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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shadowysea07 said:
I read that zero and azure are getting ps4 ports. Maybe we'll get lucky and an asian engrish release will happen.
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I let out a small giggle reading this. I've played the fan translation of Zero and look forward to the Geofront release. Azure is supposed to have a pretty great translation already, but it would be nice to see these on PS4 with trophies. I like the idea of them on my shelf next to the others.

 
Great news all around.  And yes, azure's existing translation is pretty decent.  Probably why the geofront project focused on zero, which really needed it.  I found Ao to be a much better game, though translation quality was a factor in that experience i'm sure. 

Also I'm holding out hope that we get a localized zero/ao ps4 remaster through nisa.  In past intervews, the falcom president responded to questions about the crossbell game's localization and responded with "maybe a full 3d remake" in the future.

 
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62t said:
Some nice price drop at Best Buy/Amazon, AI: The Somnium Files, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II PS4, and Senran Kagura Peach Ball are $29.99 each
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Steins;gate Elite for NSW is marked as clearance at Best Buy for $29.99. Same price on PS4, but no clearance tag. Makes it $23.99 if you still have GCU.
 
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Tokyo Mirage Sessions is out mid January. I picked up the Wii U version, but never opened it. Anyone have an opinion to offer on it?
 
tms is really solid.  if you can stomach constant jpop idol stuff.  I felt like it was really underappreciated on wii-u and hope more people enjoy it this time around.

 
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It's a solid Atlus JRPG that mostly pulls from SMT and Persona. The physical attack types are replaced with the Fire Emblem weapons triangle but otherwise it's the usual battle system. Attacking weaknesses can trigger follow up attacks, and then during long combos you can use a special attack which plays a short version of the songs sung by the idols.

I had a lot of fun especially coming off Persona 4 and waiting for the Winter 2014 Persona 5 release. 

 
Biggest negative in general is that the combat takes too long otherwise people are mostly positive about it though it drops the ball at being a cross over like originally intended.  But given the dev nightmare it was I can't fault it.

 
For TMS, especially with the bosses, it felt like you either had to overlevel or do the fight the "right way" (i.e. use the characters/skills it wants you to use) to win. That took a lot of the fun out of the combat for me. I like being able to choose my characters and play around a bit.

The story was fun, though like others have mentioned it leans pretty heavily into j-pop/idol tropes. Music is pretty good and different for a JRPG, which makes sense given that theming.

There's some outfit and content censorship, which you may or may not care about. There's an article about it here. It's still applicable since the enhanced version is based on the censored version.

Overall it's not a bad game, but I don't know that I'd recommend it over other recent JRPGs.

 
The story covers all aspects of the Japanese entertainment industry: movies, live performances, TV shows, recording, etc. The 2nd chapter was a 17 (and soon to be introduced 16) year old girl being sent do do gravure (sexy bikini) photos. The boss lady is a former model and sent her to work with the guy who did one of her famous photoshoots. It was changed to general modeling and the related bikini outfit was replaced with a fashion outfit. Some clothing edits were also made and a hot springs DLC was removed.

It all happened during peak crying over Nintendo having content standards on first party published games so more attention was paid to the changes than the actual game content. 

 
I’d say TMS is one of the best jrpgs I’ve ever played from a gameplay perspective. It’s a little easier than your normal SMT fare, but that’s only because SMT is known for harsh difficulty spikes while Id say this is overall a perfectly balanced game. A game where grinding is never required even on the hardest difficulty is always a plus for me.. Going from hard mode to lunatic mode was a delight as the same strategies do not work and you come to a greater understanding of the battle system. The game also encourages you to utilize your full party which was also a breath of fresh air in a jrpg.

The battles ending up being too long is a fair complaint towards the end due to how the battle system is designed as well as end game skill composition isn’t as varied as you would think it would be considering how much the game opens up during mid game
 
Fanatical Star Deal: GalGun pack(includes Galgun double peace and Galgun 2) - $15

In other news, I got a switch! Yay.

Got Astral Chain and Fire Emblem 3 houses.

Gonna get TMS when it comes out. Still miffed about the censorship though. At least fix the wedding dress, geez.

 
It was hilarious that the Japanese version of TMS skyrocketed in sales on Amazon after they announced the new Switch release will be the censored localization.
 
I wouldn't say it's ridiculous, but it's very niche. I like getting these games super cheap digitally myself, but I would get cheap copies as well. PQube tends to license a lot of games others wouldn't touch, so I reward them with buying what I think looks interesting.

 
I mean, I have the physical copy of the photographer on an island game, and that's probably more ridiculous.

NIbXnex.gif

 
I got the Japanese edition of gun gun pixies because it reminded me of Mr. Mosquito on ps2 kinda & I like obscure/niche Japanese games. Also neptune is in it.

ah damm i forgot all about importing that photography island game. At the time prices were high.
 
Megadimension Neptunia VII is on sale for $2.99 with ps+ on the playstation store

Is the game worth it if you only played spin-off nepneps?

Edit: Bought it anyways. May play it one day.
 
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The only spin-off similar in gameplay to any of the mainline Neptunia games would be Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls

VII stands for Victory 2, continuing a couple plotlines from Rebirth 3/Victory but anything you need to know gets explained. There are a couple of missable events early on that lock you out of the true ending. There was a remake released later on called VIIR where it removes DLC characters with actual game company names but also only has the true ending.

The short version of Rebirth 2 is Nepgear rescues her sister Neptune and the other CPUs from the physical manifestation of piracy (Arfoire.)  Rebirth 3/Victory sees Neptune warped back into the 80s, experiencing the console war through 2005 from the Japanese perspective. It was from a pocket dimension where time flowed faster so it only took a couple of days in the home dimension. 

 
bappt said:
The only spin-off similar in gameplay to any of the mainline Neptunia games would be Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls

VII stands for Victory 2, continuing a couple plotlines from Rebirth 3/Victory but anything you need to know gets explained. There are a couple of missable events early on that lock you out of the true ending. There was a remake released later on called VIIR where it removes DLC characters with actual game company names but also only has the true ending.

The short version of Rebirth 2 is Nepgear rescues her sister Neptune and the other CPUs from the physical manifestation of piracy (Arfoire.) Rebirth 3/Victory sees Neptune warped back into the 80s, experiencing the console war through 2005 from the Japanese perspective. It was from a pocket dimension where time flowed faster so it only took a couple of days in the home dimension.
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I love how the villain's name is based off the R4 from the DS piracy days

 
The characters are supposed to be representations of consoles at the time, which were the 360, PS3, Wii, PSP. and DS plus a Sega console and handheld (Neptune being two planets after Saturn.) One part of VII is about their impending console generation change.

 
Spring Roll said:
Name??
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Summertime High School: A Young Man's Notes—How a New Exchange Student Like Myself Ran Into His Childhood Friend on the School Tour, Then for Some Reason Became Super-Popular with the Girls for His Daily Scoops on the School Photography Club Even Though He Only Takes Panty Shots, and What He Thinks as He Goes on Dates During His Summer of Island School Life.
8ea28-natsuiro-high-school.jpg
 
Atelier Escha and Logy DX got an ~800mb day 1 patch. Awaiting patch notes but that's not a good sign.

E: This only applies to the Switch version

E2: Day 1 Patch to add Chinese translation, then a second patch to fix whatever the day 1 patch broke.

 
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Can't break that 8GB card size limit. Then they would have to pay more money than a PS4 Blu Ray to produce them.

Apparently they also cut some of the back catalog of music to keep file size down.

 
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If i'm feeling adventurous and generous I'll get Arc of Alchemist, but it looks so bland and was badly reviewed and no physical copies just hurt it. I got enough of a backlog from recent sales. BTW if anyone is curious I will start picking up about VNs like usual in the new year. Been very under the weather and will give my mini reviews for the VNs I play like usual. Over the last month the big releases have been:

Bokuten - Why I Became An Angel from Mangagamer (very dramatic I haven't played but pretty serious drama)

Baldr Sky from Sekai Project that has a fan made 18+ patch that is recommended (I bought this and will give an impression eventually)

VenusBlood Frontier International on JAST USA

Wabisabi from Denpasoft

Good stuff and I will be more prompt for releases and sales and all.

 
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Also since I seem to kill thread discussion, I'm just mentioning this year one of my resolutions is to actually try to finish some of my VNs I've started that I've only beat a few routes of. I will want to finish off the games fully and if I'm not enjoying it I will just drop it again and delete it. Going to try to clear out the games and leave some random reviews since I'm probably one of the only ones playing these things and i'm sure people's morbid curiosity want to hear about the very niche of the niche. Also I want to play more RPGs and if I become bored or something just delete/sell/go on. Going to be some rapid clearing of sorts of my backlog period. Just tired of having it collecting cobwebs.

 
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nitrosmob said:
Also since I seem to kill thread discussion, I'm just mentioning this year one of my resolutions is to actually try to finish some of my VNs I've started that I've only beat a few routes of. I will want to finish off the games fully and if I'm not enjoying it I will just drop it again and delete it. Going to try to clear out the games and leave some random reviews since I'm probably one of the only ones playing these things and i'm sure people's morbid curiosity want to hear about the very niche of the niche. Also I want to play more RPGs and if I become bored or something just delete/sell/go on. Going to be some rapid clearing of sorts of my backlog period. Just tired of having it collecting cobwebs.
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Digital cobwebs don’t hurt resale value.

I stopped reading VNs that don’t have any actual gameplay a while back. With a wife and kid, I just can’t sit in front of the computer reading a choya for hours.

Instead, I’m reading all the light novels that are being translated these days.
 
I like seeing how things play out in VNs though I read a decent amount too otherwise. I read an OK amount of light novels but am at least to this point tired of generic Isekai ones. Think the only one I really enjoy of those ones is the one about the hero who becomes king...forgot the name but it is being translated by j-novel. While they don't hurt resale it's more of the will I ever play this or why did I get this in the first place. I just want to see if I have treasures in the backlog, and I likely do. Plus maybe it's just me but I find it a bit fun rapidly going through stuff and prioritizing what I want to and getting rid of the rest.

 
nitrosmob said:
Also I want to play more RPGs and if I become bored or something just delete/sell/go on. Going to be some rapid clearing of sorts of my backlog period. Just tired of having it collecting cobwebs.
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I subscribe to a similar view on gaming. The hard part for me isn't knowing what to sell it's making the time to actually do it because I know it'll be like a part time job to push through to sell and ship everything and finally be down to the size collection I want. Maybe this will be the year for it.

 
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