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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Since I know I won't have time to play or enjoy Rebirth, I had an hour free and decided to fire up Intermission. And man, this is pretty fun so far. Yuffie is a blast to use and the Fort Condor game is pretty neat (granted I only played the very first, easy battle). Of course, I died a lot so... not sure how this'll go. I think I just need to go back to Remake and re-learn the game or something.
 
Vinny said:
Since I know I won't have time to play or enjoy Rebirth, I had an hour free and decided to fire up Intermission. And man, this is pretty fun so far. Yuffie is a blast to use and the Fort Condor game is pretty neat (granted I only played the very first, easy battle). Of course, I died a lot so... not sure how this'll go. I think I just need to go back to Remake and re-learn the game or something.
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Learn to spam the Throw + mash Square (button) + [Element] Ninjutsu ability combo because it almost always hit-stuns when you hit an enemy's elemental weakness.
 
Gold_guardian said:
Well that's ultra lame if it's digital only. I'd be willing to pay full price for a physical copy
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I don't quite see the part implying that it will digital only (nor an explicit mention of physical, to be fair) - I do see that the PS4 version is digital only in Japan, and that there is no PS4 version for here, but no clarification on the western Switch version.
 
nitrosmob said:
Ugg had to cancel/refund my Shiren Switch pre-order from Best Buy as it was delayed and wasn't going to come for about half a month, if it was coming at all. I ordered from Amazon for that one and I kind of recommend if you want this game might be a smart idea to get it while it's listed. The Target listing is gone, Best Buy obviously didn't get much stock and only has stock in stores, Gamestop similar with no shipping available and Walmart/Amazon seem to have it right now. Don't follow my advice for this Spike Chunsoft one as this one seems less printed already.
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Appears it was just shipping delays probably due to bad weather across the US. Target, Walmart, Amazon and Best Buy all have it available for shipping.
 
Vigilante said:
Learn to spam the Throw + mash Square (button) + [Element] Ninjutsu ability combo because it almost always hit-stuns when you hit an enemy's elemental weakness.
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I honestly think I just suck at games now unless they're very mainstream (like Spider-Man).LOL Might be time for me to tone down the difficulty to easy in some games... 🧓
 
Twilightsparkle said:
Appears it was just shipping delays probably due to bad weather across the US. Target, Walmart, Amazon and Best Buy all have it available for shipping.
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Yeah even though I do think this will be one of those games that disappears one day, it wont be this early at least. Good to know and I got my Amazon copy now so I'm ready to try it out today. I can let people know my impressions after an hour or so as I've done plenty of times now.
 
Pheria said:
I don't quite see the part implying that it will digital only (nor an explicit mention of physical, to be fair) - I do see that the PS4 version is digital only in Japan, and that there is no PS4 version for here, but no clarification on the western Switch version.
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It's pretty explicit about it in the article linked which specifically mentions digital versions for Switch in North America and Europe then goes on to mention both physically and digitally for Japan.
 
Gold_guardian said:
It's pretty explicit about it in the article linked which specifically mentions digital versions for Switch in North America and Europe then goes on to mention both physically and digitally for Japan.
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Oh I see it now. It's in the big text at the top that I skipped and went to what I perceived as 'article sized text' lol, thanks
 
Posting here too from the CE thread, but I got a Target Circle offer for 20% of video games, very limited selection like always but quite a few preorders worked/including some CEs and some niche games:
Guilty Gear Strive 25th PS5
Blasphemous 2 NS and PS5
Gundam Breaker 4 NS
Eiyuden Chroncile NS
Visions of Mana PS5/XB
Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba NS
Xuan Yuan Sword Mists Beyond the Mounts NS (no clue what this is, I just liked the cover)
Talos 2 Deluxe
Sea of Stars NS/PS5
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet + DLC bundles
 
Some in-store GS pickups with the 4/20 and 4/40 deals:

$10
Octopatch Traveler II ps4
Bravely Default II nsw
Tactics Ogre Reborn ps5/nsw
Chaos Double Pack nsw
Fire Emblem 3 Hopes nsw
GrimGrimoire nsw

$5
Labyrinth of Zangetsu nsw
Tetris Effect Connected nsw
Theatrythm Final Bar Line ps4
Soul Hackers 2 ps5
Tales of Symphonia Remastered ps4
LAD Ishin xb1/sx

Special mention to the GS employee who re-rung the new >pre-owned conversions I purchased last week to fit into a 4/20 set. I kicked a preorder his way.
 
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Went into Gamestop today to get rid of my $5 monthly coupon and completely forgot about the current sales (to be fair, I don't think they put any signs up about it to remind me lol), but I did manage to grab the Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life premium edition brand new for $20. It was on sale for $25, then I knocked $5 off. I was thinking of getting it on the eShop during the Marvelous/XSEED sale, but for the same price I got it physically with a cloth poster and a cute goat, so that's cool. Will probably grab Friends of Mineral Town on eShop since that's only $16 and I've got some gold coins to make it cheaper.

Judging by gospelman's haul there, I probably have everything I want that's in those sales already, and I have enough games, anyway. I keep saying that, but I keep on buying. Huh, weird...
 
There's so many Story of Seasons games that I lose track. Is there one that's better than the others? I think I have the one with the buffalo plush.
 
On the 3DS my favorite was Trio of Towns especially as it had 2 hotties as sisters, plus the 3 towns was neat other than travel. I haven't played the remake type ones myself (mineral town, another wonderful life) but I did play Pioneers of Olive Town on the Switch for a bit, and it was decent (not great performance withstanding, with maybe a bit too many complications for my liking). My favorite Harvest Moon game period was Back to Nature on the PS1 and also the GBA remake, and I believe Mineral Town for the current generation systems is a remake of that with maybe not my favorite art style. People complain about the remakes, but who knows. Rune Factory 3/4 may be better buys overall this generation for these farming type games.
 
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Yea, I have too many games, but I keep my collection pretty pruned of stuff I'm interested in or keep because of novelty's sake.

I keep saying this'll be the year I stop buying and play what I have , but it doesn't happen.

Maybe when physical is finally dead, I'll be less inclined.
 
First initial impressions of Rebirth: wow this game has a really strong opening straight out of the gate. I've only played a few hours. But right away I can tell that you are getting really high quality and polished content. Graphics are excellent. The immediate foreground is impressive and dynamic, the environmental detail is great, and the draw distance and horizons are astonishing. The character models and their art direction and cinematic implementation are sooo enticing and Final Fantasy. It has all of your favorite elements: like the cartoony invitedness of FF9, the overworld exploration and farming of Xenoblade, and some of the most lovable character interactions and warm-hearted humor that just make you grin. I can't get over how well-shot, centered, and immersive the cinematics are. This game was practically made to showcase photography and taking screenshots. Much like the previous title, materia acquisition, use and implementation is very satisfying. The battle systems are robust; they've about doubled the weapon skill and character synergy unlocks from Remake. Queen's Gambit is addictive as hell. Non-linear world exploration is there in full force. Finally, the game looks astonishing in 4K HDR. They really delivered the complete package here.
 
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I’m still in the first area, but Rebirth is going to have a little bit of ”go to this dot, to open up 3 more dots on the map” Ubisoft problem to me. I would have preferred they handled the open world exploration more organically like elden ring and Zelda botw/totk, but it’s great so far. And I have found some interesting things that don’t have a giant waypoint. Pay attention to random NPCs in town, they do some funny things, which change even over the short time I’ve been playing. Found 3 in the first town that made me laugh, when NPCs just made me cringe in the last game. Also the book traces of two pasts, writing and story is about what you‘d expect, don’t recommend it for that, but I’m surprised how much it ties into this game. They clearly wrote it in conjunction with this game. New characters, random npc chatter, and story connections between the first chapter of the book and the first area of the game already, which is my progress in both. So probably more to come.
 
Alright, I'm caving into the nostalgia pressue. I opened my Rebirth Deluxe and am installing now. I also watched a 1.5hr video of Intergrade to catch me up.

Question: Did the Intergrade release add to the ending of the main story at all? The "seven seconds" line seemed new to me, but perhaps I'm just not remembering correctly from my 2020 playthrough. TIA.
 
gospelman said:
Alright, I'm caving into the nostalgia pressue. I opened my Rebirth Deluxe and am installing now. I also watched a 1.5hr video of Intergrade to catch me up.

Question: Did the Intergrade release add to the ending of the main story at all? The "seven seconds" line seemed new to me, but perhaps I'm just not remembering correctly from my 2020 playthrough. TIA.
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You seem to have a habit of not remembering correctly. :unsure:
.
 
Nothing- said:
First initial impressions of Rebirth: wow this game has a really strong opening straight out of the gate. I've only played a few hours. But right away I can tell that you are getting really high quality and polished content. Graphics are excellent. The immediate foreground is impressive and dynamic, the environmental detail is great, and the draw distance and horizons are astonishing. The character models and their art direction and cinematic implementation are sooo enticing and Final Fantasy. It has all of your favorite elements: like the cartoony invitedness of FF9, the overworld exploration and farming of Xenoblade, and some of the most lovable character interactions and warm-hearted humor that just make you grin. I can't get over how well-shot, centered, and immersive the cinematics are. This game was practically made to showcase photography and taking screenshots. Much like the previous title, materia acquisition, use and implementation is very satisfying. The battle systems are robust; they've about doubled the weapon skill and character synergy unlocks from Remake. Queen's Gambit is addictive as hell. Non-linear world exploration is there in full force. Finally, the game looks astonishing in 4K HDR. They really delivered the complete package here.
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I like that there is enough to do in the open areas, but not too much like Far Cry. They keep the missions and activities varied between areas. So far at least.
 
TheKbob said:
I keep saying this'll be the year I stop buying and play what I have , but it doesn't happen.
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I don't plan on stopping, but I definitely am sticking with my more curated purchases so the backlog growth is minimal year to year and the quality of experience is as high as possible. That said, this year, I need this to be the year I finally get off my rear and finish pruning my collection back while people are nostalgic for a lot of this stuff that I'm really done with.

It does hit me that at 50 it's getting more common to find out people I knew at some point in my life have died including those my own age. So even more reason to be as purposeful as I can about the activities I do both in front of a screen and outdoors for my health and maximize my quality of life. Finding a good balance of life while also hedging my bets so I can financially survive a very long life (if that happens), is the key.
 
gospelman said:
Alright, I'm caving into the nostalgia pressue. I opened my Rebirth Deluxe and am installing now. I also watched a 1.5hr video of Intergrade to catch me up.

Question: Did the Intergrade release add to the ending of the main story at all? The "seven seconds" line seemed new to me, but perhaps I'm just not remembering correctly from my 2020 playthrough. TIA.
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Intergrade didn't change anything (the "seven seconds" line was in Remake on PS4), but an update SE pushed out last week to all versions of Remake updated two things:

-Tifa's outfit in the brief cut to the Nibelheim flashback early on in Remake is now consistent with what's in Rebirth
-The final line of the main game spoken by Aerith (in the last CG cutscene before the credits) was changed from (I'm paraphrasing here) "The steel sky...I miss it" to "...I don't like this sky".
 
62t said:
Rebirth took a lot of inspiration from Ghost of Tsushima, which is a good thing.
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There is the occasional animal guide, which seem pretty much pointless so far, not seeing what else is related or inspired by Ghost.

Also, I like that I can turn off map and tracker, but anyone know if I can turn off the button menu in bottom left while exploring. I know by now that X opens the command menu, annoying there does not seem to be anyway to remove that.
 
nightc1 said:
It does hit me that at 50 it's getting more common to find out people I knew at some point in my life have died including those my own age. So even more reason to be as purposeful as I can about the activities I do both in front of a screen and outdoors for my health and maximize my quality of life. Finding a good balance of life while also hedging my bets so I can financially survive a very long life (if that happens), is the key.
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I do attempt to remember that I'm more "free time" bound than "money" bound. Sort of. I definitely can't retire soon or anything, but I could buy a game I don't have time to play without much impact. Given that, I really should be putting little amounts here and there extra on that instead of games on sale. That's about the closest you can get to "buying more time" for yourself. It's boring, and all the usual counterpoints about treating yourself and enjoying your hobby apply. But as a correction to a compulsion (like it has been for me sometimes), it can work as a replacement goal/focus (not that you specifically need one, you seem to be sticking pretty well to your own philosophy so I'm just speaking generally, and about myself)

A shorter term one could be eliminating any debt someone has, or just having a small cushion to avoid a dip into debt for something. It is extremely unsexy, but if one is in my situation of "I enjoyed collecting at first, but now I just feel like a collector by default because I just want to play games and have a lot of them".. "Ay, you heard about this new monthly subscription game called an IRA?" lol
 
gmsick said:
For sure if you loved the original FFVII and have the time to put into it. What are you playing atm?
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I don't think you need to have loved the original to enjoy Remake. Remake was great game overall, only notably issues with it were probably the super long/unnecessarily padding to a lot of parts (long corridors, tedious/repetitive side-quests) and the unnecessary story elements (that red biker guy sucks but also things like the whispers, which might actually go somewhere).

But if you did play the original, this game definitely adds a lot to the experience with new parts (Jesse's) and old parts (seeing Aeris in her red dress).
 
Vinny said:
I don't think you need to have loved the original to enjoy Remake. Remake was great game overall, only notably issues with it were probably the super long/unnecessarily padding to a lot of parts (long corridors, tedious/repetitive side-quests) and the unnecessary story elements (that red biker guy sucks but also things like the whispers, which might actually go somewhere).

But if you did play the original, this game definitely adds a lot to the experience with new parts (Jesse's) and old parts (seeing Aeris in her red dress).
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For sure. Loving the original just enhances the playthrough of Remake. I liked the changes. I never got the platinum, because some of the side stuff I didn't want to go though, but I loved it as a straight story/main quest playthrough.
 
Oh man, open world maps littered with crap to do are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine (probably why I liked Forspoken so much), so I guess I should get to Rebirth soon. Last night, I finished both the main story and Olimar's Shipwreck Tale in Pikmin 4, but I'll probably continue the postgame before I move on to anything else. I'm seriously addicted to Pikmin 4 right now and I'm so happy I finally played it. It might replace Mario Wonder or FFXVI in my top 5 games of 2023. So once I've had my Pikmin fill, maybe Rebirth should take priority. But, I was kind of craving a calming farming sim game, hence why I was grabbing some Story of Seasons games, so we'll see what I end up actually doing. I've gotten to the point where I really can't play more than one game at a time because when I try to, I inevitably neglect one in favor of the other and end up dropping the neglected one completely.
gospelman said:
There's so many Story of Seasons games that I lose track. Is there one that's better than the others? I think I have the one with the buffalo plush.
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nitrosmob said:
On the 3DS my favorite was Trio of Towns especially as it had 2 hotties as sisters, plus the 3 towns was neat other than travel. I haven't played the remake type ones myself (mineral town, another wonderful life) but I did play Pioneers of Olive Town on the Switch for a bit, and it was decent (not great performance withstanding, with maybe a bit too many complications for my liking). My favorite Harvest Moon game period was Back to Nature on the PS1 and also the GBA remake, and I believe Mineral Town for the current generation systems is a remake of that with maybe not my favorite art style. People complain about the remakes, but who knows. Rune Factory 3/4 may be better buys overall this generation for these farming type games.
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I've played both Rune Factory 4 and Stardew Valley and loved them both, so I've been slowly collecting some other farming sim games that I've heard are great. I got Rune Factory 5 at launch but put it on the back burner after the meh reviews, and I avoided buying Rune Factory 3 until the half off sale recently since you can't play as a girl, though 3 is apparently very good besides. I also got Harvestella but didn't like its emphasis on its bland story and characters and its lack of dating, so I eventually sold it.

Since I'm more in the mood for straight farming/dating sim with a female option, I decided to grab A Wonderful Life and Friends of Mineral Town (the latter indeed being a remake of the GBA entry that was itself a remake of Back to Nature). I avoided Pioneers of Olive Town since I heard the characters are pretty soulless and I don't like the idea of littering my farm with makers like it's a factory. I also got Trio of Towns a while back when I managed to find a brand new Canadian copy for retail, despite all the USA copies beginning to spike in price, and I even grabbed its DLC before the eShop closed. I've definitely got plenty of options, so I'll just have to choose one, and we all know that starting a game is the hardest part lol
 
Word to the wise, if you buy the bundle just make the defender gear and speed run base Rise. It's really lacking and Sunbreak fixes most of the issues with it.
 
gmsick said:
For sure. Loving the original just enhances the playthrough of Remake. I liked the changes. I never got the platinum, because some of the side stuff I didn't want to go though, but I loved it as a straight story/main quest playthrough.
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Were you able to beat the game on the hard difficulty or whatever? I couldn't even get past the first boss on hard so I looked up some guides and realized, some people were playing with some crazy ass materia builds/pairs whereas I just beat the entire game with the basic as attack/healing materia.
 
Vinny said:
Were you able to beat the game on the hard difficulty or whatever? I couldn't even get past the first boss on hard so I looked up some guides and realized, some people were playing with some crazy ass materia builds/pairs whereas I just beat the entire game with the basic as attack/healing materia.
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If you get the accessory that lets you start battles with a full limit gauge in normal, you can use it on hard, and makes it a piece of cake.
 
Xenogears said:
If you get the accessory that lets you start battles with a full limit gauge in normal, you can use it on hard, and makes it a piece of cake.
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Stuff like this is part of it, the game was insanely deep, I think I just missed a lot during my playthrough. I just noticed that in InterMission, there's a Parry material installed by default and I was like "the fuck is this do?" and looked it up, and it was pretty crazy that this existed in Remake and never used it because it didn't seem useful.

blueweltall said:
I want to Platinum Remake but I still cannot beat the pull-up challenge to get that trophy.
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Now this, I'm pretty sure I got.
 
Vinny said:
Were you able to beat the game on the hard difficulty or whatever? I couldn't even get past the first boss on hard so I looked up some guides and realized, some people were playing with some crazy ass materia builds/pairs whereas I just beat the entire game with the basic as attack/healing materia.
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I never beat it on hard. Look up synergy materia build guides. You'll find some stuff that makes battles a breeze. I imagine the op nature of the build would carry over to hard mode. The trophies I didn't care to get were things like playing a certain chapter 3 times to see all costumes, the pull up challenge & the disc/intel collecting. Plus I skipped some of the mundane side missions.
 
Vinny said:
Were you able to beat the game on the hard difficulty or whatever? I couldn't even get past the first boss on hard so I looked up some guides and realized, some people were playing with some crazy ass materia builds/pairs whereas I just beat the entire game with the basic as attack/healing materia.
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blueweltall said:
I want to Platinum Remake but I still cannot beat the pull-up challenge to get that trophy.
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I got all the trophies for the squats and pull-up minigames, but I almost never have the patience to beat long games again on higher difficulties, so I never platinumed Remake. Same for Intermission, where I retried the final box busting minigame a million times to get all the materia, but noped right out of replaying on hard.
 
If I remember right, to get the accessory that gives basically unlimited limit break, you have to beat the hardest secret boss in the game, but if you make a team just for that, and manage, hard mode is easier than normal after. Thats what I did, and hard mode felt like a story mode recap.
 
IT BEGINS !!!


doctor-weird.gif


P3R $54.99
 
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