Despite its titillating nature, Publisher PQube has announced that they will be bringing Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni to the PSVita later this year, completely untouched.
DuelShockers reached out to PQube’s PR Executive Peter Nathaniel Fury earlier this week to ask the important question on if the game was going to be censored for North American release, a recent trend with games like Bravely Second, Fire Emblem and other Japanese Video Games. Not only did Nathaniel explained why they took on the project, but how the process works to localise a game like Valkyrie Drive.
I can confirm that Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni will be brought to the west in its original form, with content completely intact. It will be with a Japanese dub and English subtitles.
We generally don’t take on these kinds of projects if we’re not confident we can release it in the west without cutting or changing content. Changing the source material kind of defeats the purpose of doing it in the first place, so that is not something we even consider unless we literally have no other options. In terms of platform holders and ratings boards, you’d be surprised what you can get away with. Gal*Gun: Double Peace passed quite painlessly for example.
Where issues might arise in terms of publishing, is selling the title in to retailers who might be hesitant to take it. A game doesn’t just appear at retailers when we release it; a big part of the process is to go around and sell the title to each individual retailer and negotiate numbers and prices. Trying to present a game like Valkyrie Drive to a group of executives at a major retailer, who might be in their 50’s and don’t play or particularly care about games, and convince them that Valkyrie Drive is amazing and would do really well on their shelves or their website, can be quite the challenge for the sales team.
Valkyrie Drive is currently set to release later this year, meanwhile PQube other release Gal*Gun: Double Peace was recently delayed due to manufacturing errors, and is now set to release on July 29 in North America.