Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

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shivan128

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Welcome to the Japanese niche games deals and discussion thread!  Feel free to talk about local and import Japanese games here.  Our goal is to maintain a thread dedicated to active deals on niche games including RPGs, Visual Novels (VN), Shoot'em ups (Shmups), Musou, etc.  Also maintained are pre-orders for standard, limited and collector's edition games with key release dates provided.

I've wikified the thread to make it more friendly and open to others that can actively update with important information. You can find the wiki post directly below this one.

NOTE:  Please, leave the censorship discussion away from this thread.  It's common for japanese games to have questionable content outside of the country.  We want to keep discussions to the game itself and not about cultural/societal tolerance.

A message from Thorbahn:

Our CAG Japanese Niche Games Thread also has a community on PS4, where you can interact and game with other members of the thread.

Our moderators are: Draekon, Las_Hole, and Waffleswanton

You can basically friend any of our members, or any moderator, and you will be able to request to join the community under "Communities friends are in" tab, and a mod will approve your request.

You can also leave your PSN ID in the thread, saying you want to join, and we can invite you directly as well.

As always, have fun and enjoy your stay!

 
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Richard Kain said:
I would argue that Darkstalkers: Resurrection would be somewhat appropriate for this thread. The bright, colorful, anime-inspired visuals for the Darkstalkers series are somewhat Japan-related.
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Considering it's a Japanese game, I'd say Darkstalkers is absolutely appropriate. And also the best game on that PS+ list.

 
kintanos said:
Well I'm sure you two are aware, but I know some weren't. So I'll put it out there just in case. You aren't rerolling from that tutorial pull right? Supposedly that's fixed and you will never get anything good from it.
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nah. I'm talking about the 46 tokens you use on pulls after that. Thanks for the heads up though. Again this is one of those things which is explained nowhere and I found out on accident by reading comments on the subreddit and gamefaqs.

 
This is actually one of the best PS+ months in a while. I know Until Dawn isn't a niche game, but it's absolutely fantastic and I definitely recommend checking it out. Very unique and does exactly what it sets out to do, which is nail that B-rated horror movie cliche right on the head. Darkstalkers collection is already decent, as is Tokyo Jungle. Nothing to say on GoT but it's probably better than an indie game no one has heard of.

Olengie said:
Did you guys forget Darkstalkers is a Capcom game. Lol
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I don't know if we forgot, but I think Capcom probably forgot they made it.

 
Morrigan and Lilith are in it. Resurrection is two games in one

I remember when Capcom said they didnt want to do a new Darkstalkers game becuz Resurrection didnt meet their expectations despite selling very well for a re release.
 
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BlackRockWaifu said:
This is actually one of the best PS+ months in a while. I know Until Dawn isn't a niche game, but it's absolutely fantastic and I definitely recommend checking it out. Very unique and does exactly what it sets out to do, which is nail that B-rated horror movie cliche right on the head. Darkstalkers collection is already decent, as is Tokyo Jungle. Nothing to say on GoT but it's probably better than an indie game no one has heard of.

I don't know if we forgot, but I think Capcom probably forgot they made it.
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I watched ProJared do a playthrough of Until Dawn on his ProJared plays channel and found it quite interesting. I'll more than likely snag most of the PS+ games for July. I need to clean off some of the games on my old PS3 or replace the hard drive sometime soon.

 
Olengie said:
Morrigan and Lilith are in it. Resurrection is two games in one

I remember when Capcom said they didnt want to do a new Darkstalkers game becuz Resurrection didnt meet their expectations despite selling very well for a re release.
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I think that's the same line we got from Square with the last Chrono Trigger port. I guess a million people buying a game just doesn't have the cred it once had.

 
BlackRockWaifu said:
This is actually one of the best PS+ months in a while. I know Until Dawn isn't a niche game, but it's absolutely fantastic and I definitely recommend checking it out. Very unique and does exactly what it sets out to do, which is nail that B-rated horror movie cliche right on the head.
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I loved Until Dawn. Easily one of my favorite PS4 exclusives.

 
Draekon said:
Looks like XSeed posted another blog recently. Somewhat interesting read and it focuses on their upcoming game, Zwei:

Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection - Localization Blog #1

Apparently they're working on a patch for it, according to a reply of theirs on Twitter. Outside of that and the very distracting main character portrait, the game is decent so far though. I'm going through it very slowly however.
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Thanks for the info. At least they acknowledged it. Good to hear it's at least decent.

Josef said:
Wonder if we will get either of those Fire Emblem Warriors Premium Editions in the States?
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I hope so. If that crystal is anything like the one in the P5 famitsu crystal edition, it's a really neat CE item.

 
This isn't niche or even gaming related but I thought it was cool to share.

Sony's TV division is taking user-submitted ideas for a new TV series, and they'll select 5 fan ideas to make a pilot with and eventually create an entire show with the Playstation community choosing which one is best.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/27/sony-taking-public-pitches-for-its-next-playstation-tv-shows

Again, it's not gaming related, but I know we have a couple of amazing writers in here. SolidSnake86 is one, and you can check out his works on his sig, and he even has an Amazon page. Its great stuff so I definitely recommend it! I used to write some Neptunia fanfiction myself. And I think there might've been some literature majors in here as well. 

I have an idea inspired by Persona, Evangelion, and Fallout, so I know what pitch I'll send in. 

 
Supplice said:
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash Interview — Producer Talks Development and Future of the Series
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I’m planning on looking at how well Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash does to see if perhaps it can become it’s own series.
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Payday-2-large-38.jpg


 
JohnnySako said:
I wonder How many copies Amazon sold with that 50% price drop prior to the US launch...
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I missed something big didn't I.

Picked up a few random things off the psn sale.

Natural Doctrine for $5(PS3) seemed like a good enough price to take a gamble on it. I am pleased to see that it has anime portraits.

Malicious Rebirth(vita) never heard of it but seems like a short beat 'em up boss rush thing

Battle Princess Arcadias(PS3) Been mildly interested in this for awhile. A sidescroller with strategy going on in the background while you fight in the foreground.

Jeanne D'arc(PSP) Played through about 3/4 of it on psp but never finished it. It's decently fun srpg. Liane is best girl and deserved to be the hero.

Mana Khemia(PSP) First time it's gone on sale I think. But the psp version is inferior to ps2 since no dual audio and annoying loading screens. Still it's cheap and worth owning on my atelier machine.

Oh and I've been emulating Fate/GO on my pc. Got Altera and Elizabeth Bathory.

 
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Kaiser499 said:
Has anyone called their credit card company about Play-Asia transactions being declined and how did they fix it? I'm trying to get Capital One to fix my issue with stuff not going through.
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yes recently for the ghost blade hd preorder.
my cc sent me an email that they declined the charge based of possible fraud. the email gave me a link to allow the charge or leave it declined & block playasia. I clicked acknowledge charge, than like 10 hrs later play asia emailed me saying on the second attempt my payment went threw.
I think play asia tries once a day charging your cc, i guess they get that a lot.


also sweet can't wait to play Darkstalkers!

Until Dawn is also a great horror game giving nods to the old school flicks.
 
I thought about getting Malicious Fallen also. It reminds me a little bit of Soulborne mixed with Dynasty Warriors. But I decided to wait til it's cheaper.
 

I ended up buying:

Aedis Eclipse (PSP)

Mana Khemia (PSP) (same series as the Atelier series, FYI)

Mimana Iyar (PSP)

Missus got a Vita recently, so got:

htoLNiQ (Vita)

Sorcery Saga (Vita)

And the non-JP PS4 stuff no one cares about:

How to Survive 2

God of War III Remaster

Shadow of Mordor

Lego Hobbit

 
elessar123 said:
I thought about getting Malicious Fallen also. It reminds me a little bit of Soulborne mixed with Dynasty Warriors. But I decided to wait til it's cheaper.

I ended up buying:

Aedis Eclipse (PSP)

Mana Khemia (PSP) (same series as the Atelier series, FYI)

Missus got a Vita recently, so got:

Sorcery Saga (Vita)
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I bought aedis as well since a 1$ and change game even if it sucks is within my experimental budget. I also got murdered soul suspect.

motaku96 said:
I missed something big didn't I.

Picked up a few random things off the psn sale.

Natural Doctrine for $5(PS3) seemed like a good enough price to take a gamble on it. I am pleased to see that it has anime portraits.

Jeanne D'arc(PSP) Played through about 3/4 of it on psp but never finished it. It's decently fun srpg. Liane is best girl and deserved to be the hero.

Mana Khemia(PSP) First time it's gone on sale I think. But the psp version is inferior to ps2 since no dual audio and annoying loading screens. Still it's cheap and worth owning on my atelier machine.
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And natural doctrine even though I heard its horribly unbalanced and punishing difficulty wise. A few of those other games I already had physically.

 
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It looks like we might get a release date of Nights of Azure 2 in the west tomorrow.

[media]https://twitter.com/KoeiTecmoUS/status/880172362997448704[/media]

 
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I'm looking forward to Trails of Cold Steel on PC :D I haven't had the chance to play it yet, so will probably be a day 1 purchase for me :) I enjoy the "Tales of" series, and this looks similar with a bit more story.

 
Katsumi said:
I'm looking forward to Trails of Cold Steel on PC :D I haven't had the chance to play it yet, so will probably be a day 1 purchase for me :) I enjoy the "Tales of" series, and this looks similar with a bit more story.
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...a bit more story is a huge understatement. I'd probably write you an essay on the series if I felt like going to the effort today. So I'll just leave it with a recommendation of checking out the Trails in the Sky trilogy. Playing Cold Steel first is possible, but it will spoil things from the Sky trilogy seeing as Cold Steel is actually the 6th game and third story arc in the series. PC versions have been the superior versions for all the series games in English and we're missing the second story arc in English (Game 4 & 5).

Also it's not action based at all. The battle system is more similar to Lunar and Grandia in a way with how it moves and what not. It's not that similar to those, but it gives you an idea on how the battle system moves around since it's still very turn based.

If you've been around the thread, you should know I highly recommend the series.

[customspoiler='Maniacal Laughter']
Another potential victim.[/customspoiler]

 
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I'm playing through Cold Steel on Vita now(a bit slowly, I'm stuck sharing a car with my wife which leaves me stranded at work very late so I play in the office break room at the end of the day sometimes). I really like how character development focused it is. Unless I spend a day grinding (which I don't think is needed, it's just how I play RPG's typically) pretty much every time I play I'm learning something about someone or they're showing a new side of themselves.

EDIT: Is this the kind of game that has a difficult to obtain True Ending? I'm enjoying not playing with a guide, but I hate situation of playing some games where you miss a true ending flag at the midpoint of a long game and get locked out of it.

 
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Draekon said:
...a bit more story is a huge understatement. I'd probably write you an essay on the series if I felt like going to the effort today. So I'll just leave it with a recommendation of checking out the Trails in the Sky trilogy. Playing Cold Steel first is possible, but it will spoil things from the Sky trilogy seeing as Cold Steel is actually the 6th game and third story arc in the series. PC versions have been the superior versions for all the series games in English and we're missing the second story arc in English (Game 4 & 5).

Also it's not action based at all. The battle system is more similar to Lunar and Grandia in a way with how it moves and what not. It's not that similar to those, but it gives you an idea on how the battle system moves around since it's still very turn based.
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I appreciate the input :) I haven't played any of the games yet, so I may look into the Sky games. I need more time in the day to play!

I've watched a couple of short videos, and the turn based combat doesn't bother me at all. The story is typically my favorite part of RPG's and as long as the combat is fun, I'm happy.

 
Pheria said:
I'm playing through Cold Steel on Vita now(a bit slowly, I'm stuck sharing a car with my wife which leaves me stranded at work very late so I play in the office break room at the end of the day sometimes). I really like how character development focused it is. Unless I spend a day grinding (which I don't think is needed, it's just how I play RPG's typically) pretty much every time I play I'm learning something about someone or they're showing a new side of themselves.

EDIT: Is this the kind of game that has a difficult to obtain True Ending? I'm enjoying not playing with a guide, but I hate situation of playing some games where you miss a true ending flag at the midpoint of a long game and get locked out of it.
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So the Trails series and hidden shit. It's a running theme. You typically have two types:

1) Books - Get the series throughout the playthrough and turn them in at the end for one piece of Zemurian Ore. You turn one Zemurian Ore into an ultimate weapon for a character. There are usually a few ways to obtain them, but you're limited on the amount you can obtain in a single playthrough.

2) Quests - There are usually at least a few 'hidden' ones. Quests in the series tend to count towards you chapter "score" and in some cases how you respond to quests. In Trails in the Sky it's about your bracer rank and in Cold Steel it's your school evaluation. So long as you hit a certain number by the end of the game (I think it's like 10 AP points leeway), you'll get the best rank. All this does is give better bonuses for carry over into the sequel as well as some other item you can obtain at the end of the game on top of hitting certain total AP milestone rewards. Which in this case is a medal that can reward you with a master quartz if I remember correctly. Though I think there are two choices and you have to go through NG+ to obtain the other.

There isn't a "true ending" so to speak. You'll get the same ending no matter what you do in any of the games. The bonding system (which is kinda of annoying since it locks you out of seeing all character development) will have an effect on a few scenes. Basically some stuff you can do during the final chapter and who appears in a couple certain scenes. All of which is actually rather minor.

If you do a NG+ run for carrying over data to the sequel for whatever reason, you'll have to (re)gain the best possible AP rank. Here's the carry over bonuses into the sequel:

Rank A1: Silver Medal accessory (HP+500, EP+50)
Rank A0: Golden Medal accessory (can't be obtained otherwise, HP+1000, EP+100, STR, DEF, ATS and ADF+10)

Rean's level is 69 or lower: 100 of each sepith except mass, Attack 1, Zeram Powder
Rean's level is 70-79: 300 of each sepith except mass, Attack 1, Soul Blur, Zeram Powder
Rean's level is 80 or higher: 500 of each sepith except mass, Attack 1, Soul Blur, Saintly Force, Zeram Powder x2

The latter bonuses are easy if you grabbed the shining pom DLC when it was free a ways back. Use them at the end of the game in the final dungeon (once you've left it, you can't go back and use them) to push you to at least that level. If you didn't grab the DLC while it was free, it's not worth wasting the time getting to the best carry over reward. Second best should be decently doable with a little grinding though.

 
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Katsumi said:
I'm looking forward to Trails of Cold Steel on PC :D I haven't had the chance to play it yet, so will probably be a day 1 purchase for me :) I enjoy the "Tales of" series, and this looks similar with a bit more story.
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Yup, you should definitely try out the Trails series. If I were you I'd actually start out with Trails in the Sky - the first three games.

Though like Drake said, you could start with Cold Steel I and II as long as you're okay with the spoilers. But then again, there's all sorts of spoilers for the games we don't even have in English yet!

Draekon said:
...a bit more story is a huge understatement. I'd probably write you an essay on the series if I felt like going to the effort today. So I'll just leave it with a recommendation of checking out the Trails in the Sky trilogy. Playing Cold Steel first is possible, but it will spoil things from the Sky trilogy seeing as Cold Steel is actually the 6th game and third story arc in the series. PC versions have been the superior versions for all the series games in English and we're missing the second story arc in English (Game 4 & 5).

Also it's not action based at all. The battle system is more similar to Lunar and Grandia in a way with how it moves and what not. It's not that similar to those, but it gives you an idea on how the battle system moves around since it's still very turn based.

If you've been around the thread, you should know I highly recommend the series.

[customspoiler='Maniacal Laughter']
Another potential victim.[/customspoiler]
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[attachment=26997:20170628_230921.jpg]

Feelin' like

giphy-downsized-large.gif

YAAASSSSS! Finally finished Trails in the Sky the 3rd! Though Kevin's conclusion in...I guess you might call it....a resolution? It was fairly bittersweet. But aside from that it was a beautiful conclusion to the Sky arc. If there's one thing that I think Falcom got (as close to) perfect here it's the pacing. There's plenty of story and dialogue but not enough to make you yawn and go "gee when the freak is this cutscene is over already?" Even with the points of all the longer scenes, at least if you didn't want to you could just skip all of those doors spread out through the game's dungeons. Of course, what's the fun in that? We play Trails games for all that tl;dr stuff. At least I do.

The music is fantastic as usual. From sorrow-filled emotion to head-pounding boss themes, this one has it all. Normally I'd post highlights but...here, just listen to the whole thing:

https://youtu.be/tXwaoYjfnRI

Pheria said:
I'm playing through Cold Steel on Vita now(a bit slowly, I'm stuck sharing a car with my wife which leaves me stranded at work very late so I play in the office break room at the end of the day sometimes). I really like how character development focused it is. Unless I spend a day grinding (which I don't think is needed, it's just how I play RPG's typically) pretty much every time I play I'm learning something about someone or they're showing a new side of themselves.

EDIT: Is this the kind of game that has a difficult to obtain True Ending? I'm enjoying not playing with a guide, but I hate situation of playing some games where you miss a true ending flag at the midpoint of a long game and get locked out of it.
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There's no need to worry about the "true ending" issue for Cold Steel. What you will be worrying about is which of the five members of Class VII is best girl. Yes, I said five, hehehe.

Update: I had a feeling July would be the month of CS I PC launch for some weird reason when the announced it awhile back. Anyone wanna bet it's already finished?

 
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I'm looking into Trails in the Sky and it mentions partial controller support. Does anyone have experience using an Xbox or Dualshock controller to play it through Steam? :)

 
Katsumi said:
I'm looking into Trails in the Sky and it mentions partial controller support. Does anyone have experience using an Xbox or Dualshock controller to play it through Steam? :)
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An Xbox 360 Controller should work fine. When it first launched, I know it had issues selecting S-Crafts while out of turn, but in the latest entry (Trails in the Sky the 3rd) it was working fine. So I'm assuming they've fixed that. Other than that I don't recall any issues.

The game was also designed around keyboard and mouse controls, so they actually work really well too.

 
Katsumi said:
I'm looking into Trails in the Sky and it mentions partial controller support. Does anyone have experience using an Xbox or Dualshock controller to play it through Steam? :)
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I have used an Xbox One and a PS4 controller currently in Trails in the Sky. The Xbox One controller works perfectly fine though the PS4 controller needs to be remapped.

 
shosaisyu said:
I guess they haven't put the switch version of nights of azure 2 up yet?
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It's up - http://store.nisamerica.com/nights-of-azure-2-bride-of-the-new-moon-limited-edition-nintendo-switch

I really can't decide which one to get though! Which version are you guys getting?

I want to lean Switch for portability, but since it isn't out yet on Switch in Japan I'm a little worried about how the performance may compare. While portability is nice, I also don't mind playing on console so I think I'm leaning PS4 in the end.

 
Pheria said:
It's up - http://store.nisamerica.com/nights-of-azure-2-bride-of-the-new-moon-limited-edition-nintendo-switch

I really can't decide which one to get though! Which version are you guys getting?

I want to lean Switch for portability, but since it isn't out yet on Switch in Japan I'm a little worried about how the performance may compare. While portability is nice, I also don't mind playing on console so I think I'm leaning PS4 in the end.
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I'm going with PS4, I wanna do the trophies.
 
Yeah, I think I'll stick with PS4. After it releases in Japan if I see a lot "The Switch port is great!" headlines, maybe I'll... Switch. But it seems like the PS4 was the original plan since a Switch port was announced later. Nintendo only seems to really care about the content of games that they themselves are publishing, so I doubt the fanservice or later DLC will differ between the two.

 
Supplice said:
Shigeru Miyamoto Explains Why He Was Initially “Worried” About Super Mario Odyssey
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"Fundamentally, I think that it’s ideal if we can get old characters to do new things. When there is a new game mechanic introduced and there’s a new character that really, really fits well, I think it’s great. But I do have a little bit of hesitancy and resistance when someone’s trying to overbearingly bring their thoughts in, and trying to create new characters over and over again."
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Here is Miyamoto admitting he is the reason Paper Mario started sucking after Super Paper Mario. Reusing old characters is great and all but not when 95% of the game is just Toads.

I think that's the same line we got from Square with the last Chrono Trigger port. I guess a million people buying a game just doesn't have the cred it once had.
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Square is delusional they loved spending unimaginable time on FFXV and now KH3

On that note I'm replaying The World Ends With You and it's as awesome as I remember... oh yeah Square it's the game's 10th anniversary... remember?

 
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