Criminal Girls 2 denied rating (and release) in Germany

This party isn’t doing the Germans any favors

The sexual-punishment-themed Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors jumped some hurdles in its localization for a western audience that included, “redrawn art, terminology changes, no native language dialogue, and no motivation scene dialogue.”

This was not enough for Germany, whose video game ratings board, USK, declined to rate the Vita RPG for the country, according to NIS, which currently precludes it from releasing in Germany. Criminal Girls isn’t banned in the country. You might remember that the USK initially refused to rate the violent Mortal Kombat X, though it finally would release five months later with an USK 18 rating.

Elsewhere in Europe Party Favors is releasing with a PEGI 16 rating on September 23, while it’s coming to America on September 20 with an M (for Mature) rating. While Germany tends to refuse ratings on a basis of violence (just read the USK 18 description), there’s some irony in the country stereotypically represented in American pop culture as XXX BDSM sex fiends objecting to the BDSM JRPG. Of course the country has far more chances to reject classification on the basis of violence given the types of games that are typically made. I think the real crime here is that I played the original, pre-localization Criminal Girls 2 in Tokyo last year and didn’t get horny at all.