But... That just shows some stomach. Even then, save for a handful of girls, the majority of the women are quite covered up. Does the slightest bit of skin = fan service...?

I think the way the characters are designed in Fates, especially the females in Nohr, might relate to the differences in cultures, at least between the two kingdoms. That's my guess because the developers never talked about why they designed the characters the way they are so we're just assuming with little evidence outside of the designs.

But at least most agree that Awakening did not save the franchise due to fan service (because there really wasn't much to begin with), but it was able to build on the ideas of previous games and put them all together. You got the over world map from Sacred Stones, the marriage and children from Geneology, the weapons triangle, the variety of magic, the ability to evolve into different classes, and building on a recent feature that was introduced in the Fire Emblem Mystery of the Emblem remake, casual mode. Casual mode did one thing that proved effective in bringing in new fans, creating accessibility. Radiant Dawn and Path of Radiance were criticized for their overall lack of accessibility for new players due to their increase in difficulty. In fact, Radiant Dawn's normal difficulty in America is actually hard mode in Japan.

Might not seem like much at the moment but this could easily turn from a little snowball into something.....

Is that rhetorical?

I don't need anyone to tell me how I'm supposed to "waste my time". That's up to me. 

And, well, anyone who doesn't know that what suits fine in one culture couln't suit well in another different culture, """shouldn't waste their time commenting""". If you tell me that they're censoring meaningful and important parts of the plot or gameplay who are actually important, I'd critizise it, of course I would. But the whole "bikini" think in FE is just nonsense and just plain ridiculous. And, yes, I'm criticizing the developers for doing that, and praising NIntendo for fixing that. And, yes, I think this should be censored, and I'm glad they're doing it. It's cringeworthy. And I'm sure a lot of people would see it that way if it was released without that censorship. Let's talk about censorship when it really matters, please, this doesn't change the game a bit. 

I really feel sad for the people who won't buy the game because they can't see a girl in bikini. It's fucking insane and nitpicking, which seems to be the norm with Nintendo these days, by the way.

Censoring a few things in a game here and there could easily turn into censoring a broader range of things in games. I'm against censorship in any form in general. They've starting to create a habit of censoring. Are you trying to imply I pick on nintendo? To be honest, there's not much to be positive about nintendo until NX is revealed. 

Hmm, perhaps you should just get to your point. Say what you mean, rol. 

who is to say what is appropriate for a particular culture-   it is the pc vocal minority that is pushing for censorship in a rated game-   if material like that was in an E rated game that would be wrong but rating exist for a reason-  the developer original content was rating appropriate (weather you or i think it is needed is beside the point).    What happens if "violence" gets caught in the social justice cross hairs (or anyone eles)  and they change the battle system to lesen violence to appease a group of people who mostly won t buy the game anyway? 

If you think about it there are many many aspects of video games that could be stripped out (no pun intended) as "not vital to gameplay" yet if enough of it was striped out youu woudl be left wth a very dull lifeless predictable game no one would want-

It dos not matter "what" was changed, it matters "why" it was changed and it does matter - the issue has nothing to do with bikins in an rpg

As far as I know, only a dlc map was changed. If anything else was changed, I don't know about it.

1 girl in the japanese version of XBC was supposedly 13-  the other examples you use did not have to do w age

i don t ever recal a playing a video game were an age was even disclosed or i had any knowledge of an individuals specific age including the original xenoblade