Sega of America fights to keep content within Phantasy Star Portable 2

Why is this post on the front page again? Well according to an item dump from psupedia forums which lists every item data that is listed within the demo.  Whether these items will be accessible in the full version is still up to debate. However, it sounds like a very good chance we'll be seeing a majority of these collaborations in some form.

As games are translated, game companies run into the issue of having to cut extra content out of games either due to licensing issues or features that an audience outside of the native language wouldn't truly understand. Phantasy Star Portable 2 has a rich source of extra content mostly for aesthetic purposes, and others that bring additional life into the game like downloadable missions.

Item Dump Data

[via psupedia]

Official Confirmations

• This list below highlights green colors for items of Official Confirmations. 
• Licensing Issues for InternationalRelease
  • Bikini Models
  • Pizza Hut Room Items (Cheese-kun) Weapons, Outfits
  • Fanta Room Items, Fanta Quiz Battle Mission
  • Mobage Town Weapons
  • Hatsune Miku Outfits, Hairstyle, Leek Weapons
  • Gemaga Side Scrolling Mission***
  • Moyashimon, Ocha-ken, Pa-Panda! Room Items
  • Evangelion Plugsuits and Weapons
  • Famitsu, Dengeki, Connect!On Magazine Weapons
  • Fate Stay/Night Costumes and Weapons
  • Manga Artists (To Love-Ru, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Pyu to Fuku Jaguar)

 Looks like a good chance Magical Princess outfit will stay!

Luckily the game features collaborations within Sega's franchises, so we expect, Resonance of Fate, and Valkyria Chronicles 2 to be saved. Additionally some of the items listed above may have a chance of appearing in the game, particularly the Manga Artists weapons and clothing. In reality the artist's items may be based on a particular Manga but are actually original designs.

Extra missions like the Gemaga in particular can be rebranded to remove the tie-in sponsorship. That's of course if downloadable missions will appear in the game. We know it was a devastating loss for Phantasy Star Portable 1 to remove such content.

Gravure Japan Bikini Models

Ruby Eclipse of Sega has been pretty vocal that they are striving to keep as much content as they can within the game. For example, the Gravure Japan room items in the Japanese version features women, some as young as 13  years old wearing nothing but bikinis. These items are optionally included within the game where a player must input a numerical password to receive them. Sega of America has instead held an art contest to replace this content:

the exact wall scrolls were originally for the bikini models in the Japanese version. Since we weren’t able to offer them in the west due to licensing, we decided to go with the next best thing – instead of cutting the items completely, we’ve replaced them and are letting the fans get their own content up there.

While some items getting cut will always be a reality of any game with deep licensing partnerships, I hope that fans can at least appreciate that we’re going to great lengths to try and replace that content in positive ways… ~Ruby Eclipse

In addition to a previous forum post Ruby Eclipse states:

I've been trying (and will continue) to push to get as much as possible in the US version.

Because of licensing issues it's really hard sometimes, and PSZ is a good example of this – but there are people fighting to try and get this stuff included in our version too, and I just want to make that point known. ~Ruby Eclipse

So there you have it! We understand PSPo2 obviously can't keep everything that is included within the Japanese version. As long as there is an effort to try to keep as much as possible, whether that be costumes, items, and downloadable missions and events, it will make Phantasy Star Portable 2 a sufficient replacement for the closing of PSU's PC/PS2 servers.