There's still content that doesn't go over well for the audience. How much say do you have in whether or not that content makes it in the game? Do you have autonomy in terms of recognizing what won't play well and what to do with it? How do you approach that?
There were certain things in Persona 3, 4 and 5, especially now in 2020, where there would be a lot of talk about the things in those games. As a localization manager, I really cannot do too much about what has already made it into the game.
But in Persona 5, there were a few NPCs that, while we were doing the localization, our team members felt a little bit of awkwardness about when working on it. And with Royal, we were determined to see if we could do something about it at least localization-wise. On our end, it took a lot of effort consulting not just the production department, but talking with our marketing, and how they would feel about it if we changed how things were in Persona 5 to this new way--what would the public reception be, what the company would think, whether it would be okay if we do make the change.
Ultimately for Royal, we did go with it and I think we're pretty happy with what it is. It's not a significant change, but I think there's enough of a change that people who weren't comfortable going through that part in Persona 5 would feel better this time around.
Are you able to say exactly what it is? What part of the game that you were referring to?
So basically, I'm just going to say it right now there are these two gay men who hit on Ryuji. I think the community had a very strong response to that, and you saw that, and that was definitely altered for Royal.
Can you expand on how that was changed?
Unfortunately, those characters were portrayed [as] more like predatory. In Royal--I don't want to say we made it mild--but we made it [as if they're] being very strong enthusiasts for something they like doing. But it's not like they're on the hunt for some young boys or anything.
