Chinese gamers are reporting that Sony’s censorship policy has allegedly extended to the Chinese versions of games, including Mary Skelter 2, and the company is now requiring edits and censorship on top of what’s required from regional ratings boards. Thankfully, some gamers have figured out a way to remove the censorship in the Chinese version of the game.

According to a thread on the Chinese forum Tieba, user SRXEABYSS recounted how users have been taking to social media in China to share messages indicating that the Chinese version of Compile Heart’s Mary Skelter 2 from publisher CFK Co., which released on October 18th, 2018, has been censored in a post-launch patch due to Sony’s new policy. The patch was issued despite the fact that the game is rated R18+ for those 18 years of age or older.

SRXEABYSS explained…

“The Chinese version of Mary Skelter 2 was castrated due to a requirement by Sony. A player made it known that the Chinese language version of the game had the entire Purification system censored. ”The localizer [for the Chinese version], Joy Baishi, informed the player that they had to comply with Sony’s request to castrate the game by removing the feature for it to appear on the PlayStation 4. Any game appearing on a PlayStation system is unlikely to be allowed to have a feature like the Purification system, even for the Japanese release.”

SRXEABYSS included an image of a message exchange between a user and the social media account for the Chinese localizer. The user asked the localizer about the censored Purification system in Mary Skelter 2 because they noted that it caused issues with the gameplay, and its removal resulted in many bugs appearing due to how integral it was for the game itself.

Another Twitter user provided a translation of the image, which you can check below.

Looks like the system was hastily gutted, causing gameplay issues… pic.twitter.com/q91InJUbQH — Silent (@Sirixu) October 31, 2018

If you’re unable to read the second image of the tweet that contains the translation, it states…

“[Gamer:] Hi, I pre-ordered and got the Traditional Chinese version of Mary Skelter 2 from Taobao’s official store, but I discovered the Purification system has a bug. During the process there’s no response upon poking or touching [the girls], causing the effectiveness of the purification to decrease and affecting the gameplay, plus the Japanese version doesn’t have this problem. I’ve looked into it online and others have reported the same thing, could you pass this on to the relevant people? “[Joy:] Based on my understanding, this part has been altered due to Sony’s request.”

If you’re wondering how the Purification system works in Mary Skelter 2, there’s a video below of the Japanese version courtesy of Anime News Official.

As you can see, the Purification system centers around rubbing certain parts of the girls’ bodies, including jiggling their thighs, butts, and breasts, in order to “purify” them. Senran Kagura had a similar mode in the form of the “Intimacy Mode”, and Sony also had XSeed Games to remove that mode from the PS4 release of Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal.

The removal of the jiggling, the transparency and the reactions from the girls means that Purification system doesn’t offer the proper feedback for when gamers are attempting to purify the girls.

This is why SRXEABYSS refers to the feature as literally having been “castrated” because it’s no longer quite as functional as it should be, and has caused problems for some Chinese gamers.

This has become a hot topic of discussion in various Chinese gaming forums as well, as indicated in a thread on PSNine.com, where Chinese users criticized Sony for censoring the Hong Kong releases of games in addition to the Western releases as well. They were also angry about the censorship breaking Mark Skelter 2‘s Purification system.

Zakuxaio is referring to the Silverio Trinity developer, who made it known recently that Asian developers have to fill out English report forms to inform Sony about the content in their game and what sort of censorship may be required to fit in line with the new anti-fan service policy.

The Crashcreator is referring to patch 1.01 for Mary Skelter 2, and is asking if it’s possible to revert the game to the original version before the patch and if the Purification can be played normally in the vanilla version of the game. It turns out that you can actually remove the censorship from Mary Skelter 2 by reverting the install back to version 1.00.

User Snow5549867 offers users a method on reverting the game, saying that by uninstalling it and reinstalling it from the disc and avoiding updating to patch 1.01, this will restore the Purification system to normal.

After fixing the game, it was also suggested that if you purchased the DLC for the game there’s a way to bypass the 1.01 update and still play with the DLC. You’ll need to first install the game, and then pause the update for 1.01; go into the store and download the DLC, and then proceed to start the game to bypass the 1.01 update.

This has now evolved from simply censoring content in global releases to actually breaking games, all in an attempt to deprive straight males from fan-service.

Some of the Chinese users suggested lawyering up and suing Sony for forcing a paid product to become broken due to an unannounced patched that was issued by CFK to comply with Sony’s new policy program for fan-service. Others simply wanted to play the game and get the Purification system working again and didn’t care much about getting into any legal battles with Sony.

Mary Skelter 2 now joins a growing list of other games that have been forced to be censored by Sony, including:

Nekopara Vol. 1

Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san: Hot Spring Labyrinth

Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal

Some games have simply been banned from releasing on the PS4 in the West, such as Super Seducer and Omega Labyrinth Z. Gamers felt Sony’s new policy was hypocritical given that games like the gay dating simulator, Dream Daddy, is scheduled to release without any censorship on the PS4.

Some gamers have begun signing a petition over on Change.org in order to get the attention of Sony and hopefully convince them to reverse the censorship policy.

(Thanks for the news tip Haris)