Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

shivan128

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Welcome to the Japanese niche games deals and discussion thread!  Feel free to talk about local and import Japanese games here.  Our goal is to maintain a thread dedicated to active deals on niche games including RPGs, Visual Novels (VN), Shoot'em ups (Shmups), Musou, etc.  Also maintained are pre-orders for standard, limited and collector's edition games with key release dates provided.

I've wikified the thread to make it more friendly and open to others that can actively update with important information. You can find the wiki post directly below this one.

NOTE:  Please, leave the censorship discussion away from this thread.  It's common for japanese games to have questionable content outside of the country.  We want to keep discussions to the game itself and not about cultural/societal tolerance.

A message from Thorbahn:

Our CAG Japanese Niche Games Thread also has a community on PS4, where you can interact and game with other members of the thread.

Our moderators are: Draekon, Las_Hole, and Waffleswanton

You can basically friend any of our members, or any moderator, and you will be able to request to join the community under "Communities friends are in" tab, and a mod will approve your request.

You can also leave your PSN ID in the thread, saying you want to join, and we can invite you directly as well.

As always, have fun and enjoy your stay!

 
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Vinny said:
It's truly insane... the tariffs are more than the cost of my items I wanted from PA.
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I know. That was the best price I found for the Monster Hunter Duelsense too by a large margin.

nitrosmob said:
I'm glad the only import thing I really want is Saga Frontier 2 Remastered whenever the physical comes out, but P-A is sounding like the place not to get it at least. Sadge imports were expensive before and now are just ridiculous.
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Agreed. Luckily, VGP will be carrying that game. It's currently up for preorder.
 
VGP is pretty much the last hope right now... though they too still could get hit because they have to get things in the country to their warehouse.

Princess Leia Youre My Only Hope GIF by Star Wars
 
krzysio87 said:
Seems like (at least some) games from PlayAsia are safe from the idiot tax so far. My SaGa Frontier 2, Sunsoft is Back and Kwaidan Azuma Manor Story seems to be unaffected and all three have a "Not subject to US Tariffs." tag under the price.
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Checked the Fuga games; all three say this. Phew.
 
Well that's interesting... looks like a lot of items no longer have the tariff. But somehow, a $48 figure, $23 shipping, $70 tariffs.
 
Played some of the demo for Wordend Syndrome last night. It's $5.99 on sale on the eshop right now. I didn't go super deep into it, just far enough that the teacher of the Mystery Club gives you an assignment "what are you made of". Is this something worth playing or just skip it? I read a review because the were no story decisions thus far (just name your character) and I see the reviews are kind of mixed. Seems like a skip, but it's so cheap.
 
nightc1 said:
Played some of the demo for Wordend Syndrome last night. It's $5.99 on sale on the eshop right now. I didn't go super deep into it, just far enough that the teacher of the Mystery Club gives you an assignment "what are you made of". Is this something worth playing or just skip it? I read a review because the were no story decisions thus far (just name your character) and I see the reviews are kind of mixed. Seems like a skip, but it's so cheap.
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I prefer my VNs to be more linear so I dropped it after a while. Didn't seem bad, just okay. The Hundred Line has all of my attention currently.
 
I'm not really big into VN's. I bought some on Vita when I was collecting physical games for it (before I stopped due to LRG watering down the library with FOMO). So I probably already own better games on Vita, though I like the idea of maybe getting one of these on Switch since there's a better chance I'll play it. The story seemed kind of interesting in Worldend Syndrome. I'll sleep on it .. the sale still has a few days and it does regularly go on sale so if I don't feel the urge to continue I'll probably just pass on it for now.

I haven't done an anime update in a week or something... so...

My Love Story!! (Ore Monogatari) - II loved the entire series. It actually covered a lot of relationship subjects in some unique ways and didn't do the cliche wait till the end to get the characters involved thing. I put this off thinking it it might be cheesy, but it was so refreshing and wholesome.

Shirobako - the linear hidive channel had this and a few other new to me series which I DVR'd. I finished the series yesterday and found it pretty great. Watching anime where they make anime is a bit surreal, but it works. The english VA cast, I found it pretty good. The show even hit me in the emotions a few times. I still need to watch the two OVA's (which are the two anime series they were making in the show) and the movie (which continues the story) though both are subs only, but this was surprisingly good.

Wasteful Days of High School Girls - was searching for something dubbed to watch with breakfast and landed on this. So, only in for one episode but it's enjoyable. Reviews were solid with some really glowing viewer feedback. I'll likely finish this and watch Soriaro Utility next. Hidive aired this as well and I dvr'd it but it's sub only. I know it's a 2025 release but I actually really love some golf videogames and watched one of the episodes and enjoyed it so kept it on my dvr. Reviews are mixed, but the negatives seemed to often center around people finding golf boring. I'm not going to take it that seriously.
 
nightc1 said:
Played some of the demo for Wordend Syndrome last night. It's $5.99 on sale on the eshop right now. I didn't go super deep into it, just far enough that the teacher of the Mystery Club gives you an assignment "what are you made of". Is this something worth playing or just skip it?
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I played through this a while back. On the scale of best (steins;gate) and worst (world is ended, song of memories) VNs I've played, I would rank this game around the middle as fairly average. I can still remember some fairly interesting plot elements toward the end, so I would say it's probably worth casually going through.

A random test that comes to mind: Did you appreciate the character writing behind Rion in TX eX+? Expect more of that kind of thing.
 
gospelman said:
A random test that comes to mind: Did you appreciate the character writing behind Rion in TX eX+? Expect more of that kind of thing.
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That was like the most "me" kind of test possible. Rion, she was the character I was most going out of my way to interact with in that game. I enjoyed those situations and the writing for her. Hmm, this gives me food for thought. Thank you.
 
Can these apply to online sellers and person to person? I got the monster hunter faceplate and controller back when they released, shipped directly from Japan to me.

Secondly, and I just thought, why would you buy from a china vendor, selling Japan stock, to ship to the US? They were scamming people specifically with the MH items back in March.
 
Romeo said:
Can these apply to online sellers and person to person? I got the monster hunter faceplate and controller back when they released, shipped directly from Japan to me.
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De minimis ended for Chinese goods - doesn’t matter if it’s online seller or person to person.

If you order something from Japan, but it’s made in China then yeah tariffs apply.

For anything not made in China the de minimis amount of $800 still applies.
 
Nothing- said:

Debut Showcase | Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™​


oh boy, a bunch of borderless rares received Amano artwork treatments.
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Can someone de-MTG this for me? I have no idea what I'm watching but not watching an hour+ vid so it'll be all lost on me.

All I know is I've been trying to get some of the commanded collector editions and the card packs and collector boosters they're impossible to get on Amazon; often have the pre-order option but never adds to cart or adds to cart and you can't check out.
 
nightc1 said:
VGP is pretty much the last hope right now... though they too still could get hit because they have to get things in the country to their warehouse.

Princess Leia Youre My Only Hope GIF by Star Wars
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Not sure why you think that'd help. It's not where it ships from, it's where it's made. You have to pay the same tariff even if VGP gets it to their warehouse.
 
They're probably thinking VGP won't charge more for goods already through customs from before when tariffs were raised, which isn't necessarily a given but could be a factor.
 
I believe VGP has a US warehouse, so anything that ships from there wouldn't be subject to tariffs. However, VGP would presumably be charged tariffs to bring the items in to the US and you would expect they'd pass that on to the consumer.
Maybe they have one guy sneaking a small amount of things across the border every day to try to avoid paying tariffs :ROFLMAO:
 
This afternoon I sat down to (finally) start and play Metaphor (ps5) for the first time. I can't get through the opening scenes without feeling sick. There's constant rapid shifting and blinking on most of the UI screens that make me feel very uncomfortable, which is probably some degree of photosensitivity being triggered. And I want to punch the person who thought it would be clever to have the camera sway with irregularity while I'm trying to read dialogue in a cutscene.

There is a "disable screen shake" option in settings but from what I gather this only applies in combat. Starting to think my options are to play this game modded on pc or just skip it altogether.
 
Vinny said:
Can someone de-MTG this for me? I have no idea what I'm watching but not watching an hour+ vid so it'll be all lost on me.
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So every once in awhile you get the question: "Well, which Magic products would I want to buy?" "I have no idea what I'm doing, just want some of the singles".

Well good news /s ! It's just that easy: Collecting Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ That shows you where each card type can be found. You mostly wont get anything besides the regular Showcase treatment rares though.

Firion-Yuffie-1.jpg


Cecil-Cloud-1.jpg
 
elessar123 said:
Not sure why you think that'd help. It's not where it ships from, it's where it's made. You have to pay the same tariff even if VGP gets it to their warehouse.
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If it ships from within the USA there are no tariffs. That is, you can take your china made item and go ebay it and as long as it stays within the country there are no tariffs (Of course as of this morning, the whole tariff thing may be moot anyway). VGP mostly deals in things they have in stock or preorders on more standard releases that don't rely as much on chinese manfuactred items. The ones that do have issues, they've limited to shipping only to Canada. I'm not saying that VGP is going to have every single game and certainly will not have all the special editions, but your order with them on anything in stock isn't going to get some big after order hit from whatever the next big tariff is.
 
Y'all jelly about priest come gunslinger popstar being a hit.

haters GIF

Edit: I wanted to check out maybe getting a collectors pack or two of these but Amazon is sold out.

Does that mean I'm SOL in finding some?

Edit 2:

1000007040.jpg
 
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Yuna looks like orochimaru laughing there...

Tidus wise he looks different.

Definitely cursed art.

I don't think anyone was picking on gunslinger pop icon religious figurehead yuna. FFX-2 Yuna might as well be a different character. Same for hooker version of rikku in that. Ugh her outfit was horrible especially the dreads like wtf was up with that?

I was very immature and turned the volume to max during the massage game part hahaha. Noojie didn't deserve a girl like her. Also threw me off having him be supes va and the other kid is robins va from teen titans. They had a pretty impressive cast considering it was a budget asset reflip sequel.

Rikku aka bubbles among other characters was easy to spot in the first game.


Loved the combat system and wish they'd bring it back. Refining it on better hardware. instead of the weird thing they currently use.

The doom like shooting minigames were also extremely fun.
 
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elessar123 said:
But they would have to pay tariffs to get it to the US warehouse...?
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And if they did, they would put that in the price on the website since orders ship from there and they mostly deal with items already on hand. The stuff they can't take a risk on for US shipping, they don't bother distributing from the warehouse and keep it in Canada and make it a Canada only item.
 
That Shin Chan game looks pretty good. I see it was developed by H.A.N.D which makes sense why it seems so appealing to me. That listing on Amazon, keep in mind is a preorder for August. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
 
scorponok said:
www.gematsu.com

Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 announced for PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, and Switch

City Connection has announced Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol. 1 and Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol. 2 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4 and Switch. Both collections, consisting of 16 Toap…
www.gematsu.com www.gematsu.com
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Thanks. Not sure if I'll cancel, but preordered it just to lock in the bonuses.
nitrosmob said:
Just going to get the Lunar Remastered collection likely from VGP. I hate this waiting for shadow drops on Amazon approach and want Saga Frontier 2 Remastered as well. Whenever Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 physicals come back in stock please post here if possible. Likely getting a PS5 copy of that game.
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I'd get it from VGP, but I don't like that I have to pay a few extra bucks due to the currency exchange because of how GungHo is handling this release. Less about the money and more about the principle.
 
I think KH2 was just as good or better than KH1, I also view it as a classic. Summer vacation ending for Roxas so that Sora can make his big smiley entrance doesn’t have to make sense to still have feels. The side games further convoluting everything from there and the pixarfication of 3 are when it started to go south to me. KH2 was still peak though I think. And all of them are still better Disney games than Disney has ever made. Star Wars and Marvel in this next one could potentially be pretty cool, and would fit with the more modern setting they seem to be going for. Probably Tron again too. And Muppets would be fun, there are all kinds of untapped tie ins they could still do if it’s not just forced to be all Pixar again.
 
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Xenogears said:
I think KH2 was just as good or better than KH1, I also view it as a classic. Summer vacation ending for Roxas so that Sora can make his big smiley entrance doesn’t have to make sense to still have feels. The side games further convoluting everything from there and the pixarfication of 3 are when it started to go south to me. KH2 was still peak though I think. And all of them are still better Disney games than Disney has ever made. Star Wars and Marvel in this next one could potentially be pretty cool, and would fit with the more modern setting they seem to be going for. Probably Tron again too. And Muppets would be fun, there are all kinds of untapped tie ins they could still do if it’s not just forced to be all Pixar again.
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Agreed, KH1 and KH2 are great games. Story did get a bit... sloppy with 2 but it was still somewhat sensible. Great intro songs on both too, I still jam out to Simple and Clean remix and Sanctuary.

I thought Birth by Sleep was pretty good, and 358/2 Days was decent. But never got into the GBA or 3DS game, or any of the other ones.
 
I've played (and completed) every KH game up until KH3. I like the series best when it does its own thing and distances itself from the Disney stuff. It has really interesting lore that's presented exceptionally poorly. The era from KH2 to Birth By Sleep was (mostly) great. But in DDD and 2.8 you can practically feel their reluctance to actually move anything forward. I'll get around to KH3 one day, tossup whether that's before or after KH4 actually gets a release date.
 
nitrosmob said:
Just going to get the Lunar Remastered collection likely from VGP. I hate this waiting for shadow drops on Amazon approach and want Saga Frontier 2 Remastered as well. Whenever Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 physicals come back in stock please post here if possible. Likely getting a PS5 copy of that game.
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If you do the vgp version, would you mind posting a photo of the back showing the upc and product codes? I’m curious if it’s a North American version or French copy.
 
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