why do they change the names

[Fear Zoa]

Different countries have different copyrights which leads to some names being changed. There are a lot of other reasons though mostly cultural issues as some things are offensive in some countries while being meaningless in others. Also it really just depends on the audience, North America has a thing for making all foreign box arts more unhappy and generally tougher for lack of a better word.

Its mostly the cultural things though.
(Why the United states chose to forbid sex while fetishising violence is beyond me. If I'm correct the exact opposite is true in most other places)

 

[Gahars]

C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

Anyway...

(Why the United states chose to forbid sex while fetishising violence is beyond me. If I'm correct the exact opposite is true in most other places)

The United States' cultural heritage comes from its early Puritan settlers. They were strictly conservative, and placed an extremely heavy emphasis on the evils of sexual relations outside of marriage. They were more or less down with violence, though (ask the Native peoples of the time). Our culture isn't like this anymore, obviously, but the roots are still there.

(This is just a simplification; there's more to it than that, but this is pretty much the jist of it.)

 

[Alexrose]

But the most confusing Localization of all is Advance Wars 1+2.
it seems Japan got the game after Americans did.

But it was actually DEVELOPED for Japan earlier, but got repeatedly shunted. The Japanese sprites were made prior to the American sprites, so here where you said:

first they decided "Nell needs to show more skin".
so now Nell sports a sexy sleeveless Stewardess outfit.

No, Nell already showed skin, and they decided the military is portrayed more formal over here, whereas in anime/manga etc. over there fanservice is pretty common, so it's perfectly normal for their characters to be wearing little clothing. It didn't fit the west so they put sleeves on her.

-Andy is now Ryo...
-Sami is now Domino...

Or rather, the other way round. Western names work better for western audiences, especially with a character named Domino.

-Olaf is Santa Claus...

Olaf was originally the Santa-esque character, hence why he works in snow. Obviously that was too ridiculous over here so it got changed.

-Kanbei now has quite an elaborate Samurai getup...

Which is a typical trope in Japanese media, but not one shared with the west, nor befitting a modern day commander.

-Grit is Daisuke Jigen from Lupin the 3rd...

And a cowboy wouldn't run a modern day army, so that doesn't fit the western theme again.

-Drake lost the title of Captain and is now
just a lowly Japanese Fisherman.....

No, he's a pirate. Normal for Fire Emblem, not normal for a modern wargame.

-Sonja has Glasses....

Another typical Japanese trope, schoolgirl bookworm with glasses somehow assumes a position of responsibility. They made her slightly more believable. Also they changed the colour of her uniform so she didn't look like she was in the Red Star Army.

every other aspect of the game is exactly the same.
no idea why they wanted to change the characters so much.

To make money.

Next question.

Most of your points are so very inane. You answer your own questions.

"Why do they change the names? Yeah, I'm aware it's because there's a massive copyright issue, but..." - No buts, you just answered your own damned question. Why wouldn't they change to avoid copyright infringements and licensing issues, clashes with similar large scale contraversial global events or try to pander to a different cultural audience?

 

[Rydian]

Not meaning to be a title-nazi here, but wasn't starfox called starwing here?
Could be wrong though.. I'm all used to the US title now...

64 was Lylat Wars then.

 

[no_chocobo]

What about capcom removing all of the nazi imagery from bionic commando?

 

[KidIce]

Different laws and different products in different countries.

Star Fox was called Lylat Wars in the EU because the EU already had a different game called "star fox" there.

So did the US. CLICKY