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'm now at chapter 9 in Snack World. I have a finished most of the optional story missions with maybe 4 left... and one more story mission for chapter 9 before that's over. I'm at around 25 hours of playtime so far. Overall, it's been a pretty brilliant experience (at least to me). The humor has yet to let up. The character names and plot has been a great parody of so much stuff. I really like how casual the dungeon crawling can be if you want it (just hold b and run past all the regular enemies) while still having some serious boss fights. This is great when you've failed a boss and just want to power through the dungeon portion to retry. I imagine at my pace I'll finish the story off in the next day or two... but I'm not rushing it.

itzd4n said:
I wished I stayed up to see this, but most, if not all, are sold out or unavailable
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Yeah that was a solid deal on Snack World... I would have seriously considered buying a second copy to lan play the game with one of my kids if it wasn't sold out. I might have even considered Robotics:notes even though I only casually like VN's and these don't really have much interaction in them (even conversational choices) from what I read. The story sounded interesting and It could have made a decent casual pallet cleanser between more serious games. Oh well, not a big loss.

 
itzd4n said:
I wished I stayed up to see this, but most, if not all, are sold out or unavailable
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They are disabled for online ordering but they have some of them in stock in store in my area at least. So for what it's worth I would check to see if you have any nearby.
 
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itzd4n said:
I wished I stayed up to see this, but most, if not all, are sold out or unavailable
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It’s okay. I saw it ten minutes after it had been posted, and most, if not all, were sold out or unavailable then, too.

At least within 250 miles of both my location and my VPN location.
 
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FlawlesslyFatal said:
Very interesting development with Judgment franchise. Apparently Sega want a PC port, but the lead actor's talent agency opposed the idea. It is speculated that the agency willing to pull their client from future project.
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Pulling the plug on the series would be quite a shame. I am playing the first game right now and am extremely impressed with it. It hooked me a lot faster than Yakuza 1 and 2, both of which I liked a lot but they start pretty slow.

The detective angle is neat, I mean it has boring stuff like a target tailing minigame but the bits where you have to use your evidence against people in arguments reminds me of Ace Attorney Investigations, I really like it.

 
with the persona anniversary announcements makes me wonder if they plan on p6 soonish. Since the merch definitely makes it seem like p6 character and box art plus the possible enhanced non vanilla version box art are in the works. 

 
Took me far too long to find a place to uploade this...

Possibly the greatest enemy idea I’ve ever encountered in a game (Snack Quest - Switch)
 
HDFDUPX.jpg

https://imgur.com/a/GPJsgqX

 
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elessar123 said:
I really doubt it, given how long it takes them to make them. I would expect remakes of 1 & 2 if anything, to take away a lot of the old-school RPG aspects of them.
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It doesn't always take them a long time. Look at persona 3 and 4. Since they are likely using 5s engine 6 msy have a significant reduction in development time. And it has already been over 4 years since 5 released. So even if it takes as long as 5 did it's well over half way through. The only thing I can think of would be if they ran into a issue on the ps5 version since they are likely releasing on the ps4 and ps5 now that ps3 is pretty much done.
 
elessar123 said:
I really doubt it, given how long it takes them to make them. I would expect remakes of 1 & 2 if anything, to take away a lot of the old-school RPG aspects of them.
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...1 and 2? What are those? The Persona series started with 3.

/s of course god do I want 1 and 2 remakes

 
Covnam said:
I'm literally shocked to see this getting an official western release
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I'm only guessing the licenses were easier to get a hold of this go around and or from less popular well known series. Gotta say I read Knights and magic is getting repped which is pretty cool as I enjoyed that one.

 
This was sold out on PlayAsia, but got lucky winning this sealed copy on eBay for $55 (after taxes), even less than what PlayAsia were selling for too.

Don't know if they planning to print more but physical copies are drying up on eBay as well.
e2856cbf231fdc93023c6e3b3c46c2bb.jpg


Sent from my SM-N970U1 using Tapatalk
 
FlawlesslyFatal said:
This was sold out on PlayAsia, but got lucky winning this sealed copy on eBay for $55 (after taxes), even less than what PlayAsia were selling for too.

Don't know if they planning to print more but physical copies are drying up on eBay as well.
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Oddly I stumbled across that listing on ebay in looking up prices on other games I plan to get rid of and a few I was curious about possibly getting (though not that specific game)... how random that you were the buyer.

 
Has any one else gotten a survey from NISA to restock out of print titles? I just completed it. I don’t want to pay scalper prices for Utawarerumono Prelude of the Falen. They also had options for Ys8, Disgaea 4, Danganronpa Trilogy.
 
Angeru said:
Has any one else gotten a survey from NISA to restock out of print titles? I just completed it. I don’t want to pay scalper prices for Utawarerumono Prelude of the Falen. They also had options for Ys8, Disgaea 4, Danganronpa Trilogy.
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yea, i got that email

does nis hate money? just reprint all the titles that are selling at scalper prices on ebay

that survey link is just a generic link, right (feels like i can post it, not 100% positive)

 
Yeah, it looks like something one would do on surveymonkeys. Just hope Prelude of the Fallen actually gets reprinted.
 
Angeru said:
Has any one else gotten a survey from NISA to restock out of print titles? I just completed it. I don’t want to pay scalper prices for Utawarerumono Prelude of the Falen. They also had options for Ys8, Disgaea 4, Danganronpa Trilogy.
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I did not get any such survey, but I'd love a reprint of Ys VIII. I borrowed the game from someone I regularly trade with but would love to just have my own copy.

 
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wbc1228 said:
yea, i got that email

does nis hate money? just reprint all the titles that are selling at scalper prices on ebay

that survey link is just a generic link, right (feels like i can post it, not 100% positive)
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MOQ for Switch is 5k and PS4 is 1.5k. It may not seem like a lot, but for a lot of smaller publishers it's a legitimate risk. If they can't sell through those quantities and end up sitting on inventory they could lose money. There's also the cyclical nature of people wanting things "because they're rare", thus making them more rare and driving the price up so legitimate demand is hard to quantify.

Even though I already have the games they're asking about, I'm glad they're doing this. A lot of these games are in the $100+ range and it's a little absurd. Fingers crossed my CAG peeps are able to get what they want reprinted.

 
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persona 5 is sooo slow. I just finally got to getting persona's. Got Incubus and Pixie but can't get jackolanturn to join because of the stupid negotiation system.

 
shadowysea07 said:
persona 5 is sooo slow. I just finally got to getting persona's. Got Incubus and Pixie but can't get jackolanturn to join because of the stupid negotiation system.
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Wait, what? I got to that point when I was just testing it out to make sure my copy worked, and I’m slow as balls at RPGs.
 
I mean, P5 (especially royal) is a long game, but substantially so.  That particular dungeon is my least favorite part of the game in terms of plot, dialogue, and gameplay.  I also feel that it drags on while keeping you restricted much more than necessary.  

 
Souffrir said:
Wait, what? I got to that point when I was just testing it out to make sure my copy worked, and I’m slow as balls at RPGs.
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I'm a pretty slow thorough rpg player. Granted I'm not sure what version of the voice work you were listening to, whether you listened to all of it and or read faster, click through vs auto advance or both and such. As I'm a fast reader but I don't have auto advance on at the beginning till just now.

gospelman said:
I mean, P5 (especially royal) is a long game, but substantially so. That particular dungeon is my least favorite part of the game in terms of plot, dialogue, and gameplay. I also feel that it drags on while keeping you restricted much more than necessary.
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And it took me about 5 hours too give or take. Trophy percentage for getting pixie was around 76% or so which is quite a drop off considering how early this is in game. But given how big a seller it was plus the royal version might explain that.

 
I'm actually still playing P5 Royal (started it last month and am now deep into the third semester content, probably almost done) and, this being my second go-around with Persona 5 (played the original at launch), it definitely has pacing issues, but the parts of the game that work really work. The first palace really is a slog in the beginning (and the additional tutorials in Royal only make it worse), but once you get more free reign in it, it becomes a lot more enjoyable. The second palace (and its story content) is fantastic, the third is a strange storytelling choice and kind of a chore, the fourth palace is fantastic...see the theme, here? The palaces alternate between being amazing and just ok (until the combo breaker of the sixth and seventh palaces both being awesome, the seventh being my absolute favorite from a pure aesthetic sense).

Of course, this being Persona, it's the confidants where the game really shines. Unlike previous games, every one of them gives you some kind of ability (previously, only party member social links gave you gameplay changes), but even if that wasn't the case, they're all worth doing for their side stories. I don't think I disliked a single one. There's a character named Hifumi who's like a teenage shogi prodigy, and she was supposedly playable in the first drafts of the game. I'm quite sad they removed that, since she's great. I especially loved the Iwai, Kawakami, and Shinya confidants for the non-playable characters, and the Ryuji, Futaba, and Yusuke ones for the teammates. As for Yoshida, I'd follow that man to the ends of the earth. And then, there's Royal's revamped
Akechi
confidant, which is just something else.

I'm over 160 hours in (I also play not just RPGs, but most games very slowly and meticulously), and I don't want it to end. Luckily, I have Strikers to play for more Phantom Thieves action. I honestly didn't expect to love replaying P5 this much (I bought Royal at launch but just now got to it, over a year later, since I knew it would be a massive time commitment). I think, in my heart, Persona 4 is still my favorite (planning on replaying that one next), probably because it was the first Persona game I played and started my love for the series, but 5 is a close-close-close second.

 
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3 hours and 58 min later I finished the first stupid dungeon that's the size of the normal final dungeon in most videogames. god I am beat. 

 
I did end up finishing the main story in Snack World (Switch) and opened up the end game stuff.  Put it on pause there after getting back into it long enough to find all the ncp story quests that were unlocked.   Overall, a great experience.  I only needed to transform into pocket snacks for about 5 story missions up through chapter 10.  That final battle not sure how I even made it through that I died so many times.

Since it's Yuji Naka's final game (and I'm a fan), I went ahead and grabbed a copy of Balan Wonderworld (switch) from Gamefly ($24 with tax and free shipping).  So I put some time into the game this weekend.  Overall it's much better than the horribly brain killing demo.  It takes a lot from Nights, a bit from Sonic Adventure (the chao garden), and some bits here and there from other of his works without fully infringing on any of them.  It's a charming game that won't win any awards, but I'm finding despite the reviews and the hate... I actually like it.   It's so damned quirky.   The suits you collect are needed to go back to other levels and find statues that you need to unlock more worlds.  So it has a bit of metroidvania in it.  And the hub world garden with the creatures you find in the levels and can breed.  With all the stuff that unlocks that they play on... it's relaxing to chill in the hub world to see what the next unlock does.  The main thing is this is a game about level exploration and collecting stuff more than the traditional platformer.   The fighting with enemies is a tiny portion of each level.. so it's a bit casual in that regard (which I'm fine with) though they don't really hold your hand and explain most things and leave you to discover how everything worlds.   I'm enjoying this game... which is good as I was worried I'd see what the critics and the echo chamber was saying and remembering my time with the demo ...I'd regret it.  But it's good. Unlike the demo, it doesn't give me a headache to play.  So they fixed quite a bit from the demo.   I'm not at all suggesting anyone go buy this game... YMMV.  But for me, I'll see this one through to the end just like I did with Billy Hatcher when the reviews were saying not to buy it for the single player but for the multiplayer side.  The single player on Billy Hatcher was good fun.

 
Saturday morning people found out Square Enix had been giving out working digital codes for TWEWY Neo on their receipts for the physical versions. It looks like they're not going to let people refund if they claimed the code, so there's going to be a bunch of people with physical copies looking to recoup the $80 ($60+$15 shipping+tax) they spent to play two weekends early.

E: Update: Licenses have been pulled

 
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shadowysea07 said:
3 hours and 58 min later I finished the first stupid dungeon that's the size of the normal final dungeon in most videogames. god I am beat.
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If you aren't enjoying it, no shame in dropping it. You could always YouTube the story/social links when you have the multitask bandwidth if you'd rather spend your time playing something else. I personally hold the somewhat unpopular opinion that I prefer the older style of randomized floors for Persona's dungeons and found the new ones pretty exhausting. I played through regular P5 once, but can't bring myself to do NG+ or Royal exactly because I don't want to go through those again.

 
nightc1 said:
I did end up finishing the main story in Snack World (Switch) and opened up the end game stuff. Put it on pause there after getting back into it long enough to find all the ncp story quests that were unlocked. Overall, a great experience. I only needed to transform into pocket snacks for about 5 story missions up through chapter 10. That final battle not sure how I even made it through that I died so many times.

Since it's Yuji Naka's final game (and I'm a fan), I went ahead and grabbed a copy of Balan Wonderworld (switch) from Gamefly ($24 with tax and free shipping). So I put some time into the game this weekend. Overall it's much better than the horribly brain killing demo. It takes a lot from Nights, a bit from Sonic Adventure (the chao garden), and some bits here and there from other of his works without fully infringing on any of them. It's a charming game that won't win any awards, but I'm finding despite the reviews and the hate... I actually like it. It's so damned quirky. The suits you collect are needed to go back to other levels and find statues that you need to unlock more worlds. So it has a bit of metroidvania in it. And the hub world garden with the creatures you find in the levels and can breed. With all the stuff that unlocks that they play on... it's relaxing to chill in the hub world to see what the next unlock does. The main thing is this is a game about level exploration and collecting stuff more than the traditional platformer. The fighting with enemies is a tiny portion of each level.. so it's a bit casual in that regard (which I'm fine with) though they don't really hold your hand and explain most things and leave you to discover how everything worlds. I'm enjoying this game... which is good as I was worried I'd see what the critics and the echo chamber was saying and remembering my time with the demo ...I'd regret it. But it's good. Unlike the demo, it doesn't give me a headache to play. So they fixed quite a bit from the demo. I'm not at all suggesting anyone go buy this game... YMMV. But for me, I'll see this one through to the end just like I did with Billy Hatcher when the reviews were saying not to buy it for the single player but for the multiplayer side. The single player on Billy Hatcher was good fun.
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My thoughts on Balan are exactly the same as yours. I beat it on the PS5. I had a decent amount of fun with it and it's quirkiness won me over. Not for everyone but definitely not a bad game.
 
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BoxPizzaBox said:
If you aren't enjoying it, no shame in dropping it. You could always YouTube the story/social links when you have the multitask bandwidth if you'd rather spend your time playing something else. I personally hold the somewhat unpopular opinion that I prefer the older style of randomized floors for Persona's dungeons and found the new ones pretty exhausting. I played through regular P5 once, but can't bring myself to do NG+ or Royal exactly because I don't want to go through those again.
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I've always preferred the random dungeon layouts, as well, and also find the Palaces in P5 to be pretty exhausting. That's why I really loved Mementos. I was happy P5 still had a random dungeon and not just the elaborate, puzzle-filled Palaces. Plus, it doesn't help that some of the Palaces really overstay their welcome, both in length and mechanics. Between the Palace navigation and the hours upon hours of visual novel-style scenes, that's why it took me over a year to play Royal!

Speaking of, I finished Royal last night (about 180 hours) and liked the ending, though I preferred the vanilla ending. My husband wants the TV to play some Monster Hunter Stories 2 and some more Rise, so I think I'll start my Persona 4 new game plus on my Vita and play P5 Strikers and Skyward Sword Switch later. I'm cautiously optimistic about Strikers, since on one hand, I'm expecting its gameplay and story to be very good, but on the other hand, P5 ends so well, so definitively, that I don't think it needed a sequel. It's like Persona 4 Dancing All Night. That was a great rhythm game and the story was sort of compelling at first, but it was all fluff and a pretty unnecessary sequel. So, we'll see.

 
BoxPizzaBox said:
If you aren't enjoying it, no shame in dropping it. You could always YouTube the story/social links when you have the multitask bandwidth if you'd rather spend your time playing something else. I personally hold the somewhat unpopular opinion that I prefer the older style of randomized floors for Persona's dungeons and found the new ones pretty exhausting. I played through regular P5 once, but can't bring myself to do NG+ or Royal exactly because I don't want to go through those again.
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I enjoy a few things about the game but the restricting gameplay for the beginning definitely hurts it. Since it took about 6 hours to even get to recruit personas and start s links which is the series bread and butter. And them making you do 3 or so trips into the dungeon before you were even allowed to properly explore it.

The dungeon design hurt more than it helps. As I feel like they over corrected to the people complaining about the randomized tartarus of p3 and its cubicles. Making larger unique dungeons like p4's would have been better than these colossally big palaces. I find taking the palaces away after finishing them another bad design deicision. It's a negative since revisiting to get more personas, grab treasure and level is something most people would want to do and in the prior games something you Could do. Though I think I read something about memento dungeons that offer the p3 aspect of randomized smaller stuff. But I haven't unlocked those yet and likely won't till later.

But yeah now that I'm past the first hurdle and get to do s links and such that's helping a lot towards my enjoyment. It would be better if the game didn't often skip over days at random and or was more consistent about say reading on the train. It's also disappointing that they brought back p4's terrible vending machines. I much prefer p3's.

 
On the subject of p3's dungeons I don't necessarily dislike tartarus just the reaper (had it spawn on the first floor when I started the game p3 vanilla) and the floor designs a little too small/cluttered.  Though I get they were going for a labyrinth. But it kinda felt like they could have incorporated more of the school buildings for variety than they did.  Like you only visited the gym once during fuukas recruitment for example and never go back there either. They could have done a couple floors with variety like the school pool, track field, cafeteria, rooftop area and class rooms. Also whoever designed the disco technicolor floor is obviously blind and or a sadist. Ugh that floor hurt to look at. 

 
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shadowysea07 said:
I enjoy a few things about the game but the restricting gameplay for the beginning definitely hurts it. Since it took about 6 hours to even get to recruit personas and start s links which is the series bread and butter. And them making you do 3 or so trips into the dungeon before you were even allowed to properly explore it.

The dungeon design hurt more than it helps. As I feel like they over corrected to the people complaining about the randomized tartarus of p3 and its cubicles. Making larger unique dungeons like p4's would have been better than these colossally big palaces. I find taking the palaces away after finishing them another bad design deicision. It's a negative since revisiting to get more personas, grab treasure and level is something most people would want to do and in the prior games something you Could do. Though I think I read something about memento dungeons that offer the p3 aspect of randomized smaller stuff. But I haven't unlocked those yet and likely won't till later.

But yeah now that I'm past the first hurdle and get to do s links and such that's helping a lot towards my enjoyment. It would be better if the game didn't often skip over days at random and or was more consistent about say reading on the train. It's also disappointing that they brought back p4's terrible vending machines. I much prefer p3's.
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Yeah, the Palaces do feel like sort of an over-correction. As much as I liked them, I sort of hated them at times, too, probably because I tried to do them all in one in-game day. However, in terms of restrictions, you got the worst one out of the way. There will be times where future Palaces feel a little restrictive, but nothing like the first one. It was the tutorial, after all. And yes, Mementos is a lot like Tartarus, with random layouts and special floors that offer things like powerful enemies and more treasure, plus the ability to find the Personas and such from the now-erased Palaces.

I loved the dungeons in Persona 4. The right step up from Tartarus, but still keeping that fun dungeon-crawling feel. You're getting me excited to play Golden again! This will be my third go at P4 total, since I played the original PS2 version and then Golden years later. I bought my Vita for it back in the day lol

 
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p4 golden and tales of hearts r were the 2 games that were the deciding factor on getting a vita for myself.  Less so for golden though since I already played vanilla.

 
I liked all of the palaces in P5 except for the space one, really thought they were better than a stroll through 20-30 floors or so until a boss encounter like in 3 and 4.

 
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