10 Baffling Changes Video Games Made AFTER Release
7. Turning Drugs Into Bananas - Final Fantasy Legend II
The first of two peculiar Final Fantasy-related changes on our list now, with the English-language version of Final Fantasy Legend II - released almost an entire year after the Japanese one.
In the Edo section of the game, players are tasked with bringing down a criminal enterprise that's smuggling... bananas. Yup.
As bizarre as this might seem, it's believed to be a change mandated by Nintendo when localising the game for its Western release.
In the original Japanese version, the gangsters are actually smuggling "prohibited opium," but because this evidently wouldn't fly in North America and beyond, it was swiftly subbed out for bananas.
While not including narcotics in a game aimed at children isn't entirely illogical, why replace opium with bananas? Is there no middle ground between illegal drugs and totally harmless fruit? Could it not have been cigarettes or some similar contraband?