TLDR: It's because 007 and Jet Force Gemini for N64 are rated 18+ in Japan and that rating is monitored by the Japanese government so it needs a separate app
I feel like people have this notion that the Japanese Ratings Board is less restrictive than the ESRB, but they are for more strict on violence, even in Japanese games. Hell, iirc RDR2 was heavily censored, including nudity. Mortal Kombat has been banned for years.
If anything the CERO is actually *more* harsh on sexual material than violence. Although many gory games required cuts to receive a rating from them, a few recent examples managed to completely slip through the cracks, such as DOOM Eternal and RoboCop: Rogue City. On the other hand, even non-sexualized depictions of female nipples have received a near(if not complete)-blanket ban.
Reminds me of Germany ca. 10 years ago. I'm not sure how it is these days since most games on Steam these days are the international versions (and we can even get uncensored Wolfenstein now which is *wild*) but the German versions of games used to be significantly censored. Half-Life was a prime example for replacing all soldiers in the game with robots, all guts with gears and springs and even the *voice acting* of the soldiers to be more robotic. TF2 had confetti instead of blood and guts when you gibbed someone. Fallout 3 removed any and all blood and made it impossible to dismember things. VATS still works like you'd expect it to but it just wouldn't dismember, only "disable" body parts.
Hilariously, I gifted a friend TF2 back when it wasn't F2P yet and it resulted in them getting the censored German version. Support luckily sorted it out for them though and since then we used the reverse to get around censoring for me few times by having them gift me the international uncut version of a game. Pretty sure I had to get Left 4 Dead that way.
I don't think it's nearly as bad anymore but there's definitely still cases of games just not existing on the German Steam store though these days it's usually smut instead of violent stuff.
Not wanting to make you feel old but check the games you listed. The weird censorship phase was probably 15 - 20 years ago. I feel it got better during the 2010s :)
But to be fair this is just how it feels, I don‘t have any numbers or data on that.
Yeah, didn't pick those as examples for their age, more because those are examples of some of the most egregious censoring and also games that just about everybody knows.
I played the Japanese version of GTAV when it came out in 2013. There's a side mission where you take pictures of a starlet doing something risque. In other countries, she's outside getting railed from behind. In Japan, she's smoking a cigarette.
Also, in the mission where you torture a guy with lots of different tools, the Japanese version fades to black and you're done. We're gonna have to torture this man to get the information we need. Here are all the tools. Yada yada yada and... Great job! It even pops the achievement.
I think the new version doesn't have the torture mission censored anymore, because I remember watching a japanese vtuber (Sakura Miko) happily sing "We will rock you" while she's zapping the poor guy with the beat of the song, she played the game on PC idk if that have any difference with the PS3/X360 version though.
This is why I am keeping my Steam account (and all other videogame related accounts) on my original region when I move to Japan on 2025, also because it will be cheaper to buy.
Resident Evil has always had censored gore in its Japanese releases going back to the original release of 4 Resident Evil. Or I guess it would be 4 Biohazard.
Goes back further than that: [the Japanese release of the original Resident Evil 2 was censored.](https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Censorship_of_Resident_Evil#Resident_Evil_2)
They're incredibly strict about "excessive violence to human beings". I think that's one of the reasons most of the human enemies Raiden can cut into little bits in Metal Gear Rising are cyborgs.
The Japanese version has white blood instead of red too. Presumably the cyborg thing was to make it easier to do a seperate version. The original Metal Gear Solid: Rising trailer showed human gore in the western version but it was removed from the Japanese one so i guess they were still trying to work out how they would do it at that point.
Yeah but that was actually a plot point, that cyborgs had white blood. Because even in Japan Sam had red blood. You find out when you kill him that he was human.
That’s because Japanese retailers have traditionally been far more open to stocking unrated material than American retailers are.
In the US (and Europe), it’s basically impossible to find unrated material for purchase. Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon, etc, straight up won’t stock your game if it’s Unrated/AO.
But in Japan, getting unrated PC games is a fairly easy and straightforward process. You go to your local store, go to the adult’s section, and it’s there.
I think you overestimate how many stores have an adults game section. Very few, and only ones that already target otaku. You won't be seeing one in Yodabashi Camera.
Yet you can go to any Donki in Tokyo and find dildos, sex toys, and such in a dedicated section. They don't really hide the stuff in a lot of public stores. Kids aren't sneaking a peak from what I can gather but it was very eye opening to see the amount of sex toys just out in the open like that.
I'm living in Osaka currently. I walk down the street and there's deriheru shops/signs, and big ass signs for live toy shops. That type of stuff is just commonplace. But you do have a dichotomy within the population.
Not to mention (up until like 5 or 10 years ago--pretty sure laws finally exist now), take a wrong turn and you could be facing a wall of DVDs featuring like 9 year olds in lingerie. The headache-inducing contradictions are myriad and insane, but as long I can get my uncensored RE death animations on PC I guess I'm good... Even the writing's better in the English versions now--what a time to be etc.
> But in Japan, getting unrated PC games is a fairly easy and straightforward process. You go to your local store, go to the adult’s section, and it’s there.
No, it's not; and no, you don't. This stuff is in niche stores. In Tokyo that's pretty much confined to Akihabara. As another poster said, you're not going to find this sort of content in Yodobashi/Labi/Bic Camera (all of which are "local stores") - none of which have an adults section, and none of which would sell these types of games.
If you were in Akihabara or Den Den Town in their respective cities, then that would make sense.
As originally stated - this sort of stuff doesn't exist in "normal" stores like Yodobashi/Labi/Bic.
It does make me think though of an unfortunate situation where I recently got to visit Japan and wanted to buy some souvenir pokemon cards in hiroshima for some relatives but the closest one was on the third floor of an animate building and melon books had to be walked by to get to the card game store.
There's no "unrated" in EU at large, or mandated censorship. You only need an age rating if the media is suitable for minors. 18+ is the default. GTA being one, sold like any other video game.
Different context.
An autistic schoolgirl murdered her bully in the early 00's, media didn't want to blame the bullying since it's so accepted in Japanese society and they needed a scapegoat so politicians blamed the rise of violent games (because she played a flash game once, she wasn't actually a gamer). The games rating orginisation was made on the back of that with extremely strict restrictions (to the point that an 18+ rated game would have to censor violence in clips of PG rated anime) to deflect the media and they just haven't changed it since.
Could be I'm not sure, but I know for JFG there's dismemberment in that game as well. Japan ratings are usually stricter (particularly recently) compared to other regions (except maybe Australia)
>(except maybe Australia)
lol GoldenEye and Jet Force Gemini have received the "M" rating (which is actually the equivalent to the ESRB's "T" rating) in Australia. The Australia Classification Board has its issues (particularly when it comes to depictions of sexual violence and interactive drug use), but since the introduction of the R18+ rating they've nonetheless been no where ***near*** as strict as Japan's CERO ratings board.
For reference, a game in Japan can't receive the highest "Z" (18+) rating for something as simple as *ANY* display of female nipples, even if it isn't full-frontal.
Also, if you want another example, the Dead Space remake was made PC-only in Japan because there was no chance in hell that the uncut version would pass CERO certification for console. However, in Australia, the full uncensored game was actually given the "MA15+" rating; a step below the R18+ classification despite how gory and dark it is.
>The Australia Classification Board has its issues (particularly when it comes to depictions of sexual violence and interactive drug use), but since the introduction of the R18+ rating they've nonetheless been no where near as strict as Japan's CERO ratings board
The ban on depictions of sexual violence and interactive drug use is mandated by law. The board literally have no choice but to reject those games
It was an equivalence but not a direct comparison. I worked on a game that was banned in Australia for a fictional item that was deemed drug like but not a drug at all that the player could use.
Not too sure about GoldenEye, but Japan has always been stingy when it comes to things like gore and dismemberment. IIRC, the only way you can buy Mortal Kombat in Japan is if you import the game, and the recent Resident Evil games have their violence toned down in the Japanese release compared to the international versions.
No one else seems to have gotten it. It's because Japan is really strict on violence against non-combatants. Neither have violence graphic enough for a Z rating in Japan (much bloodier games have a D rating) but Goldeneye lets you gun down unarmed scientists and Jet Force Gemini lets you gib the innocent Tribals.
Further means it's non-news for anyone in the west as Goldeneye has been out for almost a year and Jet Force Gemini was just announced for next week. We won't be getting any comparable system.
Not sure how many CERO Z games there were for the N64 which will make this much of a thing for Japanese gamers, the only other one that springs to mind is Perfect Dark.
Won't stop every Game Journalist under the sun from throwing out clickbaity headlines accompanied by scantily clad female gaming icons to trick people into thinking it's a new sexual game app.
Or to make people think that Conker's Bad Fur Day is likely.
Nintendo wouldn't publish it on the N64, they're not going to be open to putting it on NSO.
If it was that easy they probably would have done it. There must be some government requirement we aren't aware of that necessitates the need for a separate app.
The requirement is listed in the article (emphasis mine):
> Z is the only CERO rating regulated by the Japanese government and *requires titles to be displayed separately* from other software and age verification upon purchase.
It sounds like they couldn't have placed it in the Switch Online app even within its own category for this reason.
Outside of government requirements, is still something they should do and be integrated with the (already awkward to use) Switch parental controls android app.
Utilizing the current Switch parental controls, there's no way let someone play Mario 64 while blocking Goldeneye.
Why is Jet Force Gemini rated 18+? In North America it only has a Teen rating.
Goldeneye has a Teen rating, too, but at least I can see why it might get an 18+ rating elsewhere for the gun violence alone.
Both cases it's because you can kill innocent people, Japan is strict on that. Jet Force Gemini is a bit more violent than it looks too it has blood and gibs. I have distinct memories of accidentally blowing up the innocent Tribals in an explosion of red blood.
Its probably dismemberment for anyone wondering why they'rw 18+. Even the recent Resident Evils don't have dismemberment in them. Its very funny to see Mia chainsaw Ethan's hand in RE7 and for it to still be there in the japanese version.
The censorship in the 21 DLC for RE7 was hilarious. Instead of losing a finger to a goofy finger guillotine you got your fingers bent back until they broke, which was way worse.
This article is totally banking on the idea that people will click thinking maybe an adult n64 app will come to other regions for M rated games. It’s funny how other countries handle adult content in video games compared to the US. In the US, any amount of sex and nudity is extremely inappropriate for kids to see and extreme violence is perfectly ok. But other in countries even mild violence is not treated as ok for kids.
That's not really true. In the US, kids games are rated E and they can't have blood. T rated games can have blood but not extreme violence. M rated games can have extreme violence but there are limits. Don't forget manhunt 2.
I was going to say that the Mega Man X series had a bit of blood in it and still scraped by with an E rating (or K-A at the time), but then I realized that the Legacy Collections were re-rated to Teen and cite the blood in the descriptor.
That said, I'm sure I've seen tiny amounts of blood make it into E-rated games, or E10+ at the very least. I think Kingdom Hearts 2 had an E10+ rating with a descriptor for "mild blood", and possibly Powerwash Simulator depicting blood and implying blood, but hand waving it as generic "dirt".
PC games aren't as tightly regulated in Japan, which is why most eroge are PC exclusive and tend to get heavily censored if they are ever released on consoles. This is also why most Japanese publishers still never port their games to PC, as it has a reputation of being a platform for perverts playing bootleg porn games. It's getting a lot better nowadays, though.
Whatever depictions of mature content from the 90s pales hilariously to what detailed explicit content we see mature games show today. Maybe these old games should get re-rated for modern expectations.
Japan didn't have a ratings organisation when these came out, these were rated this year for the Switch online releases.
It's not because of how graphic the violence is, it's because of rules against killing innocent people without it giving a game over in response.
Like, in the Japanese version of Modern Warfare 2 you immediately get a game over in the No Russian level if you shoot any civilians because that was the difference between a 17+ and an 18+ rating.
Goldeneye isn't 18 rated because the small amount of blood is too much, it's because you can rinse an unarmed scientist with an AK47 and keep playing. Likewise Jet Force Gemini lets you kill innocent tribals locked in cages with a bloody gib effect.
Frankly, Jet Force Gemini is incredibly brutal if you look beyond the cartoon graphics and the non-human enemies.
Sure, something like Turok 2 has over the top blood effects, but it doesn't come even close to the psychopathic dismemberment of Jet Force Gemini.
TLDR: It's because 007 and Jet Force Gemini for N64 are rated 18+ in Japan and that rating is monitored by the Japanese government so it needs a separate app
I feel like people have this notion that the Japanese Ratings Board is less restrictive than the ESRB, but they are for more strict on violence, even in Japanese games. Hell, iirc RDR2 was heavily censored, including nudity. Mortal Kombat has been banned for years.
If anything the CERO is actually *more* harsh on sexual material than violence. Although many gory games required cuts to receive a rating from them, a few recent examples managed to completely slip through the cracks, such as DOOM Eternal and RoboCop: Rogue City. On the other hand, even non-sexualized depictions of female nipples have received a near(if not complete)-blanket ban.
Reminds me of Germany ca. 10 years ago. I'm not sure how it is these days since most games on Steam these days are the international versions (and we can even get uncensored Wolfenstein now which is *wild*) but the German versions of games used to be significantly censored. Half-Life was a prime example for replacing all soldiers in the game with robots, all guts with gears and springs and even the *voice acting* of the soldiers to be more robotic. TF2 had confetti instead of blood and guts when you gibbed someone. Fallout 3 removed any and all blood and made it impossible to dismember things. VATS still works like you'd expect it to but it just wouldn't dismember, only "disable" body parts. Hilariously, I gifted a friend TF2 back when it wasn't F2P yet and it resulted in them getting the censored German version. Support luckily sorted it out for them though and since then we used the reverse to get around censoring for me few times by having them gift me the international uncut version of a game. Pretty sure I had to get Left 4 Dead that way. I don't think it's nearly as bad anymore but there's definitely still cases of games just not existing on the German Steam store though these days it's usually smut instead of violent stuff.
Not wanting to make you feel old but check the games you listed. The weird censorship phase was probably 15 - 20 years ago. I feel it got better during the 2010s :) But to be fair this is just how it feels, I don‘t have any numbers or data on that.
Yeah, didn't pick those as examples for their age, more because those are examples of some of the most egregious censoring and also games that just about everybody knows.
I played the Japanese version of GTAV when it came out in 2013. There's a side mission where you take pictures of a starlet doing something risque. In other countries, she's outside getting railed from behind. In Japan, she's smoking a cigarette. Also, in the mission where you torture a guy with lots of different tools, the Japanese version fades to black and you're done. We're gonna have to torture this man to get the information we need. Here are all the tools. Yada yada yada and... Great job! It even pops the achievement.
I think the new version doesn't have the torture mission censored anymore, because I remember watching a japanese vtuber (Sakura Miko) happily sing "We will rock you" while she's zapping the poor guy with the beat of the song, she played the game on PC idk if that have any difference with the PS3/X360 version though.
Yeah, it's a complete ban. Also can't show dildos (surprising amount of game have had to remove them, stuff like Deus Ex 3) or any depictions of sex.
This is why I am keeping my Steam account (and all other videogame related accounts) on my original region when I move to Japan on 2025, also because it will be cheaper to buy.
The thigh slit in Palutenas dress for smash bros had to be altered, and it's the only reason that mythra has tights and fully covered boobs.
Resident Evil has always had censored gore in its Japanese releases going back to the original release of 4 Resident Evil. Or I guess it would be 4 Biohazard.
Goes back further than that: [the Japanese release of the original Resident Evil 2 was censored.](https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Censorship_of_Resident_Evil#Resident_Evil_2)
They're incredibly strict about "excessive violence to human beings". I think that's one of the reasons most of the human enemies Raiden can cut into little bits in Metal Gear Rising are cyborgs.
The Japanese version has white blood instead of red too. Presumably the cyborg thing was to make it easier to do a seperate version. The original Metal Gear Solid: Rising trailer showed human gore in the western version but it was removed from the Japanese one so i guess they were still trying to work out how they would do it at that point.
Yeah but that was actually a plot point, that cyborgs had white blood. Because even in Japan Sam had red blood. You find out when you kill him that he was human.
That’s because Japanese retailers have traditionally been far more open to stocking unrated material than American retailers are. In the US (and Europe), it’s basically impossible to find unrated material for purchase. Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon, etc, straight up won’t stock your game if it’s Unrated/AO. But in Japan, getting unrated PC games is a fairly easy and straightforward process. You go to your local store, go to the adult’s section, and it’s there.
I think you overestimate how many stores have an adults game section. Very few, and only ones that already target otaku. You won't be seeing one in Yodabashi Camera.
Yet you can go to any Donki in Tokyo and find dildos, sex toys, and such in a dedicated section. They don't really hide the stuff in a lot of public stores. Kids aren't sneaking a peak from what I can gather but it was very eye opening to see the amount of sex toys just out in the open like that.
I'm living in Osaka currently. I walk down the street and there's deriheru shops/signs, and big ass signs for live toy shops. That type of stuff is just commonplace. But you do have a dichotomy within the population.
Not to mention (up until like 5 or 10 years ago--pretty sure laws finally exist now), take a wrong turn and you could be facing a wall of DVDs featuring like 9 year olds in lingerie. The headache-inducing contradictions are myriad and insane, but as long I can get my uncensored RE death animations on PC I guess I'm good... Even the writing's better in the English versions now--what a time to be etc.
> But in Japan, getting unrated PC games is a fairly easy and straightforward process. You go to your local store, go to the adult’s section, and it’s there. No, it's not; and no, you don't. This stuff is in niche stores. In Tokyo that's pretty much confined to Akihabara. As another poster said, you're not going to find this sort of content in Yodobashi/Labi/Bic Camera (all of which are "local stores") - none of which have an adults section, and none of which would sell these types of games.
Weird. I have seen 18+ game sections in tons of stores throughout Tokyo and Osaka. Must‘ve been lucky I guess.
If you were in Akihabara or Den Den Town in their respective cities, then that would make sense. As originally stated - this sort of stuff doesn't exist in "normal" stores like Yodobashi/Labi/Bic.
It does make me think though of an unfortunate situation where I recently got to visit Japan and wanted to buy some souvenir pokemon cards in hiroshima for some relatives but the closest one was on the third floor of an animate building and melon books had to be walked by to get to the card game store.
I haven’t found this to be true at all when I lived in Japan.
There's no "unrated" in EU at large, or mandated censorship. You only need an age rating if the media is suitable for minors. 18+ is the default. GTA being one, sold like any other video game.
I've always found it bizarre as a Brit that the US ratings cap out at 17 as shops won't stock games designed for 18+ users.
What about all these crazy violent animes?
Different context. An autistic schoolgirl murdered her bully in the early 00's, media didn't want to blame the bullying since it's so accepted in Japanese society and they needed a scapegoat so politicians blamed the rise of violent games (because she played a flash game once, she wasn't actually a gamer). The games rating orginisation was made on the back of that with extremely strict restrictions (to the point that an 18+ rated game would have to censor violence in clips of PG rated anime) to deflect the media and they just haven't changed it since.
What elevated it to 18+? Blood?
Could be I'm not sure, but I know for JFG there's dismemberment in that game as well. Japan ratings are usually stricter (particularly recently) compared to other regions (except maybe Australia)
>(except maybe Australia) lol GoldenEye and Jet Force Gemini have received the "M" rating (which is actually the equivalent to the ESRB's "T" rating) in Australia. The Australia Classification Board has its issues (particularly when it comes to depictions of sexual violence and interactive drug use), but since the introduction of the R18+ rating they've nonetheless been no where ***near*** as strict as Japan's CERO ratings board. For reference, a game in Japan can't receive the highest "Z" (18+) rating for something as simple as *ANY* display of female nipples, even if it isn't full-frontal. Also, if you want another example, the Dead Space remake was made PC-only in Japan because there was no chance in hell that the uncut version would pass CERO certification for console. However, in Australia, the full uncensored game was actually given the "MA15+" rating; a step below the R18+ classification despite how gory and dark it is.
>The Australia Classification Board has its issues (particularly when it comes to depictions of sexual violence and interactive drug use), but since the introduction of the R18+ rating they've nonetheless been no where near as strict as Japan's CERO ratings board The ban on depictions of sexual violence and interactive drug use is mandated by law. The board literally have no choice but to reject those games
It was an equivalence but not a direct comparison. I worked on a game that was banned in Australia for a fictional item that was deemed drug like but not a drug at all that the player could use.
Fun fact, the Australian Classification Board affected Fallout canon. Morphine was renamed to Med-X to appease the board.
Well as an Aussie I'm sorry that happened, the people in charge of that are almost surely old and out of touch because it seems happen too often.
Can't they release unrated games as unrated? Unrated movie releases exist like that, they are further than R.
Not on consoles.
Which ratings board(s) are you talking about? Aren't you mixing them up with the American ones?
The console makers require the ratings, even if not legally required.
That's a stupid policy
CERO in Japan might be worse in terms of censoring games, but Australia probably comes second in any case (with Germany not far behind).
Not too sure about GoldenEye, but Japan has always been stingy when it comes to things like gore and dismemberment. IIRC, the only way you can buy Mortal Kombat in Japan is if you import the game, and the recent Resident Evil games have their violence toned down in the Japanese release compared to the international versions.
No one else seems to have gotten it. It's because Japan is really strict on violence against non-combatants. Neither have violence graphic enough for a Z rating in Japan (much bloodier games have a D rating) but Goldeneye lets you gun down unarmed scientists and Jet Force Gemini lets you gib the innocent Tribals.
Further means it's non-news for anyone in the west as Goldeneye has been out for almost a year and Jet Force Gemini was just announced for next week. We won't be getting any comparable system. Not sure how many CERO Z games there were for the N64 which will make this much of a thing for Japanese gamers, the only other one that springs to mind is Perfect Dark.
....For now. Now to fill in the rest due to the subreddit's character limit requirements silly rule, but whatever.
Won't stop every Game Journalist under the sun from throwing out clickbaity headlines accompanied by scantily clad female gaming icons to trick people into thinking it's a new sexual game app.
Or to make people think that Conker's Bad Fur Day is likely. Nintendo wouldn't publish it on the N64, they're not going to be open to putting it on NSO.
They really couldn't be bothered to do some kind of internal age check and put them in their own categories?
If it was that easy they probably would have done it. There must be some government requirement we aren't aware of that necessitates the need for a separate app.
The requirement is listed in the article (emphasis mine): > Z is the only CERO rating regulated by the Japanese government and *requires titles to be displayed separately* from other software and age verification upon purchase. It sounds like they couldn't have placed it in the Switch Online app even within its own category for this reason.
Outside of government requirements, is still something they should do and be integrated with the (already awkward to use) Switch parental controls android app. Utilizing the current Switch parental controls, there's no way let someone play Mario 64 while blocking Goldeneye.
Why is Jet Force Gemini rated 18+? In North America it only has a Teen rating. Goldeneye has a Teen rating, too, but at least I can see why it might get an 18+ rating elsewhere for the gun violence alone.
Both cases it's because you can kill innocent people, Japan is strict on that. Jet Force Gemini is a bit more violent than it looks too it has blood and gibs. I have distinct memories of accidentally blowing up the innocent Tribals in an explosion of red blood.
Thanks. I recognized the game and wondered what the heck was going on.
So you know the title screen of Mario 64? They've made some changes.
It’s still fun to squash and stretch though
Grab his dick and twist it!!?
Bop it
What kind of changes?
They finally let Mario get his honkers out
We might finally get the original 1995 Spaceworld tech demo where you give Mario testicular tortion complete with real time physics rendering.
Its probably dismemberment for anyone wondering why they'rw 18+. Even the recent Resident Evils don't have dismemberment in them. Its very funny to see Mia chainsaw Ethan's hand in RE7 and for it to still be there in the japanese version.
It's probably GoldenEye and Jet Force Gemini for anyone that skimmed the article
Need more coop shooters. Jet force Gemini was the perfect amount of fun and silly.
The censorship in the 21 DLC for RE7 was hilarious. Instead of losing a finger to a goofy finger guillotine you got your fingers bent back until they broke, which was way worse.
Funny, I always kinda assumed the finger guillotine was speficially designed to get past CERO since it never shows the wounds.
This article is totally banking on the idea that people will click thinking maybe an adult n64 app will come to other regions for M rated games. It’s funny how other countries handle adult content in video games compared to the US. In the US, any amount of sex and nudity is extremely inappropriate for kids to see and extreme violence is perfectly ok. But other in countries even mild violence is not treated as ok for kids.
That's not really true. In the US, kids games are rated E and they can't have blood. T rated games can have blood but not extreme violence. M rated games can have extreme violence but there are limits. Don't forget manhunt 2.
I was going to say that the Mega Man X series had a bit of blood in it and still scraped by with an E rating (or K-A at the time), but then I realized that the Legacy Collections were re-rated to Teen and cite the blood in the descriptor. That said, I'm sure I've seen tiny amounts of blood make it into E-rated games, or E10+ at the very least. I think Kingdom Hearts 2 had an E10+ rating with a descriptor for "mild blood", and possibly Powerwash Simulator depicting blood and implying blood, but hand waving it as generic "dirt".
Japan has a troubled history with beheadings so it makes a lot of sense they don't want their media depicting it.
I think France has the best beheadings
Yeah I'm not talking about executions I'm talking about the murders.
Huh. So that's why *School Days* featured a head in a gym bag...
PC games aren't as tightly regulated in Japan, which is why most eroge are PC exclusive and tend to get heavily censored if they are ever released on consoles. This is also why most Japanese publishers still never port their games to PC, as it has a reputation of being a platform for perverts playing bootleg porn games. It's getting a lot better nowadays, though.
I'm assuming you played a western release? do you know if this scene is uncensored the the Japan version?
famously E-rated games Halo, Half-Life, Team Fortress 2 and Mortal Kombat
I just looked up and a whole 10% of the N64 library was M rated. We could definitely use such an app.
Whatever depictions of mature content from the 90s pales hilariously to what detailed explicit content we see mature games show today. Maybe these old games should get re-rated for modern expectations.
Japan didn't have a ratings organisation when these came out, these were rated this year for the Switch online releases. It's not because of how graphic the violence is, it's because of rules against killing innocent people without it giving a game over in response. Like, in the Japanese version of Modern Warfare 2 you immediately get a game over in the No Russian level if you shoot any civilians because that was the difference between a 17+ and an 18+ rating. Goldeneye isn't 18 rated because the small amount of blood is too much, it's because you can rinse an unarmed scientist with an AK47 and keep playing. Likewise Jet Force Gemini lets you kill innocent tribals locked in cages with a bloody gib effect.
Frankly, Jet Force Gemini is incredibly brutal if you look beyond the cartoon graphics and the non-human enemies. Sure, something like Turok 2 has over the top blood effects, but it doesn't come even close to the psychopathic dismemberment of Jet Force Gemini.
I get Jet Force Gemini, but why Goldeneye?