Trivia Browser

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Drill Dozer
Drill Dozer (2005)
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Attachment The choice of a young girl protagonist in Drill Dozer was decided by Ken Sugimori as he felt the juxtaposition of a "frail" character would be more interesting than the sort of masculine character that would typically be depicted in mech-suit and vehicle-themed media. Concept art shows a tokusatsu-style, presumably-male character in the same vein as Game Freak's previous title Pulseman with a drill for an arm, before it was chosen to have a character piloting a mech instead.

Character designer Hironobu Yoshida was opposed to this decision because he found women to be hard to draw, and added thick, boyish eyebrows to Jill's design as a subtle form of protest.

Jill's noticeably exaggerated hairstyle was derived from the appearance of a roll cake, when Yoshida was eating one at home. He asked his wife to prepare two more roll cakes and placed them atop a sketch of Jill's concept art.
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Character Design, Complaint, Development, Male/Female Gender, Real Life
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month September 25, 2023
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Evil Nun
Evil Nun (2018)
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The game's plot is inspired by the real-life string of Magdalene Laundries, specifically those in Ireland and Australia. Named after the Biblical figure Mary Magdalene, these were Protestant or Roman Catholic institutions ostensibly designed to house "fallen women" (i.e. sexually promiscuous women, prostitutes, young women who became pregnant outside of marriage, or young girls and teenagers who did not have familial support) by taking them in, or occasionally kidnapping them, and forcing them to work in laundries commercially-run by local nun convents under poor conditions and exploitative abuse.

A series of paintings by Rachael Romero, an Australian girl who fled from her abusive father and for a time worked in a Magdalene Laundry in the city of Adelaide, inspired the overall design of the game's laundry room and general aesthetics. The room, and certain objects such as a machine and a wooden basket, were also directly based on pictures from these laundries.
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Artwork/Illustration, Development, General, Inspiration, Male/Female Gender, Politics, Real Life, Religion
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month September 24, 2023
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Action Girlz Racing
Action Girlz Racing (2005)
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Action Girlz Racing claims on its box to be made "for girls, by girls". However, the credits of the game show that many of the developer names are simply female versions of the names of developers credited on other Data Design Interactive games, such as Karl White becoming "Karla White", Julien Alden-Salter becoming "Julia Alden-Salter", and Teoman Irmak becoming "Teowoman Hermark".
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Advertisement/Commercial, Credits, Development, False Advertising, In-Joke, Male/Female Gender
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month September 21, 2023
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Wabbit
Wabbit (1982)
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Attachment Billie Sue, the protagonist of Wabbit, was the first playable human woman in a console video game.
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General, Male/Female Gender, Real Life
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month September 6, 2023
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Zoo Tycoon 2
Zoo Tycoon 2 (2004)
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Attachment Even though the horns of female Bongos are shorter than male Bongos in real life, both genders' horns are the same size in the game's African Adventure expansion.
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General, Male/Female Gender, Mistake, Real Life
person CuriousUserX90 calendar_month September 4, 2023
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Fact Animal page on the Bongo:
https://factanimal.com/bongo/

Footage of the Bongo in Zoo Tycoon 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6AvLbWxXb8
Haunting Ground
Haunting Ground (2005)
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Believing that a female lead would not be received well, Capcom added in a dog partner that could attack enemies. After this change, they further designed the gameplay around this partner mechanic.
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Development, General, Male/Female Gender
person DrakeVagabond calendar_month April 18, 2018
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Dr. Mario
Dr. Mario (1990)
subdirectory_arrow_right Tetris & Dr. Mario (Game)
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According to the Tetris and Dr. Mario instruction manual for the SNES, the Red Virus is female. This information is absent from the original Dr. Mario instruction manual for the NES.
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General, Male/Female Gender, Manual
person JelloBoyInc calendar_month February 3, 2017
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Shantae
Shantae (2002)
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According to Shantae co-creator Matt Bozon, during development of the first Shantae game, publishers were having a hard time accepting the idea of having a female lead character rather than a male character.

''The most common reaction to Shantae back in the '90s was "Hey, great looking game. But who do the guys play as?" Like, we must have messed up and put the "Player 2" character in the "Player 1" spot. It felt like our work was being dismissed for no good reason, and it made no sense to me. But eventually I came to understand that these people genuinely knew their markets, and that the game would probably not sell, and that was even more irritating. So, I feel like Shantae had to exist, even if it was just to reach out and see if there was an audience reaching back."

Shantae was later picked up by Capcom in 2002 and was released on the Game Boy Color.
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Development, General, Male/Female Gender, Real Life
person CLXcool calendar_month October 19, 2016
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Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star II (1989)
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In the Japanese release of Phantasy Star II, the piano teacher, Ustvestia, is openly homosexual. When a male party member volunteers to be taught the Musik technique by Ustvestia, Ustvestia replies, "He looks cute." Ustvestia then proceeds to charge the male party member less for the lesson than he would charge a female party member.

However, in the English release of Phantasy Star II, Ustvestia simply says, "He looks smart." The gender-based disparity in the fee for learning Musik is left unexplained.
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LGBTQ+, Male/Female Gender, Regional Difference, Version Difference
person paulojr_mam calendar_month August 2, 2015
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Kirby Mass Attack
Kirby Mass Attack (2011)
subdirectory_arrow_right Kirby: Squeak Squad (Game)
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Attachment In the original Japanese version of Kirby: Squeak Squad, Spinni is referred to as female, but no mention of the character's gender is made in the game's English version, possibly to avoid any controversy with gender issues. However, the American version of Kirby Mass Attack refers to Spinni as male.
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Male/Female Gender, Regional Difference, Version Difference
person Ophl calendar_month May 12, 2015
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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2005)
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Dee Vasquez was originally designed to be male, but this was changed after the developers realized Spoiler:that all of the killers were ending up as men during development.
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Development, Early Idea, Male/Female Gender
person psyducklover13 calendar_month November 24, 2014
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Franchise: Super Smash Bros.
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Pikachu is the only playable Pokémon in the Super Smash Bros. series to have a visible gender difference in the Pokémon series. Male Pikachus look like the one in Smash Bros, but females have a small indent in their tail, which vaguely looks like a heart. However, gender differences in Pokémon were introduced in Generation IV, which came out after the first Super Smash Bros. and Melee.

Female variants were later included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
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General, Male/Female Gender
person Psychospacecow calendar_month October 13, 2013
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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2004)
subdirectory_arrow_right Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Game)
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Attachment The gender identity of the party member Vivian is inconsistent between different language translations of the original game. In the Japanese version, Vivian identifies and presents as female, but is described by other characters in the game as actually being an effeminate-looking male, aligning with common media depictions of transgender or gender non-conforming characters at the time, but not explicitly referring to Vivian as such. A rough translation of the Japanese text for Vivian as a party member reads:

"カゲ三人組の一人だった　オンナのコのようで　ホントは　オトコのコ"
"One of the shadow group, Vivian appears to be a girl but is really a boy."

The French version directly carries this over and additionally describes Vivian as a boy pretending to be a girl, while the Spanish version describes Vivian as a boy who looks like a girl. However, according to former Nintendo of Europe translator Pol Roca, Vivian's Spanish name "Bibiana" was intended to be a reference to the Spanish transgender actress Bibiana Fernández, who starred in the 1977 film Cambio de Sexo (or Sex Change).

The English and German versions remove any references to being transgender or gender non-conforming, implicitly portraying Vivian as a cisgender woman with "a bit of an inferiority complex". Instead of being bullied over her biological sex, her sisters instead belittle her for her appearance.

The Italian version of the game on the other hand explicitly depicts Vivian as an openly proud transgender woman, with the localization reconfiguring her relationships with gender identity and her sisters by having Marilyn and Bedlam's bullying being rooted in jealousy, traits which are absent in the Japanese script:

Vivian: "We'll defeat that Mario guy! 'Cause we are 'The three shadow sisters'!"
Marilyn: "How can you define us as 'The three shadow sisters'? You are a man! A MAN!"
Vivian: "That’s true, you are two sisters… But I am a woman too now, and I'm proud to have turned into a woman!"
Marilyn: "Hmph. And you surely think you are more beautiful than we are, huh? You deserve a punishment for that!"

The English release of the Nintendo Switch remake follows the Italian version of the original game in unambiguously describing Vivian as a transgender woman, most prominently featuring a line where Vivian states that "it took me a while to realize that I was [Marilyn and Beldam's] sister... not their brother." It's currently unknown if Vivian's portrayal in other translations of the remake has changed from the original release.
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Censorship, Development, General, In-Joke, LGBTQ+, Male/Female Gender, Name Change, Reference, Regional Difference, Release Difference, Version Difference
person gaiages calendar_month April 11, 2013
comment Comment (0) | Source
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The Cutting Room Floor article on original GameCube release differences:
https://tcrf.net/Paper_Mario:_The_Thousand-Year_Door/Regional_Differences#Vivian

Japanese script example of Vivian's original portrayal:
http://themushroomkingdom.net/pmttyd_j2e.shtml#vivian

"Transgender in Games: A Comparative Study of Transgender Characters in Games" by Emil Christenson and Danielle Unéus:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1146698/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Article about Italian localization in video games by Francesca Di Marco, a former localization specialist for Square Enix, including a section on Vivian's portrayal:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210607111528/http://www.fti.uab.es/tradumatica/revista/num5/articles/06/06central.htm

Pol Roca tweet and Bibiana name in the Spanish version [info and links provided by Rocko & Heffer]:
https://www.twitter.com/polroc/status/1702660171737059808
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fumoIEFxjKU#t=1102s

My Nintendo review which discusses the restoration of Vivian's transgender identity in the English release of the Switch version:
https://mynintendonews.com/2024/05/21/review-paper-mario-the-thousand-year-door-for-nintendo-switch/


Attachment sources for "Looking for a gal!" Trouble Center mission Vivian interactions in the original game. Footage of the Vivian interaction in the French, German, Italian, and Spanish translations could not be found at this time:

English version ("Whoa! You sure are cute... But, um... That whole goth shadow thing is a bit... Creepy! There, I said it!"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI_xG-knJE8#t=39s

Japanese version ("おお! これは かわいい。。。 ってキミ。。。 どっちゃなの?。。。 オトコ。。。 だよね。。。
ようするに オスじゃん!"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIFTyRFZJO4#t=86s
Persona 3 Portable
Persona 3 Portable (2009)
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In the PlayStation Portable version, while playing as the female protagonist, during the ultimate boss fight with Theodore (the male equivalent of Elizabeth), Fuuka will describe him as female.
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Console Difference, General, Male/Female Gender, Mistake, Version Difference
person Outofmind23 calendar_month April 1, 2013
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Spider-Man
Spider-Man (2002)
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Attachment If you put in the cheat code "girlnextdoor" you can play the game as Mary Jane Watson. At the end of the game, where Spider-Man and Mary Jane usually kiss, Mary Jane will kiss herself. This code was removed from later versions of the game, presumably because of the lesbian kiss in an E-rated game.
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Censorship, Development, LGBTQ+, Male/Female Gender, Regulatory Content Rating
person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month March 14, 2013
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