There's few things gamers hate more than censorship, but it unfortunately appears that fans of Japanese romance visual novel series To Heart 2 will be faced with just that. The latest installment, Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal, for the PS Vita, will contain four censored images, the publisher Atlus USA confirmed today.
Here is the full statement:
"Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal presented some challenges during the localization process -- specifically, adapting some of the fan service content to western sensibilities. Localization by nature requires some changes to be made for content to be understood en masse, which is why ATLUS worked closely with developer AquaPlus to preserve the game's themes and content to its fullest."
"In order to comply with restrictions set forth by rating boards, ATLUS made concessions on just four in-game images. On these images, some minor edits were made (and approved by the developer) to adjust the overt graphics to within acceptable ranges for the game's M-rating."
"ATLUS is committed to being one of the leading publishers of niche JRPGs, and are very aware of what impact censorship can have on import titles; we are confident that the changes we made to the images in Dungeon Travelers 2 were the least invasive possible to still be eligible for a release in the west."
"Thematically, the game remains as true as possible to the original Japanese version, including the preservation of the original Japanese audio."
Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal is Rated M For Mature for Fantasy Violence, Language, Mild Blood, Partial Nudity, and Sexual Themes. It's always amusing/distressing to see how much more accepting of violence than sexuality we are over here.
The game is still on track for its August 18 release and you can pre-order it here- will this news prevent you from doing so?