Update - June 23rd: Idea Factory International has confirmed that the title will simply not come to Australia, instead of re-submitting an edited version of the title. They also revealed that an interactive touch element of the game's character menu was the cause for the title's refused classification. You can read the post here.
The last title to get an RC rating from the Australian Classification Board was Hotline Miami 2, early last year. Now we've got MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death from Idea Factory International. It is unclear at this time why the game has received the rating. The title is still being rated in Europe, although the game's English site just went live earlier today. According to the site, the game has already received a Teen rating for North America. In Japan the title received the similar CERO B rating.
MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death was scheduled for a "Fall 2016" release for PlayStation Vita. Whether or not the title will still come out in North America and Europe according to the companies original estimates, or if it'll hit the same snags that the Australian release has come across is yet to be seen. Even if the PEGI rating goes fine, there's no telling what might happen now that one region will have to either have the game censored or not release at all.
MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death is a Dungeon RPG developed by the same team that worked on Trillion: God of Destruction, with the main goal of developing a DRPG for the hardcore audience. From what I saw of it at E3, it's really interesting and has a ton of depth - it'll truly be a shame if the game has trouble releasing overseas because of a ratings board concerns.
We've reached out to the publisher and classification board, and we'll update you as more information comes in.
Quick Take
As I said, I got to see quite a bit of MeiQ at E3. What I saw seemed more than innocuous enough, and personally I'm having trouble understanding why the game was refused classification in Australia. The most "fan-service" I saw in the game were free DLC outfits to dress up one of the playable Mage characters as Neptune from the Neptunia series, and a costume resembling the "Trillion" enemy from Trillion: God of Destruction. By all means the game had more of a focus on customizing your guardians - mechs - than anything else. It doesn't help that the ratings board didn't really go into detail regarding what exactly caused the title to be refused classification - the game's page only states what may give a game an RC rating. Hopefully we can get some more information about what's going on here soon.
