Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

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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I haven't done this in awhile, since I haven't played a lot of really niche games for awhile. So there's usually enough info before I had enough info to chime in.

So I've been playing Labyrinth of Refrain since it came out. No one's really talking about it.

Not really spoilery, just spoilering for people who don't care.

I'm now on the third dungeon, so I feel like I have enough of a grasp than just early impressions.

It's not a bad game at all. I don't think I'd call it great, but the response of most people that has played it seems to be positive. But I play a lot of dungeon crawlers, so...

The good:

- Graphics are good. This is like what you would expect for current gen visual novel format. Probably a slight edge better than Persona 5's.

- It has a lot of quality-of-life upgrades from other dungeon crawlers. Holding X moves you forward through barriers and doors, without making you stop. You can select an action on any number of units and auto-battle on everyone else. You can (sort of) exit the dungeon at any time through multiple mechanics. The game isn't over if your party wipes. And probably a lot of other things I'm forgetting.

- The dungeons have character. The first dungeon is fairly generic, but the second one is definitely not something you'd normally see. You're essentially a giant, and can go over short walls, while enemies can't. It's a fun idea.

- There are multiple solutions. There's like 3-4 different ways to reach the boss in the second dungeon, for example, e.g. you can be nice to the citizens of the second dungeon and avoid one path, or plow through them. It's up to you.

- There's a lot of soul to the story, but nothing ground breaking.

- Monsters on maps are (mostly) visible.

- Critical gore. It's a neat mechanic. Some critical hits can cause you or the enemy to lose appendages. Some's permanent until you leave the dungeon. Like, if you lose your head, they're incapacitated til they're repaired. They also lose parts if your party wipes, which is the small(ish) punishment versus a traditional game-over.

- The charisma stat. Low charisma = more likely to be targetted. Although some enemies target high charisma instead. It mostly works very well.

- Party formation. Doesn't have to be 3 up front / 3 behind, like most games. You can have 1 up front, 4 behind, or all in front, if you want it. Specific formations do give bonuses though.

The middle:

- Breakable walls. Both a good and a bad. Good, because it lets you through rooms you don't have keys for (sometimes), or to make shortcuts. Bad, because it makes the dungeon layout kinda contrived.

- The number of party members. Having more characters means more attacks, means longer battle animations.

- Getting bonuses based on your party formation.

The bad:

- Each class only has 3 male and 3 female portraits at start. You can unlock at least 1 more, but it still means you'll probably have identical portraits if you get like 30 party members.

- Each character slot is actually a group of 1-6 members. The item to create groups determines what skills the group uses. If you want to use a specific character's skill, you have to use limited resources to do so. It limits your party a lot more than you're led to believe. E.g. you have to have a item to create a group to cast magic or heals. So having a "healer" or even a party of healers depends more on the item that pre-determines your group than the character make up.

- There a very complicated system for a lot of things, but you don't need to actually understand them that well. You'll 95% of the time just auto-attack. You don't have a choice not to, because you have limited resources to do anything else.

- The game is very anti-exploring. Even though you can break walls, stepping out of where you should be will cause you to meet stuff that's like 50 levels too high. And you won't know this til you wipe. After doing that 2-3 times, you just don't bother exploring so much.

- Another anti-exploring is that once you gather mana past the cap of the dungeon, really strong enemies spawn, and you pretty much have to leave. Which is a very artificial way of making you have to go back to town.

- There's also a lot of locked chests, a lot of different keys, and no easy way to tell from the map if it's something you have a key for.

- The dungeon and the outside story doesn't always connect. It's like key points in the dungeon triggers the outside story to advance, but then they're not connected half the time. Sometimes they do, and those are charming.

- The alchemy system unlocks pretty deep into the game. There's no indication of when, and it doesn't explain the details really well. And it's not til you unlock the last part of the alchemy system, that it tells you the mechanic of the downside of an ability you've had since the start of a game. So you kinda screw yourself because the game never told you.

- There's a lot of seemingly useless mechanics. Surprise attacks don't seem to do anything special most of the time. It stuns them from acting, some times? They usually still move before you, with no noticeable difference for the most part.

All in all, if you don't play a lot of Etrian Odyssey because it's too hard, or it doesn't have enough of a story, or it's too retro, but want to play a dungeon crawler, probably try this one. If you're me (or probably Draekon and nitro), who plays a lot of other dungeon crawlers, it probably doesn't offer anything superior.

 
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Souffrir said:
You got ripped off.
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I’m assuming you didn’t like the game much huh?

I use to have the Vita version and really enjoyed what I played. I played about an hour of the Switch version today and was having fun, despite already playing that part of the game. So I’m happy with my purchase.
 
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Supplice said:
The Charming Booth Ladies of Tokyo Game Show 2018
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Acceptable.

DSC_0114.jpg

 
nagpo said:
1/2 hero is one of the weaker games. for me it's 3>1>4=2 .
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I wish they remastered 3 with the sprite work done in half genie hero, that would be awesome. That said, both 2 and 4 should be higher then 1.... the original gbc game is showing it's age.

 
Markmallow said:
I’m assuming you didn’t like the game much huh?

I use to have the Vita version and really enjoyed what I played. I played about an hour of the Switch version today and was having fun, despite already playing that part of the game. So I’m happy with my purchase.
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It's easily the worst game in the series. The level design is just incredibly haphazard, the metroidvania elements seem positively tacked on, and the only challenge is achieved through a few cheap sections. The writing is stale and the jokes are pretty much plagiarized wholesale from previous entries. There's no interesting character development compared to the story in previous entries, either. None of these are cardinal sins in and of themselves, but together they make for an incredibly weak experience. Literally the only thing it has going for it is being the first HD entry.
 
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Souffrir said:
It's easily the worst game in the series. The level design is just incredibly haphazard, the metroidvania elements seem positively tacked on, and the only challenge is achieved through a few cheap sections. The writing is stale and the jokes are pretty much plagiarized wholesale from previous entries. There's no interesting character development compared to the story in previous entries, either. None of these are cardinal sins in and of themselves, but together they make for an incredibly weak experience. Literally the only thing it has going for it is being the first HD entry.
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I guess it helps that I’ve never played any of the previous games. Maybe if I would have played some of them I wouldn’t like this game as much.

I can respect your opinion, especially coming from someone who’s played all the games. Honestly, makes me really want to try the other games if this really is the worst one.
 
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Markmallow said:
I guess it helps that I’ve never played any of the previous games. Maybe if I would have played some of them I wouldn’t like this game as much.

I can respect your opinion, especially coming from someone who’s played all the games. Honestly, makes me really want to try the other games if this really is the worst one.
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As a second opinion I thought it was great and have liked them all pretty equally.
 
https://twitter.com/SpikeChunsoft_e/status/1044666937194631169
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IJyQ3x4g8I
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyXq0J9aIXA

 
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Uffff, you're killing me, Spike Chunsoft. Exclusive content for both versions? The collector in me can't settle for just one, not with exclusive content as an incentive.

 
Richard Kain said:
Uffff, you're killing me, Spike Chunsoft. Exclusive content for both versions? The collector in me can't settle for just one, not with exclusive content as an incentive.
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The trophy-hunter in me has to go with the PS4 version, as Linear Bounded Phenogram should have a full trophy list with separate platinum.

 
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Vigilante said:
The trophy-hunter in me has to go with the PS4 version, as Linear Bounded Phenogram should have a full trophy list with separate platinum.
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Same here. I also have the other collectors edition through the Vita so might as well keep with the same company.
 
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Vigilante said:
The trophy-hunter in me has to go with the PS4 version, as Linear Bounded Phenogram should have a full trophy list with separate platinum.
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What is this Linear Bounded Phenogram that’s exclusive to the PS4 version? Is it like a whole separate game? I’ve never heard of it and only thought there was Steins Gate and Steins Gate 0.
 
taken from the CE thread:

Mobiletortoise said:
Just a heads up on the exclusives, The PS4 is getting an HD remaster of the 2013 game "Linear Bounded Phenogram"

While the Switch version is getting a newly developed game, Stein's;Gate 8-bit, which is apparently an adventure game done in an old school famicom style.
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10 % off fanatical bundles coupon code.
b6Rmn49V5QfkrbNkN4G

Not sure if you can use it on valkyria chronicles 4 or not but they already have that 20% off so assuming you can that would make it 30% off basically.

 
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Thanks for reminding me i have to go get my VC4 Memoirs Edition. Too bad they didnt have a standing figure. My VC1 collectors edition had Alicia and the Edelweiss.
 
 
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I'm really quite happy to see that Yokai Watch 3 for the 3DS will be coming stateside finally!  February is only a little over 4 months away.

 
I was busy yesterday, so I never was able to get around to post this:

Upcoming October PS+ Games

:ps4: Friday the 13th: The Game

:ps4: Laser League

:ps3: Master Reboot

:ps3: The Bridge (Cross-Buy with :ps4: :vita:)

:vita: Rocketbirds 2: Evolution (Cross-Buy with :ps4:)

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The only thread relevant title in October will really be 2064 Read Only Memories.

 
 
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Man, I finally played a western game for a change and my brain kept telling me that's it's an alternate P4 universe where Yoskue is dating Rise and has spider powers.

 
So is the Capcom Beat-em Up Collection only getting a physical edition in Japan/Asia?  I would really hate to import it only to find out a US version is being released that I could get with my GCU discount.

 
Olengie said:
Yes. JPN/Asia
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Not that I doubt you but this is the first time I hear about an Asian copy. I'm excited at the prospect of it having full English support too (one can hope). But anyway I can't find it on Play-asia. Mind linking to an announcement of sorts?

 
itzd4n said:
I didn't even realize this was Olengie cause ya changed your avatar
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I'll be going back to my previous avatar after Bowsette hype dies. :lol:

denpanosekai said:
Not that I doubt you but this is the first time I hear about an Asian copy. I'm excited at the prospect of it having full English support too (one can hope). But anyway I can't find it on Play-asia. Mind linking to an announcement of sorts?
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There might not be an Asian Release, but it's likely. I'm willing to bet that the JPN Version will be like previous Capcom releases where the game will auto detect your region and give you the English version much like DMC4SE, Okami, and Darkstalkers Resurrection. Just have to wait till the game actually comes out in December to confirm.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/09/17/capcom-beat-em-up-bundle-physical-editions-japan/

https://www.play-asia.com/search/capcom+belt?tagid=1248773

 
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Olengie said:
I'll be going back to my previous avatar after Bowsette hype dies. :lol:

There might not be an Asian Release, but it's likely. I'm willing to bet that the JPN Version will be like previous Capcom releases where the game will auto detect your region and give you the English version much like DMC4SE, Okami, and Darkstalkers Resurrection. Just have to wait till the game actually comes out in December to confirm.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/09/17/capcom-beat-em-up-bundle-physical-editions-japan/

https://www.play-asia.com/search/capcom+belt?tagid=1248773
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Darkstalkers Resurrection isn't full English, battle quotes and ending are still in Japanese

 
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