a longtime fan.
Maybe a follow-up for Konami as well? There's always Bayou Billy that was made so hard for the US release it became almost unplayable. Contra III suffered as well, though not as much. Contra Hard Corps was way harder in the US release.
Or maybe a different company like Natsume, who made this cool scroll-shooter called "Final Mission" with dark and awesome setup, but when released in US, they turned the plot into a complete joke and renamed the game S.C.A.T. I'm dead serious.
How about the most famous localization goof of all time? Zero Wing on the Mega Drive
I’m sure Eric from LET’S GET!! is just chomping at the bit for a Goemon Episode.
I think that you guys not only handled the Poison situation tactfully, but have done so for the general topics of localization, translation, and censorship as a whole throughout this series.
Much of the discussion around these topics on RUclips is coated in outrage, and the nuanced nature of this series has been a fresh change of pace.
Major props all around.
Rei The Bookish Bohemian I hadn’t even really thought of that. But yeah, you’re right. Good on them
You still haven't touched on the real miracle of Capcom's localization, Ace Attorney.
Ramen or burguers... that is the question.
Ah, Los Angeles! Truly, the greatest city in the United States of America. I, for one, feel proud to live in a country with such a rich culture and history. Now let us eat a traditional American meal around the traditional American kotatsu.
_Eat your hamburgers, Apollo._
Oh my God that’s true! After 3 videos on localization from Capcom I cant believe SSFF omitted that goldmine!
Ace Attorney's localization is actually really good though, so it wouldn't work for "How The West Was Worse"
@@clashmanthethird It doesn't feel right at all
Nintendo: No violence against women!
Also Nintendo: Meet Samus the traumatized bounty hunter.
To be fair, the child friendly image was mostly an NoA thing. NoA even refused to release a Miyamoto game because they felt it would threaten their child friendly image
And Miria in The Guardian Legend.
Nintendo never really said “no violence against women”. They simply banned the PLAYER harming women. Bowser and Gannon are clearly always going to attack women.
booty hunter
@@frosty6845 Devil...something, I forgot...WORLD There it is !
We Poison fans really need to support Roxy fans more.
Yeah, according to expanded fan canon, Poison gets to cavort around sticking it in just about anything, but poor Roxy is always just there, waiting. We now have a vague statement that can be stretched to allow Roxy to be a newhalf as well, so hopefully people will start commissioning quality Roxy shenanigans in the wake of this enlightening video. ;D
Here would you mind signing this piece of paper describing what Roxy and Poison would like to do to Maki...
"Whenever Roxy's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking 'Where's Roxy?' "
MissAshley42
What about Mary, Eliza, and May?
Bowsette fanbase are far large than Roxy fanbase.
We need to support Roxy... AFTER we've secured Poison in the games we have now.
14:04 - A note on "Andore." The reason that got changed was to get past similarities to the real life person he was based on, Andre The Giant. (Pronounced AN-do-RAY in Japanese, which is similiar to the English pronunciation of Andre.) He died in 1993, so Capcom probably thought it was a good idea to drop that name going forward.
Litigation fearful Capcom strikes again!
Capcom actually retconned Andore into a surname, and Hugo is just one of the Andore family of wrestling brothers. But yes, the inspiration from André the Giant should be obvious :)
The company that brought us M. Bison just seem to love to do problematic shit.
And then try to fix it. I mean Capcom especially with the localization stuff is just ridiculous.
then again that stuff (clearly parodying products and people) is very popular in Japan and when it gets over to America, whoa people get upset.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu Different intellectual property laws play a big role. Mike Tyson would not have prevailed in Japanese court over a likeness reuse lawsuit. In a US court he may well have won a judgement. Much easier to flip the names around. Why they involved Claw i have no idea...
@ShaunMcIsaac I once heard a theory that its just because Claw was the Spanish character and "Vega" sounds more like a Spanish name than "Balrog" does.
Neither of the characters named Balrog look like they're guarding bridges in Khazad-dum though.
Omg, what a shitshow with Poison. I had no idea about any of that. Well handled, and fascinating history. Thanks for the vid!
Capcom Japan: "Let's have the main character beat up a woman." Capcom USA: "That's probably not a good idea." Capcom Japan: "Okay, let's have them beat up a trans woman, then." Capcom USA: "Sounds good to me."
Hilarious isn't it?
Crossdresser.
What's the different at that point? Still be beating on someone either way. And it's a video game so it wouldn't matter if they were trans or a woman.
@@SuperGamer61499 TRans isnt a gender? You're a woman, you can be cis or trans. The bad thing here is that they made her a trans woman so it wasn't like "hurting a woman". when she literally is a woman, but bc shes trans they think that isn't as "bad" (bc of the bullshit of "dont beat a woman bc they're fragile"). Don't you see it?
@@DEMENTO01 Easy, K-9. He didn't mean it in an either-or way.
In the intro of the international arcade version, you can hear Jessica screaming in the background with Damnd's face in the middle of the TV screen. Since you see Jessica in the intro of the Japanese version, you know she's not being raped. So the international version was WAY worse based upon what you can hear, but can't see!!!
Whoa.
I always thought it was Damnd’s weird ass laugh till I got to Belger
Damnd laughs at you in the intro and at the beginning of the game right before you clear the pile of debris.
I AM HERE FOR THOSE ANCHORAGE ALASKA DEEP CUTS
That feeling when you know EXACTLY which Safeway that was because you frequented it (and Dimond Center itself) quite a bit as a kid. The deepest coldest cut. Feelsgoodman.
I'd say you handled the topic of Poison just fine. If it wasn't blatantly obvious, I really like the character, and am always overjoyed when she's brought up in a Capcom game. Having her in USF4 was awesome, and I hope we'll see her playable again in another game one day.
Poison I’ve never gotten around to playing Final Fight, but I’ve always liked Poison and Roxy from afar. Having such a well known trans woman in a game is pretty cool, and even aside from that, she’s far more interesting as a character than Guy or Cody. (Also, she thicc.)
@@ZGuy0fSci what?
We knew the rumors that she was trans back in the 90s as kids. Information wasn't as easy to access back then, but it really didn't matter when you're a 13 year old. You'll fall inlove with anything
@@deadpilled2942 I had the Amiga version and I didn't know any of this stuff, it was a woman to me.
Well, At Least YOU'LL Remain A "Female", To Us. With Love, And Respect.
Well, that part about Poison in the end was very sweet. A good view to have in this situation, if i may say so.
I feel so bad for the poor "Oh my God/cuh" car dude lol
FarCritical He a bad guy that got what he deserve.
Honestly, props to Capcom for consulting GLAAD about Poison.
I really liked how you dealt with Poison, and the 'not intended, but is now' path has been used in other games and worked as well. Axton from Borderlands 2 had a glitch where dialog meant for that game's Siren would play for guys and instead of fixing the bug, they went with it and came out to say, "yeah, Axton's bisexual".
I feel like the Poison thing has to be mostly self-censorship, given that Nintendo had previously allowed Double Dragon to show Marian getting punched and Linda to be a regular enemy.
Yeah, I really raising my eyebrow with how NoA systems works
And yet Linda remained in Double Dragon.
And Kim and the many other female enemies in Renegade.
Yeah, so? Double Dragon is from Technos, not Capcom.
@@MrRobarino I'm just pointing out Nintendo's inconsistency
@@DerekBarns
A fine tradition they continue to this very day.
(At least with first party stuff)
It was Capcom who changed Poison though wasn't it? Not Nintendo.
Poison's abs are amazing and #goals.
Amazon physique is best y'all.
I think you guys handled the Poison situation tactfully.
Tactfully, but maybe obliquely.
I think they are missing out on why Capcom would have no official position on Poison and why Poison’s gender mattered in the first place: women and trans people get beat up. A lot. In real life.
So while Derrick might see a poison’s inclusion as being representation, a lot of trans people might see it as being the game asking the player to beat up trans people. Something they might be intimately familiar with from the other side.
There ISN’T a good position for Capcom in this matter.
@@JazGalaxy Or it's just a game, so whatever. Trans, no trans, transvestite from transsexual Transylvania, who cares? Everyone is getting beaten up in this beat 'em up. Why would women or trans be excluded, when in-game they're being given capabilities equal to all other enemies and playable characters? It'd be a different matter if they were being depicted as weak or helpless, but it's not the case. The best position for Capcom would have been: It's a game, it's fiction, this does not represent our thoughts, opinions or political affiliations. Carry on.
While I agree with you in theory, I don’t think ANY of this is a question about how rational people would interpret this affair. I think the question is how Capcom could navigate the tricky waters of irrational people. Now, who have a very loud voice.
@@JazGalaxy I agree they're loud but now it's to the point that there's equal amounts of backlash.
Just recently, someone made a custom horrible Final Destination clone stage in Smash Bros with the Trans flag, so Nintendo removed it along with a bunch of other controversial stages (ie: dicks, a recreation of 9/11, etc) When the author started complaining about how transphobic Nintendo was, they were dogpiled by people complaining about, well first of all that the stage looked bad and was boring, and that it's so out of place to shove identity politics into a game where space animals can punch medieval swordsmen.
EDIT: For those of you who thought I deleted my original comment, it's intact, just wanted to make it clear I was replying to JazGalaxy, not the OP
@@KetsubanSolo it shouldn't be political, though.
Are you telling me all these years Maki was a cool motorcycle gang Japanese Sukeban girl and not the milk toast shit we got in the west?!
Bottom line on Poison: hot.
Yeahhhhh! Now this person gets it.
Sexy as a bathroom stall door
You just know she's the one who put it there.
Why yes, agreed! I keep telling myself Poison's a *she* and not a *he* **shudders**
@@zelectrode3337 ?
One minor thing you missed on Capcom's history of bumbling on the Poison gender issue was the "Wild Pack" DLC for USF4 that gave all the characters animal-themed costumes. Balrog got a buffalo costume, Ryu's a wolf, Dudley's an English bulldog, etc. They gave Poison a peacock costume. I think it's one of the better looking outfits in the bunch, but it's also somewhat problematic: "peacock" is actually only used to refer to the males of species of *peafowl*, and only male peafowls have colorful plumage (female peafowls are called "peahens" in case you were wondering).
I'd chalk that up to honest ignorance on Capcom's part rather than some transphobic agenda, though.
Props for using Mango Tango from Double Dragon Neon. That game was great.
I recognised it immediately :)
Damn, Neon was a tough game. Played it a few months back (Xbox Gamepass FTW!)
That 'slide' section at the start of Haunted Forest was ridiculous.. And once you made it, the next bit of the level has some ridiculous rolling spike devices.. I almost stopped playing, but came back a week later and made it through.
The rest of the game was a cakewalk after this level!
What Final Fight taught me about life: You don't run from your problems. You don't talk your way through problems. You grab your problems and piledrive them until they stop moving. Then you eat a roast chicken.
Damn, you handled that section on Poison really gracefully. Props.
I loved that conclusion, just like Wonder Woman, Poison is a great important icon to a group of people that do matter, even if their conception wasn't the best, or with the best intentions. They are here now and they rock.
That's the opposite of wonder Woman
Wow, that scene transition at 13:53. I see you, whoever made that cut.
I never knew Cavia made a mediocre beat'em up. Though this fits in line with all the mediocre games they've made
PS: I'm a trans woman and you've managed to talk about Poison very well
^"Hermaphrodite" Would Be A Proper, Respectful Term, I Guess?
@@ZatohRondohoon3227 ???
@@ZatohRondohoon3227 That's a different thing.
+Lady of Dawn What do you think of the Poison character, as a trans woman?
@@rschock22 welcome to 2020, transgender includes all travestites, and you are no more allowed to say transsexual
Those Streetwise early concepts of poison actually look pretty cool
If she was actually in the game though, she'd be butchered and who knows how offensive she would be with her trans identity
@@braystar8578 And yet it'd STILL end up working.
@@CarbonRollerCaco Or there would be massive outrage, trying to be edgy and grim with a trans character
It’s great to see how queer characters of the 80s/90s are still mighty interesting in 2019 ;) you handled Poison’s identity with tact and clarity: bravo!
I'm a trans woman and like, I basically agree with your stance. So I don't think you will make people angry, at least I hope not. She definitely has a huge fanbase among trans people, that's for sure (probably because she actually is an interesting character with an interesting design and personality even without the whole trans thing).
Agreed
Not a woman im agender but yea she's kinda my icon. :) plus that throw where she just slaps the heck out of the opponent is sooooooooooooo satisfying
Especially as a finisher
shinobody your stance is irrelevant your a sick person. A real man would not want to punch a real woman in the face ever. Back in the day of quality Christian stances, the view was perfect. u wanted raunchy shit get a sega.
There's so few trans people in video games, I'm really happy we have a badass like Poison to look up to
@@alphacuremother1019 Then good that no men and women involved are real because it's a fricking videogame... lmfao
I still remember watching Two Best Friends playing that awful Final Fight Streetwise. Good times, good times.
Except it ruined the Maximo trilogy.
I like how Capcom made them change what probably would have been the single defining thing about the game that could have been cool and in doing so basically spelled the demise of the developer. Thanks Capcom.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu I wasn't talking about the game, but rather the videos Two Best Friends made on it.
Their part way now...still remained loyal fan.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu They ruined Final Fight "3D" too, the prototype looks awesome..
Given the late quote from the JP developers, Poison's characterization seems to be far more an empathy/ignorance failure than a translation one.
I applaud you for handling Poison so respectfully. Thank you.
OK, but those notes in the code are awesome and thank you for sharing that whole section with us so we could pause the video and read it in its full glory. :) Looks like someone had a TON of really good hardware for the era--I'm counting 4 computers, a Game Boy, a stereo system (which was hundreds of dollars back then), a modem, and a Video Walkman--whatever that was. 9600 baud was pretty damn fast in 1990 (for young kids, that's about 9KB/sec. There are 1024KB in 1MB, and 1024 MB in one GB). Pretty wild to look at today, when some countries have access to 100MB/sec connections, and most Americans with cable/DSL are used to 2MB/sec!
Kind of incredible how Poison had her trans status slapped on her to avoid violence against women, as if Capcom was saying "lol trans women aren't women"
but thirty years later, she's recognized for being awesome and we've embraced her as a trans icon.
Boy oh boy I was wondering how the Poison subject was going to be handled. And yeah, I'm happy with how it came out in this video. The final word near the end of the video is very important as I can think of maybe one or two other characters that can be pointed to as a trans or NGB fighters or even characters not made as a joke.
Personally I prefer the new Capcom stance of having her be whatever anyone wants. If people want her to be Trans, so be it. If they want her to be female so be it too. While it's true that there are not many Trans characters out there, the few ones that does exist do their job well, so the whether Poison is added to the roster or not doesn't make much of a difference. I'll say this though I'm with the guys on this one, the new half on the document feels a lot like a cop out, and definitely a desperate measure to run away from lawsuits. And like I said on my comment above, she's was originally designed to be female(I still curse myself for not saving the interview, I can only cite for memory and only vague things about it).
@@bloody4558 I appreciate your effort to be sensitive so I just thought I should point out, that "trans" doesn't just mean trans women, and it'd be better to say "cis" rather than "female" in this case. Just to be clear I'm not angry or upset, just trying to give some advice. Feel free to like, do discussion or questions if you like.
@@rschock22 ????????????
W-why did the Punching Weight logo appear? I am confused.
*shows Bayonetta*
*shows Twintelle*
Okay seriously though what's with Nintendo and domineering women with superpowers lately.
The Birdo thing was actually true of the Japanese version of that game too.
10:34 Definitely saying "OH MY CAR"... and I love it!
OH! MY CAR>OH! MY GOD
Yep! So much better.
yo, fellow trans woman gamer here, great job with handling the coverage of Poison. I expected something potentially cringey, and was pleasantly surprised
Calling her a trans so they could dodge a lawsuit on a technicality is shady.
In that sense, is Capcom promoting violence against trans people?
I wouldn't say so but it all depends on how people want to spin it.
It's a no win scenario they have trapped themselves into.
Most of this was said quite a while ago. Attitudes towards lgbt people have changed drastically in just the last 10 years. My favorite clip to point out this out is how hilariously poorly this aged from 2002 ruclips.net/video/pPFaNBne_8I/видео.html
In 1989 though? In Japan?
"30 years of back and forth with poison" 😏
😍
If only, if only...
It's a hard one 😋😋😂😂
Poison's been one of my favorite Capcom characters since I first played Final Fight! I love her, she's great.
You guys handled Poison really well, speaking as somebody who's questioned my own gender identity over the past few years (but landed on non-binary as a gender identity).
Though I kind of want to spit ball an idea. What if Poison being transgender was only to add a bit of flavor to her character, making her stand out for something other than her physical appearance. I mean, Roxy is just her in another colour pallet appearance-wise, so adding that bit in could be another way to differentiate the characters, they could have just made them sisters after all.
Funny thing about the SNES version of Final Fight is that they removed Poison and Roxy, but their voice samples were still there. You can hear them in the sound test.
As somebody not from the US, the most interesting part to me is that you guys had games exclusive to rental chains
Game renting feels like something that publishers would not want in the first place so I never thought that was a thing
God damn, Poison and those abs in X Tekken.
What's your favorite take on Belger? Pick one!
A) Cyborg Belger from _Mighty Final Fight._
B) Zombie Belger from _Final Fight Revenge._
C) Transforming Power Armor Belger from _SF Wrestlepalooza._
Great video. FF2 is my favorite of the series. Personally I think a _Yakuza_ style game but set in Metro City and populated with Capcom characters and crazy side-quests should be the future of the _Final Fight_ series. It worked for _Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise._
didn't they try that with Streetwise?
@@GiordanDiodato Streetwise was more influenced by GTA with generic mission design. Yakuza has crazy missions like helping a woman become a dominatrix and bartending crazy drinks. That's what I'd want, levels where you beat up deliverymen who ship Umbrella products and steal the Power Stones from a museum. Go nuts.
Well, your wishes are kind of granted with Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode.
Final fight has several Andores, G. Andore, U. Andore, etc. I always got the impression that they were a family of wrestlers, and Hugo was H. Andore.
I don't care much what poison is honestly. She's super fun to play as in street fighter 4 and rocks that female figure and pink hair regardless of whatever localization background they give her. Either way she's awesome.
Poison is whatever you want Poison to be and your world will be rocked regardless.
I love Poison! She's one of my favorite Street Fighter girls, and the biggest reason I went from SSF4 to USF4 when it came out. Same with why I still own SFxT.
@Skitarii Soldier A girl with a d*ck is still a girl. It's 2019 dude, get with the times
@Skitarii Soldier Are they or not? Seems like that that's its chief gimmick. She probably doesn't give two bollocks what you call him.
@@lavender317 Nope. That would be a dude.
@@CaptPonyholder I have one and last time I checked, I'm a woman, so I have no idea what you're on about
@@lavender317 Don't know if you're being sarcastic but you're not wrong.
I was nervous to watch the video because of worry of how you'd handle Poison, but you handled it very well and respectfully. The bit at the end was really nice to add. While my own opinions on Poison are mixed, she's still a rockin girl who I'll absolutely accept as a trans icon.
A new SSFF video always makes my day!
Yea Poison was always a super confusing one for me, always hearing things about her one way or the other over the years.
But at the end of the day I do think I agree with you, seems like to me she was just intended to be a girl originally and localization make them just use the trans thing as a loop hole, which just confused the crap out of everyone, just making capcom dig that hole even deeper... and now at this point I guess she’s retconned to be trans while keeping it vague.
But yea which ever way Poison is an awesome character.
Nah the "new half" note predates any localisation by years. Like literally three years. Design documents make note of that throughout final fights development. Who knows why? Or where it came from? But yeah likely she began life as a girl and for whatever reason became trans in later development. However it didn't have *anything* to do with localisation.
@@medes5597 Problem lies on the fact that Capcom has been making changes to run away from lawsuits for years, so the documents don't really prove anything for real. Remember No amount of surgery will fix sexual dimorphism between male and female bone structure, she was clearly designed as female, there's nothing that proves that the newhalf word was added there on the same day the character was originally designed, only that the final plans had the word there. Also You can easily, easily notice how the word was writen in a whole different way then the rest of the text. And by that I don't mean the fact that it was written in katakana for obvious reasons. The writing is clearly messy, a stark contrast to how everything else is pretty orderly in comparison.
@@bloody4558 I'm not sure Poison's body shape matters, the Final Fight/Street Fighter universe is full of ridiculous stylised designs.
@@Oscar97o Ridiculously stylished but always respected sexual dimorphism.
@@bloody4558 Dude I'm a trans woman with hips wider than my shoulders and an hourglass/pear figure??
You obviously don't know actual trans people, probably just some pictures cis people selectively post online to be like "look, it's so obvious when someone is trans"... even though the majority of us just go through life going through gendered spaces completely unnoticed.
My feet _are_ larger than a lot of women's... but so were my mother's, and we shared shoes for a long time. So I'm thinking that's probably purely hereditary rather than gendered. Same for my hands: bigger than a lot of women's, but the same size as my mother's. My father's were actually smaller in both cases. That's hardly the point you're trying to make though.
I'm a trans woman, and I thought you broached the subject of Poison very well. Awesome video!
No such thing
Cavia? As in Drakengard Cavia?
Huh. Learn something new every day.
Poison’s my girl! I got the $400 Pop Culture Shock statue of her enshrined in my game room. 👍🏻
Did something happen in the editing department?
Final Fight 1 on the GBA(?) wasn't properly introduced and it just seemed weird dropping into the content it provided without introducingit first.
for what it's worth, i think you did a good job explaining poison, a very heavy subject (especially with some of those quotes from capcom themselves, whoof). good on you.
one point of interest, before appearing in ultra street fighter iv, poison was added to street fighter x tekken in 2012, and early builds of the game apparently had win quotes from other characters that were pretty, well, rough. these were removed before release, as a capcom rep explains in the interview with ono shown in this video
www.egmnow.com/articles/news/egm-interviewyoshinori-ono/
GLAAD specifically mentions street fighter x tekken in their 2012 year in review and working with capcom too, linking to that interview
www.glaad.org/blog/2012-reviewing-year-gayming
i hope this is interesting
Oh jesus I had forgotten about the original win quotes against Poison from that game... I remember seeing people find out about it real time on Twitter. Those were really rough. (But also, darkly validating? As a babytrans at the time getting a lot of shit.. to see that this fictional character gets it too?? I mean I wouldn't have wanted to ACTUALLY play it with the chance of hearing hateful shit so I'm glad it was changed.. but. y'know.)
Heck Yeah, Poison! Mah girl!
Final Fight 2 did sort of have an arcade release, it’s a bootleg with a credits system hacked in so it can be used in a JAMMA cab.
great video! I also really enjoy how the styles of SSFF and Matt complement each other. I always feel like there is genuine real life chemistry which isnt a given when it comes to channel crossovers.
why is there the punching weight intro when this isnt a punching weight episode?
Score another point for Streets of Rage 2 being the superior beat 'em up! Its localization was a lot more faithful compared to Final Fight. Streets of Rage 3 on the other hand...
yeah, don't even get us started on that homosexual ash character in BK3. SOR2 only had 2 (miner) instances of sensership: changing blaze's outfit and getting the ciggarre out of the villain's mouth (the latter seams to actually be a western stariotype for mafia bosses).
Sounds like "Oh my cup".
Yeah, rule 5 of Nintendo's pre-ESRB rules are flawed. Plus, Final Fight for the Super NES was forced to remove Poison and Roxy, but back on the NES, the first Double Dragon was allowed to keep Linda Lash in.
i love how just by capcom saying "she could be trans but we want it to be vague," basically the entire queer community has embraced her as a trans icon. we love to see a trans girlboss winning
Based Briskit as usual 😎
Please seek help 🙏
I wish CAPCOM had included a mention of the MAD GEAR GANG having a cloning machine.... it would explain why and how 6 thugs all look a like on the same screen, haha!!
So basically Poison is whatever gender you like because not even capcom knows what they are.
It's a *pick your Poison* situation.
I'm very glad to see that the trans folk in the comments don't seem to have any qualms with Derek's comments in the video regarding Poison. I would also agree that it was handled very tastefully, and appreciate the courage needed to talk about a subject that has in a lot of ways become sort of a political taboo that some people feel can't be discussed. I personally live in a very progressive district, but I feel most of the activists here advocating for trans rights in whichever degree here, firstly a) aren't even trans, and b) don't really understand the issues, needs, or opinions of actual trans folk, and are merely activists for the sake of inclusivity and nothing more, as if trans folk are not fully capable of expressing their opinions publicly on certain issues...
Joining in with everyone else to say as a trans woman I think you handled it well. I see some people wishing you'd said the actual phrase "trans women are women" but for me all the times you said things like "there's plenty of women to play who aren't trans" made it clear enough for me. You're obviously not treating "trans" as a gender unto itself, which is what I care about.
Also everything you said about Poison being a badass bombshell was good too. I'm used to some people letting the trans so-called-controversy overshadowing that.
I'm curious, did you ask for any advice from your trans audience members, or were you just able to navigate this by yourself through care and empathy?
Anyway, really like your videos in general, not sure if I've commented on them before, wanted to show my thanks.
City Streets is such a dope song. I love Double Dragon Neon.
Hey Derek FUN FACT: Battletoads Arcade ripped off the car stage in Final Fight with a jet fighter replacing the car!!
Nice use of Mango Tango from DD Neon. I LOVE me some Final Fight. One of my favorite beat em up series of all time. Great video overall though I wanted to say that people unfairly give FInal Fight SNES a bad wrap. If you look at it from the perspective of when it came out, it was a phenomenal release. Huge 16 bit sprites that were ripped right from the arcade. crunchy, booming SFX, fantastic music (the SNES OST beats the pants off of the Arcade release thanks to it's varied instrumentation. Loving those horns!) plus voice acting (hearing OH MY CAR come out of my speakers back then was mind blowing.) Yes, there was slow down. Yes, Guy was missing. Yes the Industrial stage was absent. But the sacrifices made still was the end result of a really fun beat em up. And if you're missing Poison or Roxy, just import the SFC version like I did, it's super cheap.
Final Fight Revenge may be goofy, but it's supposedly one of the worst to control games on the Saturn, though I haven't played it myself so I can't really comment on that. Streetwise, is exactly as you guys said: the end result of Capcom not respecting the fan base and assuming we wanted a GTA clone. You know what game I would've bought? The one they were working on prior that they scrapped. You know what game I didn't buy? Streetwise.
My hope is that one day, Capcom will do two things: 1. Just come out with it and say Poison is transgendered and let that be the end of it. and 2. Release a proper sequel i.e. Final Fight 4.
The industrial stage sucks ass anyway. It only exists to rape your quarter pocket. And why would Capcom stop messing with us now? That's no fun!
Honestly, when are you just gonna cave and make a video solely about life in Anchorage, Alaska??
Love your channel, dude. You always have such interesting and unique content.
Don't really feel like reliving this messy, gross era of video games again, but I just like to remind everyone that when dealing with real-world social issues, it's important to make a real effort to learn about issues involved and understand WHY something is unacceptable, or inappropriate, or iffy.
Case in point, "No violence against women", a jaw-droppingly stupid edict which, if seriously implement, would've absolutely _crippled_ the development of the industry. As any feminist worthy of the title will tell you, the problem isn't raising your fists against a woman who is trying to beat you to a pulp. If she uses violence against you, responding in kind is completely acceptable. If it's a straight fight to begin with, it's a nonissue. Laws punishing violence against women, such as the relatively recent VAWA, are meant to protect women who _cannot_ fight back, _aren't_ accustomed to settling disputes by force (and these laws protect _everybody,_ regardless of what they're called). I promise you that _nobody_ in 1989 knew about Poison's "change" and wouldn't have given a crap if they did. She was an enemy you had to put down like all the other Mad Gear punks, no more, no less.
Bottom line, if you want to know what feminists really think, what sets them off, what they consider unacceptable, *ask them.* You know what happens when you assume, right? _You get it wrong._ Don't go making rash decisions that they might not even see.
(I'm probably never going to get a straight answer to this, but hope springs eternal, so here goes... what about _Roxy?_ Why didn't _she_ ever get the protect-the-lady treatment? She's a palette swap, for crying out loud, no one's going to miss it!)
As a trans person, I think you tackled the Poison issue perfectly! Very respectful and tactful, and the end was so sweet!!
As a trans woman, I say you did an utterly amazing job of handling the way they treated Poison.
As a foreigner I just love your eloquence. Your voice is pretty calming as well
Yeah I'm calling bullshit on the Poison trans thing. Where in the original arcade game does it even give the slightest hint that Poison is a trans woman? I mean from actually playing the game? The answer is that there is none, so that newhalf footnote was obviously just something they could whip out in case they caught some heat. In other words no-one would ever have known about it otherwise becasue who in the public at the time of the arcade game's height ever had access to those notes? Poison was just intended to be a woman, but the whole trans thing has been milked for publicity ever since. I'm all for representation in games, but not like this where minorities are basically used as (literal) punching bags.
Poison is our trans queen and we love her; trans characters historically and even today are not made with the best understanding or intentions, and when we get one like Poison, who endures a rocky history and becomes such a world wide icon, is absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for covering this!!!
The only thing that felt unfair was the notion that the controversy would be the only reason people care.
No. We love her either way. She's an amazing design and a very fun character.
I like her too
But Idk if it's just me or what but there's one aspect that I don't like about this.. The fact she's the enemy, not the good person
The majority of pre-2010 queer representation either just makes fun of the queer person.. Or makes the queer person the enemy
That's kinda unfortunate to me :/
Wow, y'all...Y'all. I gotta be honest: as a trans viewer, I was a little scared going into this video, but DAMN y'all stuck the landing. GOOD ON YOU SSFF!!!
9:14 I like this Richard Aplin, especially the Monty Python quote
domestic violence =\= beating woman, i think that should not have been censored
Oh, Capcom... when will you ever find enough fire extinguishers to put out your fucking trash fire of a company?
A transvestite is a crossdresser, not the same as transgender. I think the Capcom guy tried to play down the violence against women by saying that this was just a guy dressed as a woman.
It's bad translations on top of poor handling of trans topics by the west. "Transvestite" was almost certainly "newhalf" in japanese, but that got translated poorly. Newhalf refers to pre-op transsexual women, who are legally regarded as male in Japan until surgery.
As a trans person I personally really adore Poison as a character even if everything any Capcom employee says about her makes me angry to no extent lmao. I think your point about Poison not really being intended to be a trans woman from the start is totally on base though because "newhalf" is just, a transgender slur in general. From what I know it has certain connotations to it that implies it's a term used against transgender sex workers a lot (like "trap," so I guess thanks doing a good localization job whoever named the Poison hairspray) so I would not be surprised if her inception came first and because of her design people on the ff team joked about her being "newhalf" and it just stuck or something
16:14
C E E T
M A R P
I always thought Poison was a reference to Bel Biv DeVoe.
I'm trans, and thank you so much for your tact and sensitivity regarding the issue
Ok pal
One thing i wanna mention is that if you have the "Capcom arcade classics" game on ps2/xbox, if you check in the Final Fight extras it will say that Poison and Roxy were always friends but Poison was originally a male who later started dressing in girl clothes
now, i don't remember if that's a translation of the japanese early concept, but that information is there, you should check it out.
So how did Roxy take it?
@@CarbonRollerCaco i could be wrong but it said roxy thought it was weird.
i read this ages ago on my ps2 version of the game so i don't remember all the details
@@CiccioImberlicchio Her loss. :
I'm trans, and you handled Poison masterfully. ;)
Nasty
@@scissorman44 no, at the fact that a mental illness is being not treated as such.
It's not a mental illness anyways...so what you two even talk about here
Oh boy! Lunch AND a show!
So, as much as Capcom's handling of Poison was awful, it's an amazing metaphor for the transgender woman's experience. To my mind, this makes Poison a very authentic trans woman character and probably the best representation in video games.
Oh my ca... gods! It just dawned on me. What if Capcom made a new Final Fight but more in the mold of DMC combat wise? Between Bayonetta and DMC's multiple fist weapons, we know that the hand to hand combat in a 3D beat them up can be fun, and with DMC 5's nero devil bringer, we know that they can implement a system where you can pick up an assortment of consumable weapons from the environment.