Drake's Ratings Roundup - June 2008

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Posted Mon, 30 Jun 2008 - By Marcel Van Duyn

So many ratings, so little time

So many ratings, so little time

As we don't usually create a news article for each new game that gets a rating, we thought it would be a good idea to do a monthly roundup listing each game rated by every ratings board to keep you up to date.

Here is a quick explanation of the different rating boards which we track:

ESRB rated: The ESRB stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board and is North America's rating board. Anything that's ESRB rated should be released on the American Virtual Console.

OFLC rated: The OFLC stands for Office of Film and Literature Classification and is the rating board for Australia. This means that any game that's OFLC rated should be coming out in Australia, but because Europe and Australia usually get identical releases on the VC.

USK rated: The USK stands for Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (German for Voluntary Monitoring Organisation of Entertainment Software) and is Germany's ratings board.

PEGI rated: PEGI stands for Pan European Game Information. They are another European ratings board. Usually they don’t reveal ratings until the game in questions comes out, but sometimes they can slip through the net before being hidden again from public sight.

So with that out of the way, here's what got rated in the past two months that hasn't yet been released in the region the rating belongs to:

ESRB rated:

OFLC rated:

USK rated:

PEGI rated:

  • Nothing new got rated the last two months for VC.

That's all that was rated recently which isn't out yet. Clearly the US is a bit slower with getting rated games out! It should also be noted that Hudson's VC site lists the following TurboGrafx-16 games as being released in the US in July:

Most of these should most likely be coming soon. Which of these would you like to see first?

Posted in Ratings roundup.

Have your say about this story

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1. Dazza United Kingdom 30 Jun 2008, 10:56 GMT

Clearly Earthbound for the USA and Super Mario RPG for auzzies are the hot ones here. Lets hope they all go worldwide soon so we can think of something else to moan about not having! :-p

I'm quite looking forward to having Samurai Shodown II on my VC. It is my favourite of the series. Bring it on :D

2. mummydaddy United Kingdom 30 Jun 2008, 12:10 GMT

oh dear.... doesn't look good for us brits.

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3. E-dawg Australia 30 Jun 2008, 12:41 GMT

If there is one thing I do like about the the ratings board in Australia, it is that they reveal games early.

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4. DEMON212 United Kingdom 30 Jun 2008, 12:41 GMT

Finally. Been wondering when you guys would do this.

Some great games rated IMO :)

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5. worrybomb United States 30 Jun 2008, 12:48 GMT

Earthbound and Super Mario RPG are my more obvious choices. As for the obscure ones, can't wait for Chase H.Q., Ninja Commando, and Star Parodier. Also Shining Force II...man that game needs to come out and soon.

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6. Demonic S+33V United States 30 Jun 2008, 12:51 GMT

I used to love Chase H.Q., dumped buckets of quarters into the arcade version and wore out the D-Pad on one controller playing it at home..... Hope it makes it to the states soon-ish.

7. starlac United Kingdom 30 Jun 2008, 12:53 GMT

@ mummydaddy

Well remember what the article says: PEGI doesn't generally give out the names of the games it has rated until they're actually released. It's likely that all their current rated games are being kept hidden.

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8. Quimby Australia 30 Jun 2008, 13:08 GMT

I would love for Super Mario RPG to be exclusive to Australia... at least for a little while so I can gloat. I'm sick of getting the same games as EU but not getting C64 titles. I want IK+... :-(

9. Rapadash6 United States 30 Jun 2008, 15:26 GMT

Nice feature guys! I hope you'll do this every month from now on.

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10. Rexy United Kingdom 30 Jun 2008, 15:37 GMT

oh dear.... doesn't look good for us brits.

You got that right. Sure, we could look at the Australian releases (since they usually get the same stuff as us minus the C64 titles) but even so there's nothing that's interested me as a gamer there (though things could change if I do my homework on a select few when they release).

I appreciate the feature though, so this can be good to take a good peak at what can potentially arrive to the VC in the coming weeks.

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11. classicmike United States 30 Jun 2008, 15:48 GMT

@rapadash6: I agree with you, this would be a cool feature to do at least once a month.
Also I want to know why the ESRB took off their rating for smrpg, it really sucks that they did that. Here is to earthbound and star parodier not getting their rating taken away just like smrpg!

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12. Adam United States 30 Jun 2008, 16:37 GMT

I hope EarthBound comes out soon so I can start complaining about Super Mario Kart.

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13. jackaroo Spain 30 Jun 2008, 18:51 GMT

Anyone remember that console the Master System..........................Why are they paying such little attention to it?

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14. Objection_Blaster United States 30 Jun 2008, 20:21 GMT

I'd be more than happy if US got Earthbound and Europe got SMRPG but I know both sides would then complain about what the other got

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15. BlackFira Canada 30 Jun 2008, 21:01 GMT

@Objection_Blaster i agree with you there thats probably the most easily predicted thing to happen.on the other hand smrpg and earthbound are my most wanted immediate download list. i also even made a list of every vc games i want in thier own catergory section though i plan to have all of the games in the future lol in my list is the one i want the mosts

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16. Rexy United Kingdom 30 Jun 2008, 21:09 GMT

@Objection_Blaster: I agree with you there as well, purely for the fact that I would snap up Earthbound in a heartbeat as soon as it arrives and couldn't care less for SMRPG. If that actually DOES happen, then that makes it another stimulating reason to move to America.

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17. That Guy from Faxanadu Sweden 30 Jun 2008, 22:47 GMT

I can´t believe Mario RPG will be released here unless it´s Hanabi weeks. I think we´ll have to wait at least ´till next year for it.

US gets some interesting Neo Geo titles, and Earthbound is sure to make me jealous :)

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18. timp29 Australia 01 Jul 2008, 00:15 GMT

I bit the bullet and changed my wii's region to uk... sooo much better and the conversion rate makes games cost pretty much the same. So we have smrpg and earthbound... but no N64 games :(
Also, don't get your hopes up everyone, rondo of blood has been rated for ages and hasn't appeared yet. I agree with faxanadu, me thinks the next hanabi week will be totally awesome. But really, if you check the coming soon section of the games list for the games that have been rated, if we get rondo and smrpg and earthbound (and last ninja 3 + strider!!!), there will be nothing left to look forward to (well... at least nothing for me to look forward to :P). Theres like 1 n64 game on there... i think the vc might slow down for a while :(

PS o0o0o0o Diablo 3!!!

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19. MasterMario United States 01 Jul 2008, 02:30 GMT

Do you guys know the sites that show VC games coming out from every console like the hudson site with the releases coming in July on the Turbografx 16?

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20. slangman United Kingdom 01 Jul 2008, 15:15 GMT

Only one game i am dying to play on the VC which is on the PEGI/OFLC list which is SM:RPG though i am intrested in Splatterhouse 2 and Chase H.Q.. Glad its turned out to be the Turbographx version.

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21. AlphaNerd01 United States 02 Jul 2008, 05:23 GMT

To be honest, I'm not going to get my hopes up about any of this right now.

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22. MrPoo6321 United States 02 Jul 2008, 16:45 GMT

I really want EarthBound and Super Mario RPG.... but what happened to the Earthworm Jim games and the Clay Fighter game? I thought those were rated too.

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23. Bass X0 United Kingdom 03 Jul 2008, 10:19 GMT

You know, I can only think of one instance where a videogame character is named Drake. And thats the secret boss character in Final Fight 3 on the SNES. Anybody know of any more?

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24. Terranigma United Kingdom 03 Jul 2008, 11:01 GMT

The Elite 4 member Drake in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, the main character in Stonekeep, Drake and the incredibly bad game, so bad it makes the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man look good, Drake of the 99 Dragons

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25. Bass X0 United Kingdom 03 Jul 2008, 13:20 GMT

Yeah. I forgot about the Pokemon one. I wouldn't have known the others.

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26. Rexy United Kingdom 04 Jul 2008, 00:09 GMT

Not technically a videogame character per se, but Drake Mallard came to mind for me - alias Darkwing Duck :D
But why are we going in the random direction of "drakes" all of a sudden anyway?

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27. Terranigma United Kingdom 04 Jul 2008, 13:32 GMT

Looking at this is more detail, it's good to see that American's who felt left out during the Hanabi festival will get a lot of those games as well, like with the previous one

28. alxtlvra Mexico 07 Jul 2008, 11:19 GMT

I hate to ruin the party, but ... Havent you wondered what if the 'Earthbound' game rated by the ESRB were actually the Famicom version being imported? (If you remember that was also the name of the Famicom game for America before it got canceled, which would be the same case of SMB the lost levels, which was released under its american SNES name) Personally I would prefer the Famicom game being imported, since its cheaper and easier to get the SNES version original cart, even boxed than the Famicom one (which, on top of that could be translated to english, and even if you got the Famicom cart it would be in japanese) or than the beta NES Earthbound ocasionally found on ebay.

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29. Rexy United Kingdom 07 Jul 2008, 15:31 GMT

If it was the Famicom version getting an import, I still wouldn't mind. Both games share similar premises (even though the Famicom release didn't have as much obsurdities as its SNES successor and was similarly deprived of certain major components like Porky and the Mr Saturn) and link well to one another, so I won't get angry if we somehow end up with Mother 1 first.

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