Nintendo Japan Apologizes for Censorship of Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore, Offers Full Refunds for Pre-Orders

Nintendo have apologized to Japanese customers who preordered Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore, after having only announced the game would be based on the western censored version of Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE after preorders began.

In case you missed our earlier reports, the trailer for the game rose concerns that the censorship that plagued the original (Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE) would return- and possibly even in the Japanese version.

While the official Japanese website showed what appeared to be images from the uncensored Japanese version (and confirming English language support in the Japanese version), it later updated to show the censored version of the same image.

The website updated once more, adding the disclaimer “This work is a universal specification that adds new elements based on the Western version of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE released on Wii U.” This disclaimer came after pre-orders began in Japan.

On October 18th, Nintendo issued a statement on the matter, apologizing for announcing the information so late, and confirming they would allow customers a refund at a later date if they wished to cancel their preorder. You can find the translation below (via bk2128, via GoNintendo), please note that the game’s Japanese title (Genei Ibun Roku ♯FE Encore) has been untranslated, to help differentiate it from the western version of the game.

“We hereby apologize to customers for the mistake and for not delivering enough information regarding the contents of prior notification for Genei Ibun Roku ♯FE Encore, the software for Nintendo Switch scheduled for release on 17 January 2020.

This title adds new feature into Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE (released in 2016), the Western version of Genei Ibun Roku ♯FE, the software for Wii U that was released in 2015. We are proceeding with the development with a worldwide common specification and aiming for a worldwide simultaneous release (You can enjoy Japanese language voices in the game).

However despite that, on the promotional activities for Genei Ibun Roku ♯FE Encore, we did not inform from the beginning that this title would be based on Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE. And also in the official home page, we mistakenly posted game screenshots from the Wii U domestic version of Genei Ibun Roku ♯FE that wouldn’t have been included in this title, so the situation caused a misunderstanding to our customers regarding the content of this title.

So on 10 October 2019, we performed replacements of game screenshots in the home page. And on the 17th we posted that this title would be based on Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE. But we acknowledge that we did not deliver enough information to our customers from the beginning.

Concerning this, for all customers who have purchased / pre-ordered Genei Ibun Roku ♯FE Encore through Nintendo eShop or My Nintendo Store, and want to request a cancellation caused by this matter, we will provide the procedures in this page at a later date.”

We will keep you informed as we learn more.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!

Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore launches January 17th, 2020 on Nintendo Switch.

Image: Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE

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Ryan was a former Niche Gamer contributor.


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