Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

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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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My Best Buy SMT V preorder got cancelled. Same message about being unavailable. 

 
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For people hoping Xbox can take over due to Playstation censorship, Gal Gun is canceled

https://twitter.com/galgun_official/status/1342395407708536833

 
For people hoping Xbox can take over due to Playstation censorship, Gal Gun is canceled
Well, we all knew it wouldn't do well on Xbone anyway, but that statement really makes it sound like Microsoft wanted censorship. I was honestly very surprised it was going to be on that system to begin with, considering its content.

Neither Xbox nor Sony are welcome places for niche Japanese game fans.

 
Microsoft just had the luxury of no one actually trying to bring something over during the Xbone generation. They're just up the road from Nintendo of America, which has also consistently censored anime content if they are brought into the localization. 

 
My digimon preorder also got canceled. Now my only GCU preorder left are Kentucky Route Zero and Tales of Aries
Pre-ordered tales of arise as well. Hopefully it doesn't get cancelled as I used credit points, a gift card and a coupon on amazon.
 
I did an unboxing video for the Omega Labyrinth Life asia CE this week if anyone was interested in it. Not a bad game actually, im a sucker for the rogue like dungeon crawlers

https://youtu.be/HVdxsFETOCc
 
https://games2see.com/game/shining-resonance-refrain  - 1 Euro  
shiningresonancefieldchat.jpg

 

 
Neither Xbox nor Sony are welcome places for niche Japanese game fans.
What's funny, of course, about this is that literally one gen ago Nintendo was the most censor friendly platform of the three. Let's not forget that.

Just because Nintendo has been turning a blind eye to whatever content comes doesn't mean it'll stay that way. The moment one controversy hits, I assure you Nintendo will reverse course.

Unless Sony opens back up (possible),
Steam is likely to become the primary home to most Japanese wifu games.
 
Wow, I even bought an Xbox this gen legimitately because I thought that things would be different.

A big hearty Shaq-fu to MIcrosoft. Looks like i'm investing in a Shield 4k so I can stream my PC games now.. ( Unless someone could reccomend a 4k PC streaming device that's cheaper and better for an LG C9 , which has no built in gamestream or steam link..want to stream in 4k. )

 
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The original Gal Gun was a Xbox 360 exclusive

s-l400.jpg


They also have the first 2 Dead or Alive Xtreme as an exclusive.  It is starting with Xbox One when the niche Japanese games moved on.

 
The original Gal Gun was a Xbox 360 exclusive

s-l400.jpg


They also have the first 2 Dead or Alive Xtreme as an exclusive. It is starting with Xbox One when the niche Japanese games moved on.
And a good thing they did. It made zero sense for those games to be exclusive on Xbox 360. At leasr the PS3 was region free so importing wasn't an issue.
 
Importing for the 360 was such a mixed bag. Some publishers region lock in some regions, some didn't. And even then it wasn't consistent and could change game to game. I remember going through and grabbing all of the CAVE shmups. Many weren't region locked. But then Ketsui, Mushihimesama HD (not Futari), and Deathsmiles 2X were region locked. I believe that some of the versions of Espgaluda 2 were and some weren't. Like, it was just a constant crap shoot. 

 
One of the best decision I made was getting an Asia Xbox 360.  By the time Japanese games start showing up on PS3, I was able to sell for a small profit.

 
Wow, I even bought an Xbox this gen legimitately because I thought that things would be different.
seriously though?

On an aside, are we all still pretending to be on an anti-Sony crusade about JP games in here? The truth is that the PS4 had more localized physical niche JP game releases than just about any other home television console in history. Plus everything is region-free now (on both Sony and Nintendo).

 
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seriously though?

On an aside, are we all still pretending to be on an anti-Sony crusade about JP games in here? The truth is that the PS4 had more localized physical niche JP game releases than just about any other home television console in history. Plus everything is region-free now (on both Sony and Nintendo).
The problem has nothing to do with localization. They can't even release games uncensored in Japan or Asia anymore. Otherwise we would just import the Asian English version.

 
The problem has nothing to do with localization. They can't even release games uncensored in Japan or Asia anymore. Otherwise we would just import the Asian English version.
That was pretty much a non sequitur that I posted. My point was that there are more choices of current Japanese games to play than ever, and that our accessibility is great. If you like the pervy stuff then there is a ton of games to play on PC from JastUSA or Mangagamer like the stuff Nitrosmob is often discussing. It's silly to be up in arms over a few localization and censorship issues imo. Yeah they suck, but it also seems like a little bit of a hipster crusade. Mainstream JP AAA publishing has also seen a huge resurgence during the last six years.

This thread has kinda gone silent during the previous two years. I think some people simply grew up, lost interest, or grew out of niche JP gaming. People used to buy collector's editions in here like mad, but then grew out of it. But the bottom line is that there is no shortage of good Japanese games to play. You don't even see people discussing modern Final Fantasy / MMOs, Fire Emblem, Souls-likes, recent Kojima stuff, Platinumgames, Capcom's resurgence, or fighting games on here.

If you have any core gaming interest whatsoever then there is plenty of other niche JP stuff to play. PS4, Switch, independent labels, and digital publishing has also led to wayyyyy more options than the libraries we had accessible to us on PS3/3060 era or prior. There are JRPGs all over Steam now too and that's a recent development.

 
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That was pretty much a non sequitur that I posted. My point was that there are more choices of current Japanese games to play than ever, and that our accessibility is great. If you like the pervy stuff then there is a ton of games to play on PC from Jast USA or Mangagamer like the stuff Nitrosmob is often discussing. It's silly to be up in arms over a few localization and censorship issues imo. Yeah they suck, but it also seems like a little bit of a hipster crusade. Mainstream JP AAA publishing has also seen a huge resurgence during the last six years.

This thread has kinda gone silent during the previous two years. I think some people simply grew up, lost interest, or grew out of niche JP gaming. People used to buy collector's editions in here like mad, but then grew out of it. But the bottom line is that there is no shortage of good Japanese games to play. You don't even see people discussing modern Final Fantasy / MMOs, Fire Emblem, Souls-likes, recent Kojima stuff, Platinumgames, Capcom's resurgence, or fighting games on here.

If you have any core gaming interest whatsoever then there is plenty of other niche JP stuff to play. PS4, Switch, independent labels, and digital publishing has also led to wayyyyy more options than the libraries we had accessible to us on PS3/3060 era or prior. There are JRPGs all over Steam now too and that's a recent development.
I will agree more choices - 10 years ago there wasn't a market for Visual Novel and now we are getting multiple VNs each year. But then when you look at output - 2009 Atlus localized more games than Atlus in 2019 and 2020. It is the similar for Xseed, Square Enix, and many publishers. The Sony censorship is simply another dagger to a shrinking market

 
I would need to see a side by side list of rpgs and count to be sure that the ps4 has had the most. As while it certainly could be in the top 5 I don't know that it's number 1.  Given the sheer number released on sony systems like the ps2 psp PS3 and vita (not even factoring in bc/digital bc) and then there's the 3ds/ds and now the switch. And most of the ps4 titles are shared on multiple platforms as well so it doesn't have that many exclusives either.  So if the ps4 has the most then arguably so does the switch pc and to a lesser extent xboxone given how many titles are all crossplat this generation. Hell there's some games the ps4 shared between the vita and even the 3ds. And the generational multiplat ones as well like persona, tales of and so on. 

It really depends on how you define the numbers.  As there's multiple ways to go about it.  Exclusives, multiplats, ports/remakes/enhanced ports and such from older gens, cross gen titles

Slightly off topic I have more ps4 titles in my backlog than the ps3 and ps2 rows combined on my shelf. On top of the psn ones.  I really need to get around to organizing it all...

 
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I will agree more choices - 10 years ago there wasn't a market for Visual Novel and now we are getting multiple VNs each year. But then when you look at output - 2009 Atlus localized more games than Atlus in 2019 and 2020. It is the similar for Xseed, Square Enix, and many publishers. The Sony censorship is simply another dagger to a shrinking market
2019 I will give you but 2020 given how bad a release year this was across the board they have a good excuse. The majority of companies pushed released into next year or further.

 
I think that's exactly what it is.  Part of what we struggle with is the physical attachment; there aren't a lot of those "grail" type of physical collector's edition games anymore.  People rarely discuss cool import stuff from Play-Asia now.  We've gotten cheaper. Digital is more robust than ever. 

A lot of the spirit from this thread is rooted in people's nostalgia for owning and buying rare, collectible games. But I also find it odd when interesting things like Collection of Mana are being released and nobody is talking about it. 

I just got this sweet Fire Emblem collectors edition two weeks ago and virtually nobody was talking about it in here, which seemed strange. 

Fire-Emblem-CE.jpg

It's pretty awesome.  I highly recommend any FE fans to pick one up.  :D

 
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I think that's exactly what it is. Part of what we struggle with is the physical attachment; there aren't a lot of those "grail" type of physical collector's edition games anymore. People rarely discuss cool import stuff from Play-Asia now. We've gotten cheaper. Digital is more robust than ever.

A lot of the spirit from this thread is rooted in people's nostalgia for owning and buying rare, collectible games. But I also find it odd when interesting things like Collection of Mana are being released and nobody is talking about it.

I just got this sweet Fire Emblem collectors edition two weeks ago and virtually nobody was talking about it in here, which seemed strange.

Fire-Emblem-CE.jpg

It's pretty awesome. I highly recommend any FE fans to pick one up. :D
It is awesome, too bad there's no physical game in there though.

 
Well, being a Cheap-Ass does not require physical media. It just requires sweet sales and low prices. And that's an aspect of gaming that does not actually require physicality. Ever since Steam discovered sales, the majority of digital storefronts have engaged in regular price discounts. Now low prices and time-limited sales are a common part of digital shopping. You can be an enthusiastic Cheap-Ass-Gamer these days without ever touching physical media.

It's a matter of changing times and changing priorities. There is always going to be a place for such physical oddities, but it's probably time to start accepting that such things are no longer going to be the norm, but a niche. Physical editions are going to be a small, niche product, instead of being the default.

 
For me, one of the reason I prefer buying physical for JRPGs is that my hope is that they will at least hold their value 5-10 years from now if I ever did need to make some money back. Not that I would sell my JRPGs, but hypothetically. I mean I don't mind buying digital and most genres I usually buy digital if cheaper, but JRPGs or more niche Japanese games I just prefer physical. Also something about owning a few shelves of Japanese games is satisfying.

However if there is a good reason to buy on PC (such as mods, or better performance), I most certainty will.

 
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People were talking about fire emblem in the pre-order thread. Personally I don't want it given that it doesn't come with a physical copy.
 
For PC digital sales are all the norm. I rarely if ever see physical media anymore, and usually it's just install disks or even just a code for a Steam version. I generally get 0 physical PC media nowadays. The last one I bought I sold on Ebay (The Silver Case). For consoles I still prefer physical especially for Nintendo Switch and quickly installing bigger games. Nonetheless big patches sneak through, so it rarely is the case where the physical version coming out now is good to go right out of the box. I don't particularly care as much for limited releases anymore, though I will buy Asian English or Japanese games with English subtitles, especially if they don't release in the US. Nonetheless I mainly only pay full price for games I really want on release for better of for worse (such as Cyberpunk 2077) or visual novels (one of my favorite sources of a lot of reading text plus usually good voices and graphics). For all it's worth though myself and others have backlogs a million miles long and wouldn't need to buy another video game in our life and would still not finish 50% of it.

 
I think that's exactly what it is. Part of what we struggle with is the physical attachment; there aren't a lot of those "grail" type of physical collector's edition games anymore. People rarely discuss cool import stuff from Play-Asia now. We've gotten cheaper. Digital is more robust than ever.

A lot of the spirit from this thread is rooted in people's nostalgia for owning and buying rare, collectible games. But I also find it odd when interesting things like Collection of Mana are being released and nobody is talking about it.

I just got this sweet Fire Emblem collectors edition two weeks ago and virtually nobody was talking about it in here, which seemed strange.

Fire-Emblem-CE.jpg

It's pretty awesome. I highly recommend any FE fans to pick one up. :D
I got that for my husband for Christmas, so even though I've had it for weeks I just finally got to see what was inside and it's gorgeous! The NES cartridge art piece is much heftier than I expected and the artbook is so pretty. It's a little upsetting there's only a digital code, but at least the volume of goodies in the box was worth the $50.

 
I think that's exactly what it is. Part of what we struggle with is the physical attachment; there aren't a lot of those "grail" type of physical collector's edition games anymore.
People rarely discuss cool import stuff from Play-Asia now. We've gotten cheaper. Digital is more robust than ever.

A lot of the spirit from this thread is rooted in people's nostalgia for owning and buying rare, collectible games. But I also find it odd when interesting things like Collection of Mana are being released and nobody is talking about it.

I just got this sweet Fire Emblem collectors edition two weeks ago and virtually nobody was talking about it in here, which seemed strange.

Fire-Emblem-CE.jpg

It's pretty awesome. I highly recommend any FE fans to pick one up. :D
I'm about to do my video for it today lol. It pisses me off theres no real game in it. But seeing as its a super old game with no real upgrades I can see why they didn't waste a cart.
I ended up doing my Onega Labyrinth Life CE unboxing first since it had physical carts
 
Cart wouldn't be so vital if Nintendo could simply get with the times and give you lifetime ownership over your games a la Xbox Live digital libraries. 

 
Well, being a Cheap-Ass does not require physical media. It just requires sweet sales and low prices.
Yeah but digital prices suck. Outside of a few specific edge cases I simply buy my games where they are cheaper. I've barely bought any digital games the past couple of years and all but 1 of those are games that are digital only (not including LRG releases and companies that do similar things.) On PC you don't have much of a choice but even there I've seen PC games pop up in the walmart clearance thread that I am pretty sure have never been that cheap on digital platforms, such as $1 Jedi Fallen Order.

But if you're playing on console especially and you really want to be a cheap ass you can't go digital only. That applies to niche Japanese games as well. I've bought quite a few musous over the last year and a half thanks to physical copies because they sure as heck don't get cheap digitally. Like god, the original Dragon Quest Heroes came out in 2015 and it's never gone under $20 on PSN. I bought it for $5 on disc.

 
I'm about to do my video for it today lol. It pisses me off theres no real game in it. But seeing as its a super old game with no real upgrades I can see why they didn't waste a cart.
I ended up doing my Onega Labyrinth Life CE unboxing first since it had physical carts
I don't care what people say, it's ridiculous that we've reached a point where a limited edition video game release can now be sold without the game it's for. It's too bad Nintendo keeps doing these things that the rest of the industry is going to copy. Waiting for Ubi and others to now insist that some release will only be sold digitally ** for a limited time **. Great.

 
The Battlefield 1 CE didn't come with that game and I seem to recall one of the Halo games being this way too, Reach maybe? Like, no game at all, not even a code for the digital version. Seemed silly at the time but here we are FE Classic CE without a physical version. Don't care you could fit the whole code base on a stamp, that's not the point NIN. 

 
This thread has kinda gone silent during the previous two years. I think some people simply grew up, lost interest, or grew out of niche JP gaming. People used to buy collector's editions in here like mad, but then grew out of it. But the bottom line is that there is no shortage of good Japanese games to play. You don't even see people discussing modern Final Fantasy / MMOs, Fire Emblem, Souls-likes, recent Kojima stuff, Platinumgames, Capcom's resurgence, or fighting games on here.
I wouldn't consider most of the stuff you mentioned to be niche? Unless you want this to be an "all Japanese games" thread.

 
I wouldn't consider most of the stuff you mentioned to be niche? Unless you want this to be an "all Japanese games" thread.
ok let's see the list of niche JP games you purchased for more than closeout prices this year hmm? I'll wait.

Do a lot of discussion for those games, did ya?

 
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Ys VIII pc finally hit my buy price (<$20). $19.92 on gmg. For me it was $18.92 after the 5% coupon they emailed me today.

Looking forward to Ys IX.
I'm mixed on 9. I wasn't a fan of 8 and it looks to be more of that. If they refine it then cool. 8 having the low print and localization issues not helping.

 
I don't care what people say, it's ridiculous that we've reached a point where a limited edition video game release can now be sold without the game it's for. It's too bad Nintendo keeps doing these things that the rest of the industry is going to copy. Waiting for Ubi and others to now insist that some release will only be sold digitally ** for a limited time **. Great.
Well, "N" is the company that added a limited amount of uses to already "limited" demos last gen, so their levels of depravity will always reach to new levels. LOL

The one silver lining in what you describe, is that normally the industry does what they do, and "N" does the same. I don't see this business model gaining ground anywhere else(at least I hope not), as no other company has the "Jim Jones Kool-Aid" crowd like they do. But I guess only time will tell?

 
Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is on sale for only $20:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/warriors-orochi-4-ultimate-playstation-4-playstation-5/6381616.p?skuId=6381616&irclickid=Se11Kvw4HztET1SXVuU6Exe5UkEyW-1JWQwnVI0&irgwc=1&ref=198&loc=CAG%20Productions%2C%20LLC&acampID=0&mpid=312361

Any thoughts on this one from fans of musou games? I'm one of those weird people who actually likes the stories in these games (they're like soap operas, I love them), so it was hard for me to get into the Warriors Orochi series due to their lack of a decent narrative. However, the sheer volume of characters is very appealing. Plus, I loved every Samurai Warriors entry, so having an excuse to play with all those characters again sounds fun.

 
Well, "N" is the company that added a limited amount of uses to already "limited" demos last gen, so their levels of depravity will always reach to new levels. LOL

The one silver lining in what you describe, is that normally the industry does what they do, and "N" does the same. I don't see this business model gaining ground anywhere else(at least I hope not), as no other company has the "Jim Jones Kool-Aid" crowd like they do. But I guess only time will tell?
They already had the limited number of uses for a demo thing since the wii ds generation iirc. And its not like they are probably the first to do that I imagine.

I ended up doing another order from vgpca since some of the titles prices dropped 5 bucks here and there. Got underwater ray romano mask of deception. Since I got a physical copy of mask of truth from the 50% off sale I decided I may as well get this too for around 15$ new as you can't beat that. I already own both digitally from the psn sale where they were bundled for 14 or 15$ and am nearing the end of truth right now. I also ordered a copy of Shining Resonance Refrain which i also have digitally but wanted a physical copy for just in case. As down the road I could probably play that on the ps5 assuming it's bc for that game.

Gotta say the plot took some really stupid turns after they went to tuskur and returned to the capital. I also can't tell whether the blonde lady is Kuons sister or mother since they bounce between both naming terms and I honestly wasn't paying attention to whether they said mother or sister in the voice work during those scenes specifically. The artist also suffers heavily from same face syndrome for the opening at least since I couldn't tell Kuon apart from the image of her mother. But apparently that's her mother in one of the opening scenes. She looks much more different when rendered the in game art during dialogue and her character model during story scenes rendered in the battle engine.

The translations also been taking liberties the further I get as well as I can clearly hear them call woshis a bastard in the jpn audio on more than one occasion but they don't put that in the text among other things that they leave out. I mean my understanding of moon runes is limited but I can make out the occasional word here and there with common usage like brother sister father mother grandmother, grandfather and so on. But then they throw in english words but don't include them in the text which are very obvious to catch. Or whenever characters say another characters name. Seems like most rpgs are suffering from that issue these days though as tales of berseria in the end game skits especially had that problem.

There's also a weird thing where they include maybe a sentence worths of text but the characters voice work goes on for what seems like a paragraph. I mean it could just be summing it up or dividing it up between text sections. But it throws me off a little.

 
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Gotta say the plot took some really stupid turns after they went to tuskur and returned to the capital. I also can't tell whether the blonde lady is Kuons sister or mother since they bounce between both naming terms and I honestly wasn't paying attention to whether they said mother or sister in the voice work during those scenes specifically.
For things like this I had the advantage of having already played Prelude to the Fallen. Though I know I'm in the minority of players due to the timing of localized releases. The characters would be much more recognizable since they were main characters in the original title.

Ulthury and Eruruu are both adoptive "mothers." Kuon has no biological sisters. Kuon's biological mother died around/at childbirth. Her father figure (Oboro) is her birth mother's brother.

 
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Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is on sale for only $20:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/warriors-orochi-4-ultimate-playstation-4-playstation-5/6381616.p?skuId=6381616&irclickid=Se11Kvw4HztET1SXVuU6Exe5UkEyW-1JWQwnVI0&irgwc=1&ref=198&loc=CAG%20Productions%2C%20LLC&acampID=0&mpid=312361

Any thoughts on this one from fans of musou games? I'm one of those weird people who actually likes the stories in these games (they're like soap operas, I love them), so it was hard for me to get into the Warriors Orochi series due to their lack of a decent narrative. However, the sheer volume of characters is very appealing. Plus, I loved every Samurai Warriors entry, so having an excuse to play with all those characters again sounds fun.
I played Orochi 3 and had a blast with it due to the psn glitch giving a vita copy for free after buying some cheap dlc for a entirely different warriors game that was posted on these forums. It's almost a whole generation ago though so I can't speak for this one, but the orochi spinoffs in general, from my own experience and word of mouth, is better than the mainline titles. I'm with you on the number of characers, when I played 3 on the vita, I unlocked so many random characters that I wasn't even expecting, it was ridic. Looking at reviews, there's 170 playable characters.

I ordered this as I haven't played a warriors game since and was tempted by Warriors All-Stars, since someone on here said it's only okay for $20, but Orochi should be well worth the $20 here.

 
Do a lot of discussion for those games, did ya?
This is the CAG thread for niche games. Means we post deals on games to buy, and discuss the deals, of which I saw for most of the games you mentioned.

How many deals have you posted in this thread?

 
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I played Orochi 3 and had a blast with it due to the psn glitch giving a vita copy for free after buying some cheap dlc for a entirely different warriors game that was posted on these forums. It's almost a whole generation ago though so I can't speak for this one, but the orochi spinoffs in general, from my own experience and word of mouth, is better than the mainline titles. I'm with you on the number of characers, when I played 3 on the vita, I unlocked so many random characters that I wasn't even expecting, it was ridic. Looking at reviews, there's 170 playable characters.

I ordered this as I haven't played a warriors game since and was tempted by Warriors All-Stars, since someone on here said it's only okay for $20, but Orochi should be well worth the $20 here.
Thanks for your opinion! I got Warriors All-Stars for about $17 a while back and loved the characters, but the enemy variety wasn't great and there was just something about it that kept it from really grabbing me. The story was dumb as hell (not in a good way) and the characters created for the game weren't interesting at all. Definitely worth the money to play with William (Nioh), Ryu Hayabusa, and Arnice (Nights of Azure), but not great.

I think the best musou game was either Hyrule Warriors or Spirit of Sanada. The latter breathed so much life into the genre, had a great story, and was just downright fun. I'm sad the new characters from that game aren't in WO4, but I can live with it. I've seen so may people say WO3 is much better than WO4, but I really don't want to go a generation back and lose some characters (though not having Ayane, Kasumi, Rachel, Sterk, and Sophitia in WO4 is a bit of a blow). For only 20 bucks, I think I might get it.

 
This is the CAG thread for niche games. Means we post deals on games to buy, and discuss the deals, of which I saw for most of the games you mentioned.

How many deals have you posted in this thread?
who are these random shitters with 200 lifetime posts coming in here and talking shit?

Get bent.

 
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