History RankInflation / VideoGames

** The novel prequel ''LightNovel/FateZero'' also contain similar sections, and adds one more EX-rank Noble Phantasm; the original game had two ([[WaveMotionGun Ea]] and Avalon, which are basically the Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object, respectively). The new one summons [[ZergRush 2000 Servants]]. The entire "Grail War" only summons ''7''.
** [[AllThereInTheManual Databooks]] on the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} state that the Mage's Association ranks its members from First to Seventh (seventh being the lowest). For people who have achieved feats beyond that, like the sisters [[LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners Touko]] and [[VideoGame/MeltyBlood Aoko]], they get colors Orange and Blue, respectively. The closer your color to the primary colors red, blue, and yellow, the more amazing your achievement.

** Notably, some mobile spin-offs keep inflating ranks even more: ''Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni'' has ranks SS, SSS, Z, ZZ, and ZZZ; ''Yo-kai Watch World'' is settled in SS thus far; and ''Yo-kai Sangokushi: Kunitori Wars'' has Rank Sho as its equivalent to SS.

* Every ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' game has the real prize being S. In the second and third games, you only needed an A or higher rank to see and learn the [[PowerCopying EX Techniques]]. Refreshingly, the fourth game kept the ranking but didn't require it to see the interesting stuff.
** ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' goes for a B, A, SA, GA, PA, MH ranking scale; ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' goes D, C, B, A, SA, GA, PA, UH. ''VideoGame/MegaManX8'' goes D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, S. It should be noted that getting a high rank in ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' has nothing to do with performance, though.
*** There's a lot of confusion in regards to what the various abbreviations in ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' beyond A class actually stand for. The general consensus is that it's Special A, Great A, Perfect A, and Master Hunter/Ultimate Hunter.
** In ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'', in Cyber Peacock's stage, requiring you to get S ranks on several annoying levels where you're timed, and how much damage you take is taken into consideration. In addition, some of the enemies in this area stun you for a few seconds while they drain about 1/3 of X's health (without upgrades). Completion of this with S ranks will grant you access to life tanks, lives, and even an armor capsule.

* ''VideoGame/PizzaTower'''s ranks start with D, going into A. After that comes S and then finally P. P-rank can be obtained by picking up every collectible item, every secret and most of the small pickups while never breaking combo and going for the second lap.

*** ''Battle Network'' goes even further with this in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork2 2]]'', where you gain Official licenses with tests in the game that allow you access to higher areas and determine your success fleeing random encounters. They rank Z, B, A, S, SS, and SSS respectively. In addition, the ''[[VideOGame/MegaManBattleChipChallenge Battle Chip Challenge]]'' spin-off rates the tournaments like this in scaling difficulty, going E, D, C, B, A, S, X, Y, Z.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'', A-ranked items, equipment, characters, etc. aren't very useful at all compared to S-ranks.

* Sonic Team revels in this. ''VideoGame/{{NiGHTS into DREAMS}}'' and second-generation ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games starting with ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' give out completion rankings for stages, from E to A, and then S rank, whose requirements for attainability in some stages can break your soul. Worse, most Sonic games since ''Adventure 2'' have the deliberately frustrating feature of resetting your score to zero when you die. Far too many controllers have died at the hands of players who fell into a pit after a ten-minute level with a near perfect score.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/DoomII'', the end-of-level screen gives out three percentages: percent of secrets found, percent of items collected, and percent of enemies killed. However, ''Doom II''[='=]s final level features a boss that continually spawns more enemies while you try to kill it with rockets. Once you beat the level, the enemies killed number just keeps going up, reaching well into the thousands.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/DoomIIHellonEarth'', the end-of-level screen gives out three percentages: percent of secrets found, percent of items collected, and percent of enemies killed. However, Doom II's final level features a boss that continually spawns more enemies while you try to kill it with rockets. Once you beat the level, the enemies killed number just keeps going up, reaching well into the thousands.

* ''VideoGame/PizzaTower'''s ranks start with D,going into A. After that comes S and then finally P. P-rank can be obtained by picking up every collectible item, every secret and most of the small pickups while never breaking combo and going for the second lap.

** This happens in-universe in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', in which [[spoiler:Naked Snake, for defeating The Boss, is awarded the newly-created rank of Big Boss (even though she actually allowed herself to be killed by him, so he hadn't truly surpassed her at all)]].

* Meta-example. Fighting game CharacterTiers are often labeled as such with D usually being the lowest, then C, B, A and finally S for the highest of the high. Some games will have characters as low as F rank or characters considered so strong that they're ranked as S+ or SS rank. Please note that while characters ranked as high as S+ and SS can sometimes be considered [[GameBreaker game breakers]], not all of them are banned from tournaments. Games with a very large range in tiers can end up going beyond D, especially if it doesn't use + or - (ex. the current ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Smash 4]]'' tier list goes from S to ''H'').

* The ''VideoGame/GhostRider'' movie game has rankings from D to A, then S with V at the top. Each rank has a suitable title (such as "Damned", "Brutal"), with the highest, unsurprisingly, being "Vengeance".

* ''[[VideoGame/MarioParty Super Mario Party]]'''s co-op mode ranks the team's performance in each minigame, giving more river-rafting bonus time for higher ranks. The highest is S, followed by A, B, and so on. During the minigame, it displays your current rank; since most of them rate you based on how quickly you complete the game or how few mistakes you make, the S-rank label usually appears for most of the game even if you don't end up achieving it.

* ''[[RecycledTitle The]]'' ''VideoGame/BishiBashi'' has grades going up to SSS. You're going to need them, because due to the game's DynamicDifficulty system, the minimum passing grade increases one rank every time you clear a stage (and decreases once for each failure). Enough consecutive successes will make the game enter Oni Mode, where only a SSS will clear a stage. Increasing bonuses are awarded for staying in Oni Mode.

** The original rates you on dungeons, going up to S rank, and Lunar Knights ranks the shooter minigame, going up to S (I think).

* ''[[VideoGame/Excite Excite Truck]]'' gives out letter grades based on the number of points acquired in a given run. Depending on the difficulty level, an A or B is required to pass. Getting enough points yields an S grade, which can be used to unlock extras.

** Similarly, the class system undergoes this too: WMMT 1 has C, B, A, A+, S, then car-specific class. WMMT 2 has N, C7 -> C1, B7 -> B1, A7 -> A1, S7 -> S1, and SSS. WMMT 3 now has 9 levels for each letter class, then after S1 there's [=SS9=] through [=SS1=], and finally SSS. Oh, and it takes longer to go up one level now, and, assuming you use quarters to play, it will cost you ''at least $4,000'' to reach SSS class! [[strike:That's over FOUR THOUSAAAAAAAAANDD!!]]. For ''WMMT 5'', the maximum rank was pushed up again to [[UpToEleven SSSS]], with all existing SSS cars set to [=SSS9=]. ''WMMT 6'' added [[SequelEscalation SSSSS]] and split SSSS into [=SSSS9=] to [=SSSS1=].

*** ''Thracia 776'' takes this even further, depending on the version of the game. The cartridge version of the game has 'AA' and 'AAA' as its highest ranks, and the ROM version has 'AA', 'AAA', [[UpToEleven 'S', 'SS']], [[SerialEscalation AND 'SSS']] as the top ranks -- with 'SSS' being the ultimate rank. Actually ''getting'' 'SSS' [[NintendoHard practically warrants emulation use]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' starts you at the lowest rank of C- and goes up 9 ranks to A+, with your rank going up when you win enough matches in Ranked Battle, and falling if you lose too much. Later on, S and S+ ranks were added above A+.

*** The 200% in ''Symphony'' was simply a method to hide the ENTIRE LAST THIRD OF THE GAME from the players. Once you've searched most of the castle (specifically, found three items before fighting the final boss), you would not get the bad ending and instead go through an inverted version of the entire castle. It still doesn't explain the .6%.
*** The .6% is essentially a math bug due to how some of the castle rooms wound up breaking apart because of the tile flipping and stuff. There are actually about 3-4 extra rooms on the inverted map, and one hidden room for Dracula's final battle.

* Ditto ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' starting from ''5'', going from Beginner and kyu to dan and so on, all the way to Tekken God.

* Creator/{{Rare}}'s ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'' games used a percentage completion rating that never stopped at 100%. ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1 DKC]]'' stopped at 101%, ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest DKC2]]'' stopped at 102%, and ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble DKC3]]'' wasn't complete until you had 103% (and 105%, which requires [[GuideDangIt inputing codes]] for a SelfImposedChallenge). Collecting enough DK coins in ''Donkey Kong Country 2'' elevates Diddy Kong above Mario in video game hero status.
** Creator/RetroStudios' [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns own entries]] [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze in the series]] go up to 200%, reached by getting all the KONG letters, beating the entire game to unlock [[LevelInReverse Mirror]] [[OneHitPointWonder Mode]], and then beating all the levels in that mode.
* Every ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' game has the real prize being S. In the second and third games, you only needed an A or higher rank to see and learn the [[PowerCopying EX Techniques]]. Refreshingly, the fourth game kept the ranking but didn't require it to see the interesting stuff.
** ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' goes for a B, A, SA, GA, PA, MH ranking scale; ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' goes D, C, B, A, SA, GA, PA, UH. ''VideoGame/MegaManX8'' goes D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, S. It should be noted that getting a high rank in ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' has nothing to do with performance, though.
*** There's a lot of confusion in regards to what the various abbreviations in ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'' beyond A class actually stand for. The general consensus is that it's Special A, Great A, Perfect A, and Master Hunter/Ultimate Hunter.
** In ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'', in Cyber Peacock's stage, requiring you to get S ranks on several annoying levels where you're timed, and how much damage you take is taken into consideration. In addition, some of the enemies in this area stun you for a few seconds while they drain about 1/3 of X's health (without upgrades). Completion of this with S ranks will grant you access to life tanks, lives, and even an armor capsule.
** ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork Battle Network]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManStarForce Star Force]]'', interestingly, use a 1-10 plus S system. It determines the type and quality of [[PowerCopying chips, cards]] or money you get at the end of it. Occasionally, you can also get stars in addition to your rank, which correspond to extra requirements and rewards independent of the general rank/reward system.
*** ''Battle Network'' goes even further with this in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork2 2]]'', where you gain Official licenses with tests in the game that allow you access to higher areas and determine your success fleeing random encounters. They rank Z, B, A, S, SS, and SSS respectively. In addition, the ''[[VideOGame/MegaManBattleChipChallenge Battle Chip Challenge]]'' spin-off rates the tournaments like this in scaling difficulty, going E, D, C, B, A, S, X, Y, Z.
* The ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' games use this for the rankings of combos, with your grade going from D to A, followed by S. From the third game forward, SS and SSS ranks were added. The end-of-mission ranking also has a similar grading system, with extra bonuses beyond that for the Hardcores who pull off {{No Damage Run}}s and other {{Self Imposed Challenge}}s. They also use IdiosyncraticComboLevels:
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'': '''D'''ull, '''C'''ool!, '''B'''ravo!, '''A'''bsolute!, '''S'''tylish!
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry2'': '''D'''on't worry, '''C'''ome on!, '''B'''ingo!, '''A'''re you ready?, '''S'''howtime!!
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'': '''D'''ope!, '''C'''razy!, '''B'''last!, '''A'''lright!, '''S'''weet!, '''SS'''howtime!!, '''SSS'''tylish!!
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'': '''D'''eadly!, '''C'''arnage!, '''B'''rutal!, '''A'''tomic!, '''S'''mokin'!, '''S'''mokin '''S'''tyle!!, '''S'''mokin' '''S'''ick '''S'''tyle!
** ''VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry'': '''D'''irty, '''C'''ruel, '''B'''rutal, '''A'''narchic, '''S'''avage, '''SS'''adistic, and '''SSS'''ensational.
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'': '''D'''ismal, '''C'''razy, '''B'''adass, '''A'''pocalyptic, '''S'''avage!, '''S'''ick '''S'''kills!!, '''S'''mokin' '''S'''exy '''S'''tyle!!

* Sonic Team revels in this. ''VideoGame/{{NiGHTS into DREAMS}}'' and second-generation ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games starting with ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' give out completion rankings for stages, from E to A, and then S rank, whose requirements for attainability in some stages can break your soul. Worse, most Sonic games since ''Adventure 2'' have the deliberately frustrating feature of resetting your score to zero when you die. Far too many controllers have died at the hands of players who fell into a pit after a ten-minute level with a near perfect score.
** Both of the above mentioned also appear in another game by Sonic Team: ''VideoGame/BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg''. In later levels (particularly [[CircusOfFear Circus Park]] and [[FloatingContinent Giant Palace]]), the score-resetting mechanic becomes a real pain, due to the SurpriseDifficulty.
** ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' does things a little differently: Rank (which ranges from D to S) is based on how fast you complete a stage, and is slightly affected by how many rings you collect, and your rank goes up one letter if you completed the stage without dying. Dying in a level means that your time carries over (unless you're starting from the very beginning), and you can't get an S Rank (obtained by completing a level fast without dying).
* ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' ranks the player on three different criteria (points, time, and defense), with grades from D to A, with V as the highest mark. And while you can get an overall V grade without being perfect everywhere, getting ''nothing'' but V ranks gets you a special rainbow-V grade.
** Which is necessary for an infinite VFX meter. Combined with the old-school NintendoHard on the higher difficulties, this is something the truly Viewtiful strive for.
* A very similar ranking system is used in ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' (also designed by ''Devil May Cry'' and ''Viewtiful Joe'' creator Creator/HidekiKamiya): each "chapter" is divided up into multiple "verses," for which you can earn stone, bronze, silver, gold, platinum or ''pure'' platinum medals or trophies. Again, you don't need a perfect run of platinum verse medals to earn a platinum chapter trophy, but only by completing ''every'' verse quickly enough, with a sufficiently high combo score, and without taking any damage, can you get the pure platinum trophy for that chapter.
* Also done in a similar way in ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' (''another'' game designed by Hideki Kamiya). Rank is divided into two categories: [[TimedMission Time]] and [[NoDamageRun Damage]]. And the ranks are shown by a tree's growth stage (a [[EpicFail sprout]] being the lowest and a [[CherryBlossoms Cherry Blossom tree]] being the highest). The higher the rank: the more money rewarded at the end of the battle.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'', A-ranked items, equipment, characters, etc. aren't very useful at all compared to S-ranks.
** This happens in-universe in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', in which [[spoiler:Naked Snake, for defeating The Boss, is awarded the newly-created rank of Big Boss (even though she actually allowed herself to be killed by him, so he hadn't truly surpassed her at all)]].
* Although it doesn't really affect gameplay one way or the other, the VideoGame/{{Strider}}s rank their operatives from C Class to Special-A Class. While C Class Striders are the low men on the totem pole, by no means is that a marring of their skill; they alone are said to be [[OneManArmy the one-man equivalent of an entire special forces team]], and it only becomes more and more crazily superhuman from there on. Strider Hiryu, the protagonist, is one of the Special-A Class Striders (the elites and the only members allowed to wield the group's signature [[CoolSword Cypher]] [[HotBlade blades]]) and is distinguished among his peers for being the youngest to attain such a rank.
* ''VideoGame/KillerIsDead'' has level ranks after completing each episode. The ranks are all based on time, how high your combo level is, how much damaged you received, along with various episode-specific bonuses that usually have [[GuideDangIt extremely vague requirements]]. The ranks from lowest to highest are D, C, B, A, & AAA.

* ''[[VideoGame/FatalFury Garou: Mark of the Wolves]]'' had rankings that started at B, went up to A, AA, and AAA - but then went even further with S, SS, SSS, and eventually capping off at MIRACLE rank.
** This ranking system was introduced back in ''Fatal Fury 3'', and with exception of its immediate sequel, ''Real Bout Fatal Fury'', it actually affected who you would fight as a final/bonus boss, and if your character's ending could be seen.
* While it doesn't affect gameplay at all, the story mode in ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear XX'' [[RandomPowerRanking ranks its characters on a scale from D to S++]], as well as a couple characters simply not given a ranking due to being entirely too dead to cause anyone any trouble. The only four characters that actually make S-Rank or higher are, in order of increasing power, TheDragon (I-No), the AuthorAvatar (Sol Badguy), an unstoppable [[VampireMonarch Elder Vampire]] that ''founded'' the Assassin's Guild (Slayer), and a gentle, innocent girl who is a PersonOfMassDestruction and possibly a MessianicArchetype (Dizzy). However, these rankings are not so much as based on power as they are a threat to the Post-War Administration Bureau.

* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII: 3rd Strike'' has a rating system going: G, F, E, D, C, B, A, S, XS, SS, SX, MSF.
** There are also pluses. For those who are curious, the MSF grade stands for "Master Street Fighter."
** If you lose the first match under any circumstances, your overall grade is G (and your score is zero). It's possible to get a G for a single fight, but it has to be an absolute whitewash. MSF is a major plateau but far from impossible. There are no tricks to it; you just have to know the engine inside and out, be able to take on anybody and anything, and execute flawlessly. The grades get more generous the further you go, so if you dominate Gill, it's possible to get MSF for both that fight and overall.
* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' ranks players AAA through F on Offense (landing hits and dishing damage), Defense (blocking, avoiding damage, minimizing damage), and Technique (landing successful combos) after the end of each match.

* Ditto ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' starting from ''5'', going from Beginner and kyu to dan and so on, all the way to Tekken God.
* ''VideoGame/DragonBallXenoverse'' and ''VideoGame/DragonBallXenoverse2'' ranks your performance in missions on a scale of D, C, B, A, S, and Z. Whatever score you get will be added to your experience meter and determines how your current mentor reacts, from disappointment at D to gobsmacked astonishment at Z.

* Joanna Dark in ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' scored so well on her entrance exam that the Carrington Institute gave her the titular rank.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' and ''VideoGame/DoomIIHellonEarth'', the end-of-level screen gives out three percentages: percent of secrets found, percent of items collected, and percent of enemies killed. However, Doom II's final level features a boss that continually spawns more enemies while you try to kill it with rockets. Once you beat the level, the enemies killed number just keeps going up, reaching well into the thousands.

* In ''VideoGame/Crysis2'', you can't set the graphics to low or even normal; all you have is high, very high, extreme, and ultra.

* Both used and inverted in the later ''VideoGame/ProjectGothamRacing'' games, which have not only platinum medals, but also steel medals ranked below bronze.

* ''VideoGame/{{Trackmania}} Sunrise'' and ''Nations'' rank your track times with four medals: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Nadeo Developer.
* ''Outrun 2006'' ranks your racing from E to A to AAA.

* ''Excite Truck'' gives out letter grades based on the number of points acquired in a given run. Depending on the difficulty level, an A or B is required to pass. Getting enough points yields an S grade, which can be used to unlock extras.
* The racing game ''VideoGame/WanganMidnight Maximum Tune'' allows you to, with a full-tuned car, go anywhere between 600 and 800 horsepower, which by real-life standards is rather dangerous and fatal, though thanks to the RuleOfFun, 600 is an extremely safe setup, 700 is "balanced," and 800 simply gives you poor handling. ''Maximum Tune 2'' allowed you to reach 810 horsepower with an extra tuning point, and 815 with yet another point that required you to either [[SelfImposedChallenge beat Story Mode without losing]] or [[LevelGrinding drive 5,000 kilometers]]. ''Maximum Tune 3'' pushes the envelope yet again with a third tuning point, bringing you to a maximum of 820 horsepower and redefining 700 HP as a "grip" setting. Finally, its upgrade, ''Maximum Tune 3 DX'', gives you a ''fourth'' bonus point that allows you to reach 825 HP, and now 760 horsepower, once classified as a "drift" setup on the brink of a "dangerous" one, is now a BALANCED setup.
** Similarly, the class system undergoes this too: WMMT 1 has C, B, A, A+, S, then car-specific class. WMMT 2 has N, C7 -> C1, B7 -> B1, A7 -> A1, S7 -> S1, and SSS. WMMT 3 now has 9 levels for each letter class, then after S1 there's [=SS9=] through [=SS1=], and finally SSS. Oh, and it takes longer to go up one level now, and, assuming you use quarters to play, it will cost you ''at least $4,000'' to reach SSS class! [[strike:That's over FOUR THOUSAAAAAAAAANDD!!]]. For ''WMMT 5'', the maximum rank was pushed up again to [[UpToEleven SSSS]], with all existing SSS cars set to [=SSS9=]. ''WMMT 6'' added [[SequelEscalation SSSSS]] and split SSSS into [=SSSS9=] to [=SSSS1=].

* The cars in ''VideoGame/{{Forza}} Motorsport'' (1) are ranked from "D4" (such as a typical Honda Civic) all the way to "S" (the rarest street-legal cars) and then to "R" (cars designed for racing). ''Forza Motorsport 2'' also adds a 0 to 999 system rating the car, the faster and rarer (also a stat shown as 1 to 10) the car, the higher the number. Also, the "R" class is further divided into, in increasing performance, "R4" to "R1."
** It is also possible to rank up a car in ''Forza'', such as from "C2" to "B3" by upgrading parts.
* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed: High Stakes''. The absolute lowest rank for cars in the game is a B (think BMW Z3 and equivalent), and the highest? AAA with an example being the [=McLaren=] F1.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Difficulty levels and item rarity levels have suffered this:
** Originally, even gray items were useful, and if you saw a person walking around with even one purple item, that player was basically a god among mortals. Four expansion packs later, gray and white items didn't even exist anymore, purple items dropped from easily farmed trash mobs, and everyone who could bother to join a few LFR groups after hitting level cap was guaranteed to get a legendary cloak. Two expansions after THAT, it was legendaries that were dropping off of easily farmed trash mobs, and the devs created a whole new rarity level, the Artifact weapon, to be the one that required at least some effort to acquire.
** Originally, neither dungeons nor raids had difficulty levels. Then in the first expansion, the devs added heroic dungeons, which players would do after they had hit level cap but before they were ready to raid. Then in the second expansion, they created heroic ''raids'', because... well, they didn't really have a good reason. Now we have LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic, and Mythic Plus difficulties.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', you get rank improvements when you use item synthesis enough times. The best equipment doesn't become available until you achieve Rank S. Also, the rankings for the Gummi Ship levels can, for the second courses, go far beyond S Rank by adding numbers to the end (i.e. S++10).
* In ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', Noise battles are ranked from E to A, depending on how many hits you got in, how quickly you dispatched them, and how much damage you took, as well as other criteria. If you get a near-perfect rating, you get the Star (or S in the Japanese version) rank.
** There's also pin ranks. There's the normal letters, which restrict how many identical pins you can equip - for example, two B's or one A of the same command type - and then there's the Reaper and Angel levels, of which you can only equip one, ''period''.
* ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'' gives you a rank from D, C, B, A, to S, when you clear an enemy-infested area. Higher rankings give you more items from the treasure boxes, and portions of your score that are above the cutoff point can be applied to your score for the next area, giving you a better shot at a higher grade.

* The ''VideoGame/DotHackGU'' games has this one. Depending on how many items you have, the number of enemies you killed and the number of times you got a surprise attack you can get anywhere from Rank E to Rank A after visiting an area. Usually the better your rank, the better your rewards.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters'' games use letter ranks for a battle arena of some sort and/or for the monsters themselves. In ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker]]'', ranks go from F (lowest) to A, then up to S and up again to X (highest). Few X-ranked monsters are available in normal play.
* Games in the ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series rate characters' weapon proficiencies from E to S. From ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'' onward, weapon skills and spells are also rated from E to S. The UsefulNotes/PSVita port of ''Disgaea 3'' and onward added the SS rank.

* ''VideoGame/{{Beatmania}} IIDX'':
** The NintendoHard ''[=IIDX=]'' games use a similar ranking to DDR's, but you only need 88.8% of maximum "EX points" for a AAA. However, the timing judgments in this game are extremely strict (rendering perfect scores impossible on any song that is more than a complete walk in the park), and it's easy to be offbeat enough to get more "Great"s (worth half credit) than "Just Great"s. The US [=PS2=] version does inflate your rank by 1 level unless you got less than 11% of the EX points in a song (half of the cutoff for "E" in all other versions). Additionally, getting all High Ranks (A's and above and/or Full Combos) in the step ranking mode (''Dan'inintei'') will actually allow the person to skip a rank. The step rank mode added a rank above 10th dan, ''Kaiden'', in Distorte D (13).\\
\\
The difficulty rating system itself went through this as well. Originally, songs were given a ranking from 1 to 7. Starting from 5th style, there were 7s displayed with a kanji meaning "forbidden"; these became "flashing 7s" in 6th style. 10th style went from 1 to 8, with flashing 7s now being 8s. IIDX RED, the next version, then had flashing 8s. Then, Happy Sky, the next version replaced it all with a scale that went from 1 to 12 and is still used.

* ''VideoGame/{{jubeat}}'' has a grading system as follows: an E is a complete and utter failure, a D means you failed but weren't too far away from a clear, C means you cleared by the skin of your teeth (Final score between 700000-799999 points), a B requires you to already have a passing score before your LifeMeter bonus is added at the end of the song (Final score between 800000-849999 points), then A (850000-899999 points), S (900000-949999 points), SS (950000-974999 points), SSS (975000 - 999999 points), and finally EXCELLENT for a completely perfect run (which actually replaces your grade and even your clear status, instead of being added on as in [=GuitarFreaks and DrumMania=] above).
* ''VideoGame/ReflecBeat'':
** The series uses a letter grade system, but the inflation is pretty extreme. The 70% Achievement Rate you need to clear the song? That nets you an '''A'''. In other words, getting a B is a literal and justified [[TheBGrade B Grade]] because it results in a GameOver!
** In the original ''Reflec Beat'', difficulty ratings go from 1 to 10. ''Reflec Beat Limelight'' adds the "10+" rating.

** A "zero-star" performance, however, is still impossible; even by playing [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-rXbTWtp54&feature=related Polly]] on drums, although you earn no stars during the song, you will still have one on the results screen. Similarly, the original Rock Band had one song where the vocalist could never get gold stars even with the most perfect performance possible since the overdrive was ill-placed.

* In ''VideoGame/{{osu}}'', the grades of performance starts from D, then C, B, A, S, and SS at the highest (SS means 100% accuracy). And if one uses Hidden or Flashlight mod when playing, they can get a silver S or SS with the usual requirements, written as SH and XH (respectively) in the "Historical Statistics" section of a player's web profile.
* In ''VideoGame/SpinRhythmXD'', you can get the ranks (in ascending order) D, C, B, A, S. If you're very close to the next rank, a + will be added to the rank, and if you did the song perfectly, you get an S+ rank (although most people just refer to it as a "PFC" (perfect full combo).
* ''VideoGame/ToneSphere'' offers a performance rating on what appears to be 1 to 5 stars. However, do well enough and you get a hidden 6th star.
* Android rhythm game ''Dynamix'' starts with D, C, B, A, then S, then switches to [[GratuitousGreek Greek letters]] Chi, Psi, Omega.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}'':
** The grades go D, C, B, A, AA, and finally EX.
*** Version 3.0 added the EX+ grade, for getting at least 9.9 million points.
** Scores seem to be out of 10 million points, but there is a hidden "power user" mechanic: If you get a "Pure" judgement with extra-accurate timing on a note, you'll earn 1 additional point, and if you get a "Pure Memory" result (all Pures), your score will have just slightly over 10 million as a result. Downplayed, as since you earn those extra points automatically from holding down hold notes and Arc notes, it's pretty much impossible to have a score that's ''exactly'' 10,000,000.

* ''VideoGame/{{Phigros}}'' has, after the A rank, the grades S, ν (Nu), and finally φ (Phi).

* The ''VideoGame/CastleOfShikigami'' series of {{Shoot Em Up}}s uses a rank progression from F, E, D, C, B, A, up to S and SS ("the very best"). If you use a continue during a stage, a minus sign is appended to the front of the rank (-F, -E, -D, etc.), and the player is given a title such as "[[EasyModeMockery delicate]]" or "harsh".

* ''Trigonometry Wars 3 Redux: The Revengeoning'' is somewhere between this and HarderThanHard. It gives out [[RandomPowerRanking "Threat Levels"]] to bosses; the first boss has a rating of "High", which is then followed by "Extreme", "Ridiculous", "Ludicrous", "Immeasurable", and "Infinite".

* In ''The Bouncer'', buying every power-up and ability for a character gives them Rank S.
* SSX 3, being in a tournament setting, has bronze, silver, and gold. If you do ''really'' well, you'll get a platinum medal instead. Notable because the game never reveals the score needed for getting a platinum medal outright; you can only view them via the Lodge menu.
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' has a terrain expertise ranking (for both characters and mecha) which scales from D (practically useless) to A, and then S, although this is merely an aspect of gameplay and not an accomplishment.
* "S"-rated weapons in most later ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games, a ranking reserved for InfinityPlusOneSword[=s=]. (They go from E, D, C, B, A, then to S). ''Radiant Dawn'' adds "SS" to the list, with S pretty much becoming the rank for InfinityMinusOneSword[=s=]. With a few exceptions such as Ike, the S and SS rankings carry the restriction that any given unit can only achieve a single SS-rank in a single weapon type, with all the other weapon types available to them able to go no higher than S as a consequence. (''Radiant Dawn'' goes to eleven overall: more missions, more levels and class changes, more characters, and stat caps that were unusually high before ''Awakening'' brought some SerialEscalation.)
** ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' introduced the letter ranks, then only ranging from C to A, but the "preference" star-rank (*) was effectively the S equivalent, due to all the weapons locked to specific characters being [[InfinityPlusOneSword Holy Weapons]], the [[GameBreaker most powerful weapons in the entire series]] by a wide margin.
** ''Thracia 776'', ''Shadow Dragon'', ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', and ''Awakening'' avert this. Their ranks stop at A.
** Before ''Genealogy'', weapons were ranked from 1 to 20, and a character's rank in weapons in general was randomly increased on levelups as per their other stats. Not to mention legendary weapons had the highest rank of 12. Making getting 13-20 incredibly useless. Did we mention most characters had huge growths in this stat for some reason? The DS remake might be contested, but everyone agrees changing to the "regular" weapon ranking style was for the better.
** In addition to weapon ranks, the later games tend to have rankings based on how well the player does during the entire campaign. The ranks typically start from the lowly 'E' and go up to 'S' as the highest rank.
*** ''Thracia 776'' takes this even further, depending on the version of the game. The cartridge version of the game has 'AA' and 'AAA' as its highest ranks, and the ROM version has 'AA', 'AAA', [[UpToEleven 'S', 'SS']], [[SerialEscalation AND 'SSS']] as the top ranks -- with 'SSS' being the ultimate rank. Actually ''getting'' 'SSS' [[NintendoHard practically warrants emulation use]].
** In ''Awakening'', there are C, B, A support levels, as in previous games, but you can also earn an S support level with one unit of the opposite gender, in which you two will be HappilyMarried.
*** Same thing happens in ''Fates'', but with an added "A+" rank for two units of the same gender ([[GayOption excluding a male avatar and Niles or a female avatar and Rhajat]]), which adds extra pair-up bonuses like an S rank (The only difference is that an S rank support has an accompanying conversation, while an A+ rank does not.).
* The ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' series also grades your achievements in every mission. There are 3 criteria (essentially number of turns, own casualties and enemy casualties) with 1-100 points each, which combined determine a ranking between E (which is really hard to get even intentionally, and past the first game the minimum is C instead) to A and then S (which requires near perfect scores). Furthermore, the whole campaign is rated in the end, and getting an S for it on the Hard mode isn't easy. ''Days of Ruin'' messes with the system abundantly but doesn't really change much as far as this trope is concerned, other than that S rank is possible at merely 2/3rds of the max score of 450, and 450 isn't even possible on some missions.

* The ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' VisualNovel has a section with the stats for all of the [[AllMythsAreTrue Servants]], from E to A with the usual plus/minus modifiers. Rank A is basically on the level of True Magic (impossible miracles). There's also the EX rank, which is shorthand for "unclassifiable" powers that, due to their nature, simply don't fit on the Ranking scale.[[note]]One example given is Magic Defense. E through A rank Magic Defense dictates how well a Servant can survive magical attacks. An EX rank Magic Defense might indicate that magical attacks are made to ''miss them entirely'', so it's not even a function of "defense" at all, strictly speaking.[[/note]] The special armaments of Servants, the Noble Phantasms, also come with ranks; [[Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Canonically]], a C-rank Noble Phantasm is about the same level as an A-rank regular weapon.
** The novel prequel ''LightNovel/FateZero'' also contain similar sections, and adds one more EX-rank Noble Phantasm; the original game had two ([[WaveMotionGun Ea]] and Avalon, which are basically the Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object, respectively). The new one summons [[ZergRush 2000 Servants]]. The entire "Grail War" only summons ''7''.
** [[AllThereInTheManual Databooks]] on the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} state that the Mage's Association ranks its members from First to Seventh (seventh being the lowest). For people who have achieved feats beyond that, like the sisters [[LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners Touko]] and [[VideoGame/MeltyBlood Aoko]], they get colors Orange and Blue, respectively. The closer your color to the primary colors red, blue, and yellow, the more amazing your achievement.
* ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter'' started out with operation grades ranging from C through A and an S grade, which requires fulfilling certain conditions in the operation as well as getting a high enough score. Games after the first add an even better XS grade (that you can only get on Hard or HarderThanHard). Getting A is hard enough.

* ''VideoGame/MischiefMakers'' ranks you on how fast you complete a stage with a grade from D through A, and then S which is descripted as "Perfect!". And trust me, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin you need to be perfect]] to get an S grade.
* ''VideoGame/TetrisTheGrandMaster'' has grades going from 9 to 1, then S1 through S9, and finally the titular "Grand Master" rank. ''Tetris [=TGM2=]'' adds the M grade between S9 and GM. Finally, ''[=TGM3=]'' has, after S9, m1 through m9, followed by Master, Master K, Master V, Master O, and Master M, and of course, GM.
* ''Top Skater'' is an arcade game that gives each trick AND your entire run a grade between E (lowest) and S (highest). The reward for an S-run is a replay of the "highlights" of the run.
** SpiritualSuccessor ''Air Trix'' has this trope both ways; the possible grades range from ''G'' to A and then S, SS, SSS, S4, S5, and S6.

* ''VideoGame/BlastCorps'' had this in spades. After completing the game and finishing every level including the ones on ''other planets'', you are presented with the message "Now do it faster!" You could then go for gold medals based on completion time for every stage, including the normally untimed story levels (in which the carrier would inexplicably explode if you exceeded the time limit, even if it didn't run into anything.) Getting gold medals for every stage gives you the message "Now go for platinum!" and reveals new target times for the platinum medals. Some of these were pretty ridiculous, such as completing one of the vehicle training missions in ''four seconds.''
** Getting platinum medals on every stage earns you the highest rank in the game, amusingly titled "You Can Stop Now."
* ''VideoGame/SegaHeroes'' overlaps this with PowerCreep. It initially had four rarity grades - Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary - with higher-graded heroes being more powerful. Starting with Silver the Hedgehog, a fifth "Captain" grade was added that sits above Legendary, being even harder to get hold of but also more powerful, as well as passively buffing certain other heroes.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}}'' has 5 ranks: Ninja dog, Thug, Ninja, Master Ninja, and Grand Master. Grand Master requires you to not be seen or kill an innocent (usually). You still have to kill most of the guards though, unlike many stealth games slipping your way to to the objective and out is actually less rewarding than killing everyone, albeit silently.
** In the first and third Tenchu games, it is actually possible to get the highest rank without killing, but Tenchu 2 changes that with it's different scoring system, there are no awards for kills/stealth kills either, but that changes with Tenchu 3.
* In ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'''s Arcade Mode, how you played gave you a ranking. You start at E, progress up to A, the AAA, then S, then SSS. Normal missions were ungraded, C to A, then S. It should be noted that SSS wasn't even technically the highest you could get in the arcade mode; how close you were to ranking up was shown with a segmented bar on the score screen, and that bar would be completely filled by the time you get about 140,000 points.
** The C-B-A-S ranking was also present in ''[[VideoGame/AceCombatXSkiesOfDeception Skies of Deception]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/AceCombatJointAssault Joint Assault]]'', the two portable ''VideoGame/AceCombat'' titles.
* The N64 wrestling games ''[[NoExportForYou AJPW Virtual Pro Wrestling 2]]'', and ''WWF No Mercy'' ranked all the attacks in the game this way, ranging from E grade for the weakest attacks to A and S grade for the [[FinishingMove Special Moves]]; the majority of submission moves were ranked C, which implied that the grades came from the INITIAL amount of damage dealt by the move, and most submissions were held for a prolonged period, dealing C-grade damage multiple times. Even many of the Special submissions were ranked C for this reason. In No Mercy, many of the moves were bumped up in rank to accommodate the addition of the S rank (which was not present in the previous two games) and a slew of new special moves. This would result in certain B-grade Strong Grapples (like Goldberg's ''Body Press Powerslam'' or the ''Vertical Brainbuster'') being bumped up to an A grade and resulting in the almost certain possibility of a [[GameBreaker game-breaking]] move set.
* The [=PS2=] ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' games, ''Shattered Soldier'' and ''Neo Contra'', grades the player's performance at the end of each stage based on the percentage of unique enemies and objects they destroyed thorough the entire stage, with a penalty based on the number of lives lost or continues used (if any were lost). Maintaining an A average is the only way to avoid the DownerEnding.
* In ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'' on Tawfret, if you have the Shurikens, you can actually obtain an obscene death count and accuracy rating. While the death count maxes out at 65,535, the highest accuracy rating is somewhere along 100,000%.
* ''Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars'' had a simple system: completing each mission earns a bronze, silver or gold medal depending on the difficulty level with two extra distinctions for completing all secondary objectives and getting all intelligence entries (also awarded on a per-mission basis). The name of these distinctions are specific to the faction: the intelligence distinctions are named "[=InOps=] Specialist Ribbon" for GDI, "Order of the Grand Confessor" for Nod and "Archivist Prime" for Scrin; the other one is "Commendation of Valor", "Mark of Loyalty" or "Optimum Efficiency", respectively. The difficulty levels are very strange; at earlier levels, going on hard is actually ''easier'' whereas on later levels (especially on the last Nod one), you really have to ''earn'' that gold medal.
* ''VideoGame/RivieraThePromisedLand'' had C to A, influenced slightly by damage taken (but heavily if a character fainted in battle), moderately by number of turns, and heavily by finisher move's level. The best ones to finish a battle with were Lorelei's and Einherjar's EX Skills.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' Red/Blue rescue team offers missions starting at difficulty "E" and going up to difficulty "A", then you start finding "S" missions, then "*" (star) tasks. The sequel, ''Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky'' puts numbers next to the * to make them seem even more impressive (the higher the number, the tougher the mission). However, "*5" is roughly as hard as "S" from the previous game.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonRanger: Guardian Signs'' grades you on how well you perform a capture, ether "B", "A" or "S".
* ''VideoGame/CrossEdge'' takes this both directions--you can get an S rank above A, but also a rank below F, and it goes down at least as far as I, if you do bad enough.
* ''VideoGame/BillyVsSNAKEMAN'' ranks missions from D through A, then AA, then S. There are also mission ranks not named after letter grades, to indicate they tie into plotlines other than the initial "become Sannin" plot, which are (save for Reaper and Burger Ninja missions) as hard if not harder than AA and S rank missions.
* ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' ranks you based on multiplayer performance into different leagues. In addition to "Bronze, Silver, Gold", there is a Platinum league, and a Diamond league. At one point in the beta there was a Copper below Bronze, but they merged Copper and Bronze and split Platinum and Diamond. There also may be an even topperest tier league, an invite only "Pro" league.
** Since Patch 1.2, even Diamond has been demoted, with the Master and Grandmaster leagues taking the top tiers. Diamond through Grandmaster is the top 20% of all players. The Grandmaster league is the top 200, Master is the remaining top 2%, and Diamond is the remaining top 20%. Platinum is merely "noticeably better than average", while Gold is a typical player with some skill (especially with more recent patches, which expanded Gold and shrunk Bronze).
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Suguri}} Acceleration of Suguri]]'' awards ranks based on how well you do in a fight, going E, D, C, B, A, S, and P. Getting a P rank requires the player to take no damage during a fight, which, being a bullet hell/fighting game, is no easy task.
* The ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngel Gameverse'' has an [[StatOVision Intel]] option which displays the stats of every [[CoolShip Ship]], both yours and your opponent's, such as "Offense", "Armor" and "Evasion" with values going from E to A with the corresponding plus/minus modifiers.
* ''Bit.Trip'' Runner would award a perfect rating for collecting all gold in a level, marking said level on the menu with an exclaimation mark. Getting all the gold in each level's retro challenge rewarded players with two exclaimation marks. Double perfect?
* ''VideoGame/ClockTower'': While A is the best ''canon'' ending, it is possible to achieve a hidden Ending S, which is basically Ending A, except [[spoiler:another girl gets to leave the nightmare with Jennifer, rather than being offed at the last hurdle]].
* ''[[RecycledTitle The]]'' ''VideoGame/BishiBashi'' has grades going up to SSS. You're going to need them, because due to the game's DynamicDifficulty system, the minimum passing grade increases one rank every time you clear a stage (and decreases once for each failure). Enough consecutive successes will make the game enter Oni Mode, where only a SSS will clear a stage. Increasing bonuses are awarded for staying in Oni Mode.
* Tournament levels and monster rankings in ''VideoGame/MonsterRancher'' go from E to S, with "F" signifying a tournament anyone can enter without losing status if higher-ranked.
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' initially awarded a star for completing the fifth night and a second star for completing the sixth, which was already considered HarderThanHard. Doing so unlocks a "custom night" in which the AI levels of the enemies can each be adjusted on a scale of 1 to 20. There were no awards for beating this mode at any setting, and in fact the creator of the game had assumed that beating it with all four set to 20 was impossible. After two prominent [[LetsPlay Let's Players]] proved that it could be done, the game was patched to add a third star for anyone who managed to do it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' starts you at the lowest rank of C- and goes up 9 ranks to A+, with your rank going up when you win enough matches in Ranked Battle, and falling if you lose too much. Later on, S and S+ ranks were added above A+.
** [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 The sequel]] one-upped this with S+ having ''50 sub-ranks'' of its own. Nine months later, the 3.0 update would merge ranks S+10 and above into Rank X, which contains roughly the Top 1% of players in the game (the Top 500 players get a special crown icon next to their name). Unlike the other ranks, where you'll maintain your position even if you don't play for those modes for a while, you can automatically be removed from Rank X if your power level is under a certain threshold at the end of each month's "Calculating" period. In addition, each mode of Ranked Battle now also has their own separate meter rather than giving the player an overall rank in competitive, meaning that you could be an S+ rank in [[HoldTheLine Splat Zones]] while also being A- in [[EscortMission Tower Control]], for example.
* In ''VisualNovel/StrawberryVinegar'', this is used by Licia in one case:
-->'''Licia:''' I feel like I'm witnessing something very, very rare~ Like A+++ rank!\\
'''Rie:''' If seeing me when messy hair is A+++ rank, how would you categorize real miracles, like visions from God or water turning to wine?\\
'''Licia:''' Hm...I'm not sure. Maybe they should be S rank!
* In the Japanese version of ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'' the highest rating achievable from Adventure Mode missions is S, and the lowest is B. However, like the ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' example, the localization shifted the ranks down to A, B, and C.
* ''VideoGame/OnePiecePirateWarriors'' has ranks normally ranging from D (worst) to S (best), rating your number of KO's, "!"s obtained and time taken to complete the battle. The S level cannot be obtained on Easy, however.
* In ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' your rank at the end of a match is determined by several factors, namely your creep score (lane minions and jungle monsters killed), your kill/death/assist ratio, and for support champions, damage healed, damage shielded, and wards placed. Getting an S- or higher gives you a Hextech Chest for each champion once a season and/or a token for champions at level 5 Mastery that can be used to increase their Mastery to level 6. For champions at level 6 Mastery, getting an S or S+ gives them a token that can increase their level to 7.
* In Creator/PopCapGames's maze game ''VideoGame/IgglePop'', you get a medal after each level, based on the chains of same-coloured Iggles you bring to teleportation pads. Should you achieve the biggest combos possible in the level ''and'' activate all the chain counters, you will be awarded a platinum medal.
* ''VideoGame/WiiPlay'' and ''VideoGame/WiiPlayMotion'' will award the player medals going from Bronze to Platinum for each minigame if they get past a score in said minigame. It also works like an AchievementSystem, as the medal is displayed indefinitely on the select screen.
* ''VideoGame/WiiFit'' awards stars (from 1 to 4) depending on the performance of the player for each of its exercises.
* ''[[VideoGame/TheSimpsons Bart's Nightmare]]'' has a ranking system based on the American school grading system. The grades are mostly tied to ScoringPoints, and are viewed in an EndGameResultsScreen (seen upon completing the game or getting a GameOver). The lowest possible grade, of course, is F. If your final score was 8,000 points or higher, Bart gets a D-, 21,000 is a D, 36,000 is a D+, 45,000 is a C-, 55,000 is a C, 68,000 is a C+, 77,000 is a B-, 87,000 is a B, 99,000 is a B+, 109,000 is an A-, 119,000 is an A, and finally, 125,000 is an A+. The catch is that in order to qualify for anything higher than B+, you have to actually beat the game.
* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' evaluates boss fights by time, damage taken, number of parries, amount of Super meter, and difficulty. The scale is usually D to A+, but one can achieve S-Ranks after unlocking Expert difficulty. There is also a secret P-Rank for the "Run & Gun" stages, earned by doing a PacifistRun. Finally, there is a percentage completion rating that goes up when stages are beat and items are collected, but earning those S and P-Ranks boosts it over 100%.
* ''[[VideoGame/MarioParty Super Mario Party]]'''s co-op mode ranks the team's performance in each minigame, giving more river-rafting bonus time for higher ranks. The highest is S, followed by A, B, and so on. During the minigame, it displays your current rank; since most of them rate you based on how quickly you complete the game or how few mistakes you make, the S-rank label usually appears for most of the game even if you don't end up achieving it.
* The Survival mode ranks in the ''VideoGame/HeadSports'' series go up to SS-rank.

** [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 The sequel]] one-upped this with S+ having ''50 sub-ranks'' of its own. Nine months later, the 3.0 update would merge ranks S+10 and above into Rank X, which contains roughly the Top 1% of players in the game (the Top 500 players get a special crown icon next to their name). Unlike the other ranks, where you'll maintain your position even if you don't play for those modes for a while, you can automatically be removed from Rank X if your power level is under a certain threshold at the end of each month's "Calculating" period. Each mode of Ranked Battle also has their own separate meter rather than giving the player an overall rank in competitive, meaning that you could be an S+ rank in [[HoldTheLine Splat Zones]] while also being A- in [[EscortMission Tower Control]], for example.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' starts you at the lowest rank of C- and goes up 9 ranks all the way to A+, with your rank going up when you win a certain number of consecutive matches in Ranked Battle. Later on, S and S+ ranks were added above A+.
** [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 The sequel]] one-ups this further with S+ having ''50 sub-ranks'' of its own. Nine months later with the 3.0 update, ranks S+10 and above were replaced with Rank X, at which point the game notes that you're ridiculously good[[note]]roughly speaking, Rank X contains the Top 1% of players in the game.[[/note]] and has the normal ranking meter replaced with a "power" meter. However, players can still be demoted if their power level is low enough or they fail to win enough matches during the "Calculating" period at the end of each month. Each mode of Ranked Battle also has their own separate meter rather than giving the player an overall rank in competitive, meaning that you could be an S+ rank in [[HoldTheLine Splat Zones]] while also being A- in [[EscortMission Tower Control]], for example.

* In the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' games, you accumulate [=AP=] within each chapter or part, and if you get the most, you get S rank. The lowest rank seems to be C because you're actually required to complete certain quests for [=AP=] in order to progress in the story. It seems that Game Over is actually the lowest rank because the theme that plays if you get a Game Over is called "Failing Marks..."

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters'' games use letter ranks for a battle arena of some sort and/or for the monsters themselves. In ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters DragonQuest Monsters: Joker]]'', ranks go from F (lowest) to A, then up to S and up again to X (highest). Few X-ranked monsters are available in normal play.

* In a similar vein to ''Dragon Quest Monsters'', the ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' series ranks the strength of its Yo-kai (except Bosses if they are not befriendable) from E to S. This also means the higher the rank, the faster a Yo-kai can grow in strength by leveling up. Because of this, some low-ranked Yo-kai can no longer being useful as higher-ranked Yo-kai appear more and more, and the only way to increase ranks is through a treasure obtained in the Cluvian Continent in ''Yo-kai Watch 3''. The titular watch also runs by these ranks as, for example, an E-ranked watch can only detect E-ranked Yo-kai, and in order to search for higher-ranked Yo-kai (and being able to open Watch Locks in order progress the plot) it should be upgraded via sidequests (except Rank S, which is attained in the postgame).

* In a similar vein to ''Dragon Quest Monsters'', the ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' series ranks the strength of its Yo-kai (except Bosses if they are not befriendable) from E to S. This also means the higher the rank, the faster a Yo-kai can grow in strength by leveling up. Because of this, some low-ranked Yo-kai can no longer being useful as higher-ranked Yo-kai appear more and more, and the only way to increase ranks is through a treasure obtained in the Cluvian Continent in ''Yo-kai Watch 3''. The titular watch also runs by these ranks as an E-ranked watch can only detect E-ranked Yo-kai, and in order to search for higher-ranked Yo-kai (and being able to open Watch Locks in order progress the plot) it should be upgraded via sidequests (except Rank S which is attained in the postgame).
** Notably, some mobile spin-offs keep inflating ranks even more: ''Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni'' has ranks SS, SSS, Z and ZZ, ''Yo-kai Watch World'' is settled in SS thus far, and ''Yo-kai Sangokushi: Kunitori Wars'' has Rank Sho as its equivalent to SS.

* The ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' VisualNovel has a section with the stats for all of the [[AllMythsAreTrue Servants]], from E to A with the usual plus/minus modifiers. Rank A is basically on the level of True Magic (impossible miracles). There's also the EX rank, which is shorthand for "unclassifiable" powers that, due to their nature, simply don't fit on the Ranking scale.[[note]]One example given is Magic Defense. E through A rank Magic Defense dictates how well a Servant can survive magical attacks. An EX rank Magic Defense would indicate that magical attacks are made to ''miss them entirely'', so it's not even a function of "defense" at all, strictly speaking.[[/note]] The special armaments of Servants, the Noble Phantasms, also come with ranks; [[Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Canonically]], a C-rank Noble Phantasm is about the same level as an A-rank regular weapon.

* "S"-rated weapons in most later ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games, a ranking reserved for InfinityPlusOneSword[=s=]. (They go from E, D, C, B, A, then to S). ''Radiant Dawn'' adds "SS" to the list, with S pretty much becoming the rank for InfinityMinusOneSword[=s=]. With a few exceptions such as Ike, the S and SS rankings carry the restriction that any given unit can only achieve a single SS-rank in a single weapon type, with all the other weapon types available to them able to go no higher than S as a consequence.
** ''Radiant Dawn'' goes to eleven overall. More missions, more levels and class changes, more characters and the highest stats this side of the entirely broken ''Genealogy of the Holy War''.
*** ''Thracia 776'', ''Shadow Dragon'', ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', and ''Awakening'' avert this, though. Their ranks stop at A.
** Up until ''Genealogy'', weapons were ranked from 1 to 20, and a character's rank in weapons in general was randomly increased on levelups as per their other stats. It was not the best system possible.
*** Not to mention legendary weapons had the highest rank of 12. Making getting 13-20 incredibly useless. Did we mention most characters had huge growths in this stat for some reason? The DS remake might be contested, but everyone agrees changing to the "regular" weapon ranking style was for the better.