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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Mattiful-Joe said:
Switch players sure buy their games. I just like to browse now and then (don't have a Switch) and it's nuts how fast some Switch titles sell out -- and many times, they're mediocre or not good games (and also at times 2+ times more expensive than PS4 versions). Switch gamers seem a strange bunch.
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This is what I hate about physical these days, how fast physical just disappear. I've got like 19 games I want to buy but they're all still like full price... and there were no B2G1F sales or x% off deals this year at Target. Only good thing is Nintendo's kept it's first party titles well stocked.

If something does sell out, you just have to hope VGP does it's thing.

HaloGX said:
Physical Switch games are appealing because they're usually mostly or entirely complete on cart unlike Playstation and especially Xbox discs. (Obviously there's exceptions like 2K releases).

It's especially nice for compilations and older games, as long as there's parity with other platforms.
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It's infuriating to me how many PS5 games there are where the content is a code/not on disc vs the Xbox counterpart is all on disc. And I believe it's due to how Sony wants things done and not necessarily because of the publishers themselves.
 
I beat the Fantasian demo. Overall... I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, like I actually want to play the game now. It's like a a game from the PS1 era in so many ways. I love the monster capture thing battles. Best of all, the game didn't feel like it was going to be overly difficult. I honestly didn't think it'd like it as much as I did since I still need to finish Metro Exodus (almost done!) and started Spider-Man 2 but I might just finish Exodus and put SM2 down since it honestly isn't drawing me in like the first SM or Miles did.

I do wish they did a bit more to fix the mobile gaming menus and it sucks when the camera shifts but your control angle doesn't but I'm not sure there's a great way to fix that issue. But my biggest complaint is... Leo's appearance. I don't know how to say it without sounding offensive but he clearly looks like a girl but isn't. And it's just so distracting seeing him in cut-scenes when his voice, movements and body are all masculine but he clearly has the face of a girl. I wonder if they fucked up and put the some female characters face on a male character and realized it too late and just said fuck it.
 
For me, the Leo stuff comes down to one issue: They gave the character a headband and dangly earrings of the variety that are almost always given to female characters. Because the character acts and speaks as I would expect, I eventually started to not care/notice about that design choice. But it's definitely intentional. Reminds me of old conversations among fans about other series characters: Ramza, Laguna, Kuja, among others.

The camera issue you mention definitely bothers me more. Another thing I hope to address with mods when I eventually buy & play the full game on steam deck.
 
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I looked at the Fantasian MC. Eh, he looks like an otome MC. Like maybe a cinnamon roll style character. Maybe since it started as a gacha game they were trying to appeal to a female audience with the look.
 
Vinny said:
It's infuriating to me how many PS5 games there are where the content is a code/not on disc vs the Xbox counterpart is all on disc. And I believe it's due to how Sony wants things done and not necessarily because of the publishers themselves.
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According to DoesItPlay, only 41% of Xbox games require no download for all advertised content, compared to 71% on PS5 and 80% on Switch: https://www.doesitplay.org/

They haven't sampled every game, but they've got the best data out of anyone doing that kind of analysis.
 
I'm surprised that the number is so high on any of them given day one patches and such are commonplace. Hell re zero had a patch for the English audio which just seems absurd. As down the road when there's no way to download it the game will be sub only then presumably.

Granted they did release it in a really bad year to do so during the pandemic. For that I'll cut them some slack.
 
I still haven’t played the game, but if there is not any more to it, just seems like such a stupid and potentially bigoted thing to complain about to me. That one game out of thousands has a character that skirts (no pun intended) gender norms, with simply a hairband and an earring (which I’d never wear, but is not that odd for fantasy media) without pushing ideology, or shitting on players that don’t like it. Should count your blessings that it’s not an actual plot point. Not to mention, these are Japanese developers from the 80s, which have had “complaints“ about feminine looking males from western audiences for decades, this is nothing new.
 
I have a lot of switch games that 100% play off the cart but also don't even have any patches because they don't need any. I think both TWEWY games were this way. Pretty sure Tokyo Xanadu is 100% on the cart as well including all the dlc which can be activated as desired or ignored. That's not to discount all the games that have patches but still are fully playable without the patches... but just highlighting some are fully complete on cart.

............

Got a $5 cert from bestbuy so preordered Trails Through Daybreak II. Also preordered Xenoblade Chronicles X as this is the other game I 100% want day one without question. Everything else in the near future can wait.

Tales of Graces f remastered & Bakeru (I enjoyed the demo) hopefully get deals further dropping them from their $40 start price.

Outside of what I preordered, I'm most hyped for Trails in the Sky 1 remake. I love action rpg's and I'm glad they are doing a hybrid system this go around. It looks pretty great in motion as well.

.............

For the whole Fantasian character look. I think it's fine people have their own personal interests whatever they are. Weather that be loving it or not ... everyone should feel free to express their view. It's not an attack on anyone, just preference. I'm kind of glad I wasn't the only one that was a bit thrown by it. Though the camera was the main reason I couldn't go with Fantasian. It hurt my brain not far into the demo with how it changes perspectives and worse is when you change areas walking down and suddenly the camera does a full 180 during the transition and down is now up. There's so many great RPG's I can afford to be picky.
 
I really don’t feel like the camera shifting but the controls not is a big deal. This is exactly how it worked in the PS1 games this game is emulating, and it’s so you don’t accidentally go backwards or something when the camera shifts. It does shift pretty often, but I still got used to it before I was halfway through the demo.

And for what it’s worth, even if he is girly, Leo still looks less like a girl than Nahobino.
 
Souffrir said:
I really don’t feel like the camera shifting but the controls not is a big deal. This is exactly how it worked in the PS1 games this game is emulating, and it’s so you don’t accidentally go backwards or something when the camera shifts.
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Feels different to me. The camera shifts in Fantasian are instant, while the PS1 games involve loading screens. There can be multiple different camera shifts on a single loaded game screen in Fantasian (such as navigating the forest area).
 
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There are camera shifts without loads in FF8 and FF9, just off the top of my head. The main difference is just that there are so many in Fantasian. Perhaps the perspective tending to be farther away and more overhead also plays a part in the perceptions, as well.
 
I just know it hurt my brain the camera flipping around and worse when transitioning between screens and I had moved down to the new screen but now I needed to move up on the new screen because the whole camera flipped 180 without any animation (as it was a section transition). You may not even notice it that much unless you like to backtrack and explore. But it got me quick and as much as I like some old PS1 RPG's, I'm more of an NES/SNES/Dreamcast ... and more current stuff Rpg gamer.
 
Going back to Leo's appearance, I figured there wouldn't be a good way of saying what I wanted to say. It's more like... "it looks like a duck but clucks like a chicken" and it just feels really out of place. Now, that's something I'll get over after a few hours but the camera/controls thing... eh, that might drive me insane.

Souffrir said:
There are camera shifts without loads in FF8 and FF9, just off the top of my head. The main difference is just that there are so many in Fantasian. Perhaps the perspective tending to be farther away and more overhead also plays a part in the perceptions, as well.
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Maybe that's why it bothered me so much... the frequency of them. And again, the camera change didn't bother me, just the movement controls.
 
Mean to mention yesterday but my PA games arrived Saturday in the mail. Really nicely constructed box they have for switch games. So now all of my outstanding purchases are in hand except my preorders for Daybreak II and XC:X.
 
I did notice that my most recent order from Play-Asia was using OSM Worldwide. I don't remember what their logistics partner was before, but I've generally had bad experiences with OSM - both times I've purchased something that was using OSM they claimed that they handed my package to USPS about two weeks before they actually did. I'm sure the holiday volume didn't help either.
 
Tothoro said:
I did notice that my most recent order from Play-Asia was using OSM Worldwide. I don't remember what their logistics partner was before, but I've generally had bad experiences with OSM - both times I've purchased something that was using OSM they claimed that they handed my package to USPS about two weeks before they actually did. I'm sure the holiday volume didn't help either.
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My December package‘s shipping partner is YunExpress so they must be using more than one.
 
Tothoro said:
I did notice that my most recent order from Play-Asia was using OSM Worldwide. I don't remember what their logistics partner was before, but I've generally had bad experiences with OSM - both times I've purchased something that was using OSM they claimed that they handed my package to USPS about two weeks before they actually did. I'm sure the holiday volume didn't help either.
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Mine went: BOXC LOGISTICS INC. -> Yun Express -> OSM WORLDWIDE -> OSM WORLDWIDE (North Las Vegas, NV) -> OSM WORLDWIDE (Austell GA)-> BIRMINGHAM AL DISTRIBUTION CENTER (USPS) ... and then showed up the next day. The first three trackings were out of country with no country/location info noted. Which the whole thing was kind of interesting as BOXC seemed like a middleman that just kind of was the starting point. Shipping info started 12/4 but it had no tracking updates from that first tracking with BOXC until 12/28 when Yun got it. OSM got it two days later.

Once it was in the US in Vegas, it was 5 days to delivery. I have no complaints, it was just interesting to watch. I knew it was going to be a month as that was the feedback a lot of folks had on reddit for wait times. Packing was great (but I ordered standard edition switch games, nothing unusual sized) and now I'm pretty much caught up to MOST everything I wanted except a few games. I'm waiting on Zelda:Echoes of Wisdom to drop for used copies at Gamefly. Anything else I kind of want i'll probably keep resisting because of the whole time factor and focusing on stuff I want to play the most over things I'm more curious about.
 
The Japanese physical PS5 Freedom Wars Remastered is Multi-Language. It wasn't confirmed until today/release day. I could have got it during the 3 for $100 sale at playasia if I knew.
 
scorponok said:
www.gematsu.com

LUNAR Remastered Collection launches April 18

LUNAR Remastered Collection will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam on April 18, GungHo Online Entertainment announced.
www.gematsu.com www.gematsu.com

Amazon exclusive in North America.
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I'll keep an eye on when it's available for pre-order from Wario64 and such. The Amazon listing is there but not active yet it seems. Close to my birthday so it's my b-day gift. I loved Lunar 2 a lot and Lunar SSS was nice as well.
 
Rage of the Dragons NEO Switch/PS5 preorders open at VGP, they even have some extremely expensive neogeo versions. I have some memory lane stories about this game. I bought ROTD for the neogeo AES when it came out in 2002 from NCSX (anybody remember them?), it was $300 new. The neostore got in a lot of new complete MVS kits of ROTD in 2004, they were blowing them out for only $35, I picked up one. Now the AES version is $3,000 and the MVS kit is $500. Of course I don't have them anymore, sold off the collection many years ago, I wish I kept them. The game is a homage to Double Dragon. I highly recommend it if you like fighting games.
 
I always wonder what happened to NCSX throughout the years. Back in the day they used to get in every Japanese game released. Then at some point they were mostly only selling Japanese figures/toys. I checked them out today and they are back selling games, only 2 pages of games and random Japanese items. Their homepage still has information on it from the early 2000s, some links don't work right. If you click on archive, then click on shop it sends you to some Korean site. It's just an old messed up site now but back in the day they were the best.
 
scorponok said:
I always wonder what happened to NCSX throughout the years. Back in the day they used to get in every Japanese game released. Then at some point they were mostly only selling Japanese figures/toys. I checked them out today and they are back selling games, only 2 pages of games and random Japanese items. Their homepage still has information on it from the early 2000s, some links don't work right. If you click on archive, then click on shop it sends you to some Korean site. It's just an old messed up site now but back in the day they were the best.
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They still sell games here and there but mostly they now sell figure/toys

One thing you might want to check though is that they have a HUGE warehouse(think Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark ending scene) that they still unpacking stuff. Unearthing games still sealed from the 90's, including NEOGEO mvs games. Of course these go for high value, but if you want it seal from a reliable source you might want to keep an eye on NCSX
 
I was just thinking about NCSX last week and visited their site. I used to buy a ton of import games from them up until around 15 years ago when they stopped selling games and focused on figures and toys. It was quite sudden and no explanation was given. I assumed the figures and toys were making them more money than games. Fortunately there were other places to buy import games from, but good to see them back at it.
 
I noticed Hulu has some anime leaving this Sunday and one of the things I had added to my watch list that is expiring is Persona 5 The Animation. I know I'm doing this the wrong way around but, I figure this might make it easier for me to get into the games by getting to know the characters first. So far I'm enjoying it. I finished episode 6 this morning and may finish the current story (about the painter) and then wait to play the game so I don't completely ruin the story.
 
nightc1 said:
I noticed Hulu has some anime leaving this Sunday and one of the things I had added to my watch list that is expiring is Persona 5 The Animation. I know I'm doing this the wrong way around but, I figure this might make it easier for me to get into the games by getting to know the characters first. So far I'm enjoying it. I finished episode 6 this morning and may finish the current story (about the painter) and then wait to play the game so I don't completely ruin the story.
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Game is already so drawn out, watching the story at 100x faster pace beforehand would probably make it harder to get through the game. I haven’t watched the show, but I think watching the show after each dungeon would be a good way to do it. Know you already kinda said that too, being “wrong way around”. Could still enjoy it that way too though, I’d be curious if you find watching show beforehand adds to the experience enough to be recommended.
 
Xenogears said:
Game is already so drawn out, watching the story at 100x faster pace beforehand would probably make it harder to get through the game. I haven’t watched the show, but I think watching the show after each dungeon would be a good way to do it. Know you already kinda said that too, being “wrong way around”. Could still enjoy it that way too though, I’d be curious if you find watching show beforehand adds to the experience enough to be recommended.
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I'm kind of curious as well how this will affect things. I don't play games purely for the story and it seems the game has a lot of stuff not really featured much in the anime that I enjoy. Like there's barely any sense of dungeon crawling, social links, exploration, and the investigation side is pretty quick. There should be a lot of content for me to enjoy... and I do enjoy even just being able to walk around a city and explore.

This might completely backfire on me, but I think it's going to be ok even if I finish the anime. Normally with a big rgp there are going to be plusses and minuses at the start and sometimes it takes a while for things to get going. That intro sometimes kills the momentum to the point that I end up bailing before things really unfold. Which this game already has one small strike in that it's turn based and I'm very picky about turn based system. I read P5 takes about 6 hours to get through all the intro stuff. Which I'm going to have a massive advantage already loving the cast that it might help me push through some of the intro if I'm not loving every bit of it. We'll see. Already it's made me want to make P5R my next game. Which is pretty big as I had other games in mind.
 
nightc1 said:
I'm kind of curious as well how this will affect things. I don't play games purely for the story and it seems the game has a lot of stuff not really featured much in the anime that I enjoy. Like there's barely any sense of dungeon crawling, social links, exploration, and the investigation side is pretty quick. There should be a lot of content for me to enjoy... and I do enjoy even just being able to walk around a city and explore.

This might completely backfire on me, but I think it's going to be ok even if I finish the anime. Normally with a big rgp there are going to be plusses and minuses at the start and sometimes it takes a while for things to get going. That intro sometimes kills the momentum to the point that I end up bailing before things really unfold. Which this game already has one small strike in that it's turn based and I'm very picky about turn based system. I read P5 takes about 6 hours to get through all the intro stuff. Which I'm going to have a massive advantage already loving the cast that it might help me push through some of the intro if I'm not loving every bit of it. We'll see. Already it's made me want to make P5R my next game. Which is pretty big as I had other games in mind.
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The first dungeon is practically a full game by itself. It also takes forever to get through. Thus why most players burned out and I can't blame em I nearly stopped there myself.
 
nitrosmob said:
I was burned out heavily at the 80 hour mark myself. It's a really slow burn of a story for sure, and in parts of it isn't totally compelling either.
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And that depends on how much side content you do. I went for full completion besides the compendium as I wasn't aware that you have to play through the game basically again to complete the compendium. I just wish someone would kneecap the devs who come up with those stupid ideas.

Oh I was also missing 2 of 3 treasure mons which only spawn during a brief period in November or something. apparently are extremely rng as I went through the dungeon floors multiple times and didn't find either.
 
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I'll probably finish the P5 Anime tonight or tomorrow. I have 4 episodes left after watching a bunch last night and then two this morning. Given the feedback posted on the game itself (Thanks All!), when I play it I will try not to be a completionist and just enjoy the bits I enjoy and not over do it so I don't get burned out. I'm starting to get a bit more chill about doing everything in big games like this anyway. I think Tokyo Xanadu has helped with that by having some side content limited based on bonding and the bonding events limited so you can't do them all on the first play through. It kind of feels a bit more organic that way instead of chasing a list of stuff. Which reminds me, I sitll have to finish Tokyo Xanadu.
 
Regarding Persona 5, I would treat each dungeon and a "season" regading anime. Sit down and play through that arc and then if you're feeling a bit worn down, take a break with another game.

By eating the elephant one bite at a time, I got through Persona 5 over 8 months or so, on and off. That seemed to be the right approach for me.
 
I love Persona 5, and I was very addicted to it. I played through it 3 times in a row. I also got the platinum. I got a DLC persona so powerful it could kill almost every enemy in 1 hit. I have Royal but who knows when I will get around to playing that.
 
The funniest part to me is how twiggy Ann Takamaki is obviously supposed to be the blonde, sexually attractive foreigner protagonist for the Japanese male audience.

....and yet the character is so flat and boring. Nobody cares about Ann. One of the most forgettable primary characters in any modern Persona. It's even fitting that she has a surname that is almost always going to be said outloud with the wrong type of Japanese inflection / syllable stress.
 
Nothing- said:
The funniest part to me is how twiggy Ann Takamaki is obviously supposed to be the blonde, sexually attractive foreigner protagonist for the Japanese male audience.

....and yet the character is so flat and boring. Nobody cares about Ann. One of the most forgettable primary characters in any modern Persona. It's even fitting that she has a surname that is almost always going to be said outloud with the wrong type of Japanese inflection / syllable stress.
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Probably influenced by the Japanese government to be this way because of low domestic birth rates.
 
I'm waiting for $20. Of course, I had a $10 bestbuy certificate that expired today, I had to spend it yesterday. I would have used it on the Marvel vs. Capcom Collection to make it $20.
 
There is a larger number of visual novels coming out this week or came out recently.

First of all Nekonyan is releasing Angelic☆Chaos RE-BOOT! on non Steam platforms, as it was banned from there. Another idiotic Steam banning. It is coming out Friday January 24th and is avaliable for order at JAST USA, Mangagamer and a few other places (think FAKKU is one). It has a 20% off pre-order price. I will likely play some this weekend and give impressions after likely the common route and one or two routes.

JAST USA (NSFW)
Mangagamer (NSFW)

Shiravune have a lot of releases in a short time frame. They already released Another Way of Gettin' Paid with a 20% discount till January 27th. This a nukige about a sugar daddy pretty much to a bunch of ladies. It's a nukige through and through.

Steam
18+ Patch (NSFW)

Finally The Shell Part III: Paradiso is released. This is the last one in this series and the first time it's available in English. I need to catch up on this series, as I've only played the first one.

Steam
18+ Patch (NSFW)

Another nukige, but quite a different one they just released is Sacrifice Villains. This one is from Clockup so expect a more hardcore nukige. Supposedly it's pretty interesting and the art does look good. I'll probably play this one eventually.

Steam
18+ Patch (NSFW)

Mangagamer is releasing The Alchemist & His Battle-Scarred Homunculus Thursday January 23rd. This is an 18+ release.

Steam (NSFW)
Mangagamer (NSFW)
 
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bn_switchpackage.jpg


Physical version of Fuga: Melodies of Steel trilogy coming to Switch
 
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