Pqube announces Omega Labyrinth Z localization has been cancelled

[Sonic Angel Knight]

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PQube announced last year that they will be bring the Japanese exclusive PlayStation 4 and Vita game Omega Labyrinth Z to players world wide. The game is a Roguelike dungeon crawler RPG with focus on heavy fan service which the company is no stranger to. Things have changed as Pqube released a statement on twitter announcing the cancellation of the game. Although they did not disclose a reason for this decision, the game indeed does have ratings by ESRB and PEGI which could be that maybe Sony themself refusing the game on the systems. Pqube has been established as a publishing company that strives to localize Japanese games as close to the source material as possible. This most likely means they avoid making any unintended changes to the games source such as censorship at all cost.

It is with sadness that we announce that the game is cancelled on both platforms and all Western regions permanently. We will not comment further on this matter. Thank you for your support.

Please see below the statement on the situation of #OmegaLabyrinthZ in the West. It is with sadness that we announce that the game is cancelled on both platforms and all Western regions permanently. We will not comment further on this matter. Thank you for your support. pic.twitter.com/ePmmiWSTAY

— PQube (@PQubeGames) June 25, 2018

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[chrisrlink]

note they said we will not comment on the matter any further, wonder what spooked them? maybe so christian soccer mom group that threatened lawsuit if released

 

[the_randomizer]

note they said we will not comment on the matter any further, wonder what spooked them? maybe so christian soccer mom group that threatened lawsuit if released

Nah, just companies being xenophobic pantywaists as usual.

 

[kuwanger]

just companies being xenophobic pantywaists

Xenophobic? They got banned from five countries and can't sell on PS4 or PS Vita. Common business sense would be that if it's hard enough to make money on localization when you can sell globally, being banned out of several markets might well make it not worthwhile to continue. Not sure how that's in any way xenophobic or pantywaists.

 

[ChaosEternal]

Damn, that's too bad. Any idea if there will be an Asia English release at least?

 

[pedro702]

and nothing of value was lost.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Another case of big anime tiddies getting the short end of the stick. It's just sad that Western society has few problems with gratuitous violence and people accept live action nudity on HBO shows (I have no problems with HBO or its shows, just pointing out a double standard) but when anything sexual (even if it isn't graphic) is in a game using an anime style it's suddenly some sort of "problem" and needs be cancelled, banned, or protested.

 

[pedro702]

Another case of big anime tiddies getting the short end of the stick. It's just sad that Western society has few problems with gratuitous violence and people accept live action nudity on HBO shows (I have no problems with HBO or its shows, just pointing out a double standard) but when anything sexual (even if it isn't graphic) is in a game using an anime style it's suddenly some sort of "problem" and needs be cancelled, banned, or protested.

lets be fair the reason its banned is because they use characters that are underage, on hbo you dont see nude 13 or 14 yo girls lol.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

lets be fair the reason its banned is because they use characters that are underage, on hbo you dont see nude 13 or 14 yo girls lol.

You don't see nude characters that young in these gamed either. There's usually no nudity and characters and I've never seen a fanservicey game have characters that young. Dead or Alive 6 is getting censored even though the characters are all 18 or above. It's social pressure that causes shit to get cancelled and censored.

I'm fairly certain HBO's Shameless (I don't watch the show but my family does so I've been around while it's on) shows teenage characters under 18 in sexual scenarios, even if there isn't nudity for said characters. I don't think that characters designed to look like adults in a game being in such scenarios is any worse.

 

[pedro702]

You don't see nude characters that young in these gamed either. There's usually no nudity and characters and I've never seen a fanservicey game have characters that young. Dead or Alive 6 is getting censored even though the characters are all 18 or above. It's social pressure that causes shit to get cancelled and censored.

obviously you don't see them nude but you get alot of sexual suggestions from the so called lolis which is understandable people don't want to see it on their countrys and such, one has to respect their wishes, same way every wwII gets removed nazis stuff and replaced in germany.

 

[darkangel5000]

you get alot of sexual suggestions from the so called lolis which is understandable people don't want to see it on their countrys and such, one has to respect their wishes

>Pass Criminal Girls 2
>Pass both Gal*Gun and Gal*Gun2
>Deny Omega Labyrinth Z

I don't know man, looks like horseshit to me.

 

[MasterJ360]

Maybe if Japanese developers simply made older looking versions of the said underage girls exclusively for the West it would get a pass. They tend to forget countries outside of theirs are keenly strict on appearances than age.
They look underage to us, but they aren't Japan, I despise any kind of censorship, but it's better than not having the game at all.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Maybe if Japanese developers simply made older looking versions of the said underage girls exclusively for the West it would get a pass. They tend to forget countries outside of theirs are keenly strict on appearances than age.
They look underage to us, but they aren't Japan, I despise any kind of censorship, but it's better than not having the game at all.

The characters in the screenshots are already plenty old looking. You can't really make a character that already has large breasts and hips look older. Also making every character buxom beauty with killer hips opens the door to complaints from "real" women. Just don't design characters like Nowi from Fire Emblem and characters probably won't look really young. The problem is that a lot of these kinds of games use some magical high school as the setting, meaning that characters will at most be 18 before any sort of age adjustment. The best solution would be for them to use a magical college setting but that probably won't work as much, so they could just make all of the characters 18+ (and I mean actual adults, not immortal characters that are hundreds of years old but look like kids), there's also the solution of changing the age of characters for the West. This is how some hentai games with school settings get sold in Canada.

 

[linuxares]

I wanna insert something before it turn in to a possible flamewar. They're chracters, no existing. Have never existed, will never exist. They're literally imaginations plotted down on paper or such. So for me it doesn't matter.

 

[mightymuffy]

Sony stepped in. Doesn't look like a massive loss to me anyway...

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I wanna insert something before it turn in to a possible flamewar. They're chracters, no existing. Have never existed, will never exist. They're literally imaginations plotted down on paper or such. So for me it doesn't matter.

I think that's a valid point. I'll point out that none of the characters in the screenshots or the cover look like kids. I have a problem with characters that are sexualized and are designed to look like kids. If you want to make a petite woman character, don't give them super narrow hips and have them be ≤4' tall. That's when it starts getting creepy.

It's interesting Sony stepped in. Their complaint seems to be a combination of one of the characters being a first year (if this is based on a Japanese high school that would make them 15 or 16) the game design (i.e. anime art syle) will attract an audience under the age of 18. The latter complaint isn't valid IMO because there's lots of anime with nudity that's intended for older teens and adults. I guess I can understand the first complaint, though they allow Senran Kagura. Hell, even Nintendo allows Senran Kagura on their consoles.

 

[Subtle Demise]

I wanna insert something before it turn in to a possible flamewar. They're chracters, no existing. Have never existed, will never exist. They're literally imaginations plotted down on paper or such. So for me it doesn't matter.

I had an argument like this against people on another site when the game first got banned in the UK (I think?). I also added that age of consent around the world seems to average at around 16, so unless there was some text or speech in the game that said the characters were under that, then there's nothing wrong with it. Instead of producing such evidence I was painted as some sort of misogynistic right-wing nutjob, which couldn't be further from the truth. Honestly don't see anything wrong with sexualizing game characters of any gender, as long as it's aimed at the appropriate audience of course.

 

[linuxares]

I had an argument like this against people on another site when the game first got banned in the UK (I think?). I also added that age of consent around the world seems to average at around 16, so unless there was some text or speech in the game that said the characters were under that, then there's nothing wrong with it. Instead of producing such evidence I was painted as some sort of misogynistic right-wing nutjob, which couldn't be further from the truth. Honestly don't see anything wrong with sexualizing game characters of any gender, as long as it's aimed at the appropriate audience of course.

For me is still, it doesn't exist. It hurts no one. So I don't care. There are 16 year olds etc. that looks like 12 year olds IRL. So no wonder they aim at all kind of "fetishes" around the world. But still, if papa Sony don't want this at the western market, it's not much they can do. You know... PC, that's a market that isn't really regulated

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I had an argument like this against people on another site when the game first got banned in the UK (I think?). I also added that age of consent around the world seems to average at around 16, so unless there was some text or speech in the game that said the characters were under that, then there's nothing wrong with it. Instead of producing such evidence I was painted as some sort of misogynistic right-wing nutjob, which couldn't be further from the truth. Honestly don't see anything wrong with sexualizing game characters of any gender, as long as it's aimed at the appropriate audience of course.

Big surprise that SJW "feminists" (and whipped soy boys/"male feminists") would have a problem with something portraying ideal females. I guarantee these dumb asses also have really high standards for men because "muh patriarchy". I'm Liberal and I don't buy into that shit. Remember that true Liberals believe in equality, not giving certain groups special privileges or different expectations or bad-mouthing people in "power" like white men.

I'm sure that's part of the reason it was banned in the UK, because snowflakes would get offended. If it were banned over character age concerns Canada would probably have banned it too because it has the same laws making porn (including hentai) featuring under age characters illegal.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Damn, that's too bad. Any idea if there will be an Asia English release at least?

The

Maybe if Japanese developers simply made older looking versions of the said underage girls exclusively for the West it would get a pass. They tend to forget countries outside of theirs are keenly strict on appearances than age.

It is known fact that some games during localization has altered profiles for characters to fit the culture of some areas. Evil Zone on PlayStation for example; some characters in the Japanese version are under 18 and in the US version has boosted their age to 21 without changing their appearance.

To be honest, I think they just worried about the wrong people playing it. Even though ESRB and PEGI ratings are there to reveal the content of a game to let the player decide if they want such a game, there is plenty of times younger people are caught playing Mature rated games. Though is just one of my thoughts, still more curious about a game with a ESRB rating being halted, and yes i know all fingers point to Sony.