Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

CAGiversary!
Feedback
163 (100%)
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!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Was supposed to be today

MgGENCS.jpg


 
I've seen a few comments regarding the substandard animation for Xenoblade Chronicles 2.  Which I think leads into to an interesting discussion.  I would gladly take lesser graphics which would lower costs and shorten dev cycles in order to get more new JRPGs made on consoles.

 
I've seen a few comments regarding the substandard animation for Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Which I think leads into to an interesting discussion. I would gladly take lesser graphics which would lower costs and shorten dev cycles in order to get more new JRPGs made on consoles.
i thought jrpgs were already using lesser graphics.
maybe just final fantasy looked AAA & the souls series if you count those.
 
Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 Remix is on sale at Best Buy. I'm tempted, but I have it on PS3, and I have a feeling they might release 1.5+2.5+2.8 at some point. Which would make me have to quadruple dip.

 
Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 Remix is on sale at Best Buy. I'm tempted, but I have it on PS3, and I have a feeling they might release 1.5+2.5+2.8 at some point. Which would make me have to quadruple dip.
Yeah, I have it on ps3, but want it too. I think I'm going to wait till it's much lower though (~$20) before picking it up. Hopefully a complete X.X collection gets announced by then. Wouldn't mind paying more for that since I haven't gotten 2.8 yet. Maybe in a nice CE =D

 
i rerolled once but am happy with 4* so far enjoying  the story but still early in, just woke up early play little i love the fate anime so this will be something i mess around with for awhile.

 
Making people pay for the original portraits in a remake. Disgusting.

And a bunch of story dlc that imo should be included in a game that hardly has any improvements over the original
I was exactly going to mention that too. Hate the fact that they're making people pay for the ability to swap to the original portraits. I loved the game when I played it on the DS, but the remake/remaster/whatever you want to call it, I'm going to have a hard pass on it.

 
Received an email "project update" from the Muv-Luv Team...

BLiYixz.jpg


How fucking gracious of them to not cancel what people paid for and still haven't received.  :nottalking:

 
To satiate those people who say "No Vita, No Sale."

Honestly I have no idea. If it was XSeed, I'd probably buy both versions. Since it's not, then I'll stick with just the eX+ version. Still unsure about PS4 or PC at the moment though. Worried a bit on the translation since I believe it's a bit more text heavy than most other RPGs these days.

Granted I probably have more worries over the NISA Ys VIII translation currently. Particularly after playing ClaDun Returns and seeing its atrocious translation even though the game doesn't have that much text to begin with. I feel like it's almost as bad as a standard fan translation. Plus the few screenshots I've seen for Ys VIII don't give me much hope either, but I'm sure they'll put more effort into it than ClaDun at least.
I'm that idiot who has both pre-ordered and probably will let this week's Vita version get delivered. To be frank I'm only interested in that Blade deck of cards.

And NISA...I'm nervous too. You know something's up when you do a Twitch stream and all you do is play the original Japan demo while answering questions.

 
I'm that idiot who has both pre-ordered and probably will let this week's Vita version get delivered. To be frank I'm only interested in that Blade deck of cards.

And NISA...I'm nervous too. You know something's up when you do a Twitch stream and all you do is play the original Japan demo while answering questions.
I ordered it too. I don't want to wait for the ex version to come out to play this game, plus I'm gonna have an easier time playing it on the go than at home.

With Ys VIII, there was a big backlash from fans regarding the E3 demo, where the text was translated but clearly not edited yet. Many fans jumped to the conclusion that that would be the final product and really NISA hear about it. NISA probably used the Japanese demo to avoid further controversy, since editing on the text is highly unlikely to be complete yet.
 
Right, as some have mentioned already, Fate/Grand Order is now live.

I'd be happy to add anyone here as a friend, but I'm still currently in the rerolling process.

I will warn everyone that the pull rates in this game are horrible, its 1% for a 5 star, 3% for a 4 star.....

( I rerolled like 12 times and only have gotten a 5 star once. I like Vlad, but I'm aiming for Saber)

 
Received an email "project update" from the Muv-Luv Team...
BLiYixz.jpg

How fucking gracious of them to not cancel what people paid for and still haven't received. :nottalking:
I think they only said that because people kept saying it was cancelled.

Muv Luv Vita was a stretch goal whereas Muv Luv and Alternative PC was the main goal. Of course they should focus on releasing that first. They tried to work on it simultaneously, but it was too much for them. A lot of people seem to not understand that.
 
Super Ninteno Classic is Real and It’s Coming Out This Summer; Includes Unreleased Star Fox Titles

  • Contra III: The Alien Wars
  • Donkey Kong Country
  • EarthBound
  • Final Fantasy III
  • F-ZERO
  • Kirby Super Star
  • Kirby’s Dream Course
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past™
  • Mega Man X
  • Secret of Mana
  • Star Fox
  • Star Fox 2
  • Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
  • Super Castlevania IV Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts
  • Super Mario Kart
  • Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
  • Super Mario World
  • Super Metroid
  • Super Punch-Out!!
  • Yoshi’s Island

Final Fantasy XV DLC ‘Episode Ignis’ launches December, teaser trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAntC6OKlPA

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm already getting bored of Fate/Grand Order. These fights are pretty lame, though I'm sure they get better later. I just face it...gacha games and me just don't gel. 

 
Right, as some have mentioned already, Fate/Grand Order is now live.

I'd be happy to add anyone here as a friend, but I'm still currently in the rerolling process.

I will warn everyone that the pull rates in this game are horrible, its 1% for a 5 star, 3% for a 4 star.....

( I rerolled like 12 times and only have gotten a 5 star once. I like Vlad, but I'm aiming for Saber)
[attachment=26957:Screenshot_20170626-121613.png]

Is this a good RNG? i count 3 lolis.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
if I can grab one during the 1-minute preorder window.
They put it up for pre-order on the Amazon UK site. But when I went to see it, they had disabled the international shipping option on it. Now the pre-orders for it are closed, and it is currently unavailable. I would have been willing to spend a little extra on shipping to import it, especially given it's altered appearance for the UK/Japan release. But now I don't have the option.

 
i thought jrpgs were already using lesser graphics.
maybe just final fantasy looked AAA & the souls series if you count those.
Yeah, I understand both sides of the argument, but I actually respectfully disagree with Nothing, and actually advocate for the opposite, longer development cycles so games come out more polished. The best looking Niche JRPG, is probably Persona 5, and look how long they took to make that one. Same for Gravity Rush 2. I would rather have an amazing Neptunia or Atelier or Senran Kagura title come out once every 3 years than once or twice a year. It'll make games worth playing, at least on release, so games wouldn't just pile on top of the backlog with no motivation to play it.

That said though, longer dev time doesn't guarantee a game will play better, looking at something like FFXV, and I wouldn't even consider that Niche. It'll probably make the games look a little better at least.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Also, I don't think that JRPGs ought to be focused on delivering a realistic graphical style, in the vein of Final Fantasy XV. While it can be applied here and there, I don't think it's really appropriate for the kind of melodrama that the JRPG sub-genre is traditionally known for. Graphical style should be suited to the tone and themes of the story. Painting every title with that brush in order to appeal to a wider audience is a mistake. I would very much prefer the stylish exageration of a title like Persona 5 to the quasi-realism of FFXV.

 
attachicon.gif
Screenshot_20170626-121613.png

Is this a good RNG? i count 3 lolis.
Marie is a pretty good Rider. She can be a tank when leveled up. But if you want a good damage dealer, I would try to get a Berserker (Heracles, Tamamo Cat, Vlad...).

But they announced that they will be giving players the choice of a free 4 star, so you could pick who else you have your eye on.

Me? I'm trying to get either Saber or Jeanne d'Arc. But that 1% summon rate is killing me. :cry:

 
I would never advocate for diminished gameplay systems.  Some of that idea factory stuff is borderline shovelware.  I was strictly speaking about lesser production value in the graphical department.  I believe that music composition, battle systems, the writing, and the 2D character art direction make the jrpg.  Too many resources are wasted on AAA graphics and environments;  FF13 is the perfect example of this.  Which results in so much of the bloat in a development cycle. 

Basically I'm saying that graphics are overrated.  Some of the best games we play are older games where graphics don't matter.  Art direction and style (you know, having its own personality and the creators having a vision) also supersede technical graphics.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Marie is a pretty good Rider. She can be a tank when leveled up. But if you want a good damage dealer, I would try to get a Berserker (Heracles, Tamamo Cat, Vlad...).

But they announced that they will be giving players the choice of a free 4 star, so you could pick who else you have your eye on.

Me? I'm trying to get either Saber or Jeanne d'Arc. But that 1% summon rate is killing me. :cry:
Is there a guide for re rolling like with Fire Emblem?

 
Which Switch game was it that includes a manual and soundtrack for first print runs? I want to get it before it's gone.
Puyo Puyo Tetris, The Binding of Isaac, and Cave Story+ have all had limited items for their first print runs.

You sound like you're referring to Cave Story+ through.

 
Puyo Puyo Tetris, The Binding of Isaac, and Cave Story+ have all had limited items for their first print runs.

You sound like you're referring to Cave Story+ through.
Speaking of Cave Story +, is the box just a standard Switch box with a sticker acknowledging the bonus items inside, or is it a somewhat larger box (like Puyo Puyo Tetris)?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
How do I know when I've gotten a roll good enough to keep?  Got a 4* Carmilla Assassin and a 4*Cevalier d'Eon Saber on my second roll.

IMG_3529_zps8cdzb6lb.png


 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm trying to find info but its just the comments section of the reddit rerolling guides.  Now I'm reading that people are saying you can't even get a 5* from your first summons.  That you have to keep playing and try it on your second official round of summoning. 

 
How do I know when I've gotten a roll good enough to keep? Got a 4* Carmilla Assassin and a 4*Cevalier d'Eon Saber on my second roll.
Nice! Usually, it would be that you stop rolling once you get a character you like. In terms of usability, obviously the 5 star characters are better. But you might not have the patience to continue that many rerolls.....(I'm at 15 rerolls and still no Saber :( )

I'm trying to find info but its just the comments section of the reddit rerolling guides. Now I'm reading that people are saying you can't even get a 5* from your first summons. That you have to keep playing and try it on your second official round of summoning.
That's right. You're guaranteed at least one 4 star on the first 10 roll, but you can't get a 5 star from it. The second roll from the free 42 quartz is where you can get a 5 star.

 
Thoughts on Ever Oasis:

So I've basically completed Ever Oasis. There's more to do, but I went ahead and finished the last boss today. Had a lot of time 'supervising' stuff this weekend that I was able to power through most of the game. I want to say it ran me around 20 hours, but if I continued to try and unlock everything it would easily be 30+.

The story is pretty basic and there isn't a whole lot to it. The translation is decent enough to not be an issue as well. Since there are so many characters, most of them don't have any real personality other than a couple and even then it's bare bones outside of your 'partner' in the game.

Gameplay wise it's mostly positive, but has a few drawbacks. It's your standard action RPG with a similar feel to Fantasy life in terms of combat. You have a party of up to three, including your main character but can always go solo with just the main character if desired. Most (?) characters that participate in combat will gain a skill at some point or another if you invest enough time into them, whether it be through leveling or upgrading their seed shop. With weapons you've got a decent variety that will continue to add new weapon types until about halfway, maybe a little more into the game. All characters are restricted to one weapon type except for your main character who can equip any weapon except for the three from non-seed races. All of which have their own strengths against enemy types.

Combat itself is fairly decent too. At the very start of the game it's quite easy to die because you don't have your "protection" yet and enemies in the first area are able to one-hit you, which will cause you to reload the last save. After you've gained your 'protection' the game gets quite a bit easier. However towards the end of the game I felt it ramped up in difficulty a bit. I even hit a quest for a resident that put me up against enemies that were 7 levels higher than me. While I was able to take them out, I fight pretty aggressively and ended up getting bounced from one enemy into another which had caused my main character to die. Since I was in a party of three however, I switched characters to another and continued. As time passes while I'm with another character in combat, a downed character will have a slowly refilling bar that will eventually bring them back to life to fight again. You can manually speed this up, but it's extremely risky to do so in combat. If you have two of your allies down, only the first one to die will refill their bar before reviving and then continue one with the second downed character. The game did say I had "revive" chances that I started accumulating after certain points in the story, but I never had a complete wipe so I never ended up having to use them.

There are a lot of puzzles in this game that require special non-combat abilities that some characters will have. The puzzles themselves are not hard, however you won't be able to complete every single one the first time you encounter them. They are left for you to return later to complete. Also if you don't have a party member that can perform said ability, you'll need to teleport back using an Aqua Warp and speak to an NPC who will let you change party members. From there you select who you need and then use the warp pad and select Aqua Warp to go back to where you warped from. It doesn't sound to bad, but you'll be doing this a decent amount. More so if you want to hit every single mining and digging node on top of solving puzzles to progress. It can be rather jarring at times, but in the end it was still in my realm of tolerability.

Your 'Oasis', which is more or less a town will level up as you recruit more residents. To recruit residents, they have to visit your Oasis and you will have to perform a variety of tasks for them. Early on it's just a single task and it can very from simply having found the guy out in the wild to begin with all the way to having a specific seed shop up or giving them a specific item. After they are recruited, you will get visitors every day that will purchase things from these seed shops to allow you to gain money. The catch is, the loot drops from enemies will fuel these shops wares. If you don't accrue materials for them, they will sell out and not gain you any money. On top of that, restocking these shops will give them experience and level them up to sell even more wares (up to 3) and require a quest to fulfill in order to actually level up. This does nothing other than allow you to gain income faster. Plus after they sell so much you can earn a stamp for them which goes on one of three types of cards (your choice) and once the card is full, you can have a festival that will have a very large income burst at the expense of shop stock taking a nose dive. Plus restocking keeps residents happy, which will in turn fuel your 'protection'.

You'll also gain the ability to use a garden where you can plant up to 6 crops per area. These too are used to restock shops as you can't sell items. Although some items can be traded to merchants for other items, but it's not something I used more than a couple times. The catch comes in that you can have seedlings that aren't running a shop and tend to these gardens to harvest items tied to their character + garden slot. You can also give them seeds to plant and harvest stuff so you don't have to do it manually as well. Besides the garden, you also have 'exploration' parties which are comprised of non-seedling races. You are able to send a party of three to previously visited areas in order for them to bring back monster drops or harvest materials. It costs money to send them out, but it's fairly inconsequential.

While the game is fairly well sized, there are plenty of teleporters around to get you from place to place as you progress through the game. Plus after a certain point you can warp around in your Oasis as prior to obtaining it, moving around in it does kind of suck.

I think the biggest issue I had with the game is how tedious it felt trying to keep my shops stocked decently well. While I had few with sold out stock and eventually could no longer keep my 'protection' at maximum, I didn't really like the feeling of seeing red. In my opinion, I believe the game should have exploration and gardening designed a little different to automate it a bit better. I was also juggling shops and who was tending my gardens to try and keep getting new residents coming in while satisfying restock needs. Also like I mentioned much earlier on, they needed to make switching out party members more convenient as it became more and more tedious the farther I progressed through the game.

All in all I did enjoy my time with it, but it was frustrating from time to time. Particularly that little nagging sensation in the back of my mind with my shops not having proper materials to restock as much as I'd like. It's definitely a game I'd recommend, but I do suggest that you don't put too much focus on keeping every shop restocked at all times once you get a little bit into the game. It eventually gets to be too much and impossible to keep everybody constantly fully stocked. If you're able to do that, you should be golden. Since it's a $40 title, I'd say $30 is a good price if it interests you. Though I'm sure most will want $20 or lower, but I feel it's worth $30.

I didn't think I'd write quite that much, but then again I suppose everything I write tends to become this long regardless.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thoughts on Ever Oasis:

So I've basically completed Ever Oasis. There's more to do, but I went ahead and finished the last boss today. Had a lot of time 'supervising' stuff this weekend that I was able to power through most of the game. I want to say it ran me around 20 hours, but if I continued to try and unlock everything it would easily be 30+.

The story is pretty basic and there isn't a whole lot to it. The translation is decent enough to not be an issue as well. Since there are so many characters, most of them don't have any real personality other than a couple and even then it's bare bones outside of your 'partner' in the game.

Gameplay wise it's mostly positive, but has a few drawbacks. It's your standard action RPG with a similar feel to Fantasy life in terms of combat. You have a party of up to three, including your main character but can always go solo with just the main character if desired. Most (?) characters that participate in combat will gain a skill at some point or another if you invest enough time into them, whether it be through leveling or upgrading their seed shop. With weapons you've got a decent variety that will continue to add new weapon types until about halfway, maybe a little more into the game. All characters are restricted to one weapon type except for your main character who can equip any weapon except for the three from non-seed races. All of which have their own strengths against enemy types.

Combat itself is fairly decent too. At the very start of the game it's quite easy to die because you don't have your "protection" yet and enemies in the first area are able to one-hit you, which will cause you to reload the last save. After you've gained your 'protection' the game gets quite a bit easier. However towards the end of the game I felt it ramped up in difficulty a bit. I even hit a quest for a resident that put me up against enemies that were 7 levels higher than me. While I was able to take them out, I fight pretty aggressively and ended up getting bounced from one enemy into another which had caused my main character to die. Since I was in a party of three however, I switched characters to another and continued. As time passes while I'm with another character in combat, a downed character will have a slowly refilling bar that will eventually bring them back to life to fight again. You can manually speed this up, but it's extremely risky to do so in combat. If you have two of your allies down, only the first one to die will refill their bar before reviving and then continue one with the second downed character. The game did say I had "revive" chances that I started accumulating after certain points in the story, but I never had a complete wipe so I never ended up having to use them.

There are a lot of puzzles in this game that require special non-combat abilities that some characters will have. The puzzles themselves are not hard, however you won't be able to complete every single one the first time you encounter them. They are left for you to return later to complete. Also if you don't have a party member that can perform said ability, you'll need to teleport back using an Aqua Warp and speak to an NPC who will let you change party members. From there you select who you need and then use the warp pad and select Aqua Warp to go back to where you warped from. It doesn't sound to bad, but you'll be doing this a decent amount. More so if you want to hit every single mining and digging node on top of solving puzzles to progress. It can be rather jarring at times, but in the end it was still in my realm of tolerability.

Your 'Oasis', which is more or less a town will level up as you recruit more residents. To recruit residents, they have to visit your Oasis and you will have to perform a variety of tasks for them. Early on it's just a single task and it can very from simply having found the guy out in the wild to begin with all the way to having a specific seed shop up or giving them a specific item. After they are recruited, you will get visitors every day that will purchase things from these seed shops to allow you to gain money. The catch is, the loot drops from enemies will fuel these shops wares. If you don't accrue materials for them, they will sell out and not gain you any money. On top of that, restocking these shops will give them experience and level them up to sell even more wares (up to 3) and require a quest to fulfill in order to actually level up. This does nothing other than allow you to gain income faster. Plus after they sell so much you can earn a stamp for them which goes on one of three types of cards (your choice) and once the card is full, you can have a festival that will have a very large income burst at the expense of shop stock taking a nose dive. Plus restocking keeps residents happy, which will in turn fuel your 'protection'.

You'll also gain the ability to use a garden where you can plant up to 6 crops per area. These too are used to restock shops as you can't sell items. Although some items can be traded to merchants for other items, but it's not something I used more than a couple times. The catch comes in that you can have seedlings that aren't running a shop and tend to these gardens to harvest items tied to their character + garden slot. You can also give them seeds to plant and harvest stuff so you don't have to do it manually as well. Besides the garden, you also have 'exploration' parties which are comprised of non-seedling races. You are able to send a party of three to previously visited areas in order for them to bring back monster drops or harvest materials. It costs money to send them out, but it's fairly inconsequential.

While the game is fairly well sized, there are plenty of teleporters around to get you from place to place as you progress through the game. Plus after a certain point you can warp around in your Oasis as prior to obtaining it, moving around in it does kind of suck.

I think the biggest issue I had with the game is how tedious it felt trying to keep my shops stocked decently well. While I had few with sold out stock and eventually could no longer keep my 'protection' at maximum, I didn't really like the feeling of seeing red. In my opinion, I believe the game should have exploration and gardening designed a little different to automate it a bit better. I was also juggling shops and who was tending my gardens to try and keep getting new residents coming in while satisfying restock needs. Also like I mentioned much earlier on, they needed to make switching out party members more convenient as it become more and more tedious the farther I progressed through the game.

All in all I did enjoy my time with it, but it was frustrating from time to time. Particularly that little nagging sensation in the back of my mind with my shops not having proper materials to restock as much as I'd like. It's definitely a game I'd recommend, but I do suggest that you don't put too much focus on keeping every shop restocked at all times once you get a little bit into the game. It eventually gets to be too much and impossible to keep everybody constantly fully stocked. If you're able to do that, you should be golden. Since it's a $40 title, I'd say $30 is a good price if it interested you. Though I'm sure most will want $20 or lower.

I didn't think I'd write quite that much, but then again I suppose everything I write tends to become this long regardless.
Ever Oasis is currently on sale for $29.99 at TRU so I may just jump on that. Thanks for the write-up!

 
bread's done
Back
Top