Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

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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 really don't see Caligula Effect Overdose on PS5 doing well. It seems like a bomb decision considering it didn't sell well on the PS4 I don't think. I wont be getting it for sure. I also feel the Fairy Fencer game coming out will bomb as well. I will likely support that one though.

 
They probably saw the PS4 physical version selling for a good amount and figure they can get a few to buy PS5 version.

 
I had an okay time with Overdose. The gameplay is god awful but the story is good and music is GOD tier. They also do a very good job implementing the new stuff into the main story unlike a lot of Atlus games. The enemy design, combat, and dungeons are laughable though. 

 
nitrosmob said:
I really don't see Caligula Effect Overdose on PS5 doing well. It seems like a bomb decision considering it didn't sell well on the PS4 I don't think. I wont be getting it for sure. I also feel the Fairy Fencer game coming out will bomb as well. I will likely support that one though.
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I don't think Fairy Fencer is going to bomb. I think Idea Factory/ Compile Hearts games have a very specific fanbase (outside of the slightly more popular Nep series, maybe), and as long as IF/CH fans pick it up, it'll meet sales expectations.

 
Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Asia version is available for pre-order now on Play-Asia for Switch/PS5. I believe this is not getting a NA physical release. FF 1-6 Pixel remaster PS4 is sold out as well, so if you want the Switch Asian version, it may be smarter to order soon.

Another digital only release in the West Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered pre-orders are up for the PS4/5 and Switch as well although it has a different cover than the first printing. Also Play-Asia does have the Mugen Souls Switch LE/Regular Asian editions coming as well. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is also has a physical release for Switch/PS4 coming soon, although I'm not sure if it has English as a patch or on the disk/cart. 

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Switch

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg PS5

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse Switch

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse PS4

FF 1-6 Pixel Remaster Switch

Mugen Souls LE Switch

Mugen Souls Switch

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered Switch

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered PS4

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered PS5

 
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Bandai-Namco was really weird about American physical releases in the West during the Vita era. Lots and lots of Asian-English only releases for whatever reason. I don't think there's a real risk that it will be hard to get since it's also getting an EU version, but I also wouldn't bet on us getting one. The only more confusing company than Bandai-Namco for physical releases is Square-Enix.

 
It's probably going to be similar to Klonoa, which got a European, Japanese and Asian release. I doubt North America will get it. 

 
For S-E if it's a remaster it just doesn't get a physical release in NA. It sucks and it's why I have so many Asian-English S-E releases. Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song Remastered is going to be my newest addition to the collection.

 
Tothoro said:
Bandai-Namco was really weird about American physical releases in the West during the Vita era. Lots and lots of Asian-English only releases for whatever reason. I don't think there's a real risk that it will be hard to get since it's also getting an EU version, but I also wouldn't bet on us getting one. The only more confusing company than Bandai-Namco for physical releases is Square-Enix.
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They found it cheaper to translate to Korean/Chinese using English as a middle language. In the case of a Digimon game, there was an entire English script that just required hacking in a menu option to select it.

 
Yeah digimon cyber sluts was one that I imported off the top of my head.  Hearts r got localized but only after sony basically forced their hand due to the poll.  It's a shame they didn't localize innocence r and port both of them to the ps4/5 and pc and such given that they would have sold significantly better if they had.  Hell from what I remember reading they did so bad in japan that they were worse sales numbers there than the american numbers for most of the localized games sales numbers. They really didn't like the vita there. 

Hearts r team had a lot of good people on it at 7th chord iirc that made it feel like a classic tales game despite not being developed by the old tales studio staff.  If they could do that on a budget I'd love to have seen what they could do with a decent budget on a console. 

 
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"First of all, we would like to thank you for your interest in the upcoming physical
release of Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster Collection, we certainly share your
excitement for this release. There has been a few developments for the production
since we first opened sale for the games and we would like to give you an update.
 
PlayStation 4 version:
 
Square Enix has confirmed to us that the game won't be released physically on the
PS4. There was a misunderstanding about the possibility between us and Square Enix.
Hence, we will have to cancel all current pre-orders for the PlayStation 4 version.
 
We are aware that this is not the news you were hoping for and it was not our
intention to put you through this experience.
 
Note:
1.    Orders that only contain one item will be cancelled, and a refund will be issued
using the original payment method.
 
2.    For orders containing multiple products, we will only remove the item "Final
Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster Collection" for PS4 and any remaining funds will be
refunded to the original payment method.
 
3.    If your order qualified for free airmail shipping with an order value over US$99,
this promotion will stay in effect for your order regardless of the updated value.
 
Nintendo Switch version:
 
Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster Collection has confirmed to be releasing physically
and on a single cartridge, the game’s release date will be on the 2nd Quarter and
we will start shipping it on release day.
 
The game will support English language as advertised, support for other European
languages remains to be confirmed, however, we will update the product page once we
have this final confirmation.
 
In terms of quantity available, the first print of the game will be limited, any
order placed after February 22, 2023, will be shipped shortly after release date once
the second batch of production has been completed by the publisher.
 
The exact completion date of this second production is still being confirmed at the
moment, but it will be shared publicly as soon as we have confirmed and checked all
the details. You may refer to your order detail page for more details and eventual
updates on the shipping date."

Got this email from Playasia, what a shit show by SE
 
The Future Radio and the Artificial Pigeons review. I'll spoiler it as it is quite negative, but I wanted to give my honest review as it's likely to bought more around its release.

This visual novel pretty much disappointed me to no extent. The story starts strong about a guy handing out radios to get communication going again. There are artificial pigeons in the world that eat communication waves, so communication in the world is not there. These radios have a device on them that bypasses these pigeons to get communication out on the radios between a receiver and all these radios. That sets up the story where the mc really wants people to be connected again. There is a quirk to these radios where the future radio of the title comes from, but if you're going to play I wont ruin any of that. Pretty much an event happens to lead to a quick turnaround for the mc and others to get stuff done.

This is one of those stories that starts out well and is super interesting finding out the mysteries and how all these characters are important, but the common route decides to make a decision that doesn't bode well for having multiple routes. I frankly grew from being extremely interested in the main story to seeing it nose dive in an instant. It's very obvious the author wants one route to be so much more than the others, and I saw it right away. Heck even the cover art of the game and startup screen give it away. This essentially makes other routes a lot less interesting and more those for fans of those characters. Frankly after the common route the story telling was going in so many places I didn't want that I rushed the main story and skipped over 2 routes. I think I would have gotten a little more background storytelling, but I doubt they're super important.

The story just nose dives the more it goes on and probably gave me one of the worst true endings for a game I've read in a while. It was written well enough, but the direction felt flawed. There is a lot of dialogue that feels more of a waste of time than usual before getting the main stuff. It almost put me to sleep the other day when I had it on auto read before I went to bed. There are plenty of twists and turns, but I just didn't feel it was great, and there were many bad storytelling cliches that prolonged the story and made it a chore to read in the character and main story route.

I like the visuals and the music is pretty good with good piano and jazz pieces. Some sound a little too Vince Guaraldi Trio and would feel at home in a Peanuts special. The voices are excellent and well done too.

So really the only thing that tanked my rating was the story as a whole. There are also character choices I don't feel were done well and seemed out of character for quite a few of them. This was true especially for the main character. I just feel it was kind of a waste of time after a really intriguing beginning and premise. I just hope most writers for visual novels wont follow this games idea and make it very obvious the route the game wants to take invalidating the other routes really. The 18+ stuff is not needed either and just comes out at awful times in the story. I just wouldn't play this game, and I agree with the negative Steam reviews. 5.5/10 

 
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Vigilante said:
Speaking of the Pixel Remaster, if you don't like Play-Asia for whatever reason, VGP has a listing for the Switch Asian version, priced at ~$81 US: https://videogamesplus.ca/products/final-fantasy-i-vi-pixel-remaster-collection-asian-english-import-switch?_pos=1&_sid=b6a16cc21&_ss=r
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Thanks, will take VGP over PA any day- faster shipment even if it's slightly more at VGP vs PA. I hate how they would only accept PayPal for my order and charged immediate even though I thought it stated that it would charge when it ships.

 
srocky26 said:
Shipping is free from VGP. I believe shipping for 1 copy from PA was like $7.
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You can also get free shipping from playasia if you order over $99. Don't forget to use the 5% coupon code.

nitrosmob said:
Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Asia version is available for pre-order now on Play-Asia for Switch/PS5. I believe this is not getting a NA physical release. FF 1-6 Pixel remaster PS4 is sold out as well, so if you want the Switch Asian version, it may be smarter to order soon.

Another digital only release in the West Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered pre-orders are up for the PS4/5 and Switch as well although it has a different cover than the first printing. Also Play-Asia does have the Mugen Souls Switch LE/Regular Asian editions coming as well. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is also has a physical release for Switch/PS4 coming soon, although I'm not sure if it has English as a patch or on the disk/cart.

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg Switch
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I ended up preordering the japanese version on amiami. I know it won't have english on that version but I really wanted the amiami exclusive B2 tapestry.

 
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Crymachina is coming this fall from NISA. It's an action/adventure game at least somewhat related to Crystar.

Link

Also Shiravune have announced they're releasing Tamayura Mirai sometime this Spring. This is a fantasy visual novel that did win some award. It has a guy who is a sorcerer and one day a girl comes back with a friend and some stuff happens. There is youkai and other stuff. It looks pretty neat and I'll post whenever it does release along with the inevitable 18+ Steam Patch.

Steam

VNDB (NSFW)

Also the White Album 2 patch from Todokanai TL has been updated to include the fan disc White Album 2 - Mini-After Story as well. Before it just had opening and closing ceremony.

Link to updated patch

 
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Xseed is releasing a physical day 1 edition of Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed Director's Cut this summer.  They only mentioned Switch so I guess no physical PS4 version outside of Japan?

 
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So I've been playing Labyrinth of Galleria in my spare time. Found it really easy and basically had to have a video in the background while playing.

After 37ish hours, credits roll with a bad ending.

And I find out that was basically the tutorial. Now I'm on the main part of the game that's about 50 hours long? It's more difficult and more like a DRPG. I'm finally enjoying it somewhat.

So why was the prolog so damn long? Maybe there's a reason, but I haven't looked up spoilers.
 
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scorponok said:
Xseed is releasing a physical day 1 edition of Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed Director's Cut this summer. They only mentioned Switch so I guess no physical PS4 version outside of Japan?
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The extra content will be available as DLC on PC and PS4. According to the Japanese site, the extra character route for Kati is 1500 Yen and then a pack including new costumes & Kati is 3000 yen.

 
Got my $30 Moero Chronicle Hyper from Amazon today.  fuck them scalpers.

 
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Oh man I'm getting old.  I totally forgot until I was clearing out old emails that in 2021 I bought a copy of Fantasy Life for the 3DS.  It was part of expanding my Level-5 collection.  Here I was thinking the new game, "The Girl Who Steals Time" would be my first in the series but I was concerned I never bought the first one and how much of a pain it might be to track down a good deal.  Lol.  And I'm not the guy anymore that buys games randomly because a good deal pops up.  The vast majority of my purchases are very purposeful (to the point that this year I've bought nothing yet).

 
For those curious here are impressions of both Tales of Zestiria and Tales of Symphonia both on PC after applying their fixes about an hour and a half each.

To start Tales of Zestiria was not amazing without the fixes. The gameplay felt a little slow, the graphics a bit fuzzy (on high settings all around), and the audio not amazing. The fix gives you 60 FPS overall that you can tweak at your own choice, cleaner looking graphics and an audio fix. It ran really well in battles although the 60 FPS cinematics had weird jumps that kind of hurt my eyes a little bit, so I left it at 30 FPS (you can change it in the fix program). The fix also allows for PS controller buttons in the UI (I use the Series X controller). The main thing is the story felt super generic, the characters extremely generic, and the battle system felt kind of boring. I know this is a black sheep in the series, and it felt pretty meh already. The places feel too big with not enough going on around it, so the world feels a little boring. I passed the prologue, and was already feeling a bit weary. It runs well after the fix, but something is off with this game for sure. I'd probably put it at a passable 6.5/10 right now.

Tales of Symphonia on the other hand is locked at 30 FPS so it feels a bit more jarring. The fix cleans up the graphics and makes it better for larger resolutions. It also has gamepad fixes and lets you use PS3/4 controllers a lot more easily. Now this game I wanted to play more of. The characters were fun, the graphics are worse, but have a lot of charm, and the battle system is just classic fun. This felt more like the Tales games I like. The fix makes it more playable, but it's always a bit lesser, as it's a port of the PS3 version. I knew the gameplay was a bit slower, but I think the battles were just fun. This rates more towards the 8/10 and could be better, as many people love this one as a favorite in the series.

Those are my thoughts and I believe all the ports (Beseria, Symphonia, Zestiria) have fixes and should be applied for a much better experience. I will give Tales of Symphonia more time, but Zestiria likely goes on hold unless someone here really tells me it's one of their favorites.

 
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nitrosmob said:
Those are my thoughts and I believe all the ports (Beseria, Symphonia, Zestiria) have fixes and should be applied for a much better experience. I will give Tales of Symphonia more time, but Zestiria likely goes on hold unless someone here really tells me it's one of their favorites.
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Zestiria is generally panned within the community as the worst modern entry. The combat is clunky and often boils down to spamming Armitization, the dungeons are hit-or-miss with more missing, the main character is pretty bland, the equipment system is awful, and the story is a hot mess. It does have some of my favorite characters in the franchise and it's interesting to see the tie-ins to Berseria, but I have a hard time recommending when the pro/con is so skewed.

I still enjoyed it in spite of its shortcomings, but you can get most of the good and avoid most of the bad by watching a Let's Play. Unless someone's a big fan of the series/franchise, that's generally what I'd recommend.

 
nitrosmob said:
For those curious here are impressions of both Tales of Zestiria and Tales of Symphonia both on PC after applying their fixes about an hour and a half each.

To start Tales of Zestiria was not amazing without the fixes. The gameplay felt a little slow, the graphics a bit fuzzy (on high settings all around), and the audio not amazing. The fix gives you 60 FPS overall that you can tweak at your own choice, cleaner looking graphics and an audio fix. It ran really well in battles although the 60 FPS cinematics had weird jumps that kind of hurt my eyes a little bit, so I left it at 30 FPS (you can change it in the fix program). The fix also allows for PS controller buttons in the UI (I use the Series X controller). The main thing is the story felt super generic, the characters extremely generic, and the battle system felt kind of boring. I know this is a black sheep in the series, and it felt pretty meh already. The places feel too big with not enough going on around it, so the world feels a little boring. I passed the prologue, and was already feeling a bit weary. It runs well after the fix, but something is off with this game for sure. I'd probably put it at a passable 6.5/10 right now.

Tales of Symphonia on the other hand is locked at 30 FPS so it feels a bit more jarring. The fix cleans up the graphics and makes it better for larger resolutions. It also has gamepad fixes and lets you use PS3/4 controllers a lot more easily. Now this game I wanted to play more of. The characters were fun, the graphics are worse, but have a lot of charm, and the battle system is just classic fun. This felt more like the Tales games I like. The fix makes it more playable, but it's always a bit lesser, as it's a port of the PS3 version. I knew the gameplay was a bit slower, but I think the battles were just fun. This rates more towards the 8/10 and could be better, as many people love this one as a favorite in the series.

Those are my thoughts and I believe all the ports (Beseria, Symphonia, Zestiria) have fixes and should be applied for a much better experience. I will give Tales of Symphonia more time, but Zestiria likely goes on hold unless someone here really tells me it's one of their favorites.
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tos is a port of the ps2 version that's a port of the superior gamecube version. The sad part is they not only never fixed the fps issues but added in new bugs, translation errors and such with every port while removing short cuts that allowed you to keep artes from the technical tree or strike tree. Oh and nerfed the gald dragon so you can't farm 10k-22.5k money from. All in all they somehow make each port worse than the original release despite the added content of the ps2 version.

zesty wise it gets worse due to bad story translation, skill bingo board, randomized equipment and enemies hp bloat while your stats never catch up towards the end of the game. Tales of Arise suffered the same problem (though I've read spamming flaming sword works to cut down on that but then you need to spam healing items) hp bloat wise and has even lower dps on top of returning to the uncontrollable mystic artes system.

But zesty has even more problems. There's the water dungeon which is just awful but even worse for pc since the teleportation spots are not lined up with the tiles like they supposedly are on console. It also can randomly eat your saves. I lost the first playthrough up to the capital and then another hour or two for capitals sewers to the bow dungeon. My characters skin disappeared leaving only their teeth, gums and black eye sockets and hair. The link encounters had such bad slowdown on the framerate that I could hear the audio happen a good 30 seconds or more ahead of it happening on screen.

They randomly lock out backtracking as you go as well as quick travel. Occasionally for no story reason just because they could. But then they want you to backtrack all over the game to collect plot orbs during the second half. Some you can collect on your way if you know about them beforehand to grab after cutscenes. Like 2 appear in the church in the capital, another appears in the church in marland.

I've read there's a mod to just put skills on your equipment which would be better than trying to get the skills you want via rng. You can't really efficiently do that till a second playthrough anyway since it requires lord of the lands and normins to do it. Plus with the way the upgrade system works its better to keep refining the same equipment with good skills over slightly better default stats on equipment you have randomized in shops in the next store. Barring you jump multiple tiers in a piece of equipment like armor. As I happened to get a higher tier drop of armor for edna as an example by linking encounters on higher difficulties. It was such a large defense bump that she didn't take damage or took single/double digit damage until the end of part 1.

 
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Has anyone gotten a refund for the cancelled FF I-VI Pixel Remaster PS4 from PlayAsia? Seems like it's been quite a while since they sent out the cancellation emails but I don't have a refund yet... 

 
Vinny said:
Has anyone gotten a refund for the cancelled FF I-VI Pixel Remaster PS4 from PlayAsia? Seems like it's been quite a while since they sent out the cancellation emails but I don't have a refund yet...
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Very good question--I haven't gotten my refund yet. It wouldn't surprise me if Play-Asia waits until the Switch version ships out before they "complete" any PS4-version refunds.

 
Vigilante said:
Very good question--I haven't gotten my refund yet. It wouldn't surprise me if Play-Asia waits until the Switch version ships out before they "complete" any PS4-version refunds.
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Alright, just wasn't sure if I missed something/some step. Time to hit up their CS....

 
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