Now We Can All Be Criminals
It seemed like NIS America was doing their best to avoid localizing Criminal Girls for years. It was an RPG published by their parent company, Nippon Ichi Software, in Japan on PSP, and developed by Imageepoch. Though a significant part of its gameplay focused on dungeon crawling and battling enemies, they paled in comparison to a feature where you had to spank the girls to make them obedient. The young ladies at your command are criminals, after all. NISA publishes some games with skeevy content, but this went so far in that direction that not even they wanted to touch it. They passed on it during a time where they were still localizing games on the system.
Then came their second chance: Criminal Girls: Invitation for Vita. This version added two new girls and a new scenario, along with the ability to, well, spank girls by touching the screen. And no, these girls are certainly not legal. It released in November last year, but we saw that NISA was serious about not localizing it when it wasn’t part of their announcements earlier this year.
Or so we thought. The company announced at their Anime Expo panel that, lo and behold, they’re localizing the Vita version under the name Criminal Girls: Invite Only. This begs the question of why they’re just deciding to do it now, when it was clear they had no intention of pursuing it before. They’ll never give us the real reason, but a few logical hypotheses came to my mind.
It’s possible NISA is running out of games to localize, or fears they’ll run out in the near future. That’s hardly surprising considering the ones they’ve lost so far. Koei Tecmo’s western arms took over publishing rights for Gust’s Atelier games (and recently, Ar noSurge) when their Japanese parent company purchased the developer. Though they’re still localizing some of their games, Idea Factory has their own North American subsidiary now. They’ve already released Monster Monpiece (albeit only on Playstation Network), and will publish Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (an enhanced version of the original PS3 title) in August.
You might say “Sure, but couldn’t they localize something not aimed towards fanservice-loving otaku?” Well, there aren’t many of those anymore. The sad reality is that low and mid-tier Japanese developers have doubled down on appealing to the otaku audience in the last few years, meaning there are very few examples of Japanese games that don’t have some sort of fanservice. Sadly, most of the games bereft of that content are being held hostage by large developers like Square Enix and Sega.
Besides, NISA knew what they were doing localizing Criminal Girls. Have you seen all the attention this announcement is receiving? From looking at the announcement threads in a few comment sections and message boards (which I wouldn’t recommend for your own sanity), you’d think this was the only game the company announced at their panel, when this was only one of three. Most discussions consist of people baffled and happy about the company suddenly deciding to bring it over, while others are baffled that an audience for this kind of content exists in and outside Japan.
In turn, the former audience was baffled when they read NISA’s press release confirming the announcement, which included a disclaimer saying the game will be censored. They’re running headfirst into the same issue they encountered with Mugen Souls and its sequel. Though some of the audience will nonetheless reluctantly support it, because there will be no other way for them to play it in a language they understand, others will boycott it on principle because of content being removed. They didn’t specify what won’t make the cut, the trailer shown during their panel didn’t highlight any of the spanking sections. It’s not mentioned in the press release either, which instead says the player will have motivational sessions with the girls, manipulated via the touchscreen. That’s either clever wording, or they’re removing those sections entirely.
NISA claims in the PR that they’re censoring it to help it reach a bigger audience, which is clearly nonsense. Anyone who wrote this off as creepy otaku-aimed pap upon seeing a few screenshots won’t be convinced after a little censoring, and they know that. The reality is they had no choice if they wanted to localize this, because western video game ratings organizations would have thrown a fit if they saw a game with a bunch of prepubescent kids being spanked. It was either that, or no one would be playing it in English until a fan translation released.
NISA plans on releasing Criminal Girls in spring 2015, and it would be a surprise if it wasn’t released at retail. The company should elaborate on what they’re censoring, and perhaps the reason why, one day soon.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
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It’s fascinating when it comes to Vita RPGs what makes it over to the West and what doesn’t. In the past it was the bizarre niche stuff that gets left behind, but now that’s the stuff that’s more likely to get over. The new Trails in the Sky games–huge hits in Japan and vastly more geared for a general audience–is nowhere to be seen. It’s already been said Phantasy Star Nova has no plans for the West–and that’s arguably the sort of game the system needs most there. And then of course there’s the whole thing with Type-0–a game which easily could have been the biggest fish in the pond for Vita in the West. It’s been interesting to see that it’s small companies like NISA, Xseed, and Aksys that have become the foundation for the system for the West–and even in the East, big companies are generally playing it as safe as they can possibly manage. They are weak sauce, to put it into gamer terms.
I have no comment on fanservice-driven games like Criminal Girls since I have no interest in them. There certainly are a few of them coming out, but fortunately there’s still plenty of other games as well. Firefly’s Diary was announced by NISA same time as this, for example. And then–to my very pleasant surprise–Aksys just announced Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters, which I figured was very slim chance at best. Perhaps it’s time I re-evaluated what sorts of games are actually “slim chance” nowadays…
It’s been an interesting switch, though it partly happened because localization companies don’t have many other options. The Japanese market is challenging for retail games these days, so publishers feel they need to double down on the otaku market for guaranteed sales. It’s really unfortunate to see, but yeah.
The games you named actually sum up why companies don’t have many options: Trails games don’t make it here because they require a plethora of time and resources to localize due to how text-heavy they are. Not to mention the games are all connected, story-wise. We could have something going there if the PC versions of the first two games take off. PS Nova and Type-0 are examples of games I mentioned in the post: they’re held up at bigger publishers. I’m still hoping Atlus gets the option to localize some Sega games, but Square Enix (and Capcom) have been reluctant to support Vita. Fun times!
I don’t have any interest in Criminal Girls either, but I plan on covering the others you mentioned over the weekend. Stay tuned!