In the interview, Star Ocean 5 character designer Akira Yasuda, director Hiroshi Ogawa, and producer Shuichi Kobayashi revealed that not only is the studio aware of western criticism of revealing female character designs, they’ve made changes to the game because of that very same western criticism.
“Recently there’s been a trend in games where if you put out a character that shows a lot of skin, later on you might have to make a lot of revisions, ‘although she’s erotic, there’s not a lot of skin showing’ is the feeling you get,” said Yasuda.
“In fact, it got a rating of C by CERO (Editor’s Note: Cero C is ages 15 or older),” Yasuda continued. He explained why the game’s spellcaster, Fiore, is wearing such a revealing outfit. “Fiore uses a lot of displayed crests on her skin to cast curses. That was part of her setting."
Finally, the developer confirmed they’ve slightly censored the game, in the form of Miki’s panties. You can view a comparison above, with the first image before the change, and the second image after the change.
“Recently, there’s been a lot of flak from overseas countries saying that if you put teens in ‘sexual’ underwear it’s not good,” said Kobayashi. “So we increased the amount of clothing.”
“How distressing (laughs),” Ogawa said in a follow up.