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.

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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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Another great current example for me is the $180 collector's edition of Granblue Fantasy. Oh no, that would have been cool to own, right?? That's a nice set. I wanted one. But there are several other $100+ CEs I need to buy this year, including a couple from NISA alone. For that much money I can buy a half dozen other standard edition releases. Like all of the stuff I ended up buying the last two months: everything from God of War Ragnarok to Resident Evil 4 on PS5, including about six of those. I could get the entire Kirby collection (of 3 different games) on the Switch, as well as one of the very best games from last year which almost none of us played: Metroid Prime Remastered.

$180 was too much (for me) to spend. That could be most of the rest of the standard issue games I want to own from the previous year. I am not attached to that franchise in any way. People only want it now because it's sold out. Now the owners gloat. because "it's worth money". But the truth of it is we (most of us) didn't want it at $180. Human nature shows that we want things because they are considered valuable or "hard to find".
 
nightc1 said:
IMO, there's no wrong way to collect as long as you aren't running up debt and have the space for it... enjoy life. I consider myself a curated collector, I want a smaller (compared to the cag standard) collection that is in line with what I love the most in gaming. At 50, I'm aiming to play about 10 to 15 games a year (so far I'm up to 2 for 2024, lol). So buying more than 15 per year is pushing it (unless there are a lot of 10 hour or less games in there). I don't mind throwing something in the backlog, but it needs to be in a series or just look like something I know I can't miss. And I want to sell stuff off that I know I'm done with. I don't want to leave behind (hopefully many decades from now) so much stuff that it all just gets sold or donated.
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What if I have the money for it but not the space...? What should I do?
 
blueweltall said:
I'm wasting all my money on the FFVII collectables. Wave 2 of the FFVII Polygon Mini figure:
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I wanted to get all the Play Arts and Static Arts figures for Remake but jebus, it's so hard to justify those prices. And the only ones that eventually went one sale were the ones I already bought...

Definitely getting these Polygon figures though.
 
blueweltall said:
I'm wasting all my money on the FFVII collectables. Wave 2 of the FFVII Polygon Mini figure:

View attachment 354
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Gee, I wonder who that secret character could possibly be? Judging by that silhouette, all I can tell for sure is that it couldn’t possibly be a spikey-haired SOLDIER who actually was in SOLDIER. Other than that it could be literally anybody.

Vinny said:
I wanted to get all the Play Arts and Static Arts figures for Remake but jebus, it's so hard to justify those prices. And the only ones that eventually went one sale were the ones I already bought…
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Every single Play Arts and Static Arts figure I’ve ever seen in person has had such a bad sculpt for the asking price. The detailing is always just borked, I don’t understand.
 
Vinny said:
What if I have the money for it but not the space...? What should I do?
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I'll bite,

I feel like most space issues tend to come down to inneficient storage practices. But if you have everything in cardboard boxes and the boxes are stacked from floor to ceiling and you can't wak through your home.... then it's time to either move, start selling stuff, or get a storage unit. But, first... maybe have some reflection about why you have so much. Is this some deep seeded childhood trauma about when your mom or dad gave away your favorite toy.. or how you had to live your younger years with so little while your friends had so much and you are making up for it now as an adult? I was in the camp of making up for a really financially tight childhood. One of my brothers was in the camp of losing everything a couple times in his life which made him borderline hoard. Digging into the "why am I doing this" is a good way to figure out why you are filling up your space so extremely. Also looking at how buying is impacting your living space is a good idea. My house is pretty much clutter free.

For organization: Currently I have all of the media I own (Games, Movies, Music, manga, ... everything) on custom built shelves (built with 1"x6" pine boards) that line a single wall of a small spare bedroom along with half of another wall. That leaves me a wall for a couple bookshelves for larger items and another for a desk. Plus the closet is available as well for anything I don't want out. 6" shelves are deep enough that the top can be used for most older game system boxes from Nintendo, Sega, & Sony (up through PS2 along with PS3 Slim). The PS4 is questionable, the PS5 is a big monster of a box. I think all the MS systems have pretty large boxes as well. Having a room dedicated like this is new for me, I used to just have a walk in foyer coat closet lined with shelves... but then some stuff had to be boxed because the shelves were full. This also made getting something out a bit of a pain and I didn't feel like I had anything on display to look at.

With the shelves I have (keep in mind I have 9 foot walls), if i had built them as efficiently as possible for maximum dvd sized content, I would be able to easily fit over 3000 dvd size cases on the main single wall. I use DVD (0.5" thick) as an average since that covers most modern systems and I'm accounting for wood thickness and supports every 3 feet. But since I have some shorter case stuff like GB/GBC/GBA/DS/3DS & CD/jewel cases... it is more efficient to build some shelves closer together to get more stuff displayable. IF I were to do the whole room and also built some free standing double sided shelves for an even more library type storage space for media... I could easily get 16,000 dvd sized cases on display and easily able to be removed. But hot damn, I don't want to grow my collection but rather continue to shrink and refine it and eventually reduce my shelving needs down so I have more display space or even can remove shelves completely.
 
Hopefully SMTVV won't have a collector's edition (or at least one I'll want), because I'll probably get it on PS5 but keep my original Switch CE since that came with some really awesome goodies. Don't know if I need a second CE for the game (unlike Persona 5 because both base and Royal's PS4 CEs were awesome). So, I'll just continue putting off playing the game until I can get this rerelease for a good price.

Real quick: Gundam Breaker 4! And it's getting localized! That's the coolest thing ever! More Gundam games for the west!
 
Gundam Breaker is one of the cooler Dynasty Warrior type games. I hope 4 is pretty aight. For the SMT game I may get it, but likely will just wait for price drops.

I'm one to want to pair down my collection nowadays. This also includes what I add to my Steam library, though I'll take more chances on stuff there especially from bundles. I categorize most of my Steam so I have a finished/abandoned/junk collection classification along with currently playing, and many genre classifications (RPG/Action game/Platformer/Etc...).

For physical copies I mainly like more niche games for that other than the occasional one in case I want to sell it later (The FF7 remake sequel this month comes to mind). I will buy the visual novels and stuff like Shiren in a heartbeat. I will only get other physical copies if they're cheap and generally I try to play those games more quickly to see if I want to keep them in the collection.
 
Well, that was the most boring Nintendo Direct that I've seen in awhile.

Grimgrimoire-1.jpg


I finally stumbled upon one of those cheap copies of Grimgrimoire at Gamestop. It's in great condition; looks like it was new converted to preowned.

They have Joker, Terry, and Banjo & Kazooie amiibos in stores right now too, if anyone cares.
 
They are converting a ton of new to pre-owned tonight/tomorrow supposedly. The worker at the store said a 27 page list printed off and it's the stores responsibility to check every game they have on the list. Sounds insane.
 
Nothing- said:
Well, that was the most boring Nintendo Direct that I've seen in awhile.

Grimgrimoire-1.jpg


I finally stumbled upon one of those cheap copies of Grimgrimoire at Gamestop. It's in great condition; looks like it was new converted to preowned.

They have Joker, Terry, and Banjo & Kazooie amiibos in stores right now too, if anyone cares.
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I got 13 Sentinels for Switch for $8, too. Nuts sale.
 
ININ says IREM Collection Volume 2 is currently postponed because volume 1 was released with several issues. I guess that means an even longer wait for my strictly limited copy. I am excited for Volume 2 because the developers of Metal Slug worked on these games before forming Nazca, GunForce II even looks like Metal Slug. Too bad In the Hunt isn't in Volume 2, seems like it should be.
 
Finally beat Star Ocean 3. You tend to forget that rpg grinding was a real thing back then. Lol! Only ever used 4 characters since other don't get exp outside of battles. Fun game though, decent plot twist. Half way through the series playthrough. I'll start on SO4 after Rebirth and Ys 9.
 
You don't need to grind for disc 1 due to equipment synthesis and or throwing a bunch of atk gems on weapons plus the atk % increasing accessories.
 
I couldn't really spend time during the week on the GS new>preowned conversion. Late to the vulture party but still decided to drive around to a few stores this evening while listening to spring training baseball. Still some decent options on shelves. All of the following was ~$48 total. Took $15 off that by trading in a SMTV nsw cartridge.
Unstickered games are Soul Hackers 2 $3, Scarlet Nexus $1, AI Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative $5
20240224_190811.jpg
 
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Shiravune announced both Mashiroiro Symphony HD and Mashiroiro Symphony: Sana Edition from Palette. This is a love story visual novel about a guy who lives in a new part of the island, but goes to school on the old part of the island. These two parts of the island kind of conflict with each other and stories with the characters ensue. The Sana edition is the route made into a game that was part of the original PSP version. I actually saw the anime way back in the day and remember nothing about it. It had a weird round cat thing and I have the nendoroid for Sana somewhere as she was cheap back in the day and I added her onto an order because of the cute hand hearts. Honestly it's a pretty cool choice even though the original is pretty old by now, but these are HD assets. I'll buy these easily on release and very likely post when they're released along with some 18+ patches.

VNDB (NSFW)
VNDB Sana (NSFW)
Steam
Steam Sana
 
I wouldn't trust CEs/LEs at Gamestop. Heck I don't trust them for new either. My last order was just lame with too many new games with generic covers and one "New" game was quite beaten up too. If you can trade in store I guess they're OK, but unless stuff is hard to find or very, very cheap they're one of my last go tos for ordering stuff now. Also the shipping threshold is a bit too high for my liking.
 
His link is to the LE on Amazon. Wasn't on my radar (jaded after buying & regretting the RF5 LE). But I might bite at that price. I assume it's safe to expect RF3 to run similar to RF4 and not 5?

If anyone does, make sure you select the option to ship in Amazon packaging at checkout, otherwise it might just be a label slapped directly on the shrink-wrapped LE box.
 
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Found a few more when you click the search by publisher. There's seems to be a NISA clearance happening at Gamestop:

The Legend of Natuya: Boundless Trails on Switch $24.99

The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie PS5 preowned $24.99

Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Revenants Deluxe PS5 preowned $14.99

Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles Deluxe Edition - Switch OR PS5 $24.99
 
Xenogears said:
No Vincent? All they need to do is replace the generic Shinra Soldier with Vincent and this series could be complete, but guess they are planning on squeezing out a 3rd set. Can’t imagine what else would be in series 3.
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Elena (to fill out the Turks) seems like a safe bet. Possibly Don Cornero, Bugenhagen, Jessie/Biggs/wedge, etc to fill out another set. But yeah it's lame to separate VV from all the other party members.

Without naming specific reasons, I don't think that's supposed to be a generic Shinra soldier. On that same note, the chosen VA used for that generic Shinra solder was my favorite subtle "nicely done" moment in the Rebirth demo. I didn't love all of it though, such as mako sucking.. sucking.
 
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Nothing- said:
Rune Factory 3 Special Golden Memories LE has been on my front page bookmarks for two months at $65 and is clearly a candidate for dropping. It just went to $34.99 this morning.

Ys IX Deluxe PS5 is $19.99 at Gamestop.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R on PS4 is down to $24.99 at Gamestop.
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Saw the $35 Rune Factory deal at Gamestop last night and scoffed at the $10.99 shipping. Their shipping charge ruins every deal unless you're actually going to buy $79 worth of stuff. So thank you for pointing out that Amazon matched it. May pull the trigger at that price since I doubt it's going to go any lower.

Really hoping the PS5 version of Star Ocean goes on sale at some point since I've been really trying to get PS5 versions of games I know I will only play on the PS5. I know that sometimes means I'll spend a little more money, but I just like having a PS5 disc over a PS4 disc that needs to download the PS5 version. Plus, looks good on the shelf to have an actual PS5 game collection.
 
gospelman said:
Without naming specific reasons, I don't think that's supposed to be a generic Shinra soldier. On that same note, the chosen VA used for that generic Shinra solder was my favorite subtle "nicely done" moment in the Rebirth demo. I didn't love all of it though, such as mako sucking.. sucking.
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I just played the Junon portion and my mind was blown by the open world... and then you look at the map and realize how HUGE it is.

But then the combat... JESUS. I know I'm not as good at games as I used to be but holy fuck, I got my ass kicked hard. I couldn't even beat that water snake boss in the lower Junon town. It seems like this area's got a lot of range combat but without the ability to swap party mid-battle (at least I don't think I can), I don't see how you can't NOT avoid bad combat situations. I had Tifa as my main and she can't hit shit that's airborne.

Also crazy how bad graphics mode is in the open world... ran at like 15 FPS for me, not sure if that was a glitch or what. Didn't seem that bad during the Nibelheim part.
 
Vinny said:
Also crazy how bad graphics mode is in the open world... ran at like 15 FPS for me, not sure if that was a glitch or what. Didn't seem that bad during the Nibelheim part.
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Yeah the graphics mode setting to me was unplayable. Performance should be the default. I held off playing the Junon update since I haven't played the remake dlc yet. Did that present any issues for you?
 
gospelman said:
Yeah the graphics mode setting to me was unplayable. Performance should be the default. I held off playing the Junon update since I haven't played the remake dlc yet. Did that present any issues for you?
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I also haven't played the InterMISSION DLC so can't say. Gonna have to squeeze that in somehow before I start Rebirth.
 
Why would you think anything you order from Gamestop would be complete? Assume it will show up in a black broken case with no disc and if it's better than that you can feel lucky.
 
beenaround said:
Why would you think anything you order from Gamestop would be complete? Assume it will show up in a black broken case with no disc and if it's better than that you can feel lucky.
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Yep, everything you ordered, you should expect nothing more than a disc in a yellow sleeve. That's "new" per GS standards.
 
Ugg I was one of the ones who requested Demon Gaze PS4 price on Amazon and it was price matched some time when I was asleep. I own the game digitally, but yeah was hoping for a physical copy.

For Gamestop "New" you should expect it to come in a brand "New" Gamestop generic case with the disc/cartridge in it in a yellow sleeve. If the game comes in an actual real box you can expect it to likely be a bit beaten up and labelled as "New" with the same yellow sleeve inside. My last batch of games ordered had one of the generic ones with the title of the game on that box having the name of the sale on it as well, one very beaten up real box copy, one beaten up day one edition, and one pretty normal looking opened but clean copy. Still pissed I missed Demon Gaze since that was the one I wanted.
 
Damn missed Demon Gaze, but was able to get Legend of Nayuta. Been wanting to get that for a long time. Also got in on Daybreak restock.

Still trying to figure out if i should get Crymachina
 
nitrosmob said:
Ugg I was one of the ones who requested Demon Gaze PS4 price on Amazon and it was price matched some time when I was asleep. I own the game digitally, but yeah was hoping for a physical copy.

For Gamestop "New" you should expect it to come in a brand "New" Gamestop generic case with the disc/cartridge in it in a yellow sleeve. If the game comes in an actual real box you can expect it to likely be a bit beaten up and labelled as "New" with the same yellow sleeve inside. My last batch of games ordered had one of the generic ones with the title of the game on that box having the name of the sale on it as well, one very beaten up real box copy, one beaten up day one edition, and one pretty normal looking opened but clean copy. Still pissed I missed Demon Gaze since that was the one I wanted.
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For Demon Gaze prob best to wait for VGP they still have it in stock, should be on sale sometime in the future.
 
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