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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nightc1 said:
I don't care for level scaling either. I'm purposefully wanting to grind to make the game easier, not more challenging!
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Oh 100% me too. Very few games did level scaling well (FFVIII since that's all about raising GFs and drawing/junctioning magic in order to get better than the enemies, BotW/TotK since they mix in harder enemies with the weaker ones as you grow but don't completely eliminate weaker enemies) and most just make the enemies as strong as you with no way for you to get the edge on them. I don't want to play a game that I don't feel like I'm getting better at.

I watched my husband play Assassin's Creed Odyssey and thought it looked super-cool, so I gave it a try, but I got so frustrated when I would spend hours playing, then go back to the starting area for a quest I missed or something and the enemies would kick my ass. That's just so unnecessary and it made me not only feel like I was making no progress on raising my character, but it also felt like just a way to pad the game out. So then Ubisoft actually responded to this criticism and gave an option to lessen the level scaling, but they also raised the level cap to 100, making things worse because now everyone was leveling past their favorite gear, and level grinding was the longest chore on the planet. OH BUT NOT IF YOU BUY EXP BOOSTERS WITH UBISOFT COINS. So they fixed one problem, but then created several more. It was a mess.
 
shadowysea07 said:
Gog has 50 something games free to download as of the email this morning. Not sure how many rpgs visual novel titles are among them.
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I don't think I got this email, what was the subject line on it? The only ones I have are normal promotions and discount codes for a D&D game
 
Pheria said:
I don't think I got this email, what was the subject line on it? The only ones I have are normal promotions and discount codes for a D&D game
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free games collection and beloved old titles
and the top of the email page has this text

"Range of our free games!

Interesting indie games, pixel marvels, atmospheric adventures, and all this for free?! Yes!"
 
shadowysea07 said:
free games collection and beloved old titles
and the top of the email page has this text

"Range of our free games!

Interesting indie games, pixel marvels, atmospheric adventures, and all this for free?! Yes!"
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Thanks - Weird, don't have that email from them but it doesn't seem to be targeted: https://www.gog.com/partner/free_games
Sunrider might be the only one relevant to this thread, but free is free
 
nightc1 said:
Not to change the subject, but last night I finally seriously started Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition on the Switch. I had previously started XC3D (3DS) to test a complete used copy when I added it to the collection and then opted to wait for the Switch version when it was announced only to get sidelined by other games and then life. So far, it's pretty wonderful as expected but also a bit overwhelming with all the ncp quests and just getting a handle on how things work.


I recently dug through my PS Store purchases with the PS3 and while it was a scroll of doom to get through everything... at least they fixed it on PS3 so if you opt to download something you aren't forced back to the top of the list. Hopefully the Vita interface for the download list isn't too terrible.



IMO the Vita was the new DC ... similar sized library of QUALITY retail releases before LRG watered down and pretty much doubled the library size. Still, it's a hell of a system especially when you consider the PSTV and using PSN to transfer saves between the console and handheld... and focus mostly on retail releases. That's not to say there aren't good games among those that got released in the limited print world... there are good games, but there's a lot of fluff.

There area few games you can get using the PS Store on PS3, but the majority of stuff has been pulled from purchase. If you already own something, it's hard to avoid the scrolling of doom if you have a huge purchase history on the system.
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I actually just started XCDE as well and am about 20hrs in. I never finished it on Wii, but was very involved with Operation Rainfall's efforts to bring it over. I love the qol improvements and even Reim's ridiculous quips after battle. I am going to keep playing through all the games in release order this year. Enjoy!
 
Earendil_aod said:
I actually just started XCDE as well and am about 20hrs in. I never finished it on Wii, but was very involved with Operation Rainfall's efforts to bring it over. I love the qol improvements and even Reim's ridiculous quips after battle. I am going to keep playing through all the games in release order this year. Enjoy!
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So happy to hear you like it! It makes my heart soar to see so many people playing Xenoblade, especially the first one! I really hope Nintendo re-releases X so more people can experience it. I want to see it get the same love 1-3 do!
 
Earendil_aod said:
I actually just started XCDE as well and am about 20hrs in. I never finished it on Wii, but was very involved with Operation Rainfall's efforts to bring it over. I love the qol improvements and even Reim's ridiculous quips after battle. I am going to keep playing through all the games in release order this year. Enjoy!
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I am starting Xenoblade DE for the first time too. Hoping I can finish it and the extra content before FFVII Rebirth release. Kind of embarrassing that I owned multiple copies of Xenoblade on different platform but haven't played it yet. Big fan of Xenogears and enjoyed Xenosaga so not sure why I waited this long to play it.
 
blueweltall said:
I am starting Xenoblade DE for the first time too. Hoping I can finish it and the extra content before FFVII Rebirth release. Kind of embarrassing that I owned multiple copies of Xenoblade on different platform but haven't played it yet. Big fan of Xenogears and enjoyed Xenosaga so not sure why I waited this long to play it.
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Xenoblade is my favorite in terms of story, characters and setting... but if you played 2, Torna or 3, it's gonna feel very outdated in terms of gameplay. But it's the only game with "Reyn time!".

scorponok said:
Preorders are open for the standard edition of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana Switch reprint at VGP.
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Damn, isn't this like the 3rd printing of this game? Crazy.
 
Vinny said:
Xenoblade is my favorite in terms of story, characters and setting... but if you played 2, Torna or 3, it's gonna feel very outdated in terms of gameplay. But it's the only game with "Reyn time!".


Damn, isn't this like the 3rd printing of this game? Crazy.
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I don't know how many times it's been reprinted at this point but it definitely seems like it and fairy tail then the ryza games and 13 sentinels have been quite a bit.

Underwater ray romano mask of truth though definitely has to be the most. I don't know where vgp would be getting stock of the launch edition still if they weren't reprints.
 
Vinny said:
I preordered a copy of the NS reprint... and while I currently have 8 copies of Ys VIII (don't ask), I'll now have 9.... I've ruined balance in the universe.

This is how Ys Minus 1 starts... to get me back to owning 8 copies of Ys VIII.
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You can't stop at 9, dude. You need 1 more, so you'll have a copy for every numbered entry of the Ys series. It's the only way to rebalance the universe.

...oh crap, does Origin count? Better make it 11.
 
Back to Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition... I'm going to end up taking a lot longer than others (most likely) to finish it. I'm in no hurry but I also like to do all the side quest stuff and level my characters. I'm just under 8 hours in and at the start of chapter 4 after discovering that first thing in chapter 4.

I have a question though, were there any Side Quests in the first chapter or two that are miss-able due to events advancing in the story? I had many done before hand but didn't really dedicate myself to going around and talking to all npc's to get them in my list. Before leaving town I did go back through every area to trigger any side missions and completed them all and have done good since then to complete all the side missions in an area before advancing (and will do that going forward). But just in case I did make a new save so worst case I'll just go back to the save during chapter 1? and go through clearing all the side quests. (EDIT: and I did research this and it seems like the ones you can miss due to story progress are upcoming areas for me and I should be fine, just want to make sure as I'm likely not playing a second play through of this for ages).

Side note to all of that, when you get a bit over powered at the start... that was a great time to just kill everything possible to do some quick leveling up and finished a couple harder side missions. So if I had to replay that for some missed side missions, I would be ok with that since those battles were so easy.
 
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I thought I was bad with 5 copies - I have regular version Ys VIII PS4 PAL and NTSC, Ys VIII Limited edition of Vita, PS4, Switch. Might get PS5 version at some point.
 
nightc1 said:
Back to Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition... I'm going to end up taking a lot longer than others (most likely) to finish it. I'm in no hurry but I also like to do all the side quest stuff and level my characters. I'm just under 8 hours in and at the start of chapter 4 after discovering that first thing in chapter 4.

I have a question though, were there any Side Quests in the first chapter or two that are miss-able due to events advancing in the story? I had many done before hand but didn't really dedicate myself to going around and talking to all npc's to get them in my list. Before leaving town I did go back through every area to trigger any side missions and completed them all and have done good since then to complete all the side missions in an area before advancing (and will do that going forward). But just in case I did make a new save so worst case I'll just go back to the save during chapter 1? and go through clearing all the side quests. (EDIT: and I did research this and it seems like the ones you can miss due to story progress are upcoming areas for me and I should be fine, just want to make sure as I'm likely not playing a second play through of this for ages).

Side note to all of that, when you get a bit over powered at the start... that was a great time to just kill everything possible to do some quick leveling up and finished a couple harder side missions. So if I had to replay that for some missed side missions, I would be ok with that since those battles were so easy.
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Iirc it has side quests that appeared at different intervals in game time.
 
nightc1 said:
Back to Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition... I'm going to end up taking a lot longer than others (most likely) to finish it. I'm in no hurry but I also like to do all the side quest stuff and level my characters. I'm just under 8 hours in and at the start of chapter 4 after discovering that first thing in chapter 4.

I have a question though, were there any Side Quests in the first chapter or two that are miss-able due to events advancing in the story? I had many done before hand but didn't really dedicate myself to going around and talking to all npc's to get them in my list. Before leaving town I did go back through every area to trigger any side missions and completed them all and have done good since then to complete all the side missions in an area before advancing (and will do that going forward). But just in case I did make a new save so worst case I'll just go back to the save during chapter 1? and go through clearing all the side quests. (EDIT: and I did research this and it seems like the ones you can miss due to story progress are upcoming areas for me and I should be fine, just want to make sure as I'm likely not playing a second play through of this for ages).

Side note to all of that, when you get a bit over powered at the start... that was a great time to just kill everything possible to do some quick leveling up and finished a couple harder side missions. So if I had to replay that for some missed side missions, I would be ok with that since those battles were so easy.
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Side quests that are missable in XC1 have a little timer icon next to them, meaning you should do them ASAP. There are other things that could be argued as missable, but getting into what would be story spoilers. Basically, as long as you heed those timer icons and you're paying attention to how the story is going, you'll be fine. My advice is to always revisit areas soon after clearing them in the story and poke around as much as possible. Just take the time to immerse yourself in the game and you'll inevitably find most things on your own.
 
super1upqueen said:
Side quests that are missable in XC1 have a little timer icon next to them, meaning you should do them ASAP. There are other things that could be argued as missable, but getting into what would be story spoilers. Basically, as long as you heed those timer icons and you're paying attention to how the story is going, you'll be fine. My advice is to always revisit areas soon after clearing them in the story and poke around as much as possible. Just take the time to immerse yourself in the game and you'll inevitably find most things on your own.
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I didn't think to go around and talk to everyone with an mission "!" icon to even log them all until after that first major story thing happened after going to refill the the canisters. So, I have no way to know if any of them had a timer icon. Plus reading up on this, some time quests don't show up until other regular quest are completed. I'm fairly sure the first timed quest happens are after where I'm at but just to be sure I think I'll go into my current save (which is still what's loaded in sleep mode right now) and make note of all the quests I've completed and then load up my early game save and then walk around and unlock all the quests and make sure I got them all. If so, I'll go back to my newest save and know I'm good.

EDIT: Found a guide that covers this... looks like I'm good as I haven't gotten to the situation described in the first one you can miss. Cool!

Xenoblade Chronicles - Lockout/Point of No Return Guide - Wii - By Yamada-kun - GameFAQs

For Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, Lockout/Point of No Return Guide by Yamada-kun.
gamefaqs.gamespot.com
 
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62t said:
I thought I was bad with 5 copies - I have regular version Ys VIII PS4 PAL and NTSC, Ys VIII Limited edition of Vita, PS4, Switch. Might get PS5 version at some point.
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Not that I want to encourage you, but the PS5 version is the most upto date in terms of patches, dlc, etc. Pretty sure I heard the translation on that version is vastly improved, too.
 
It's sad but when there is a newer version of a PS4 game on PS5 I'm always tempted to get it. Like I know Caligula Effect 1/2 are likely very similar to the PS4 copies, but those do tempt me, and I'm sure if I haven't played them by the time they go cheap, I'll get them again!
 
nitrosmob said:
It's sad but when there is a newer version of a PS4 game on PS5 I'm always tempted to get it. Like I know Caligula Effect 1/2 are likely very similar to the PS4 copies, but those do tempt me, and I'm sure if I haven't played them by the time they go cheap, I'll get them again!
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This is when you really need to embrace your inner CAG, OG style. As long as the price is right! ;)
 
Vinny said:
Signed up but authorization request email though after 10 minutes not even in spam.
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Have you signed up for one of these offers before? They want new email addresses, not one they already have on their mailing list. If you have a gmail, make it a ‘new’ address by adding a period in the middle of it or adding a + to the end prior to the @. It’ll still go to the same email box.
 
Twilightsparkle said:
Have you signed up for one of these offers before? They want new email addresses, not one they already have on their mailing list. If you have a gmail, make it a ‘new’ address by adding a period in the middle of it or adding a + to the end prior to the @. It’ll still go to the same email box.
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On a side note to this, doing this trick with gmail also works well for signing up for streaming service deals when your current account goes through the same email. So [email protected] could be signed up for hulu's $1/mo deal and you can just cancel that and use [email protected] or [email protected]... etc... and it'll think it's a completely new account if you also use a different credit card. Once everything is up and running you should be able to change the payment method back to the other card. This is how I churn services with good deals ($20/yr peacock, $1/mo Hulu, ...etc).
 
Twilightsparkle said:
Have you signed up for one of these offers before? They want new email addresses, not one they already have on their mailing list. If you have a gmail, make it a ‘new’ address by adding a period in the middle of it or adding a + to the end prior to the @. It’ll still go to the same email box.
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Oh.. darn, didn't realize this. Sucks, prob past the 6k at this point.
 
nightc1 said:
On a side note to this, doing this trick with gmail also works well for signing up for streaming service deals when your current account goes through the same email. So [email protected] could be signed up for hulu's $1/mo deal and you can just cancel that and use [email protected] or [email protected]... etc... and it'll think it's a completely new account if you also use a different credit card. Once everything is up and running you should be able to change the payment method back to the other card. This is how I churn services with good deals ($20/yr peacock, $1/mo Hulu, ...etc).
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I use the . trick all the time. It's really convenient they go to the same place.
I didn't know you could also do stuff like +1 though on the same account, that's handy
 
Pheria said:
I use the . trick all the time. It's really convenient they go to the same place.
I didn't know you could also do stuff like +1 though on the same account, that's handy
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The +1 could be anything in place of the 1. So +hulu would work... or whatever. Nicely too you can create a filter rule so the emails that come in with the modifiers can go to separate folders. This makes it easier to sort between current accounts and older accounts. Though really with any of these streaming services you should only ever need two accounts, a current one and then a previous/next one. Churning the yearly offers is a lot easier juggling two accounts.

Last year I switched everything over to a new gmail account just for streaming devices (I bought a bunch of $20 Onn 4k GoogleTV devices from walmart) and streaming services because I realized that my current email address was getting a bit long to type into streaming apps. Gmail has a minimum of 6 characters for an address ... so my new one is at the minimum with four of them being numbers which are super easy to type in on any of the virtual keyboards. This also separates my youtube account from the account I use on streaming devices.
 
TheKbob said:
I never got my Persona patch, even though I got an email and everything about it. Kinda lost interest.
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Postal sorting machine probably ate it. The envelope mine arrive in was in rough shape. Think they were just thick enough to cause issues with the mail sorting machines.
 
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Twilightsparkle said:
PostAl sorting machine probably ate it. The envelope mine arrive in was in rough shape. Think they were just thick enough to cause issues with the mail sorting machines.
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Same here, they used the thinnest envelope possible to ship that patch to me. I was really surprised it arrived in one piece.
 
super1upqueen said:
Same here, they used the thinnest envelope possible to ship that patch to me. I was really surprised it arrived in one piece.
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They probably tried to keep the thickness under what gets an extra charge for non-machined mail, but cutting it that close and then sending it through the machines causes the machines to jam/eat mail.
 
Twilightsparkle said:
They probably tried to keep the thickness under what gets an extra charge for non-machined mail, but cutting it that close and then sending it through the machines causes the machines to jam/eat mail.
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Humorlessly enough, a veteran employee at my local post office told me there's no such thing as hand-sorted mail. Everything goes through the sorting machine, whether it has a "non-machinable" sticker on it or not. So, paying extra for hand-sorting is a waste of money.

In other words, pack everything carefully. When I sell things online, I assume everything will be dropped from a large height and thrown against a door and I pack accordingly lol
 
Seconded. Though even when i double or triple bubble wrap stuff I've had it arrived damaged. Luckily the buyers were very understanding and reasonable. And mercari tends to side with the seller and bare minimum requirements for stuff are photo of the item.

even then buy the insurance as often the postal and shipping companies sone have just evil on occasion.
 
Vinny said:
Ugh... seeing this makes me re-think my P3 Reload CE PO.
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I am really excited to play P3 reload; was going to get it on day1. But I am NOT paying for that collector's edition. That is a $100-$120 CE and the value simply isn't there. So I'm not buying that, and it's causing me to also want to wait for discount on the regular version. $69.99 for the base version is absurd.

I'm someone who wants to buy the game but probably won't. No idea what they're thinking, or when Atlus got this greedy. Bc it's another game that will be $40 in a month.

That really isn't healthy for your brand.
 
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I am excited to play P3 reload as I prefer P3 to P4 especially and bit to P5 (I haven't beat it yet *insert shocked Pikachu.jpg*). The Answer wasn't that good honestly unless you really love the dungeon crawling aspects, and I was burned out by the time I played and finished some hours of it (got bored). I was replaying P3 (didn't finish the first time so restarted around 3/4 through) and did enjoy the other FES things like Aegis as a social link (don't think this was in the original), the Elizabeth dates and the dog (forget the name) social events. I never played P3 Portable mainly cause it was ugly as sin. I also liked the explorable world, although I could see menu based travel being superior. I will someday and play the Fem MC as everyone raves about those social links. I will be playing reload on Gamepass. Way too expensive to purchase on release likely for the release it is.
 
nitrosmob said:
I am excited to play P3 reload as I prefer P3 to P4 especially and bit to P5
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man of culture.

giphy.gif


Funny thing, my copies of OG P3 from LRG just shipped a couple days ago heh. If the new game weren't coming out I'd just play that. But gotta play the new one. Not going to play both this year.
 
Granblue Fantasy: Relink Demo Impressions after beating it after 1 hour (do this to get completion bonuses for when the game releases):

I know this is going to get a massive amount of flak to start but this feels like Genshin Impact x Toukiden I guess. To start with the art style screams anime and is a nicer looking Genshin/Honkai game. I did the voice acting in English and it seemed decent enough. There is a lot of talking with many generic feeling anime cliche characters. Your group feels like a rag time bunch of cliches. It's not terrible, but generally standard stuff. The story is also extremely typical about your group being lead to free people and defeat big evil. I don't feel this will win any game of the year awards for story of the year, but like Genshin/Honkai I'm sure the story will be decent enough to keep people interested.

This is an action RPG somewhat MMORPG feeling game where you have weak and special attacks with skills similar to Genshin. This game plays like a button mashy fun action game which is where I compare to Toukiden. Many of the stronger monsters feel like HP sponges and you fight them similar to Toukiden when facing big monsters except you don't attack certain body parts and just them in general. You get blocks and dodges although these feel floaty at times, so I'm guessing getting perfect dodges will take some practice. It all runs decently well on the PS5 and I didn't notice slowdown that hampered my gameplay. The gameplay feels Ys like in speed and Genshin like in just about everything else. You have 4 party members in your team and maybe you can switch between them, but I didn't do that in the demo and don't remember anything like that in the tutorial.

The exploration of the world feels OK. You find blue spots that get items, treasure chests, and maybe other things when the game comes out. There are enemies roaming the land like Genshin, and you can fight them. You can follow quest lines by markers. It doesn't feel massive like Genshin, but is bigger than a straightforward romp. Overall the graphics for the world and characters where decently nice. They weren't mind blowing, but felt like Genshin+ graphics. Nothing too crazy, and other than a lot of effects from skills making things hard to decipher, it all looks clean.

I feel this game will be overrated by action RPG starved players. It plays decently well, has an okay enough story to tell (feels a bit generic already along with the cliche feeling characters), seems straightforward, has a lot of MMORPG things like loot and exploration (likely grinding too), and will be a decent game. I don't feel greatness from this at all, but will still get it as good action RPGs are rarer nowadays. It feels like a good game, but I will have to wait and see if it will be a great game. It would get around 8/10 on my scale currently (very good...not amazing rating) which is very worthy of playing. Play the demo and get the rewards. It feels like a good one.
 
Souffrir said:
I have two copies of P5 and I haven’t even played it yet. I don’t need a third for a system I don’t even own, do I?
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I'd probably bite in your situation if a physical copy of Royal isn't among those two.

I have the the vanilla and royal ps4 CE's so I am holding off hoping for a further drop. Also reluctant because to pull off the Akechi bag I feel like I would also need to commit to the haircut.
 
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