I figured out why so very few Virtual Console titles are available!

[Dark Jaguar]

ESRB

All the old games apparently need to be re-rated.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/744/744751p1.html

Well that's just stupid.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, for all of those M-rated NES games... :D

[EdenMaster]

Well, there was that strip poker game...doubt that'll be on the VC though. We should start a petition.

...

What?

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm not a fan of poker.

Well, you know there were games like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. Of course, the NES being as limited as it was, blood wasn't even doable when it was "allowed" due to the need for more sprites on screen or taking up more space on the cart to store that data.

[A Black Falcon]

Bah, poker, poker is stupid... :) (I don't bet and have never learned how to play, since there seems to be no point in playing unless you bet... not that I'm a fan of card games anyway, I'm not...)

Those adult arcade Qix knockoffs are probably better. :D

[Great Rumbler]

I guess that means that pawn shops and used games stores need to rerate all the games they sell as well? I mean, we wouldn't want little Johnny to get his hands on a copy of Altered Beast for the Genesis!

[Dark Jaguar]

They don't "need to" actually. There's really no legal requirement for Nintendo to rate their old games, or even their new games. It's just an industry standard to PREVENT such laws from being set up. It's a good thing there's no legal requirement either, because it isn't very cheap or timely to get the process done and some people like to make their own games for free out of the home.

Thing is, a lot of these old games, like Super Mario RPG, were ALREADY rated once before. What, did the rating expire? Is there new content? Well, considering that rereleases of some old games have recieved new ratings for unexplained reasons before (Chrono Trigger is apparently both an E and T rated game, as is Final Fantasy IV and V), maybe they do expire, or at least expose the fact that they are inconsistant.

I think we all just assumed there would be no issues at all with Nintendo just shoving all their games onto a server's hard disk and setting up a pricing structure. If that was all it took, then it would be easy to see having access to pretty much the ENTIRE library of, at least, Nintendo's own games available at launch. Unfortunatly, if each game has to be rated, now Nintendo will have to make some "choices". What is worth the price of an ESRB rating? What content should be EDITED to get the rating for the demographic we want? Business, as per usual, ruins EVERYTHING!

[A Black Falcon]

It's for a new platform, I think you have to rate separately for each system?

[Dark Jaguar]

That doesn't make any sense. It's the same game. What does it matter what format it is stored on? What about the games that have both a Mac and Windows version on a single disk? (Blizzard) Do they get rated twice? Might as well rate each individual cartridge. No, never mind, that's not practical :D, but it is the logical conclusion of such a thing.

[A Black Falcon]

If they were the same game, how could those GBA ports of SNES games say "Only for Game Boy Advance" in the corner? :D

... yeah, I know, they are the same game, but I do think that every version of each game needs to be rated separately, even if it's the exact same thing on a new platform. Why else would they be rating them, if there is no other new content (if there is something added you do need it re-rated...)?

I think we all just assumed there would be no issues at all with Nintendo just shoving all their games onto a server's hard disk and setting up a pricing structure. If that was all it took, then it would be easy to see having access to pretty much the ENTIRE library of, at least, Nintendo's own games available at launch. Unfortunatly, if each game has to be rated, now Nintendo will have to make some "choices". What is worth the price of an ESRB rating? What content should be EDITED to get the rating for the demographic we want? Business, as per usual, ruins EVERYTHING!

FFIV for the GBA is more censored than the original version (or at least the Japanese GBA version is more censored than the Japanese Super Famicom version, I believe...), I think... for ratings presumably...

[Sacred Jellybean]

What parts were censored? Not that they'd be any parts I'd recognize. Never played a Final Fantasy before VII and after I (though I didn't play those games very long before losing interest).

Anyway, don't forget NARC. Didn't Double Dragon or Bad Dudes ("THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY NINJAS") have a part where you could throw a knife, and for a split second, blood would splat out? Yeah, there's that, too. Still annoying, in any case.

[Dark Jaguar]

Nah, nothing was censored in FFIV on GBA. FF2 on SNES? THAT was censored to *explitive* and back! FFIV on GBA? Entirely new translation, ENTIRELY new, and in fact it's a different one from the translation of FFIV on PS1. More accurate too. I happen to have a little script that contains a full fan translation with differences between the various SNES & SF versions of the game, and nothing's been cut as far as I can tell. As for Super Famicom, um, that was the original release. Not really sure how that can be considered censored unless there's some content they didn't include you suddenly know about ABF.

[Smoke]

Bah, poker, poker is stupid... :) (I don't bet and have never learned how to play, since there seems to be no point in playing unless you bet... not that I'm a fan of card games anyway, I'm not...)

I don't gamble either but card games can be fun without playing for money.

Those adult arcade Qix knockoffs are probably better. :D

This is true.

You broke that quote...

So I did.

[A Black Falcon]

You broke that quote...

Nah, nothing was censored in FFIV on GBA. FF2 on SNES? THAT was censored to *explitive* and back! FFIV on GBA? Entirely new translation, ENTIRELY new, and in fact it's a different one from the translation of FFIV on PS1. More accurate too. I happen to have a little script that contains a full fan translation with differences between the various SNES & SF versions of the game, and nothing's been cut as far as I can tell. As for Super Famicom, um, that was the original release. Not really sure how that can be considered censored unless there's some content they didn't include you suddenly know about ABF.

Dancer costumes at one point are censored in the GBA version.

[Dark Jaguar]

The costumes on all the dancers looked the same to me, and what on earth was there to censor anyway? Too much ankle?

[A Black Falcon]

Look the same in the SNES version compared to the GBA version? Sure, but that's not the comparison, GBA vs. original version is, and the dancers' clothing was censored -- in the original one (and the US PSX one perhaps?), they wear bikinis.

http://www.zophar.net/wwwthreads/showfla...ber=277972

It's not a major point by any means, but censorship is always annoying...

(For instance, I want Metal Slug Anthology for Wii a lot, but it'd be so much better if they'd give us the non-censored (ie non-US) version. White blood is stupid.)

[Dark Jaguar]

Not the PS version, nope. But looking at that, I guess they just changed that graphic. Oh well. The entire GAME had it's graphics redone. Besides, nothing else was changed in terms of content. The game is actually a more accurate translation than even the PS1 version. And, by the way, the PS1 version had NO censorship. Sheesh...

[A Black Falcon]

Not the PS version, nope. But looking at that, I guess they just changed that graphic. Oh well. The entire GAME had it's graphics redone. Besides, nothing else was changed in terms of content. The game is actually a more accurate translation than even the PS1 version. And, by the way, the PS1 version had NO censorship. Sheesh...

When you censor one thing and nothing else people focus on that one thing even more, it seems, instead of saying "oh well, it could be worse"... I'd say both things are true -- it certainly could have been worse (like the SNES version), but was still censored a bit...

Certainly though the main complaints about the game are not that but are the bugs and slowdown.

[Dark Jaguar]

The slowdown is barely there, only now and again from what I've played. Except, and this is a big one, the airships. It isn't really "slowdown" so much as intentionally slowed down (perhaps to prevent slowdown at high speeds?), but it's still annoying. Flying around is way slower in the GBA version. Well, it's not that bad at least. As for glitches, I haven't found any.

Anyway, are you sure it's censorship? Far as I can tell, it's just a remodel. All those dancers have multicolored dresses and that's probably intentional. The "not so dressed up" versions really didn't look any different than those white suits some dancers used to wear for those insane TV specials where everyone and their dog sings about hollywood or whatever.

[A Black Falcon]

DJ, when you take characters (dancers in this case) wearing bikinis and put them in dresses, is there anything you can call it other than censorship?

Of course since it's a spritebased game with small characters the difference is not exactly huge, but the intent is clear.

The slowdown is barely there, only now and again from what I've played. Except, and this is a big one, the airships. It isn't really "slowdown" so much as intentionally slowed down (perhaps to prevent slowdown at high speeds?), but it's still annoying. Flying around is way slower in the GBA version. Well, it's not that bad at least. As for glitches, I haven't found any.

Even so, the European version supposedly is a bit better because it fixes some of the problems with the US release...

[Dark Jaguar]

Bikinis? It could barely be called that, in fact it couldn't. They were white "one piece" things, without pirates.

Where are you reading about these issues with the game and the fixes in the European version? Could you link it?

[A Black Falcon]

Bikinis? It could barely be called that, in fact it couldn't. They were white "one piece" things, without pirates.

No, the one piece suits are what are in the original American release, not the Japanese one. The GBA one censors this even more than the SNES did.

2) Is there a stripper in Baron?
In the Japanese version, there is a girl in Baron who basically strips for you. She still wears a bikini though, so there's no nudity whatsoever.

In the North American version, this girl keeps her dress on. For some odd reason, users on this board wish to complain about it. Personally I wouldn't even care to see a bikini-clad girl that's about 10-12 pixels tall.

Where are you reading about these issues with the game and the fixes in the European version? Could you link it?

I can't find a specific list of fixes, just "it fixes some bugs" and "it has less slowdown" stuff...

List of some of the NA version bugs:

There are times where a character will get two turns in a row during a battle. This is probably a big inconvinience at best, but I personally see no reason for people to complain, since any character can exploit the glitch.

In addition, there's a glitch where characters will not get their turns in the proper order. Especially a problem if you play with speed on 1 and Active. It really throws a monkey wrench into any turn strategy that you might have at that moment.

Also, there's a glitch that where the cursor doesn't move when you press it; the same thing goes for the A button, where it might seem unresponsive at times.

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmess...c=26765015

EU version:
The 'double turn' glitch is fixed, Yang's HP isn't capped at 6000 anymore like it was in the US version, some other glitches are fixed, and there is less lag time during battles.

[Dark Jaguar]

Huh, well I play at normal speed but yeah that does sound annoying. I mean if your entire strategy involves every little piece falling into place, like "okay I do the suicide attack, bring that character to life, cast the speed buff, then jump", you don't want to get the order mixed up (just an example that couldn't take place in FFIV).

Annoying really, but to be honest I think they should have just waited and released the whole bunch of those first 6 games in a compilation for DS, with the originals. Which... wasn't going to happen...

[A Black Falcon]

$30x4+$35x1 or $30x1, which lineup would you prefer to sell?

Yeah, no contest. :)