Rating Board Pulls Atelier Meruru In Japan, Must "Re-Rate"

The game was presumably mis-rated, both Rorona and Totori were rated Teen here, though oddly enough both are Cero A in Japan. Not sure about Meruru's actual rating though. In Meruru, Totori is 19 and is the 'master' alchemist training Meruru who's 15. The odd bit is that Rorona is in this one too, but is apparently a young girl now? Not sure what in the name of....that means. (Edit: found it, apparently Rorona's age in this game is the result of Meruru messing up some kind of Alchemy which causes Rorona to become a child again. She's still the original Rorona, but basically she's lost a decade or so thanks to Meruru. Either way, since the primary two characters are older, I'm going to guess that the game is a little more suitable for Teens, especially as this is the third in the series of games and with games like this the series does tend to mature a little in reflection of the aging characters and audience - look at how Ar Tonelico changed over time, or Final Fantasy.

Ah, found the issue. "Japan's Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO) announced on Wednesday that it is retracting its A (for All Ages) rating of Gust's Meruru no Atorie: Ārando no Renkinjutsushi 3 (Atelier Meruru: The Alchemist of Arland 3) game after CERO determined that some of the game's graphics did not meet the rating's requirements. " Apparently there was something in the graphics of the game, probably too much fan-service - aka flashes of a character's panties - for a CERO A release. I couldn't find anything more but I'd bet on a quick re-rating to the next rating up the scale and a re-release - since the game had already shipped in Japan.

IIRC, although there is innuendo throughout both Rorona and Totori, there are no panties on view. So, it seems likely that in this final installment there was simply too much fan service in the graphics for the Cero A rating.

Alternately since I know that the battle system was also revamped, there could be more violence than CeroA allows, but I think that's less likely than the fan service issue.

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Last edited by Highlander on 7/28/2011 11:43:45 AM

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I feel fan service is for everyone of all ages :)

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Ah, more on Rorona being young, it's not Meruru's fault, it's Astrid's fault, and that's all I will say, as there are spoilers enough here.

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The game will probably be re-rated to CERO B, which is the equivalent to a E10 game here.

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I wish I could love these games, but try as I might I'm pretty much always going to be a fan of the middle of the road (plenty of adventure and not a ton of micromanaging) JRPGs like FF, Grandia, Suikoden, and Star Ocean... all of which are dead now. Crap.

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They are the epitome of kawaii (uber-cute) JRPG characters, and actually Rorona in this game is basically the kawaii dial turned up to 11.

So if you don't like levels of cute that might rot your teeth, these games may not be for you.

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Last edited by Highlander on 7/28/2011 11:54:24 AM

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White
Knight
Chronicles
;)

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Yeah I'll be getting white knight, I survived Ar Tonelico III and it had its moments but was overall kinda blah. But as I got a great deal on the CE I'm keepin it, love some of the music. Hyperdimension might be a little too weirdo niche for me, I kinda gave up on it.

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Neptunia suffers greatly from it's combat and exploration system. If those were better implemented and 'tighter' overall, I think the game could well have really rocked.

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The rating was just fine until they realized it came with one of those Playstation dolls.

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LOL!

Bad, bad, bad....

I still have this horrible vision of some weird hybrid of an anime character and a Baby Alive doll remotely controlled by a video game....
::shudder::

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Remember that game oden's sphere for ps2, it reminds me of that game made by atlus

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Is that a good game??

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O, you mean like how our OFLC gave we dare PG?
so were not the only ones with a useless rating system?
thank god!
im starting to wonder if they actually play through the games!
to be honest i would not be surprised if they just cut up a few pieces of paper and chuck them into the hat, whatever rating comes out is what they give it.
would make allot more sense!
i mean, how else do you explain GOW3 being suitable for 15 year olds but L4D2 not?
or MK?
MK and L4D2 are less suitable for 15 year olds then GOW3?
really?
how?
id much rather a kid see a zombies head get blown off with minimal gore, then a gods head ripped off with bare hands, with plenty gore, skin tearing, tendons, the whole works!
either the OFLC picks ratings out of a hat, or sony paid them off.
because theres no freaking way GOW3 is more suitable for 15 year olds then a freaking zombie game!!!!!!!!!!

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Most ratings are obtained when the game publisher sends a synopsis of the game content to the ratings agency. I'm sure they also send one or more copies of the game and possibly even screen shots too. But I doubt anyone takes the time to do more than read the synopsis. With Meruru, the game will almost certainly be re-rated a CERO B which is the rough equivalent to the E10 rating here in the US. Both Rorona and Totori were rated T in the US, and I imagine that Meruru will get the same rating. This is basically a non-story.

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"Most ratings are obtained when the game publisher sends a synopsis of the game content to the ratings agency."

And here lay the problem with the ESRB and their method of rating games...it produce many inaccurately rated games. I'm not the only who have taken notice of this, but there are so many peer research studies that points this out also.

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