For some
reason, certain words that nobody in their right mind would consider
offensive, were considered "too violent" in some parts of Europe. Games
with the word "Ninja" in the titles in particular almost always had their
titles changed. "Ninja Gaiden" became "Shadow Warriors", "Shadow of the
Ninja" became "Blue Shadow", and perhaps worst of all... Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles became Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles. I'll tell you
this right now, if the word "ninja" hadn't been included in their name, I
would never have bought any TMNT toys, games, or anything. I bet those
bastards would have even changed Vanilla Ice's immortal song, "Ninja Rap"
and turned it into "Hero Rap". It just doesn't work. But it gets even
worse... look what they did to Contra!
Probotector = Contra!?
As if
changing the title of contra to "Probotector" wasn't bad enough, they
actually changed the in-game graphics! No longer were you fighting as
badass, shirtless warriors. No, now you were fighting as robots. FUCKING
ROBOTS! I'm sorry, turning a classic like Contra into a game about robots
with a fancy for "probing" is utter blasphemy.
Oh well, at
least most of the Megaman game boxes looked cooler in Europe... they sure
as hell were horrendous here in the U.S.