America is the 90s was a complicated place for video games. It was a time of trivial censorship: such as the renaming of the "Holy" spell in Final Fantasy IV to "White" and the omission of any references to prayer. The Tower of Prayers became Tower of Wishes and Rosa lost her helpful "Pray" command altogether. Mortal Kombat and Doom were turning us all, allegedly, violent little monsters. If things like mentioning prayer in a video game was making peoples heads turn, then there was no way that the first part of Persona 2 (Innocent Sin) would have ever seen the light of day in America. The second chapter (Eternal Punishment) was released; but is so rare that it doesn't even count. But not all is lost:
The fan translation of Innocent Sin is apparently complete. Someone tell me how the hell I missed that. Seriously. I want to know. Back to the censorship issue:
Yes. That is Hitler. And yes. You are fighting him. That's probably one reason it was never released here. Actually, I'm going to say no. Didn't we beat up Hitler in WWII? Why not do it again! Some people may find it insensitive... others, like me may find it awesome. Perhaps his second coming had something to do with the Nazi's interest in mysticism. That would certainly make sense in the context of the game (which deals with demons).
Another reason is likely the possibility of the main character having a homosexual relationship in the game. I'm willing to bet that the gayness is the biggest red flag there... at least when we're talking about America. We just can't handle homosexuality. Especially here in the Bible belt.
I purposely never researched the circumstances of his apparent resurrection because I'm still waiting for it to be localized in America and I don't want to spoil anything. But, since the fan patch is complete, I suppose I'll be spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to take advantage of it. You should too.
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