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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I try to give Shounen anime a chance....I really tried with Dragon Ball Super...but couldn't make it past a few episodes. I'll try My Hero Academy though....it's been suggested enough, and the episode count is low for now.

 
I prefer it to be a sports anime if I'm going to dip into a ton of episodes. Prince of Tennis and Kuroko's Basketball are pretty good.

Sorry, I mean Tennis no Oujisama and Kuroko no Basket

 
kickalillas2 said:
Is Gintama worth watching? It's 200 episodes. I don't tHink I can make that kind of commitment.
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the first two seasons are a bit mediocre with some truely brilliant episodes scattered around. afterwards the show really becomes great nonstop as a comedy & a serious shounen.
[around the time they ditch the weird alien people characters]
i'd say the serious action arcs are better than full time action shounen shows. the last 2 seasons that aired were incredible! quality action nonstop.
The current season is back to comedy again so far.
 
Week 9 of the release bonanza or week 8 for Japanese niche only releases. We're not too far off from this deluge ending. Mario is obviously this weeks big release, so long as you have a Switch anyways. I doubt it will, but hopefully it won't be as unfinished as Breath of the Wild felt for a Nintendo game. Western wise it's Assassin's Creed Origins & Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

Other stuff that released without warning last week (Assume PC unless otherwise noted):
- Opus Magnum (Puzzle)
- The Merchant Memoirs (Visual Novel)
- 222 Hearts (Action Platformer)
- Within a Rose (Visual Novel)
- Legend of Fainn Dynasty ～Battles of Beautiful Warlords～ (Strategy)
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX with Power Up Kit / 三國志IX with パワーアップキット (Strategy | Chinese Only)
- NOBUNAGA’S AMBITION: Ranseiki with Power Up Kit / 信長の野望・嵐世記 with パワーアップキット (Strategy | Chinese Only)
- Uncharted Waters II / 大航海時代 II (RPG | Chinese Only)

Weekly Releases (October 22nd - October 28th)

Chaos;Child
- Platform(s): PS4, Vita
- Genre: Visual Novel
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: Digital released last week. This week is physical.

Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon
- Platform(s): PS4, Switch, PC
- Genre: Action RPG
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A

Yomawari: Midnight Shadows
- Platform(s): PS4, Vita, PC
- Genre: Survival Horror
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A

Super Mario Odyssey
- Platform(s): Switch
- Genre: 3D Platformer
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: Mario finally goes the way of the dinosaur.

Legends of Talia: Arcadia
- Platform(s): PC
- Genre: Visual Novel
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: Yet another Winged Cloud game.

Blackberry Honey
- Platform(s): PC
- Genre: Visual Novel / Yuri
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: Published by Sekai Project.

House Dating VR: Cute Korean Girl, Sehyun
- Platform(s): PC VR
- Genre: Simulation
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: ...

Element Hime
- Platform(s): PC
- Genre: Visual Novel?
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: Ok, this is clearly a Nukige. How is it on Steam. There's obviously gotta be a patch for this.

カニマン VS メカモンキー (Werecrab VS Mechanical Monkey)
- Platform(s): PC
- Genre: Action
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: GIANT (Were)CRAB SAYS, "SCREW WEAK POINTS, I WALK UPRIGHT AND BEAT SHIT." Actually in English.

UFM: Unidentified Fantastic Maiden
- Platform(s): PC
- Genre: Visual Novel?
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A

Kung Fu All-Star VR
- Platform(s): PC VR
- Genre: Simulation
- Demo: N/A
- Online: N/A
- Comments: Now you can destroy rooms just like Bruce Lee. Except this time it's yours.

Past Releases
October 15th - October 21st
October 8th - October 14th
October 1st - October 7th
September 24th - September 30th
September 17th - September 23rd

 
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I'm really pumped for Chaos; Child. Obviously Mario Odyssey gets precedence, but I loved both Steins; Gate games. The characters and the stories were really awesome.

I wish they would release more of the Science Adventure series here... But I am willing to wait them out! I hope Chaos; Child does really well to make that happen.
 
My Fire Emblem Warriors CE came in from Best Buy. Somehow I missed that one of the bottom corners of the box is smashed and opened it. It's not that big a deal, I guess. Still a little bummed.

 
 
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Nothing371 said:
huh? lol

I am really wondering what you meant by this.
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Mostly that the story felt very lackluster and missing bits in various parts for a Zelda game, even more so than usual. Voice acting was pretty bad with the voices jumping in tone randomly in the middle of a sentence without reason. The world feels unfinished with large areas where there is nothing but ground texture. Also not getting the amount of polish that the series typically gets with things like cooking ( fuck whoever thought this was a good idea to implement it this way), combat shrines, shrine rewards mostly terrible, absolute ass of a durability system that makes combat feel bad/more of a chore, lack of anything feeling like a dungeon which the series has always had and nothing put in its place to really replace it, poor implementation of weapon/shield/bow carrying via Korok seeds, mounts not feeling particularly good/responsive as they should be (later special mounts may be better) and a couple other things.

I wrote about some of it here. I always see people praising it, but to me it just looks like a bit of a rushed game to meet the Switch release deadline with how poorly so many things were implemented in my eyes. It's something I'd expect from a third rate developer and not Nintendo on one of their main franchises. I know I'm an outlier with this, but I was highly disappointed with the game with how much people praise it as the best Zelda game ever.

 
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hmmm that's interesting.   I played through Zelda BotW right upon release and I thought it had a large amount of open world content, and that it was just the right length.  I thought princess Zelda was the only poor voice actor and that the race champions all sounded pretty good.  Agree that cooking was dumb and poorly implemented; the game needs a recipe menu.  Everything else I chalk up to intentional design decisions.  The Divine Beasts were interesting for very small, compact dungeons.  Although I would have preferred traditional dungeons, it was clever how much they packed into a couple small rooms just by tilting the physics and perspective.  I definitely got stuck a couple times.  Most importantly I thought BotW was a game that got the open world feel just right, and that it was better than the sum of its parts.  It's ratings are definitely inflated.  But it also did a bunch of interesting things really well with its multiplicative gameplay. 

 
I don't think it's the wrong direction to go the route they did, but I feel like it could've used another six months at the very least. The more I played it, the more the game systems felt like they were fighting back against me as the player. If they can't fix that with future iterations, then I'd much rather go back to the old system. Hopefully all the praise the game received doesn't cause that.

I think the only puzzle I got stuck on was the shrine with the constellation puzzle. The four larger puzzles were pretty easy for me, but I'm pretty sure I hit a pedestal or two in non-intended ways.

Part of the reason I wrote that in the weekly post is to see if people are still reading it too. I've asked questions in past ones that have gone unanswered.

EDIT: It looks like NeoGAF has gone the way of the dodo.

 
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Draekon said:
I wrote about some of it here. I always see people praising it, but to me it just looks like a bit of a rushed game to meet the Switch release deadline with how poorly so many things were implemented in my eyes. It's something I'd expect from a third rate developer and not Nintendo on one of their main franchises. I know I'm an outlier with this, but I was highly disappointed with the game with how much people raise it as the best Zelda game ever.
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Yeah, I stopped playing about a month ago myself, as it was just not a great game to me either. I don't think it was rushed, so much as it started out for the Wii U and the tablet in mind, and then had to be reworked for two separate systems. Since we really didn't get to see much of the original version, I can't say for sure if I would have liked it better as it was originally intended, but it damn sure wouldn't have hurt.

For me, most open world games are similar, in that if you don't want to do a bunch of fetch quest, you can just continue on the set story path to the end. This game really didn't have a set path, at least not like other games, and I found the combat boring, the enemies lackluster. So while I guess the HUGE world was great, it seemed like that was the only goal, and no refinement in making the game work on the whole.

WW is my least favorite game in the franchise, as it was a beautiful game to look at, but very little to do. With sailing the world making up the bulk of the game. BotW had the opposite problem, as there is to much to do, with no clear set path to do it. I guess if I wanted to use a guide, I could have gone further, but finding an item hidden here and there was about the most I got from this. So since I haven't finished it, I can't say it's my least favorite, but it easily could be in the long run.

 
Souffrir said:
You picking terrible examples to start with does not make the genre bad.
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I've been watching anime since like 1994 or so. I loved DBZ and Sailor Moon at the time. I've outgrown the shounen genre is all. It is way too slow for me, and honestly I dislike I'm a super weakling....here is a show about me going from super wimp to strongest in the universe. I think something like Gintama would be fun, and I have most of the episodes somewhere (other than the new season), so maybe I'll watch some to see if I like it. I just get bored with the usual offerings from the genre. I'm more of a comedy, romance, and slice of life anime watcher now.

 
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I tried watching Gintama amd got up to maybe episode 30. There was no real story imo. I guess if I try it again, I'd watch just the important.
Any recommendations on the important arcs?
 
Draekon said:
I know I'm an outlier with this, but I was highly disappointed with the game with how much people raise it as the best Zelda game ever.
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Huge respect to you for actually having the balls to say that.

Although you might want to stay away from any Nintendo threads now since your head is probably on a bounty.

Supplice said:
Dragon Ball FighterZ’s Japanese Box Art Revealed
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Wow, seriously? It's a 3v3 fighting game, could they put someone other than just Goku? Should've looked like the Marvel vs Capcom ones.

 
BlackRockWaifu said:
Huge respect to you for actually having the balls to say that.

Although you might want to stay away from any Nintendo threads now since your head is probably on a bounty.
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Eh, going against the popular opinion isn't anything new. So long as people backup saying why they dislike something, it's not a huge deal. The weight I place on something may not necessarily be the same as someone else. In the case of Breath of the Wild the poorly implemented durability and food/potion systems are what mostly did me in by the time I said I had enough and went to finish the last boss. I'll always have negative things to say on just about every game but it doesn't necessarily make it a terrible game and vise versa.

A friend lent me Valkyria Revolution when he visited last Wednesday though... I'm not sure I have anything positive to say about that game. Playing it feels like getting hit in the face with a frying pan repeatedly and I'm not sure I'll finish it prior to Mario Odyssey. If Mario hits first, I'll never touch the game again though. Not to mention the longer I look at the characters faces in Valkyria Revolution, the more I see them as some kind of very creepy uncanny valley because of their eyes.

 
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nitrosmob said:
I've been watching anime since like 1994 or so. I loved DBZ and Sailor Moon at the time. I've outgrown the shounen genre is all. It is way too slow for me, and honestly I dislike I'm a super weakling....here is a show about me going from super wimp to strongest in the universe. I think something like Gintama would be fun, and I have most of the episodes somewhere (other than the new season), so maybe I'll watch some to see if I like it. I just get bored with the usual offerings from the genre. I'm more of a comedy, romance, and slice of life anime watcher now.
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I guess you aren't bored with how basically everything that has become japanese high school life these days. I'm so sick of that stuff, it's so samey, and I crave really good Shounen every now and then. I honestly don't understand how people can watch schoolgirl shows over and over. But most of the people on the forums I frequent eat that stuff up.

I saw the first couple episodes of Gintama and they were very good.

 
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nitrosmob said:
I've been watching anime since like 1994 or so. I loved DBZ and Sailor Moon at the time. I've outgrown the shounen genre is all. It is way too slow for me, and honestly I dislike I'm a super weakling....here is a show about me going from super wimp to strongest in the universe. I think something like Gintama would be fun, and I have most of the episodes somewhere (other than the new season), so maybe I'll watch some to see if I like it. I just get bored with the usual offerings from the genre. I'm more of a comedy, romance, and slice of life anime watcher now.
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Same. Mostly. Pretty much every recent shonen has started off somewhat interesting, but quickly turned into shonen trope city. It just gets old, especially since they try to drag out those series for a hundred million episodes.

I have been meaning to watch Gintama though. Looks like it might be fun.

 
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Nothing371 said:
I guess you aren't bored with how basically everything that has become japanese high school life these days. I'm so sick of that stuff, it's so samey, and I crave really good Shounen every now and then. I honestly don't understand how people can watch schoolgirl shows over and over. But most of the people on the forums I frequent eat that stuff up.

I saw the first couple episodes of Gintama and they were very good.
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Oh no...those school shows are very samey. For slice of life I much prefer something like Interviews with Monster Girls (though they are school girls...but they're monster girls!) or Sweetness and Lightning to something like whatever cute girls being cute anime there is (every season gets one or more).

My favorite anime are the ones with slightly older protagonists like in college or beyond. Those are few and far between though. I honestly watch very little anime...maybe 2-3 series a season, as I just kind of start a few series, drop many, and just kind of grind out those series i kept up with.

In all honestly the last anime I was floored by was likely Honey and Clover. That one just hit so many buttons for me that it left me feeling so many things. It also helped it had older characters and really good art and music.

I still watch anime though just hoping something gets my blood boiling again, but it's been a while.

 
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kickalillas2 said:
I tried watching Gintama amd got up to maybe episode 30. There was no real story imo. I guess if I try it again, I'd watch just the important.
Any recommendations on the important arcs?
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gintama isn't like a regular anime where each episode leads to the next. It's more like an American cartoon in the sense that most episodes are self contained stories & can be watched out of order.
However there are a couple connecting arcs that last only 2 to 10 episodes long so you dont get that overly never ending shounen story feeling.
 
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kickalillas2 said:
I tried watching Gintama amd got up to maybe episode 30. There was no real story imo. I guess if I try it again, I'd watch just the important.
Any recommendations on the important arcs?
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Gets better after 50 episodes. That's when it really hits its stride.

But also, it's a gag anime not really a shonen tournament type show. It does have serious arcs, but they're not the highlight of the show. The humor is.

 
nagpo said:
But also, it's a gag anime not really a shonen tournament type show. It does have serious arcs, but they're not the highlight of the show. The humor is.
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I am of this preference also. Though different folks, different strokes.

The hot pot episode had my laughing until my stomach hurt like hell, much like how our college dorm did hot pot nights, you can't even wait until the meat cooks or else everything will be gone. Of course when we were in our 20's, our bodies were invincible.

 
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SNES Classic Themed - New Nintendo 3DS XL Announced as Amazon Exclusive to be released 11/27

71PJBdQ%2B6aL._AC_.jpg

DragonBall Fighters Z Season Pass Content Leaked & Ultimate Edition is Coming

Voez physical version coming to Switch in JP on Jan 25th for 4,320Yen ($37) & will include TV mode option.

 
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I really hope that SMT V doesn't have anything remotely like the final dungeon that SMT IV Apocalypse had. That place as absolutely terrible and not enjoyable what so ever.

 
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