The kingdom of Romulea is in peril. Monsters are leaking out of every nook and cranny in the land, and to make matters worse, they have started an uprising against humanity. Players take on the role of Fried, an adventurer from the Royal Library sent to stop the uprising. But early in his journey, he discovers a broken shrine along the way. This sets in motion the story of Dungeon Travelers 2, where Fried travels around the kingdom of Romulea, and through rescuing, defeating, or bumping into any of the 16 unique girls that can join his party, Fried is on a mission to save the world! Set in a first-person perspective with turn-based combat, players will encounter normal monsters as well as more powerful mutant girls, who must be sealed away to prevent the spread of the evil monster scourge.
Art That is Sure to Leave a Mark: The hand-drawn art of the girls in your party, as well as the mutant girls who must be defeated breathe scintillating life into the quixotic world of Romulea.
Sealed with Power: Defeating enemies in the dungeon produces Sealbooks, which can give the girls in your party unique bonuses, enchant weapons, or be sold for gold. Deciding how to use
the Sealbooks is a crucial part of the game’s dungeon-crawling aspects.
Turn the Party into a Par-tay: As you explore dungeons, players can trigger sub-events which allow for further character development between Fried and the individual girls in his party.
Favorite girls can even show up in the menus (cosmetically) more often.
Min-maxers’ Delight: Each girl in your party has one of five base classes, from which they can spec into one of several sub-classes, which can be further specialized. For example, a Magic User can become a Sorceress, which can specialize into Magical Princess. Each subclass has its own unique skill-set and corresponding armor/outfit, allowing for intricate tweaks for discerning party managers.
Original Audio: Dungeon Travelers 2 presents the game with English text localized by ATLUS and fully voiced Japanese audio.
With regards to the censorship issue, Atlus have explained that it has been an arduous process to bring the game to the West with as little impact on the game as possible…
“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.”
Some countries have a higher rating – such as Australia (the “R18+”/”Restricted 18+” rating)… Though in saying that, the Moral Police still manage to ban a long list of games.
Because you know, as an adult, I’m apparently incapable of making an informed decision as to what is and is not appropriate…
As I’ve been saying for years, developers should make an “international version” available in their home country – most of the world speaks English, so you would only need to translate the game once and sell it on physical media.
In addition, most of the “mainstream” portable consoles are region-free – so they will accept games from any region…
And where there are exceptions?
As for the DRM (digital rights management – copyright protection) thing, all of the games for the “mainstream” consoles (portable and fixed) can be set to either:
* One particular region or;
* all regions (this mode is designed for aircraft, hotels and the like).
All a developer would need to do is set the region to “all regions” and they’re good to go… If border protection/customs seize the games, well that’s the risk the buyer would need to take.
Such moves would get around “Big Brother” and put the risk back on the buyer, but not at the expense of the developer… It means you’re out of luck for the DLC (downloadable content), but you would be able to access the “core” game.
It’s not that simple when it comes to censorship / age ratings of games. I could write an entire post about it (and actually I will be shortly) but at the end of the day there are still controls that NEED to be in place to ensure that young children don’t see game content that isn’t suitable.
Retailers aren’t complying with the law and still supply adult games to under 18s and there are children with full PSN accounts so games need some boundaries. We may have general common sense as adults but children are still very impressionable and can be easily desensitised to what they experience in games. I’m not trying to echo what the mass media proclaim about games but too many young kids simply look on games like GTA as being “cool” because of the violence and the storyline is irrelevant to them and this is why controls are essential.
Yes, as gamers we need choice but until parents and the retail industry also take responsibility for controlling what children have access to then restrictions are vital. Certainly as a parent there are games I don’t want my daughter going anywhere near right now.
When you see games coming out of Japan that are censored to the point of being ridiculous, it makes my argument just… Not to mention the fact that anything even remotely offensive gets a game banned here in Australia.
I’m a parent too and I can see where you’re coming from… But here in Australia, games are frequently getting banned – despite the introduction of the “Restricted 18+” rating – so there has to be a better way.
What the answer is, I don’t know… But there has to be a better way of doing things.