Jun 272018
Omega Labyrinth Z is one of those games that when I saw it announced, I said something along the lines of “Oh Japan” followed by “That’ll never be localized.”
Then they proved me wrong and announced the western release of this very fanservice-centric dungeon RPG.
Omega Labyrinth Z hit the news a few months ago when countries starting banning its release, largely due to its fanservice together with the age of its high school characters. I’m not sure why they didn’t go the “they’re actually 18” localization strategy, but it might be because the developer/publisher didn’t want to go with any form of censorship.
During these bans, everything seemed set for its western release outside of those countries.
Until this week, when PQube announced that the North American and European release had been cancelled due to “the wishes of the platform holder.”
What makes this particularly odd is that the ESRB isn’t to blame. Usually when these things come up, it’s because of the ESRB rating (or the company opting for censorship in order to avoid a higher rating), but in this case, the ESRB gave Omega Labyrinth Z an M rating. This seems to have been specifically from Sony in America and Europe.
PQube did indicate that they won’t rule out a Steam release, but that the cost of porting it is an issue.
(If Nintendo picks it up, we’ll know we’ve entered an alternate universe.)
Now, I’m obviously not the target audience for Omega Labyrinth Z, but I found it interesting to follow the situation as it unfolded. Some people are concerned about the precedent this sets, that Sony could refuse a game already rated by the ESRB (and PEGI), while others feel that given the game’s *ahem* questionable content, their decision was merited.
What do you think? How do you feel about the cancellation of Omega Labyrinth Z’s western version?
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