We’ve learned the European release of Square Enix’s Bravely Default has seen questionable changes made to the main characters’ appearance and background.

Pictured below, you can see the original Japanese character designs on the right, with the designs seen in the European version on the left. Notice anything different?

Yup, their costumes are a lot less revealing. To add more fuel to the fire, the ages of certain characters have been raised from 15 to 18 years old.

All of this is clearly an effort to remove or at least tone down any possible sexual innuendo in the game, although the IGN forums user (who originally posted the comparison) was keen to point out that the changing of their ages and costumes doesn’t seem to affect the story at all. However, he did point out that the original costumes weren’t “lewd or obscene enough to warrant any censorship.”

A reminder – we still don’t know if this censorship will be in place for the American release, but since the European and American releases of Square Enix games are usually identical, you can probably expect to see the more adult, more fully dressed versions of female characters in Bravely Default when it reaches American shores next month.

So what do you guys think? Is this a justified reason to censor the game, to broaden its appeal, by protecting the children from seeing scantily clad women? Personally, I think this is just another hilarious and needless case of censorship on Nintendo’s part, just like the Fire Emblem DLC that had Tharja’s butt covered.