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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swordity said:
I'm a Russian AI bot not an alt ok get your facts straight :cautious:
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@gospelman is a weirdo that likes to makes accusations without proof. That's his thing. 🙄

Backlog update. I beat the following games this year:

Granblue Fantasy Relink
Valkyrie Elysium
Trails of Mana - Platinum
Visions of Mana
Final Fantasy 1 Remaster - Platinum
One Piece Odyssey
Fist of the North Star Lost Paridise
Ys Origins
Ys Memories of Celceta.

There are a few more that aren't niche Japanese adjacent:

Slitterhead
Prince of Persia Lost Crown
Gori Cuddly Carnage
Gotham Knights
Blackwind - Platinum
Last of Us 2 Remaster - Platinum

It's been very fun actually playing games after my big game purge. Currently working on Skyward Sword HD about halfway if I remember correctly. I'm at the Sandsea Pirate ship dungeon. Also started Ys X Nordics last night on PS5. Good so far. I like the leap in graphical fidelity. Just have to get use to the new controls & combat mechanics.
 
nitrosmob said:
Am I the only one who looked at the Ivalice video and thought the enhanced visuals are ultra butt ugly? They should have just remade this dang game. I do like FFT, but this looks lazy.
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Same. Got excited when I saw the title but as soon as they showed the actual game, I was like... This looks like AI upscaling slop.
 
TheKbob said:
The PSP version has terrible issues that plague it.

Unless you have a modded PSP with a patched version. Then that's the best.
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I’m still using my PSP regularly in current year + 666, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Honestly, even unmodded, I never had much issue with WOTL on my casual playthrough. Really the only noticeable differences were a few animations that were obviously running a little slow. I know there was more than that, but i didn’t know till I saw them pointed out, so I can’t say it bothered me back then.
 
gmsick said:
The goal is to knock out the rest of these by the end of the year 😄
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P3 could take the rest of the year depending on how much time you can actually play.....

And whether or not you did all the s links. Doing just some of them without maxing cuts the game down to around 45-56 hours.
 
62t said:
It has the graphics and translation of the PSP version, but they didn't say anything about the PSP extras like multiplayer, jobs like Onion Knight, or new characters.
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The blog says the original, so likely not. Those might be in the remastered, but I doubt any multiplayer in general.

They still sell WotL digitally, so they'll likely just point to that.
 
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Xenogears said:
Over under on how many are completed? Those are long games, I’d get burnt out.
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I 99% of the time just beat games & move on to the next one. I usually skip most bonus/extra dungeons & optional quests. I make exceptions, like getting the platinum in Final Fantasy (9 hours total) and Trails of mana ( all 3 playthroughs in less than 40 hours total). Suikoden 1 & 2 are good examples. I've never gotten close to getting all 108 characters, but beat & enjoyed those games on PS1. They were actually pretty short.

Yes sir, burnout is real...I think that is why I gave up on P5R originally. People were giving me tips & instructions for getting the most out of the game & I got bored. I'm fine just beating it organically. I'll have 17 games beaten this year by the end of the month (mostly RPG's) so I think its possible. I'll update you guys in a couple of months. 🤞
 
gmsick said:
I 99% of the time just beat games & move on to the next one. I usually skip most bonus/extra dungeons & optional quests. I make exceptions, like getting the platinum in Final Fantasy (9 hours total) and Trails of mana ( all 3 playthroughs in less than 40 hours total). Suikoden 1 & 2 are good examples. I've never gotten close to getting all 108 characters, but beat & enjoyed those games on PS1. They were actually pretty short.

Yes sir, burnout is real...I think that is why I gave up on P5R originally. People were giving me tips & instructions for getting the most out of the game & I got bored. I'm fine just beating it organically. I'll have 17 games beaten this year by the end of the month (mostly RPG's) so I think its possible. I'll update you guys in a couple of months. 🤞
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Not sure what it is for me… I only play one game at a time and go for 100% each time. Though with games like hogwarts or recently stellar blade, I got burnt out and almost had to force myself to finish them. Now each only has a few trophies left and I want to ‘complete’ them though I don’t have the spark too.

Since my game time is limited, overall it took me 62 hours to nearly complete stellar blade in one play through, and that was done over about two months real time.
 
The other thing I start doing is playing on easy or story mode after a while. Helps makes the battle goes a lot faster. Romancing Saga 2 can be kind of hard in the beginning and the end. Other games like Soul Hackers 2 just isn't that good and I just want to finish it. I am currently playing Expedition 33 on easy and it is probably a better experience for me.
 
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the NA release of Earthbound. I have never played Earthbound but I have a story about it. The only thing I knew about Earthbound back in the day was that there were a lot of them on clearance at Toys R Us. In the 90's I got my mom to ask the stores for their videogame store displays to decorate my room with. Sometimes they gave us stuff they had laying around and we didn't ask for. I had all the posters banners and standees for Mortal Kombat 1 and 2, complete unused Vectorman display kit, Killer Instinct counter standee, Sega Saturn posters, etc. Something we didn't ask for but ended up with was an Earthbound cardboard counter standee, I remember it had a small scratch and sniff pizza on it. In 2009 during a move, I was going through my stuff and found it and said what is this and why do I have it, I threw it out with the recycling. That was a dumb thing to do since I kept it for so many years. I wonder how many thousands it's worth now?
 
scorponok said:
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the NA release of Earthbound. I have never played Earthbound but I have a story about it. The only thing I knew about Earthbound back in the day was that there were a lot of them on clearance at Toys R Us. In the 90's I got my mom to ask the stores for their videogame store displays to decorate my room with. Sometimes they gave us stuff they had laying around and we didn't ask for. I had all the posters banners and standees for Mortal Kombat 1 and 2, complete unused Vectorman display kit, Killer Instinct counter standee, Sega Saturn posters, etc. Something we didn't ask for but ended up with was an Earthbound cardboard counter standee, I remember it had a small scratch and sniff pizza on it. In 2009 during a move, I was going through my stuff and found it and said what is this and why do I have it, I threw it out with the recycling. That was a dumb thing to do since I kept it for so many years. I wonder how many thousands it's worth now?
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Damn, I mean... I'm pretty sure even around 2009, EB and SNES games in general were rocketing up in value. Did you just not know about the demand around EB or did you just not know what the standee was for?

I know I spent years wanting EB but finally got it during COVID and I'm happy I did. I paid a lot for it but it's amazing going for more now....
 
Vinny said:
Damn, I mean... I'm pretty sure even around 2009, EB and SNES games in general were rocketing up in value. Did you just not know about the demand around EB or did you just not know what the standee was for?

I know I spent years wanting EB but finally got it during COVID and I'm happy I did. I paid a lot for it but it's amazing going for more now....
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I don't know what I was thinking. I started using ebay in 1999 so all I had to do was look up the game to see if it had any demand. I had no interest in rpgs when I was growing up, so I didn't know what kind of game Earthbound was at the time. I was probably going through so much stuff that I started throwing away a lot of stuff I shouldn't have.

Barely any pictures of it on the internet. Here is what it looks like.
 
Everyone’s probably made worse decisions that have cost them more, without even knowing it. You never know, and you could have just as easily been posting “I sold that thing for $100 back then!“ It wouldn’t have gone for that much before the hemlock of speculation, fomo and greed took over.
 
Xenogears said:
Everyone’s probably made worse decisions that have cost them more, without even knowing it. You never know, and you could have just as easily been posting “I sold that thing for $100 back then!“ It wouldn’t have gone for that much before the hemlock of speculation, fomo and greed took over.
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Very true, especially with stuff like displays and posters and whatnot. I mean with games, it was common practice to just trade them once you were done or even toss the boxes/manuals... but with store displays/posters, who could have imagined there'd ever be a demand for that stuff.
 
Though depending on the size and such details it might have cost a bit to ship the display.

Value wise it's very random and prices always go up and down. Just look at the covid bubble where fire emblem path of radiance was going for 800 and persona 3 portable about 300-400 (more if you had the collectors edition which was a lot)
 
Everyone probably has a story about selling a game for nothing that is worth a fortune now. For an example I bought Final Fight Guy SNES Blockbusters exclusive complete in the box for $20 at Blockbusters and probably sold it for a couple bucks when I was done with it. Found a complete in box Dracula X SNES at a consignment shop for $5. Sold it on ebay over 20 years ago for $50 because that was all it was worth. Also, when I was growing up, I kept every console box and every game box, a lot of good that did me.

I had Path of Radiance, I think I sold it right before covid. I only got $80 for it, still good since I paid $3 for it at goodwill.
 
I’ve never sold a game, and have only permanently given away like, four. I still have all the packaging, manuals, and everything else that came in the box for my games going back to the DMG and Genesis.

Because, as it turns out, most of what I have is worth less than what it was bought for, or at the very best is worth about its original MSRP after taking inflation into account. The one game I have that’s actually worth anything is the Drakengard 3 CE, still sealed in box. Part of me is tempted to sell it, but the only reason I never opened it is because my stupid PS3 died. I still wanna play the damn thing, I just can’t find a cheap PS3 in good condition and Sony still hasn’t released a console since then that can play PS3 discs.

Probably going to get frame-perfect PS3 emulation before they do, at this rate.

I guess the most valuable game I ever parted with was My World, My Way for DS, which I found pretty dull and traded to a friend in exchange for her buying me Avalon Code. Which is a much better game, so even though it retailed for less and is worth significantly less on ebay these days, I still don’t consider it a real loss.
 
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Souffrir said:
I’ve never sold a game, and have only permanently given away like, four. I still have all the packaging, manuals, and everything else that came in the box for my games going back to the DMG and Genesis.

Because, as it turns out, most of what I have is worth less than what it was bought for, or at the very best is worth about its original MSRP after taking inflation into account. The one game I have that’s actually worth anything is the Drakengard 3 CE, still sealed in box. Part of me is tempted to sell it, but the only reason I never opened it is because my stupid PS3 died. I still wanna play the damn thing, I just can’t find a cheap PS3 in good condition and Sony still hasn’t released a console since then that can play PS3 discs.

Probably going to get frame-perfect PS3 emulation before they do, at this rate.

I guess the most valuable game I ever parted with was My World, My Way for DS, which I found pretty dull and traded to a friend in exchange for her buying me Avalon Code. Which is a much better game, so even though it retailed for less and is worth significantly less on ebay these days, I still don’t consider it a real loss.
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I just find that hard to believe... if you have all the original box/manual for GB games (dunno about Genesis), they should be worth a decent bit, more than their original MSRP unless you're factoring in inflation or unless you just have a ton of sports games or shovelware (like card/casino game collections). Even common stuff like Mario Land or Donkey Kong goes for like $70 if they're CIB.

Also, a working slim or super slim PS3 is pretty easy I thought. I found one that's super rough shape that I got in some lot and it works fine. Just need to clean it out and then might use it as my backup PS3 and retire software BC model.

I also need finish cataloging my entire collection in GameEye before I know for sure what my most valuable game is, I think it was my sealed LoU Post Pandamic but I think some of the Pokemon bundles or maybe Pokemon Box are going for more now. I think I'm like half-way done but it's so... time consuming. 🫠
 
Grabbed Xenoblade Chronicles X. Was pretty tempted on Mario Wonder, but I’m hoping it’ll go cheaper by the holdiays.

Still tempted to grab AA Investigations, but I think I prefer playing that series on DS/3DS.
 
Woot has been killing it. If you're into Otome games get them from Woot if you skip them. They drop to usually $20-$25 which is great (some a bit cheaper). AA Investigations is the one I'm missing so I'll get that as well.
 
TheKbob said:
I'm always bummed that Woot doesn't have a free shipping option. Usually kills my interest on the deals. I tend to watch GameFly more.
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I'm assuming a lot of people just have Prime so they get free shipping.

I placed an order for a few games, just hope they arrive in decent condition.
 
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