On December 21st, Final Fantasy 7 Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Tetsuya Nomura shared the latest on the upcoming PS4 title. In the List of things that they planned on changing or removing from the game, one of them was an almost iconic scene that many people are upset won’t be included or might be altered. That’s right, I’m talking about the Honey Bee Inn.
It’s almost become a joke among fans of the game that people were wanting an HD version of the scene where Cloud might have gotten molested by overly-muscled men with big porn-staches in a hot tub. The choice to remove that content has left many fans angry and crying censorship.
Small History Lesson
This isn’t the first time that Japanese game developers have had to make modifications to games to make them appropriate for a western audience. Even the Honey Bee Inn Segment in the original Japanese FF7 was heavily edited for westerners.
For those of you who haven’t played the game and haven’t payed attention to anything about it, let me give you a quick rundown. The Honey Bee Inn was a brothel found in Midgar which could be visited by Cloud. It was possible to play out a rather confusing scene in which Cloud bathes with a selection of burly men — who may or may not molest him depending upon your viewpoint. Cloud can also embark upon a sidequest to save Tifa which takes him to the Inn, wherein he must dress like a woman in order to be granted entry to Don Corneo’s mansion as his “bride for the night.” Cloud can only visit the Honey Bee Inn once during the game, as the establishment’s owners refuse to let him in again, deeming his cross dressing actions too “weird.”
So, if you’re still with me, the developers of the game have given reasons from, “we’ll have to move the rating from Teen to Mature if we leave it in,” to, “we need to change it up for today’s modern sensibilities.” I understand those reasons, but for once I have to agree with the internet. This is totally censorship at its finest. To me, this seems to be a decision made from a purely business stand-point, this isn’t the Squaresoft from 1997 who would always tell a good story while implementing weird comedy in most of their games. This is the Square-Enix of today that made Final Fantasy 13. So this, in my opinion, came from a group of business men who sat around a table wanting to take out everything that would make the story less dark, edgy, and angsty.
Good Comedic Storytelling
While we’re one this subject I want to say, you can have both comedy and a compelling story, it makes an interesting game! Instead of game after game of angsty teens fighing to save the world that’s miserable in the first place, we can put in comedy bits to make the darker bits mean more. Look at the original FF7, I feel Aerith’s death would have been less shocking if just a few hours ago you where being miserable and whining in a dark setting, but instead you have an option to take her on a date and have fun at The Gold Saucer.
Modern Sensitivity
So, besides the fun and comedy factor, they need to edit the segment because of “today’s sensibilities” meaning more people are offended at Gay, Lesbian, Trans issues being in video games. I know that statement has some truth in it but I know that the majority of the gaming community, the people buying this game, aren’t going to care about it, and if they do feel offended, the segment is completely optional! That’s the part that really bugs me about the situation. There is this big stink about this completely optional scene in which some weird stuff happens to Cloud that might or might not have been gay.
In this day and age people need to calm down about the LGBT community “pushing their agenda” in the video game industry, so developers aren’t so afraid to have scenes in their games that at the time where nothing but pure fun and comedy. Or hey, maybe I’m completely wrong and the whole internet in overreacting because Square-Enix will add The Honey Bee in as $9.99 DLC.
