Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

CAGiversary!
Feedback
163 (100%)
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!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
So Everyday Today’s Menu for Emiya Family was released in the US eshop yesterday but I can’t find any reviews for it.  I’m hoping it’s a decent ‘cooking mama’ but kind unsure about spending $50 if it’s not great (like the switch cooking mama).  

 
Bring on the reprints I say. Lol at collectors that hoard their games with extreme vanity over expensive values and don't have the mental fortitude to sell anything anyways. Who cares what your collection "is worth" when you never sell anything; they sound like some old lady bragging about the value of her antiques. The expensive stuff all comes down in value over time anyways because of reprints, digital releases, and HD remasters. No one cares about the expensive prices of PS1 Suikoden 2 anymore for instance; you can simply buy the game digitally and no modest person is going to spend that kind of money.

That was sweet 8 years ago when I was able to pick up all those newly pressed Shin Megami Tensei games on PS2 for like $19.99 apiece.
Hmm, you've really got me wondering now.

I have a near mint copy of Haunting Ground on PS2 PLUS the strategy guide!

The value has been climbing crazily lately and I wonder if I should move it before it gets an official reprint...

 
So Everyday Today’s Menu for Emiya Family was released in the US eshop yesterday but I can’t find any reviews for it. I’m hoping it’s a decent ‘cooking mama’ but kind unsure about spending $50 if it’s not great (like the switch cooking mama).
Is that fate stay kitchen?
 
Hmm, you've really got me wondering now.

I have a near mint copy of Haunting Ground on PS2 PLUS the strategy guide!

The value has been climbing crazily lately and I wonder if I should move it before it gets an official reprint...
if Haunting Ground ever gets a reprint it will be by Limited Run, other than that I can't see it happening.

 
Hmm, you've really got me wondering now.

I have a near mint copy of Haunting Ground on PS2 PLUS the strategy guide!

The value has been climbing crazily lately and I wonder if I should move it before it gets an official reprint...
Wow, you weren't kidding. It's going for $300 for a complete copy on ebay. I got my copy nearly for free (+ shipping) years ago from Listia

But no I see no reason for a reprint, it was never popular and never got a sequel or anything. If capcom decides to reboot or port the game though I can see the price going down

 
It's funny to me when people won't spend money on things like the Dragon Quest DS games when they get as cheap as $19.99-$24.99. Then suddenly everyone wants them really badly again as soon as they're $90+ on Amazon. These people don't support buying new games when they get cheap (like most of us here do) but then freak out when the values rise. It's all quite ridiculous.

That's the whole purpose of this thread. If you miss out then you miss out. You have only yourself to blame. Like me failing to buy Persona Q2. People aren't going to suddenly give you a deal on one of these rare OOP games when you're valuing your own things at $100-$300 apiece. You can often buy digital instead too.

If there's something you want to buy then you can sell a rare game in order to buy a rare game.

Hmm, you've really got me wondering now.

I have a near mint copy of Haunting Ground on PS2 PLUS the strategy guide!

The value has been climbing crazily lately and I wonder if I should move it before it gets an official reprint...
Yeah why wouldn't you sell something like that.

If you're ever going to play a survival horror game its going to be something much more modern anyways, unless you play a ton of them.

 
Digital won't be for too much longer as the 3ds and wiiu stores will close sooner than later. It will definitely cause pq1 to skyrocket in price given that they are already rarer to get a working copy. Even if the copy does work it's prone to failure later.

Pq2 wise I regret not getting the ce for it with kuro plush. I really regret waiting too long on Ys9 ce. I wanted that one because of the design being so good.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Digital is shit, specifically buying classic titles from Nintendo or Sony.  The point is there are alternatives to having to shell out $200+ cash for rare games much of the time.  Acquiring an expensive game isn't a problem as long as you're willing to part with something else.  The real issue is that people are hoarders, and primarily concerned with what their own games are worth.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Some people are just cheap for sure. I remember saying people were lucky to be seeing DQ8 for $10 or $20 or whatever it was for 3DS. I think I got it at $30 or so and thought it was a decent enough deal. I generally support games I really want and get other games depending when they're in the $25 dollars or less realm, just talking niche games here. Other games I'll wait for full packages with all DLC for around the $15-$20 mark. I generally do the opposite and buy too many niche games and have a harder time playing them because of the time commitments mainly for RPGs. I also play many rogue anything games, which require time commitments to win. This leads to me now saying am I really going to play some Iffy RPG or some game I got for $10 with middling reviews, or just try to sell them for hopefully some money. If the system is already out of production I can get a good idea for the value of the games. It all comes down to the too many games with too little time, which leads to me culling my collection now and then hopefully for some value. In summary I'm super guilty of buying niche physical releases cheap, never playing them and eventually donating or selling them depending on the prices.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just finished watching it. A bit annoyed they had the times a bit off and backers have not received their pledge items yet but at least there was a show for 2021. It was really good. 

 
It's funny to me when people won't spend money on things like the Dragon Quest DS games when they get as cheap as $19.99-$24.99. Then suddenly everyone wants them really badly again as soon as they're $90+ on Amazon. These people don't support buying new games when they get cheap (like most of us here do) but then freak out when the values rise. It's all quite ridiculous.
I remember the days when games would actually hit under 50% off... and you could actually walk into a store/go to the website and find it in stock for more than 3 seconds. These days, it seems like everything is YMMV.

 
Yeah niche games once they reach around $25-30 if you're lucky prices should be picked up soon. Around that price point they usually sell out and very likely wont get another print run unless it's from a popular series. I haven't got anything good on clearance in ages. 

 
The days of walking into a random K-Mart or Sears and getting random rare games for $3 ...

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah niche games once they reach around $25-30 if you're lucky prices should be picked up soon. Around that price point they usually sell out and very likely wont get another print run unless it's from a popular series. I haven't got anything good on clearance in ages.
Crazy as it sounds, if you want it new, that price range is starting to be true for even some of the bigger budget games.
 
I got some solid GameStop deals back in the day.

Opened box, but like new condition Steel Battalion controller + the game was still new and sealed for about $30 was one of the best.

Most stores had Steel Battalion used, but almost none of them followed the instructions that the controller was required for trade-ins so they all had discs only. I found one store in another state that said they had the controller and it was like new, but they lost the game. They were okay shipping it to my local store. It was $49.99, which was still a great price just for the controller but by the time it arrived GameStop was also doing 35% off used original Xbox games, so it came out to about $30. The game was new, unopened under a cardboard flap at the bottom of the box. I guess they didn't think to look under it.

 
I got some solid GameStop deals back in the day.

Opened box, but like new condition Steel Battalion controller + the game was still new and sealed for about $30 was one of the best.

Most stores had Steel Battalion used, but almost none of them followed the instructions that the controller was required for trade-ins so they all had discs only. I found one store in another state that said they had the controller and it was like new, but they lost the game. They were okay shipping it to my local store. It was $49.99, which was still a great price just for the controller but by the time it arrived GameStop was also doing 35% off used original Xbox games, so it came out to about $30. The game was new, unopened under a cardboard flap at the bottom of the box. I guess they didn't think to look under it.
fuck me, this post brings pain. When I was in college, I saw a copy at a GS boxed for $30 but couldn't afford it. It was in really nice shape and thinking about it now, was prob a new to used convert. It sat there for two weeks before someone else bought it. This was during the peak panic of the 07/08 recession and I was terrified to spend any money since all my job prospects were gone, I had a ton of student debt and was entering my last semester to graduate.

 
Wow, you weren't kidding. It's going for $300 for a complete copy on ebay. I got my copy nearly for free (+ shipping) years ago from Listia

But no I see no reason for a reprint, it was never popular and never got a sequel or anything. If capcom decides to reboot or port the game though I can see the price going down
Jesus. That made me check Rule of Rose, and it's like $600+.

Pretty sure I got both for under $10 each. FYE had like 3 copies of Rule of Rose too. Oh, regrets.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Lately I've been trying to play through my backlog and figure out which games I want to play and which ones I should just get rid of and not waste my time on.

Back at the end of September I bought Destiny Connect : Tick-Tock Travelers on Switch over at gamefly for just over $21 new after tax and finally got around to playing it over the past week.  I didn't intend to play it to the end, but ended up doing just that.

It would have been easy to be put off by the playschool toy like graphics of the main characters, the way the tutorial is built into the first chapter or two (which is pretty hand holding), and the requirement to change the camera to be more usable not being obvious...  but it picks up pretty quick with throwing you into increasing level of difficulty battles and gets really good.  It's rarely too hard if you use some strategy... though that's not to say it's overly easy.  The way your one character that isn't allowed to die (or game over) can transform during it's move (without that costing a move) added a lot of depth as each transformation had it's own set of moves and specials and keeping him alive took priority (even though a game over just means either start the battle over or load a save... so not  a huge penalty).  Overall despite the few things the game does that are questionable... it turned out fantastic.  Just over 16h to beat the story which sounds short but it was chock full of content and I didn't stop to smell the roses or level grind... just kept moving forward with the story to see what happened next.   Really there's no need to level grind as I ended up max level before the final boss even with using fast travel where I could and running past some of the enemies that roam around.  The story has enough twists and kept me hooked as I traveled through time.  Heck it almost got a tear from my eye during one moment in the game.. and that's super rare for me to get emotional over a videogame.   The enemy animations are truly excellent with all manner of machine come to life (mostly appliances and household stuff).  Really, I have to recommend this as a hidden gem if you at all like turn based rpg's and super japanese quirkiness.  YES it's not perfect, but give it a few hours and it's charm kicks in.   It was a solid journey and it had some clear homages to Doctor Who, Back to The Future, as well as some other time travel material... though without just directly copying anything.

I would lean towards the switch version over the PS4... just because the PS4 version has a platinum and that platinum requires a lot of grinding.  The switch version doesn't have trophies so I didn't feel that need to grind since it wouldn't add anything much to the game and I had only a few problems beating it without maxing everyones abilities.   Enemies are all visible on screen.  You can run past them if they aren't looking at you and if you are far enough away they ignore you.  So... you aren't locked into doing every single battle on your path.  I found that refreshing as the roaming enemies do respawn.   One thing people might complain about is the loading.  On Switch it has a very short load after each battle (a few seconds at most) and then beyond that it loads when you change areas or go in or out of buildings.  There are very few buildings to go in... and the loading didn't take long enough to really bother me.  I don't know how it is on ps4.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Jesus. That made me check Rule of Rose, and it's like $600+.

Pretty sure I got both for under $10 each. FYE had like 3 copies of Rule of Rose too. Oh, regrets.
Games from the sixth generation (PS2, GC, XB) seem to be hitting the nostalgia bus, which is prob being exponentially impacted by COVID game demand. Pains me to think that those console came out 20 years ago. :oldman:

Kuon is another PS2 game that's gone nuts in value.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Picked up persona 5 strikers ps4 for 10.79 after the voucher at gamefly. Figured for that price it was worth a try. That and I missed the boat on Ys 9 when it was on sale briefly. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Not gonna lie... I'm getting pretty frustrated with my habit of actually opening games but never getting around to playing them. Most of my older games I bought used, but I've opened and not played several 3DS, PS4 and other games. (and a couple Vita). If I had just sat on them some of them could have gotten a nice profit.
 
Picked up persona 5 strikers ps4 for 10.79 after the voucher at gamefly. Figured for that price it was worth a try. That and I missed the boat on Ys 9 when it was on sale briefly.
Its def more persona than say dynasty warriors, early on I was doing hack and slash alot, but later on it's easier to use skill to pop enemy weakness then all out attack, like how in persona game, later on you rarely use the "attack" command.
 
Not gonna lie... I'm getting pretty frustrated with my habit of actually opening games but never getting around to playing them. Most of my older games I bought used, but I've opened and not played several 3DS, PS4 and other games. (and a couple Vita). If I had just sat on them some of them could have gotten a nice profit.
I typically only open games to either play them or for switch games if within that first year of launch, get the gold coins. There have been a few games where there were issues, and it was good to verify I had working copies but that's very rare. I still have quite a few DS, 3DS, Switch, Vita, and PS4 games sealed. Some I'll surely just end up selling off. Like my copy of Solotorobo and Nostalgia on DS. My Dragon Quest DS/3DS stuff... I plan to open most of it unless I have a duplicate (sometimes I would buy a second copy for my kids to play as the games go cheap so my saves are safe).

 
Not gonna lie... I'm getting pretty frustrated with my habit of actually opening games but never getting around to playing them. Most of my older games I bought used, but I've opened and not played several 3DS, PS4 and other games. (and a couple Vita). If I had just sat on them some of them could have gotten a nice profit.
Not the same thing but after some posts/tweets of people who opened their LRG games and found damaged contents inside (even though external box was fine), a couple of us over at the LRG thread were saying how LRG could easily be packaging up damaged items into their games and sending them off, and because so many people never open them (myself included), they'll never know they're sitting on damaged items. Granted, this is prob pretty uncommon iwith established publishers but still, at lease you know you got an undamaged manual, case and game disc/cart.

And on the other side, as long as the game is still complete and in good shape, you'll still get a decent bit of money from it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
LRG could easily be packaging up damaged items into their games and sending them off, and because so many people never open them (myself included), they'll never know they're sitting on damaged items.
This is probably a big problem with anything they published for a Nintendo system since they have a 3rd party packing company actually putting the games together. Sony at least does all this for the actual vanilla games... but Nintendo just ships the carts and it's up to the publisher to handle packaging. That's why so many Nintendo Switch games end up with messed up art that is damaged, offset, or just handled terribly... as well as Special/Limited Editions for any system as those are 3rd party packed and they just don't take the same care as someone who actually buys and cares about this stuff. To the workers, it's just a job.

 
I typically only open games to either play them or for switch games if within that first year of launch, get the gold coins. There have been a few games where there were issues, and it was good to verify I had working copies but that's very rare. I still have quite a few DS, 3DS, Switch, Vita, and PS4 games sealed. Some I'll surely just end up selling off. Like my copy of Solotorobo and Nostalgia on DS. My Dragon Quest DS/3DS stuff... I plan to open most of it unless I have a duplicate (sometimes I would buy a second copy for my kids to play as the games go cheap so my saves are safe).
I usually open all my games, even if to just pop it into my system for a few minutes - just to confirm that it's working. I know the odds are small that a new game disc or cartridge is defective, just booting it up and taking it for a short spin at least gives me some comfort that I don't own a dud. My problem lately is that I've started to pick up cheap new/preowned bluray movies, and I've realized I'm hardly checking those. Ugh. And yes, I know this is one of the "problems" of going the physical-media route as opposed to digital.

 
This is probably a big problem with anything they published for a Nintendo system since they have a 3rd party packing company actually putting the games together. Sony at least does all this for the actual vanilla games... but Nintendo just ships the carts and it's up to the publisher to handle packaging. That's why so many Nintendo Switch games end up with messed up art that is damaged, offset, or just handled terribly... as well as Special/Limited Editions for any system as those are 3rd party packed and they just don't take the same care as someone who actually buys and cares about this stuff. To the workers, it's just a job.
I was more speaking about the special editions that LRG makes... Sony/Nintendo makes the games, but random companies make everything else and LRG ultimate packs/seals them.

 
I was more speaking about the special editions that LRG makes... Sony/Nintendo makes the games, but random companies make everything else and LRG ultimate packs/seals them.
Switch games (same for 3DS) come cart only from Nintendo and those too are packed by the third party packing company which LRG has contracted for the work. So you've got some lower wage workers that I'd bet most of which aren't gamers and don't care at all about game conditions putting together standard switch games and the special/limited editions.

 
Switch games (same for 3DS) come cart only from Nintendo and those too are packed by the third party packing company which LRG has contracted for the work. So you've got some lower wage workers that I'd bet most of which aren't gamers and don't care at all about game conditions putting together standard switch games and the special/limited editions.
Oh you literally meant the cart is all Nintendo makes... wow, I had no idea. That explains why so many of my sealed NS and 3DS games look like shit....

 
I wish I could say I was excited for this but Monark is just not doing it for me. Maybe once it gets closer it might change my mind but did we really need another JRPG that takes place in school.....? I understand it is required by law for anime to be set in a school, an Isekai, or both but games had far more freedom *said as a fan of school based anime*.

 
Oh you literally meant the cart is all Nintendo makes... wow, I had no idea. That explains why so many of my sealed NS and 3DS games look like shit....
Exactly. It was this was for DS as well as other Nintendo systems. It makes me think back when I was a teen (NES days) and someone mentioned they had a relative that worked at Nintendo packing games... they really meant they worked for a game packing company that handled games for the NES that was likely contracted by one of the 3rd party publishers (or maybe even under contract by Nintendo themselves). It all makes sense now.... kid wasn't just spinning yarn about what his relative did. I stumbled on this whole cart shipping thing years ago when I followed the development of an indie DS game that got published. Dude explained the whole process, how the games came as carts, and then how he had to pack them all himself. It makes sense too when you hear about game carts getting dumped by publishers that didn't sell... they are cart only in every case because the game didn't sell well enough to spend the money to have them packed for retail.

Anyway, it's cool to share this info... and yes it makes more sense why Nintendo stuff (mostly 3rd parties) varies in quality of how it's packed.

 
There are still good games to play.  There are.  But does anyone else feel like the overall catalogue quality of JRPGs has  decreased lately?   Seems like a lot of spiritless Iffi stuff and low-effort Bandai Namco PS4-era games to me.  Plus several dungeon crawlers and visual novels with low production value that are easy to develop. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
There are still good games to play. There are. But does anyone else feel like the overall catalogue quality of JRPGs has decreased lately? Seems like a lot of spiritless Iffi stuff and low-effort Bandai Namco PS4-era games to me. Plus several dungeon crawlers and visual novels with low production value that are easy to develop.
I’ve felt like that since about midway through the 6th console generation.
 
There are still good games to play. There are. But does anyone else feel like the overall catalogue quality of JRPGs has decreased lately? Seems like a lot of spiritless Iffi stuff and low-effort Bandai Namco PS4-era games to me. Plus several dungeon crawlers and visual novels with low production value that are easy to develop.
I feel starting around the 3DS/Vita era which is close to the end of PS3 start of PS4 era we started getting flooded with a large mixture of good RPGs, a few great ones, many derivative ones, and just a lot of them. This is when Kemco started pumping out RPGS, Iffy was already doing a lot of okay to decent RPGs, Tales of games could be mixed quality (Zestria), Bamco releasing lots of anime action games and RPGs of mixed quality which bleed into their other series like God Eater, S-E released probably one of my least favorite FFs in FFXV, NISA was just pumping out stuff mainly dungeon crawlers and those simpler horror/puzzle type games, and yeah it's just a large glut of games that are alright. In those years I'd say the great RPGs might be FF7R (I think it's alright but I stopped playing when the PS5 version was announced so I'll finish it sometime this year), Cold Steel games, Persona 5/5r, Tales of Beseria (didn't play much so no opinion), and one of my personal favorite Dungeon Travelers 2 (easily my favorite dungeon crawler of the last few years). I don't feel like much of an RPG player anymore because I get so bored right away with newer games. The stories and characters fail to impress me early on so I forget about them and don't want to play them anymore. I get bored of lots of battles, such as my most recent playing of Exist Archive, and the stories just really don't resonate with me anymore. Too many are power of friendship, super baddie needs to be taken out, and super crazy powered teammates that are not like anyone else. These are just my opinions, but I'm strongly considering just selling about 80% of my RPG collection since I feel a lot just isn't exciting me anymore. I own loads of Iffy, NISA, Atlus and other RPGs, and I'm not really sure I want to play them. I will give them a try before selling unless the game is like worth $400 or something new. That I'd likely just sell.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
It takes awhile for a console (library) to mature so I usually give it until the end of the cycle. That's when we pick up all of our clearance jp games too.

I was looking through amazon listings and recommendations which is what made me think of this again. There just isn't very much niche last-gen stuff worth picking up, which is crazy.

In those years I'd say the great RPGs might be FF7R (I think it's alright but I stopped playing when the PS5 version was announced so I'll finish it sometime this year),
Me too. In fact it's installing right now!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
There are still good games to play. There are. But does anyone else feel like the overall catalogue quality of JRPGs has decreased lately? Seems like a lot of spiritless Iffi stuff and low-effort Bandai Namco PS4-era games to me. Plus several dungeon crawlers and visual novels with low production value that are easy to develop.
I'm super picky when it comes to RPG's... but this gen has been stellar for me... with the DQ and Xenoblade series alone. I loved Destiny Connect though I could see that flying under most people's radars. It just ticked a lot of boxes for me, and I took the gamble. Mario Golf in a couple weeks has an rpg/career mode. I'll be playing the hell out of that.

Maybe you are just getting more bothered that your taste has refined? There's only so much time to game... play only what you love the most. Let the rest go.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I forgot about DQ11 really good. I am now of the strategy where if I'm bored, fall asleep (has happened before!), losing my attention playing the game, yawning, or just kind of I've seen this before I quit it. I don't think about the money and if possible I'll recoup. It's better than wasting my time on something I'm not crazy about, of which you can never buy more time. I do love my Mario sports RPG games of which I enjoyed the tennis on the GBA I think it was. I also enjoyed the Mario Golf on 3DS for a bit. Likely will get the newer entry sometime during the year. I have other stuff to play, but some time will be the right time for it. Just like Hot Shots Golf games, I generally enjoy the Mario Golf games. I mean this mentality doesn't only apply to games but books, movies and tv shows, and even stuff like music. I think I'm just more in tune with the fact that it's better to try to spend time doing what you enjoy instead of trying to enjoy things that just don't jive with you.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
As someone who never liked DQ at all (in fact I'd say I straight up hate some of the games) DQ11 totally blew me away, probably my favorite more traditional JRPG of the PS4 generation. Picked it up for like $7 when my family video was going out of business and am really glad I gave it a chance.

 
Received a notice today that vgp has a (much needed) new website.  I first thought the email was bogus but they kick you some reward points for activating an old account on the new site.

Also, just a warning.  Apparently the FFVIIR dlc has something pretty spoilery.  I wasn't onguard and was just listening to some friends discuss the dlc, which I plan to play later.  But yeah, if anyone is also waiting - careful with this one.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Received a notice today that vgp has a (much needed) new website. I first thought the email was bogus but they kick you some reward points for activating an old account on the new site.

Also, just a warning. Apparently the FFVIIR dlc has something pretty spoilery. I wasn't onguard and was just listening to some friends discuss the dlc, which I plan to play later. But yeah, if anyone is also waiting - careful with this one.
I only came here to post that I already have a shipping notice from the Iffy sale, so that’s great turnaround time.

I can’t imagine what kind of spoilers exist for a 20 year old game, but you’ve got me curious now. Then again my memory of the plot in general has probably also deteriorated over that time. Maybe I’ll start the remake tonight before abandoning it tomorrow when my R&C shows up.
 
bread's done
Back
Top