Japanese Niche Games Deals Thread: Atlus, NISA, Aksys, XSeed and More!

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The following thread are for niche-based Japanese video games by smaller companies such as Atlus, NIS America, AKSYS, XSEED, D3 Publisher, KOEI/TECMO, SNK Playmore, Ignition, Natsume or any sweet deals for those who are passionate and hardcore about Japanese video games even from the bigger companies like SquareEnix, Sega, Bandai Namco, etc.

But to avoid any messiness of links everywhere, we'll focus on games within the last 2-3 years as opposed to the last five-ten. [although, if you do see older titles on sale, please post them regardless].

The theme of these deals are Japanese video games distributed in the US by the smaller niche companies. The thread is literally for those who love Japanese games. There will be a few Korean games that you may see on this list, such as the "DJ Max" games.

If you see a deal, please post!

NOTE: Please check the most recent page for the latest deals.

And I want to thank many of you in advance who submit their deals and their support!!!
 
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Atelier Ayesha is being published by Tecmo Koei America. Release date March 5th (1 week before HDN V). Hopefully they make CE similar to NISA CEs and about the same price range.
 
Yeah, I hope so too. Its just too bad the game won't have dual-audio like its Arland predecessors.

EDIT: After reading further, only the PAL version was announced to not have dual-audio. Nothing yet has been said about the US version, but let's hope it won't suffer the same fate.
 
[quote name='HakaHina']Yeah, I hope so too. Its just too bad the game won't have dual-audio like its Arland predecessors.

EDIT: After reading further, only the PAL version was announced to not have dual-audio. Nothing yet has been said about the US version, but let's hope it won't suffer the same fate.[/QUOTE]

Oh seriously? Ughhh, that really sucks. I figured that would happen with a new publisher though. It would be odd if they didn't give UK dual audio, but the US dual audio. Not that I'd complain. I guess I'll hold onto that shred of hope for now lol.

EDIT: just went to their facebook page and they have a post that says "Atelier Ayesha will have both English and Japanese voices and the text will be in English only."
 
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[quote name='barrit']Oh seriously? Ughhh, that really sucks. I figured that would happen with a new publisher though. It would be odd if they didn't give UK dual audio, but the US dual audio. Not that I'd complain. I guess I'll hold onto that shred of hope for now lol.

EDIT: just went to their facebook page and they have a post that says "Atelier Ayesha will have both English and Japanese voices and the text will be in English only."[/QUOTE]

Yeah, this is untrue most likely. NISA who localized the game said they were ordered not to include the japanese audio.

I'm more inclined to believe NISA.
 
Looks like I'll wait to buy it when it's ~20-30 down the line. Dub should be the focus but you don't pick up a studio and just start making cuts, screw that noise.

I'd say I'd stop buying KT games otherwise but when you release nothing but pure shit it's kind of hard to make threats.
 
[quote name='Soma_Cruz']Yeah, this is untrue most likely. NISA who localized the game said they were ordered not to include the japanese audio.

I'm more inclined to believe NISA.[/QUOTE]

Hm I see. I'm pretty damn confused because there is some conflicting info out there. I have only seen the one about no Jp audio for EU, unless something new has came out since yesterday.
 
This morning I got an email from NISA about Atelier Ayesha, but it just takes you to the Facebook page, doesn't give any additional info.
 
[quote name='morrodox']This morning I got an email from NISA about Atelier Ayesha, but it just takes you to the Facebook page, doesn't give any additional info.[/QUOTE]

Because they aren't publishing it. They are just making it clear that Tecmo Koei is the publisher this time.
 
[quote name='bojay1997']Because they aren't publishing it. They are just making it clear that Tecmo Koei is the publisher this time.[/QUOTE]

Tecmo Koei is publishing, but NISA is localizing to be exact.
 
[quote name='therealdeal19']XSEED is bringing Pandora's Tower to the US.

FINALLY! [/QUOTE]

Sweet! I don't want to sound greedy, but I hope it get similar first print exclusives like Last Story.
 
People forget that getting the Japanese audio is expensive to license. It could be out of their budget. Of course i'm sure more of you would probably be more happy with the Japanese track. But for all we know it could cost more to license that than to produce a dub.


The Atelier games aren't exactly "Mainstream" to justify the cost :(
 
[quote name='MrBonk']People forget that getting the Japanese audio is expensive to license. It could be out of their budget. Of course i'm sure more of you would probably be more happy with the Japanese track. But for all we know it could cost more to license that than to produce a dub.


The Atelier games aren't exactly "Mainstream" to justify the cost :([/QUOTE]

That could be a valid point, but TK, versus NISA? Isn't NISA a much smaller company? I haven't looked into their financial standing, but I would think TK is much bigger than NISA as a company.

I think TK just doesn't care much for this series, so they probably just want it to die to justify not bringing more to the US. I hear the English dub isn't even a full dub either.

No dual audio and no full English dub = win

I don't know how much more a company can half-ass a release. Hopefully at least one of the regions (US/EU) gets dual audio so some of us can import it.
 
I just bought Pandora's Tower from Amazon UK last week. :hot:

[quote name='Gosha']Sweet! I don't want to sound greedy, but I hope it get similar first print exclusives like Last Story.[/QUOTE]

XSEED has been pretty awesome about that type of thing, I'm sure they'll release something cool.
 
Seems Tecmo-Koei Europe is confused as well. Their last tweet says "We have sent your Atelier Ayesha enquiries to our team in Japan to clarify as what we have been told was slightly different. We will verify."
 
[quote name='therealdeal19']XSEED is bringing Pandora's Tower to the US.

FINALLY! [/QUOTE]

Might have to pre-order this if it becomes hard to find and/or exclusive to Gamestop.

[quote name='bojay1997']Looks like Amazon has an exclusive bandana bonus for ordering the Hakuoki sequel.[/QUOTE]

I wonder if this is the last PSP UMD for North America? (I haven't even heard of any PSP games being released for this year except this game.)

Kind of want a limited edition with the bandanna.
 
[quote name='anotherpoorgamer']
I wonder if this is the last PSP UMD for North America? (I haven't even heard of any PSP games being released for this year except this game.)

Kind of want a limited edition with the bandanna.[/QUOTE]

That's what I'm wondering as well. Every time I think the PSP is done for in terms of physical releases another one pops up on the schedule. I'll be picking up Hakuoki just for the fact that I think this time around it probably will be the final physical release for PSP.
 
[quote name='therealdeal19']XSEED is bringing Pandora's Tower to the US.

FINALLY! [/QUOTE]

I can hear all the people who bought the Operation Rainfall box rejoicing.
 
[quote name='anotherpoorgamer']Might have to pre-order this if it becomes hard to find and/or exclusive to Gamestop.



I wonder if this is the last PSP UMD for North America? (I haven't even heard of any PSP games being released for this year except this game.)

Kind of want a limited edition with the bandanna.[/QUOTE]

Yep, I was hoping for a limited edition as well, but we're only a month out and I just don't see it happening on this one sadly.
 
The Ni No Kuni Wizards Edition is (according to their facebook page) going to be back in stock 1/17/2013 for those who missed out the first time.
 
Ok as a huge fan of JRPGs who is not a japanophile, can someone explain why dual audio matters at all? If you're going to read the text anyway why not just turn the sound off? I don't see how having voice tracks I don't understand improves the experience at all. Not being critical, I just can't even understand why it's an issue?
 
[quote name='biledriver']Ok as a huge fan of JRPGs who is not a japanophile, can someone explain why dual audio matters at all? If you're going to read the text anyway why not just turn the sound off? I don't see how having voice tracks I don't understand improves the experience at all. Not being critical, I just can't even understand why it's an issue?[/QUOTE]
At it's most basic, it's really just personal preference.
 
[quote name='JCrichton']At it's most basic, it's really just personal preference.[/QUOTE]

I can understand that part I guess. Although when we always want games brought here it's hard to be upset that when they do, cost cutting measures need to be taken. I would imagine if you have dual audio you still have to pay something to the japanese voice cast as well as hiring an english one. I think it'd be a death sentence to having a title become widespread if it ONLY has japanese audio. I know it's one of the reasons I won't pay full price for Deathsmiles 2 because it feels like a cost cut that wasn't passed along to us.

So I'd definitely think most people would take getting the game localized over keeping an audio selection?
 
[quote name='biledriver']Ok as a huge fan of JRPGs who is not a japanophile, can someone explain why dual audio matters at all? If you're going to read the text anyway why not just turn the sound off? I don't see how having voice tracks I don't understand improves the experience at all. Not being critical, I just can't even understand why it's an issue?[/QUOTE]

I do it to practice listening to Japanese. Aside from that, because I grew up with English it's very easy for me to identify shitty voice acting in my native language, but much harder in Japanese. Too many games still have that "cartoon voice acting" crap that I could barely put up with when I was a kid.
 
[quote name='biledriver']Ok as a huge fan of JRPGs who is not a japanophile, can someone explain why dual audio matters at all? If you're going to read the text anyway why not just turn the sound off? I don't see how having voice tracks I don't understand improves the experience at all. Not being critical, I just can't even understand why it's an issue?[/QUOTE]

I'd much prefer the original Japanese voice acting (good or bad) over bad English voice acting. And even with good English voice acting, I'd prefer the Japanese voices with subtitles over the English voices (which is how I prefer to watch most Japanese anime).

Even without being translated, you can get a good sense of the meaning and emotional state of a character and what they are saying based on HOW they say something, and much of this is often lost or reinterpreted during the translation process (and rarely for the better) even if the translation itself is accurate .

For me, English voices for a Japanese movie are like watching Seven Samaurai spoken in English by people with hillbilly accents. And in many cases with anime, when I compare the quality of the voice acting between Japanese and English, the Japanese is often much better (IMO).

For video games, it's not as critical since the faces/voices are rarely in synch anyway, but I still prefer the Japanese language version in most cases, and especially when the game wasn't originally expected to be translated to English from the beginning. It's just closer to what was originally intended, which usually means better.

Of course, that's all based on how well you can read/listen at the same time. I have no trouble at all reading subtitled movies and actually blend the voices and words together in my mind so the two aren't really separate. But it might not work that way for others.

On a side note, it is sometimes funny to watch a foreign movie that has translated voices and is subtitled with both set to English. Sometimes the two translations are VERY different, often to hilarious effect. But it also gives you insight into just how differently something can be translated and how much the different translation can affect the meaning.
 
[quote name='biledriver']Ok as a huge fan of JRPGs who is not a japanophile, can someone explain why dual audio matters at all? If you're going to read the text anyway why not just turn the sound off? I don't see how having voice tracks I don't understand improves the experience at all. Not being critical, I just can't even understand why it's an issue?[/QUOTE]

For me personally, the tone of voice, the feeling in their voice, and just the way they say things says a lot about a character's personality.

I'm not totally against English voice acting, but if a game was first recorded in Japanese, I just prefer to hear it in the original voice. I'm the same exact way with movies whether the original language was Mandarin, French, whatever.

I also want to note that NISA's releases are not always fully voiced in English either. So you will have more scenes in Japanese audio, while that same scene will be be completely silent if you chose English voices.

Trust me, I TRY to give the English voices a chance for every release, but it's not long before I switch it right back. For example with Rorona, there were a lot of scenes that were silent in their English counterparts. The game also isn't the same without hearing "barrel" in Japanese lol. The voices in English also give off a whole different personality. Most English voices either make the character sound extremely bratty, attitude-y, or just cartoonish. With the English voice option.. it just made the game pretty boring. The Japanese voices just gave the character so much personality and are very likeable in my opinion.

With Trinity universe, the main male character's voice in English just did not match for me whatsoever. He just sounded like a big dork. The female main character was just extremely annoying and had that typical bratty attitude to it.
 
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[quote name='biledriver']Ok as a huge fan of JRPGs who is not a japanophile, can someone explain why dual audio matters at all? If you're going to read the text anyway why not just turn the sound off? I don't see how having voice tracks I don't understand improves the experience at all. Not being critical, I just can't even understand why it's an issue?[/QUOTE]

I prefer to have dual audio but it's not a deal breaker for me.
 
I don't really think it's the same as in a movie. If a movie is dubbed it's over the person who was actually speaking. It's not really the same thing with a video game since the character is completely fictional and made up. They never had a voice they were "born with" so to speak. English voice acting is just giving that character an English voice, you aren't dubbing over their original voice.
 
[quote name='anotherpoorgamer']


I wonder if this is the last PSP UMD for North America? (I haven't even heard of any PSP games being released for this year except this game.)
[/QUOTE]

Class of Heroes II is said to be getting at least a short run of UMDs. I'm really enjoying Hakuoki, but the reviews of the combat system in Hakuoki: WotS have me concerned.
 
[quote name='Revenantae']I do it to practice listening to Japanese. Aside from that, because I grew up with English it's very easy for me to identify shitty voice acting in my native language, but much harder in Japanese. Too many games still have that "cartoon voice acting" crap that I could barely put up with when I was a kid.[/QUOTE]

So you acknowledge that even Japanese dubbing can be really bad, but you wouldn't notice it because you don't understand the language. But would it really bother you for a game like Persona where the English acting is actually pretty good?

[quote name='DarkonJohn']For me, English voices for a Japanese movie are like watching Seven Samaurai spoken in English by people with hillbilly accents. And in many cases with anime, when I compare the quality of the voice acting between Japanese and English, the Japanese is often much better (IMO).
[/QUOTE]

You don't understand Japanese, how would you know which is worse? In Japan, normal people who don't like anime call anime fans "otaku" as a derogatory term because the acting in anime usually is childish and cartoony in their language too.
 
Pandora's Tower to US? Cool!

Now I have to figure out how hard it is (compared to other dungeon crawlers too) because my tolerance for the average JRPG difficulty is getting close to zero.
 
[quote name='therealdeal19']XSEED is bringing Pandora's Tower to the US.

FINALLY! [/QUOTE]

Geez... took them long enough to announce. Now I wish I hadn't imported the CE since Xseed will likely dish out a better CE than the European one.

It's a pretty good game but probably the worst of the OR games.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Geez... took them long enough to announce. Now I wish I hadn't imported the CE since Xseed will likely dish out a better CE than the European one.

It's a pretty good game but probably the worst of the OR games.[/QUOTE]

Eh I wouldnt feel bad about your purchase. The Xseed Last Story package was not as good as the EU Last Story CE.
 
[quote name='Jommy']Eh I wouldnt feel bad about your purchase. The Xseed Last Story package was not as good as the EU Last Story CE.[/QUOTE]

I'm not saying Xseed will release a better CE (if they release it), but that I would have rather not bothered importing it had I known it would have eventually gotten released here.
 
[quote name='Jommy']Eh I wouldnt feel bad about your purchase. The Xseed Last Story package was not as good as the EU Last Story CE.[/QUOTE]

I dunno, I like my Xseed TLS CE more than the PAL one. The steelbook is nice, but Xseed's overall package is better (bigger artbook, nicer display box) since I don't really use steelbooks.
 
[quote name='whitereflection']So you acknowledge that even Japanese dubbing can be really bad, but you wouldn't notice it because you don't understand the language. But would it really bother you for a game like Persona where the English acting is actually pretty good?



You don't understand Japanese, how would you know which is worse? In Japan, normal people who don't like anime call anime fans "otaku" as a derogatory term because the acting in anime usually is childish and cartoony in their language too.[/QUOTE]

I use the Japanese audio to help with learning too, especially with how a sentence is used (since in the language, the structure of word placement is very flexible). I don't think most people are mad about the fact that the English dub is bad (as far as we all know, the dubbing in this game can be superb); more likely, it's that they cut the option to include both tracks, and to a perfectionist, this can seem a little off-putting. I recognize that Tecmo is a company and may cut corners to increase profits, and this won't change my decision to buy the game, but it just seems bad when compared to NISA's previous formula of including dual-audio in the Arland series.

And while video game dubbing is acceptable because sprite images don't necessarily have moving mouths (which give the voice actor/actress much more flexibility with their voice), it just doesn't hold true to anime or movies. English dubbing in them has to have the ability to create sentences that adhere to the movements of the mouth (otherwise, it'd look like an old Hong Kong film with bad lipsyncing) while maintaining accurate meaning in the sentence. To a natural speaker, dubbed anime and films would seem to take a lot of liberties in translation; this is especially true when Japanese doesn't have articles in sentences (a, an, the, etc.), which can mess up the flow of syncing words to a moving mouth in a dub.

Lastly, the term otaku doesn't just apply to anime, it can describe a person who is obsessed with just about anything, such as densha (train) otaku. They don't label anime fans as otaku because anime acting is childish; rather, they do it because of the fan's silly obsession over it and constantly buying merchandise like figures or body pillows.
 
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[quote name='Deader2818']So will Pandora's Tower be a Wii game or Wii U?[/QUOTE]

Wii. It will, however, play on a WiiU just like other Wii games do.
 
[quote name='morrodox']Too late for me. Already bought the U.K. LE.[/QUOTE]

Crap crap crap!!! I just bought the CE from amazon uk. Gonna have to double dip now.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Geez... took them long enough to announce. Now I wish I hadn't imported the CE since Xseed will likely dish out a better CE than the European one.

It's a pretty good game but probably the worst of the OR games.[/QUOTE]

fuck me. I bought it too. :wall:

Waste of money... why couldn't they have just brought it over before the Wii U?

Hopefully X-Seed brings over a decent CE, cause my copy is going on eBay tomorrow.
 
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