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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"We should all start our own country. With Blackjack! And hookers"
Bender the proper solution is not living on this planet anymore. Then using a doomsday device to get rid of the old one. Or at least California.
 
shadowysea07 said:
"We should all start our own country. With Blackjack! And hookers"
Bender the proper solution is not living on this planet anymore. Then using a doomsday device to get rid of the old one. Or at least California.
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California? Nah. Texas and Florida - we'd all be so much better off without those two states. I'd happily see them leave the republic.

Anyways, back on topic, I placed a PA order a while back and hope to get it eventually. PA is an excellent retailer and I'd like to keep ordering from them but between the tariff uncertainty and no f/s (I had to pay nearly $25 for shipping last time because Trump's idiot tariffs affected my order), I don't see me ordering more from PA anytime soon.

At this point, I'd prefer TACO Trump just go ahead and do his stupid and tank the economy so it happens fast and quick. We're still going to have a recession due to his stupidity but this TACO approach is just making it worse by forcing us to watch it all collapse in ultra slow motion.
 
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One of the largest release weeks for VNs in a while so I'll highlight some recent releases as well as few announcements that are older.

First of all Mangagamer released The Pillagers of Raillore by 3rdEye, the same developer of Sorcery Jokers. Like that VN it is a kinetic novel. It has a launch discount of 15%. It is an action VN as well. I forgot about this one, but it looks interesting, although the price is a bit higher.

Mangagamer (NSFW)
VNDB (NSFW)

Nekonyan finally released Happiness! 2 Sakura Celebration. It is available most places but the Steam version is censored and requires a patch as usual. This one is cheaper than I thought it would be and has a 15% launch discount as well. It looks a magical moege with nice art. I'm going to pick this one up for sure.

Steam
Steam 18+ Patch (NSFW)
JAST USA (NSFW)
VNDB (NSFW)

Speaking of sales JAST USA are having a flash sale (NSFW) until June 2nd. Nekonyan also has a sale on Steam as well. These are some of my favorite companies with me owning a lot of their catalogs and played a lot of them. Any questions please ask me and the place for the 18+ patches Nekonyan's other games are also under the Steam 18+ Patch link previously linked.

I rarely get to post any Kagura games since about 90% of their games are RPGMaker games and simulation games (I like these though!). They have released a remaster of an older Alicesoft game Yoru ga Kuru! -Square of the Moon- Remastered. I also forgot this one was coming out and is a fantasy urban dungeon crawler visual novel hybrid game. This hits most of my notes and will also be picked up by me. There is a 20% launch discount.

Steam
Steam 18+ Patch (NSFW)
VNDB (NSFW)

Also an update on a previously released visual novel Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity had an MSRP change sometime after I complained on it (and passed on it on release) being very expensive. This game did have the 18+ patch released, which I believe I mentioned, so this release gets a Nitro approval and is on sale currently on Steam with a lower MSRP.

Steam
Steam 18+ Patch (NSFW)
VNDB (NSFW)

Shiravune has very little on my release or license list for once and will release To Heart Remake on Steam and I believe Switch on June 25th, 2025. It's a pretty famous series and I don't think I ever played the first one.

Steam
VNDB (NSFW)

For the Yuri lovers out there Clover Reset was released. I don't know much about this other than it takes place in an all girls school. It has a 10% launch discount.

Steam
VNDB (NSFW)

Frontwing released Perennial Dusk -Kinsenka- with no launch discount. This is a kinetic novel and the description mentions violence and cruelty and is about a group of exorcists in training trying to mend their wounded souls. Any other week I'd likely get this, but no launch discount is a disappointment. To get the full story you need an 18+ patch per usual. I do love this developer though as they release quite a lot of good quality visual novels.

Steam
Steam 18+ Patch (NSFW)
VNDB (NSFW)

Frontwing will release KANADE on June 11th, 2025. This one is about a half alien, half human girl and a love song that will supposedly save the world. Color me intrigued. I have no idea if this is an all ages release or not.

Steam
VNDB (NSFW)

PQube will release IWAKURA ARIA from MAGES on August 14, 2025. It is a suspenseful yuri novel I believe with some very striking looking artwork. An easy pre-order for me.

Amazon
VNDB (NSFW)

Some announcements (not very many) of upcoming releases:

D.C. Re:tune is a remake of Da Capo and comes out October 30th for PC and Switch.

Sekai Project is releasing Dora-Con Cafe from Cuteuphoria. Dragon girls and and a cafe....what more can I say.

VNDB (NSFW)

Mangagamer announced How I Met My Healthy Hentai Neighbors! from ClockUp. This is the third in that series.

VNDB (NSFW)
 
Vinny said:
Suikoden HD is $30 on all systems on Amazon... do I bite or do I wait?
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Wow it’s dropping pretty fast. I bought two copies on launch. Had to support this one. I still have all of my originals since I don’t sell my games anyway. And one sealed / mint copy of the first on PlayStation. Also the first prima guide for it too!
 
I think Suikoden HD will drop a bit more, but I mean just a bit more like maybe to $20 at most. For me for niche games $30 is the buy price with $20 being the I need to buy this or the physical may become rare point for titles I want. Most NISA games bottom out at $25 (Gamestop sale recently was rare $15 for titles), Atlus (Not that niche anymore IMHO) $20, AKSYS VNs/Games usually in the $20s (some even $15 usually the ones that started with lower MSRP), IFI $20s, PQube $15-$20, etc... I still try to keep the cheapassgamer part of my soul in check, and we just don't get niche games for $10 and below anymore physically.
 
pjmomo said:
Good time to use that Best Buy $10 cert on Suikoden (PS5), Touhou Spell Carnival (PS5) for $25 on clearance, Tiny Tina's Wonderland (PS5) for $10 also on clearance.
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I've been a BB member for decade+, never once understood how people get those certs... I think someone said you have to sign up for the marketing emails, and I did but all I got was daily spam for like 6 months before I unsubscribed. I also rarely shopped at BB after they got rid of Gamer Club (man, I miss Gamer Club).
 
Can also check your account, there is a section called rewards. It may show you have a $5 or $10 cert. I did not see an e-mail but did have a $10 cert, which I rarely seem to get either. If you’ve unsubscribed maybe not though.
 
Suikoden (Switch) for $30 on BB is tempting. I think I'm going to hold to my guns and resist. I don't think I'd actually play the games. Sort of like Grandia and the Lunar Collections. I'm glad to see that they exists but I have enough of a backlog that I'd never likely put real time in on them.
 
First great deal on Suikoden.

...annnnd it's another one of those, "well if it's $30 NOW, what price will it be later THEN" situations.

crazy these summer deals popping off now though. I have so much stuff bookmarked that I want to get at discount. It's pretty fun picking up a sale item here or there as they pop off. I'm ordering a couple more Funiroll CEs this week that are heavily discounted.
 
Yeah, $30 is tempting for Suikoden, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t play it. If I had a certificate at Bb I would’ve caved.

I was making great progress in my backlog up until a few weeks ago. I don’t want to add to it. Plus right now I’m in taking care of things around the house and buying things I need for our Japan trip soon. Yeah i know I can buy whatever I forget over there, but it’ll take a lot more effort & time since I don’t know Japanese.
 
Yeah, if I would have had one of the $10 certs, it would have been very tempting for Suikoden, though I would have likely just used it for one of the Trails games or Raidou or something on Switch.
 
Xenogears said:
Can also check your account, there is a section called rewards. It may show you have a $5 or $10 cert. I did not see an e-mail but did have a $10 cert, which I rarely seem to get either. If you’ve unsubscribed maybe not though.
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This^ but also they typically bury the cert notification in the email so you have to really scour them to actually find it. Easiest way to tell from emails often is the usual jibber jabber at the bottom. When you have till to use the cert, exclusions and other boilerplate.

Otherwise yeah you just have to check your account. As often it takes a bit to get the cert added to your account. And like already mentioned sometimes you don't even get an email at all.
 
I am getting Suikoden. Never played them before and I want to finish Suikoden first and give a long break before playing 2.
 
I may be one of the few that really like the sequels. I own A2 myself and I think the more limited systems of the sequels make the game more interesting in that way. It is not more interesting story wise.
 
All the FFTs are nice in their own ways, the GBA one felt a bit cumbersome to play though with limited buttons.

What we really need is a new entry in the Ogre series, not another rerelease of OG Tactics Ogre
 
FFT is one of the few things left from that nvidia leak iirc, so it wouldn't be too surprising to show up at some point if it wasn't canceled.
I'd definitely pick it up if they did a nice HD2D remake along the lines of Triangle Strategy.
 
Vinny said:
I just said fuck it and bought it at $30. I don't hold Suikoden I & II as highly as most on my golden era JRPG list but they're still excellent games and worth $30 for the two.
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Worth it so much to me I bought two at launch! Very rare for me to do that. Probably impossible. Yet it happened.
 
Honestly though, I don’t need 20 year old remakes that I won’t have time to enjoy. Where’s the discount on Yumia?
 
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I was surprised how Japan focused it was, maybe to pull some interest from the Switch 2 launch?
Nice to see FFT announced, though a little disappointing that it seems to be just an enhanced port after all this time.
New Lumines, Suda51 game and Arc Systems Marvel fighting game were the highlights for me.
Considering it's 4v4 I'd have to presume we'll be seeing a lot more characters...
 
I'll buy the Ivalice Chronicles. I was disappointed to see that it appears as only FFT while "chronicles" suggests a possible collection. Nonetheless, it will be nice to have an updated physical release in the collection. All I still have is the original PS1 game.

Nioh 3 on pc. That might be it for me from this batch.
 
gospelman said:
I'll buy the Ivalice Chronicles. I was disappointed to see that it appears as only FFT while "chronicles" suggests a possible collection. Nonetheless, it will be nice to have an updated physical release in the collection. All I still have is the original PS1 game.

Nioh 3 on pc. That might be it for me from this batch.
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Maybe they're going to add ff12 and tactics advance characters like they did ff7?
 
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