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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Weekly free PSN junk:

No new thread related add-ons, themes, avatars or demos.

Mid-Year Sale (Lasts 2 weeks)

July PS+ Games

The sale this week has A Hat in Time on sale for 35% which I still very highly recommend. I don't believe there are any plans for a physical console version of it. Otherwise, it's a new month which means new PS+ games listed, so be sure to grab those.

 
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And lol, Amazon Prime gets even worse. Discount no longer applies to remasters/releases. Spyro Trilogy, Mega Man X Collection, and Disgaea have their discounts pulled already. Vesperia and Shenmue still seem to have the discount(for now).

 
^ They're probably viewing them as "bundles" even though they're not bundles, especially the Disgaea 5 switch version. If I had a link to complain to them, I'd probably do it just because. They make it way too difficult to do that these days.

 
Soma_Cruz said:
And lol, Amazon Prime gets even worse. Discount no longer applies to remasters/releases. Spyro Trilogy, Mega Man X Collection, and Disgaea have their discounts pulled already. Vesperia and Shenmue still seem to have the discount(for now).
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Got a quick question about the 20% discount.

Do I need to be a prime member when the game releases to get the discount, or can I preorder a bunch with a 1month prime sub and let it expire?
 
tsoul said:
Got a quick question about the 20% discount.

Do I need to be a prime member when the game releases to get the discount, or can I preorder a bunch with a 1month prime sub and let it expire?
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Don't quote me on this, but I believe it's good that way. I believe I ordered a game and had to cancel prime, pre-orders due to circumstances, but kept one of them with the discount. I believe I got the game for the discount. I honestly don't remember.

According to Siliconera you have to be a member when it ships too, so trust them instead.

 
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For anyone waiting i'm hoping to have basic impressions for Magical Marriage Lunatics and Maitetsu out soon. I'm finishing up some Maitetsu and then will likely kill off the one route i need for Magical Marriage Lunatics. Both decent games, but with flaws.

 
Best things from the PSN sale seem to be PS2 remasters.

tsoul said:
Got a quick question about the 20% discount.

Do I need to be a prime member when the game releases to get the discount, or can I preorder a bunch with a 1month prime sub and let it expire?
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Just need prime when you place the order. I did it before where I used a trial and made a bunch of preorders.

 
dsman3717 said:
Hmm, that release is a week before Kiwami 2....

Well, I'll still be getting the Shenmue Remasters, but on Aug 28 Kiwami 2 takes priority for me.
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Think I'll get the Shenmue remasters and wait on Kiwami 2. Won't have time to finish all 3 games before DQ XI comes out.

 
 
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Soma_Cruz said:
And lol, Amazon Prime gets even worse. Discount no longer applies to remasters/releases. Spyro Trilogy, Mega Man X Collection, and Disgaea have their discounts pulled already. Vesperia and Shenmue still seem to have the discount(for now).
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yeah its crap, that also applies to toys to life or what ever they are called, most likely its huge pressure from nintendo to keep their prices jacked up, had to cancel my eevee combo preorder since it wasnt getting the discount, probably gonna have to cancel my tales preorder since it also isnt getting the discount

 
bigstew said:
yeah its crap, that also applies to toys to life or what ever they are called, most likely its huge pressure from nintendo to keep their prices jacked up, had to cancel my eevee combo preorder since it wasnt getting the discount, probably gonna have to cancel my tales preorder since it also isnt getting the discount
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I'm not sure when those came out but the discount only applies for the first two weeks. Hope Prime didn't actually get even worse. On the other hand Twitch Prime gets you Pillars of Eternity Complete Edition and Tyranny and those are two solid games to get for your membership. I mean I already had them (bastards) but if I didn't I'd be pretty psyched.

 
bigstew said:
yeah its crap, that also applies to toys to life or what ever they are called, most likely its huge pressure from nintendo to keep their prices jacked up, had to cancel my eevee combo preorder since it wasnt getting the discount, probably gonna have to cancel my tales preorder since it also isnt getting the discount
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The combo should never have been eligible for the discount in the first place to my understanding, dont' believe it's supposed to apply to hardware combos

 
Nice price for sure....too bad already have it. Been getting most of the $20 and less niche games at Gamestop, so always thanks for posting them.

 
Since the Steam summer sale ends tomorrow, I figure I ought to throw two games out there that haven't got much recognition as they were released pretty low key and are PC only:

Xanadu NEXT

No relation to Tokyo Xanadu. This is an older style Action RPG and the last Xanadu entry in that series, so it plays a bit older.

Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection

Also an older Falcom style Action RPG and the second Zwei game. The first one is released on PC too, but the second one is better in general. While characters from the first one re-appear, it's not a direct sequel.

All are at their lowest price to date sale wise. While I'm at it, I'll plug CrossCode too as it's releasing around September for their 1.0 release and the game is very solid. It uses an engine that makes use of HTML5, so it won't get a console release unless they update their systems to allow HTML5 (Only the Wii U to date has supported HTML5). There's always a chance it could get remade in a different engine, but that's entirely an unknown at this point. There's also a demo for the game that's on the link I provided.

There's also the usual 'Trails series is best on PC' for turbo mode, extra voice acting, etc. but I'll leave it at that this time.

 
Draekon said:
All are at their lowest price to date sale wise. While I'm at it, I'll plug CrossCode too as it's releasing around September for their 1.0 release and the game is very solid. It uses an engine that makes use of HTML5, so it won't get a console release unless they update their systems to allow HTML5 (Only the Wii U to date has supported HTML5). There's always a chance it could get remade in a different engine, but that's entirely an unknown at this point. There's also a demo for the game that's on the link I provided.

There's also the usual 'Trails series is best on PC' for turbo mode, extra voice acting, etc. but I'll leave it at that this time.
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Lol I just saw that I already owned it on Steam don't even remember owning it but wow this looks amazing and downloading it now

 
lakers714 said:
Lol I just saw that I already owned it on Steam don't even remember owning it but wow this looks amazing and downloading it now
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It was in a bundle once that you probably grabbed when the publisher put it in one without consulting the dev. The dev was pretty angry about it. This happened back in late 2015.

 
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Draekon said:
Since the Steam summer sale ends tomorrow, I figure I ought to throw two games out there that haven't got much recognition as they were released pretty low key and are PC only:
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Oh yeah, guess I'll post some games I picked up. Not a comprehensive list by any means.

Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus ($14.99) - Port of the vita game. I was more interested in getting Estival Versus but grabbed this too while it was on sale. Having a ton of fun with EV btw.

Earth Defense Force 4.1 ($19.99) - It was hanging at the $30 price for the longest time. There is an EDF5 coming out in japan but it should be awhile before the localization and PC port.

Little Kings Story ($4.99) - A flawed PC port but still offers a fun and unique experience.

Little Witch Romanesque ($8.24) - Finally hit sub-$10 for a buy

Nitroplus Blasterz (8.99) - Kind of an impulse. Playing as Saber is fun.

 
Larry Davis said:
It'll also make you appreciate how much better the Yakuza games are.

Shenmue is very much a "time and place" series, they do not hold up in the slightest.
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I disagree. I played them only a few years ago and they still hold up. Even the Yakuza games don't have that level of world-detail. You can almost grab anything in that game and look at in in detail. I don't mean to be offensive when I say this, but there is an almost autistic level of detail in those games. Also keeping in mind of the amount of effort of realism with the in game weather m,atching the weather of the day when the game took place. And the amount of licensed advertising only adds to the immersion. Also the fact that so much of the combat is a mixture of virtua fighter, where you actually have to remember combos, and mechanics mixed with QTE cinematic elements, I mean come on.

Yakuza is similar but it is a different beast. Shenmue is unique and nothing has really matched perfectly it since. Yakuza focuses more on openworld and combat. And plenty of other games have tried to copy the QTE aspect, but in my opinion Shenmue stands alone as a unique experience that is still fun and also emotionally effective - it has a great story that people have been waiting to see completed for years.

Then again, you're talking to a guy who doesn't believe games "age" in that sense, really. A good game is always a good game. if it was good in 97 then it's still good in 2018.

 
Draekon said:
It was in a bundle once that you probably grabbed when the publisher put it in one without consulting the dev. The dev was pretty angry about it. This happened back in late 2015.
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Yeah it seems like it but wow this game looks and plays amazing from the 20 mins I just played Idk how this went under the radar hopefully it gets people interested in it once it actually releases out of Early Access

 
nagpo said:
Then again, you're talking to a guy who doesn't believe games "age" in that sense, really. A good game is always a good game. if it was good in 97 then it's still good in 2018.
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This is... Not correct. At all.

Shenmue was revolutionary when it came out, but trying to play it today, it just seems openly hostile toward the player. If you actually want to progress the story, and not just fuck around with the world, its adherence to timetables is infuriating. Even if you just want to explore the world, there isn't actually that much to do in it. It's cool that you can open all these cabinets, but to what end?

It's like the game Dreamweb, if you've never heard of that, it was an adventure game where you could pick up pretty much any item. Most of them were completely irrelevant and just took up inventory space. Is that interesting? Sure. Is it good game design? ABSOLUTELY not.

I think it's absurd to think that games don't age. There are ones that hold up, and ones that don't. It's the same with movies, music, whatever. Shenmue was super cool back then, but it's been eclipsed by so many other things that it's paved the way for, that I really can't ever recommend someone sitting down in 2018+ and playing it.

Yakuza took the best elements of Shenmue (the flavorful setting, with plenty of side activities) and added a better story, better acting, better characters... Adequate combat (which improved later), and most importantly: they're complete stories in each game. No giant cliffhangers at the end of each one where you punch some fuckin Gollum motherfucker a bunch and then get a "STAY TUNED~" message so you can wait 6-to-infinity years for the next game.

Shenmue's combat is kinda VF-like and that's cool (for the very few fights that are actually in the game) but in some of the Yakuza games you can just straight up play VF within it. Advantage: Yakuza.

Also it introduced QTEs so fuck Shenmue

 
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Larry Davis said:
This is... Not correct. At all.

Shenmue was revolutionary when it came out, but trying to play it today, it just seems openly hostile toward the player. If you actually want to progress the story, and not just fuck around with the world, its adherence to timetables is infuriating. Even if you just want to explore the world, there isn't actually that much to do in it. It's cool that you can open all these cabinets, but to what end?

It's like the game Dreamweb, if you've never heard of that, it was an adventure game where you could pick up pretty much any item. Most of them were completely irrelevant and just took up inventory space. Is that interesting? Sure. Is it good game design? ABSOLUTELY not.

I think it's absurd to think that games don't age. There are ones that hold up, and ones that don't. It's the same with movies, music, whatever. Shenmue was super cool back then, but it's been eclipsed by so many other things that it's paved the way for, that I really can't ever recommend someone sitting down in 2018+ and playing it.

Yakuza took the best elements of Shenmue (the flavorful setting, with plenty of side activities) and added a better story, better acting, better characters... Adequate combat (which improved later), and most importantly: they're complete stories in each game. No giant cliffhangers at the end of each one where you punch some fuckin Gollum motherfucker a bunch and then get a "STAY TUNED~" message so you can wait 6-to-infinity years for the next game.

Shenmue's combat is kinda VF-like and that's cool (for the very few fights that are actually in the game) but in some of the Yakuza games you can just straight up play VF within it. Advantage: Yakuza.

Also it introduced QTEs so fuck Shenmue
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haha I love your reply. :lol:

About your first paragraph, how can it be hostile towards the player? Is it forcing something upon you? Playing a game is a consensual act. All the game expects from you is to learn how to play it and play it well. And about things like opening cabinets for the sake of it, that exploration aspect is in and of itself a mark of good game design. Maybe there would have been something in there, how would I have known? Much of the game is an investigation where you search the world around you. Would you blame a zelda game for having an empty space on hyrule field? No, you wouldn't. Why? Because it was fun exploring it regardless. You saw the space from afar and traveled to it just for the sake of it. Anybody who played Breath of the Wil would agree. These are narks of a good game.

It's the same for your second paragraph, some of the toys that you collect in the game really have no meaning, yet the player is compelled to collect them just for the sake of it. Much like real life. In other games, like mario, you don't have to collect every Star to beat the game. Yet so many people do. It adds to the realism and gameplay to give you other things to do.

Your third paragraph, I think we just disagree fundamentally on this. You seem to quantify games by how "cool" they are, at least that's all that I can infer from your text. I quantify them by how fun they are. To me, a game from 97 is just as fun then as it is today. I can go back and play those games and the time period of when it came out doesn't effect its quality - bad mechanics are always bad. Vice versa.

And to the rest of your post, to each their own. I liked the first Yakuza game so I'm not saying Yakuza is bad. I just said they are too different to really be compared. I'll agree with the sentiment that it's a spiritual successor of a sort, with some similarities, but the games are so different that it's almost like apples and oranges. almost.

 
No, I also quantify games by how fun they are to play. Shenmue is not fun to play. It was "cool" because it was a novelty. That's all it is. It's a relic.

btw about the "hostile" bit: Remember the part where you have to get money to buy tickets, and then it turns out the tickets are a scam? Also it takes like 2 days to progress and you just have to wait for it? Stuff like that just shows nothing but contempt for the player. It's no different from that Takeshi Kitano game, or Desert Bus. An intentional waste of time.

 
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Larry Davis said:
No, I also quantify games by how fun they are to play. Shenmue is not fun to play. It was "cool" because it was a novelty. That's all it is. It's a relic.

btw about the "hostile" bit: Remember the part where you have to get money to buy tickets, and then it turns out the tickets are a scam? Also it takes like 2 days to progress and you just have to wait for it? Stuff like that just shows nothing but contempt for the player. It's no different from that Takeshi Kitano game, or Desert Bus. An intentional waste of time.
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I don't disagree with you about Yakuza being better, but I still enjoyed playing through Shenmue a couple years back. I'd say it was worth my time.

 
Markmallow said:
.Hack//G.U. Last Recode is $19.99 at GameStop for anyone that’s interested.

https://m.gamestop.com/product/ps4/games/hack-gu-last-recode/150492?utm_source=linkshare&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=cheap%20ass%20gamer&utm_campaign=deeplink&cid=afl_10000087&affid=77777&sourceid=fksjxy2vjak-u.7oqp._w3w5iorxt28sla
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Sub-$15 or bust. I'd like to finish the story for the laughs (only ever bought the first game on PS2), but G.U. is too crappy to spend good money on.
 
Fate/Extella Link Releases Its Third Set Of DLC With The Special Set #1 Costumes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE84P2ZdCsg

SoulCalibur VI Details Its New Soul Chronicle Story Mode

SNK Heroines adds Mui Mui

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZcoBicx1F0

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV Gets New Screenshots Showing S-Crafts and More

Labyrinth of Refrain’s Switch Trailer Highlights Characters, Puppets, And Gameplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4l698iye1o

Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart HD Version announced for PS4, Switch

Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story announced for PS4, Switch, and PC

Talim returns to Soulcalibur VI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FumFHSR2x4c

My Hero One’s Justice arrives for the PS4, XB1, PC, and Switch on October 26, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaIx5kk9Ex8

 
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Nostalgia is a strange beast. Some games age extremely well, such as Super Mario Bros games, and some make you pull your hair out like old PC DOS platformer games. I played one of those for about an hour and died about 30 times because i couldn't make a few jumps.

I even liked Bubsy back in the day, but now would likely not be crazy about the game because of the 1 hit kills and floaty jumping.

 
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lakers714 said:
Yeah it seems like it but wow this game looks and plays amazing from the 20 mins I just played Idk how this went under the radar hopefully it gets people interested in it once it actually releases out of Early Access
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Yeah, the game is pretty damn good. I put about an hour or two in in 2016 I think. It hasn't been advertised at all and it's been in early access for over three years. They did an Indiegogo campaign in early 2015 rather than Kickstarter. Not sure how much more they would've got if they actually put it on Kickstarter instead.

It would be good if it generated some talk around its 1.0 launch though. It's easily one of the better indie games.

 
Green Card200 said:
I'm not sure when those came out but the discount only applies for the first two weeks. Hope Prime didn't actually get even worse. On the other hand Twitch Prime gets you Pillars of Eternity Complete Edition and Tyranny and those are two solid games to get for your membership. I mean I already had them (bastards) but if I didn't I'd be pretty psyched.
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Prime did get worse. The preorder discounts don't even apply for the first 2 weeks after release anymore, only to preorders, and they don't apply to toys-to-life at all anymore either.

They haven't applied to CEs for a while now, and now they won't apply to remasters anymore as well. Like people have been saying here, the Prime discount is something that is probably going to be phased out completely now that GCU is gone.
 
FIGURE-040587.jpg


Guys......I NEED IT!

December is so far away....

amiami Link

 
The Caligula Effect: Overdose coming to Switch, PS4 and Steam in 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzd-atz5iXU

RPGMakerMV for PS4, Xbox One, and Switch in 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sseiBP2g2lI

The Princess Guide for PS4 and Switch in early 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGli3us0Xfw

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk Character Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HqH088XqTs

Disgaea 1 Complete - Angels of Celestia trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpvvBv86pqI

Limited Editions up at NISA website

 
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(Assuming we're talking about the SNES Busby games, which were actually decent) I don't think age has anything to do with the way the games play; there were plenty of other platformers at the time that played differently.
 
Also Princess Guide is a nice announcement. I generally enjoy those niche action RPG games. Still need to pick up Penny Punching Princess, but honestly this looks better than that.

 
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