Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

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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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I hate to defend gamestop, but they are adding all that think geek stuff to stay afloat. If you can't get the lowest price elsewhere (ie same price at Gamestop), consider picking it up from them. We should all hope it sticks around as long as physical games are around. Even if you only shop online, as soon as GS bites the dust, niche game prices will rise and selection will be more sparse.

An example we already seen, while Best Buy didn't go under, they did drop their GCU program, and suddenly Amazon Prime doesn't do 20% anymore on games. If GS went under, every time Amazon price matched them will go as well.

 
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Once my GCU ran out I figured I would start trying to support Gamestop again since I like the fact they have a physical presence in so many areas. I made a post detailing my "return to Gamestop" experience on BF week over in the Gamestop thread. Long story short I ordered 7 games to give as gifts early that week once their sale went live. What I received were opened games sold as new, covered with stickers, and one disc with fingerprints. One "new" CE with the game itself missing and the box clearly with the seal broken. One factory-sealed Switch game with a cracked case. And nearly two weeks later a couple games still not arrived and no shipment notification. I really want to support having competition to the big boys, but it is unacceptable to buy 7 new games and not have a single game come in gift-giving condition. It's a damn joke, and reminds me why I have tried to avoid Gamestop in the past. No way I ever buy anything online from Gamestop again, even if it's cheaper to buy it there. For comparison, I bought around 15 games between Best Buy, Amazon, and Target during BF week. Every single game has already arrived, came factory sealed with no cracked cases, and will not make me have to drive to a store to deal with the hassle of exchanging/returning them.

I'm all for competition and having lots of choices. Gamestop is a prime example of why it's good to have choices -- I choose not to shop there any more because this so-called games specialty store still cannot get its act together. Dealt with their incompetence and shady practices for years, gave them another chance, never again. I hope they survive if only for the sake of competition and for the people who don't mind their business practices.

 
Physical gaming? Really?? How?
The business GameStop does will just go elsewhere. Small mom and pops will get more business, Craigslist/eBay will get more crowded, Limited Run games would grab even more niche releases, Amazon might decide to sell games in their physical stores, Best buy could bring back GCU for used games, etc..

I'm ready for their funeral.
 
Once my GCU ran out I figured I would start trying to support Gamestop again since I like the fact they have a physical presence in so many areas. I made a post detailing my "return to Gamestop" experience on BF week over in the Gamestop thread. Long story short I ordered 7 games to give as gifts early that week once their sale went live. What I received were opened games sold as new, covered with stickers, and one disc with fingerprints. One "new" CE with the game itself missing and the box clearly with the seal broken. One factory-sealed Switch game with a cracked case. And nearly two weeks later a couple games still not arrived and no shipment notification.
You were very generous to give them another shot. The only reasons to buy anything at Gamestop are:

  • Some exclusives
  • Occasional best prices/availability of niche JRPGs (e.g. $19.99 when it's OOS or $39.99 everywhere else)
  • Deals on used games, especially retro games

But you can count on them to suck at everything else:

  • Hard or impossible to get free shipping, and often comparatively expensive shipping prices
  • Few discounts for new/recent games
  • "New" games are often open, marred, or even missing pieces
  • Anything shipped from a store is usually badly packed, and often missing the return slip that an associate will later tell you is required for a return
  • Checkout fails with error messages seemingly 60% of the time, and I sometimes can't buy in-stock stuff at all
  • Worst return policy: they don't refund shipping even if the return is their fault (e.g. damaged or incorrect item), and once I was told I couldn't return an item because it was open (it was open when I received it)
I'm eager for them to die. The market will pick up the slack for the few things they were good at: I'm sure you'll be able to get the same stuff from better vendors.

 
The business GameStop does will just go elsewhere. Small mom and pops will get more business, Craigslist/eBay will get more crowded, Limited Run games would grab even more niche releases, Amazon might decide to sell games in their physical stores, Best buy could bring back GCU for used games, etc..

I'm ready for their funeral.
All of those combine would not make up the lost of gamestop. Gamestop's death is also one foot into the grave for niche physical gaming. Without Gamestop we likely won't get physical release of Secret of Mana or UMvC3.

 
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Once again I never said they were perfect. GameStop has some shitty tactics yes but what I’m trying to say is you can’t tell me gaming would be better without them.
Gaming would be better without them.
The reason why we could do without Gamestop is that another company would arise in their place and do a better job. There would be an obvious hole in the market that someone else could fill. Funcoland was awesome before Gamestop came along and bought them all up, then changed their business practices.

I pretty much just buy shirts and toys occasionally from Gamestop now.

 
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Regardless if you care about Gamestop, the big thing, in my opinion, that most have to realize is competition is healthy. With less competitors, you're not going to get good prices and much sales. We are all on CAG because we want discounts. Who else waits for Amazon to pricematch Gamestop's sale prices (which they have done many times) and just bought it at Amazon instead? I know I have. If there are no competitors, do you think Amazon would ever have sales? How many of us have price matched other stores? Who is to say Target and Best Buy stop carrying games now? So even if you don't ever buy from GS and they are dead to you, the fact they exist allows us to be able to purchase some games cheaper elsewhere.
Competition is important, yes. But if there were no Gamestops then there would be even more competition and choices with new, different retailers popping up everywhere. Gamestop has a stranglehold on specialty gaming stores. They either bought/acquired everyone or else pushed them out of town.

 
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Dont kno about you guys but 9/10 of my experience with Gamestop has been great. It really depends on the quality of the individual stores, at least for me imo
 
Dont kno about you guys but 9/10 of my experience with Gamestop has been great. It really depends on the quality of the individual stores, at least for me imo
The employees at the stores in my area are good people and try their best to be helpful. I've had some laughably bad experiences at various Gamestop stores over the years, but yeah the majority of my in-store experiences are positive. The online portion of Gamestop is about as bad as I've encountered. From taking 4 months to respond to an email to CS, to sending flea market-looking products supposed to be "new," to cancelling my orders without ever bothering to tell me, to sending the wrong thing, ordering from Gamestop is more trouble than it's worth. It would be cool if the company could put someone in charge who is capable of revamping things and making the online division customer friendly and up to par with shopping at other online retailers. In my experience Best Buy has given me the best online shopping experience when it comes to buying gaming-related stuff. If Gamestop can approach that kind of customer experience then I'd be more than happy to buy from them regularly.

 
The Atelier Arland collection steam pages seemingly added a region lock blocking NTSC regions from viewing it. 

 
Dont kno about you guys but 9/10 of my experience with Gamestop has been great. It really depends on the quality of the individual stores, at least for me imo
Over the last 20 years, I had some pretty good relationships with staff, and that's probably why I shopped there as long as I did. Even when I worked there years ago, the GM was a good friend, so it was a win/win at the time. Sadly, another one of my big issues is how they treat staff, and the level of pay that goes along with that.

Of all the staff I've known over the years, they have all left or been forced out due to poor treatment from the top down. These are people I would actually hire if I needed said staff, and that's not something I say lightly. They where really good people who treated customers nice, and went the extra mile when they could. All GS saw them as was a means to an end, and could care less how good they where and how many shopped at their stores because they where awesome.

I'm all for competition as well, but places like GS bring nothing to the table that's really good for anyone, so I won't be shedding a tear, but more power to those of you who plan to.

 
The reason why we could do without Gamestop is that another company would arise in their place and do a better job. There would be an obvious hole in the market that someone else could fill. Funcoland was awesome before Gamestop came along and bought all them up, then changed their business practices.

I pretty much just buy shirts and toys occasionally from Gamestop now.
You made me miss Funcoland, they were the absolute best.

 
Competition is important, yes. But if there were no Gamestops then there would be even more competition and choices with new, different retailers popping up everywhere. Gamestop has a stranglehold on specialty gaming stores. They either bought/acquired everyone or else pushed them out of town.
New and different retailers that are big don't just all of a sudden pop up and be successful. It's not easy or cheap to do that. I'm not talking about mom and pop shop competitors because let's face it, those are not competition. If these so called big retailers were bought out or acquired by Gamestop as you say, they weren't worthy of being a big retailer in the first place. Do you think Amazon would pay attention or care to price match these mom and pop shops? There's also a reason for stores that do price match, they have a store list. You can't just PM any random store. So no, I don't agree, but thanks for your opinion anyways.

 
My game stores were EB Games before they were bought out by Gamestop
One store in the town I used to live in went from Waldensoftware (actually very good with a cool manager), to Funcoland, to EB Games, to Gamestop. It smelled so bad in there and was terribly unorganized when it was Funcoland. It got better when it became EB Games and later Gamestop. Waldensoftware used to stock a lot of niche games I couldn't find anywhere else.

 
New and different retailers that are big don't just all of a sudden pop up and be successful. It's not easy or cheap to do that. I'm not talking about mom and pop shop competitors because let's face it, those are not competition. If these so called big retailers were bought out or acquired by Gamestop as you say, they weren't worthy of being a big retailer in the first place. Do you think Amazon would pay attention or care to price match these mom and pop shops? There's also a reason for stores that do price match, they have a store list. You can't just PM any random store. So no, I don't agree, but thanks for your opinion anyways.
Gamestop has never facilitated healthy competition for anything. I don't know what you're going on about.

Gamestop doesn't price match. They don't set leading examples in competitive pricing. They sell old items as 'New'. They pester you to buy products and services that you aren't interested in. They give you grief when you try to return anything. They lie about return policies. They sell people's pre-orders when they feel like it. They bundle highly sought-after items so that you have to spend dozens of dollars more. They treat their workers as disposable resources. They have a computer system from 2000 and don't care about updating it. Gamestop should fail. They fucking suck at everything. It's like people bought a couple cheap items from Gamestop recently and then all is forgiven. If it weren't for the nice gamers that work there for minimum wage, whom deeply care for their beloved hobby, the company would have failed long ago! It wasn't until just the last couple of years that they occasionally have the best price on a niche game they are trying to get rid of. Some of their Pro Days sales have only just recently become acceptable and that's because they are losing. The customer has NEVER come first.

Video games have never been cheaper so I don't agree with you at all. It's no thanks to GS. It's because we have plenty of other choices of where to shop. You don't even have to leave your house to buy from a dozen different online retailers. Digital sales are good sometimes too. Prices are not going to suddenly go up if Gamestop hypothetically left town. They have never lead the industry in regards to anything but bullshit.

 
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I've literally bought a dozen items this year from other vendors that price matched Gamestop's sale. Pro day sales, prestige sales, black friday and some of those summerfest ones too. Doesn't matter how shitty they really are, I don't see a merit of them disappearing, and I do see a merit from them merely existing. I've seen this benefit for several years now.

I hate how they gut their new games and still sell them at new prices, and their treatment of some of their good employees suck. But seriously, the customer has never really came first in all big businesses.

Let's be real, GS will eventually fail (like all businesses), but I want them to exist until physical games start to truly fade away.

 
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Gamestop can be a horrible place, especially with how they treat their employees. But I don't want one less place to go buy games. The sections at big box stores are really limited to begin with, especially with niche games or older titles. It is great not worrying about missing out on a title and waiting for a sale because I know at least I can grab it from GS if it seems to be becoming hard to find (often before GS even realizes and jacks up the price). I regularly find great deals there - especially stacking promos, elite and CAG16- cheaper than anywhere else. Plus, I can't hate the only store in my area that still has a cute little vita section.
Just wanted to chime in and say I agree with this 100%. While I don't like how the company doesn't respect their employees or customers, if I just ignore that and treat them as a business, there are surprisingly amazing deals to be found. The value of Elite was amazing, and I've been able to find rare niche games, clearanced CEs, and build up my figure collection thanks to them.

To me, the best way to approach Gamestop is to avoid dealing with them on stuff they screw up on, like gutted new games. Then take advantage of them when you can, for cheap games and out of stock CEs and stuff. Doesn't have to be one way or the other.

 
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Video games have never been cheaper so I don't agree with you at all. It's no thanks to GS. It's because we have plenty of other choices of where to shop. You don't even have to leave your house to buy from a dozen different online retailers. Digital sales are good sometimes too. Prices are not going to suddenly go up if Gamestop hypothetically left town. They have never lead the industry in regards to anything but bullshit.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. New games have been much cheaper in the past. The golden age was probably between 2000 and 2010 where you could buy new sealed games for $2 to $5 from places like Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, KMart and Sears. Only two of those places are still around anymore and not surprisingly the super cheap games have dried up. You might be able to get some $10 games here and there, but they are few and far between. If another physical retailer falls by the wayside (Gamestop, for example) its just going to get worse.

Also, you may not have noticed it but Gamestop has been a low price leader on many niche and obscure titles. Amazon has price matched them of course, but if Gamestop is no longer around Amazon will not be lowering their prices on those titles much anymore.

 
I rarely shop at Gamestop because they rarely have the best deals, but sometimes they do. When I do go there the experience has always been fine. Sometimes they'll ask if I want to pre-order anything or if I want to buy a protection plan for my game. I say no, and that's the end of the upsell.

This year most of my Black Friday purchases came from Gamestop. They had the best prices for three of the games I bought. Though Amazon did pricematch two of them. Also, they were the only retailer that put a good selection of PSVR games on sale.

 
Regardless if you care about Gamestop, the big thing, in my opinion, that most have to realize is competition is healthy. With less competitors, you're not going to get good prices and much sales. We are all on CAG because we want discounts. Who else waits for Amazon to pricematch Gamestop's sale prices (which they have done many times) and just bought it at Amazon instead? I know I have. If there are no competitors, do you think Amazon would ever have sales? How many of us have price matched other stores? Who is to say Target and Best Buy stop carrying games now? So even if you don't ever buy from GS and they are dead to you, the fact they exist allows us to be able to purchase some games cheaper elsewhere.
To even try to unpack this for a minute.

You think Gamestop is good and should stick around, so therefore you shop at Amazon when they price match GS, meanwhile Gamestop is suffering and you don't want them to close. Are you serious right now? It never ceases to amaze me how people don't understand the Amazon problem. You are supporting exactly the thing you are arguing against. You are killing the competition for which you advocate, by not purchasing the sale items at GS.

 
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I'm going to have to disagree with you here. New games have been much cheaper in the past. The golden age was probably between 2000 and 2010 where you could buy new sealed games for $2 to $5 from places like Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, KMart and Sears. Only two of those places are still around anymore and not surprisingly the super cheap games have dried up. You might be able to get some $10 games here and there, but they are few and far between. If another physical retailer falls by the wayside (Gamestop, for example) its just going to get worse.

Also, you may not have noticed it but Gamestop has been a low price leader on many niche and obscure titles. Amazon has price matched them of course, but if Gamestop is no longer around Amazon will not be lowering their prices on those titles much anymore.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

 
I'd have to say it would be bad if Gamestop goes under, I mean what other retailer has 4 for $10 deals or 4 for $20 on used games? Gamestop also has reprinted a lot of games people wanted that went out of print and who knows if we would have gotten physical copies of Secret of Mana for Playstation 4 or other Gamestop only games?

 
Just wanted to chime in and say I agree with this 100%. While I don't like how the company doesn't respect their employees or customers, if I just ignore that and treat them as a business, there are surprisingly amazing deals to be found. The value of Elite was amazing, and I've been able to find rare niche games, clearanced CEs, and build up my figure collection thanks to them.

To me, the best way to approach Gamestop is to avoid dealing with them on stuff they screw up on, like gutted new games. Then take advantage of them when you can, for cheap games and out of stock CEs and stuff. Doesn't have to be one way or the other.
I'd have to say it would be bad if Gamestop goes under, I mean what other retailer has 4 for $10 deals or 4 for $20 on used games? Gamestop also has reprinted a lot of games people wanted that went out of print and who knows if we would have gotten physical copies of Secret of Mana for Playstation 4 or other Gamestop only games?
This I agree with 100%. The Elite/Pro is one of the better offers as of right now (thanks to GCU and Prime discounts being gone) especially when dealing with retro gaming as they have the better prices for them out there with minimum risk. Also coupled with B2G1, CAG16, and 4 for $10/$20 you can really clean up sometimes. Also I'm glad you mentioned the "out of stock" or "rare" games/CEs as they have countless times made games like that available so that you can purchase it at a reasonable price instead 3x the cost. I mean they just did it with the God of War CE and that's when you start hearing people complain that they were going to return it because its "readily available and not valuable" now :-({|= Can't tell you how many cheap CE and games in general I have gotten "new" from GS and yes them being gutted is a problem but for the price I paid I'm not complaining. I understand all the hate for GS I do but to act like its this monstrosity of a company is a little overboard.

 
This game has suggestive content? Okay, rate it "M" like we established 25 years ago and move on.

The idea that Senran Kagura has to jump through hoops when I can play something like God of War or Red Dead Redemption II speaks to the inconsistency within Sony right now. I've not been a big PC gamer in about a decade, but this sort of nonsense is what will push me away from Sony and to Steam.

 
This game has suggestive content? Okay, rate it "M" like we established 25 years ago and move on.

The idea that Senran Kagura has to jump through hoops when I can play something like God of War or Red Dead Redemption II speaks to the inconsistency within Sony right now. I've not been a big PC gamer in about a decade, but this sort of nonsense is what will push me away from Sony and to Steam.
I wouldn't call this a Sony problem. This is a society thing, honestly. Violence is just easier to gloss over than sex/suggestive nudity, etc.

 
Yeah.....I hope this comes to an end sometime....it's ridiculous. Senran Kagura is just silly with it's sexiness, but can't have that anymore. Oh well back to the eroges;)....j/k....though I'm probably the one that admits I play them here hah.

 
The wife and I went to Europe in September for a couple of weeks. When we were in our hotel room in London we were watching Bake Off and then shortly after that a show called Naked Attraction came on. A contestant chats with the host and there's six people of the contestant's orientation standing nude behind walls that rise as the show progresses. At the start the six are shown from the waste down, and as it progresses you see all six plus the contestant looking for a date fully nude. This was on channel 4 and it's completely uncensored. I think it ran at 9 or 10pm.

That's much less terrible than having to worry about the near-daily mass shootings we have here in the U.S.. 

 
Only in America. The rest of the world is more open to nudity, and ban violent games.
Oh, I definitely agree with this statement. But given that Sony has said they were looking into what's acceptable on a "global" level, it's the lowest common denominator that you have to worry about. And in this specific case, it's American society.

 
That's much less terrible than having to worry about the near-daily mass shootings we have here in the U.S..
Mass shootings are awful, but they're far from the problem with guns in our country. Even with atrocities like Las Vegas and Sandy Hook, the bulk of all gun violence comes from a variety of other sources like gang/criminal activity and accidental shootings.

Sony are still hypocritical pieces of shit, and I hope they start losing niche titles because of it. They can keep the Fortnite and progressive grandstanding they're prioritizing these days, just let these companies go and publish their titles where they won't get censored.

 
Mass shootings are awful, but they're far from the problem with guns in our country. Even with atrocities like Las Vegas and Sandy Hook, the bulk of all gun violence comes from a variety of other sources like gang/criminal activity and accidental shootings.

Sony are still hypocritical pieces of shit, and I hope they start losing niche titles because of it. They can keep the Fortnite and progressive grandstanding they're prioritizing these days, just let these companies go and publish their titles where they won't get censored.
well yeah a majority of sonys exes and sjws and other minority ignorant people fail to understand guns dont kill, people using guns for their reasons kill, guns wont grow legs and start shooting, the people using them for evil/ignorant purposes are the problem but media wont blame them just mechanical devices that are available

 
well yeah a majority of sonys exes and sjws and other minority ignorant people fail to understand guns dont kill, people using guns for their reasons kill, guns wont grow legs and start shooting, the people using them for evil/ignorant purposes are the problem but media wont blame them just mechanical devices that are available
Then clearly, we have to get rid of Americans because they seem to be the only people that have monthly (Weekly? Daily?!?) mass shootings. /s

There are a billion people in China and India each. I wonder how often they have mass shootings in those countries.

EDIT: For the record I watched Porky's and Revenge of the Nerds (sex) as well as Robocop and The Running Man (violence) by the time I was 11 *with* parental consent. I think the censorship on both fronts is overblown.

 
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Bought these from Gamestop today with a B2G1 . (except for BFV)

JacDoh0.jpg


 
There are a billion people in China and India each. I wonder how often they have mass shootings in those countries.
China and India aren't exactly a model for ideal living situations either. Both suffer from gross overpopulation and drastic income disparity and the latter specializes in taking shits in the middle of the street and rivers despite having access to indoor plumbing.

 
Then clearly, we have to get rid of Americans because they seem to be the only people that have monthly (Weekly? Daily?!?) mass shootings. /s

There are a billion people in China and India each. I wonder how often they have mass shootings in those countries.

EDIT: For the record I watched Porky's and Revenge of the Nerds (sex) as well as Robocop and The Running Man (violence) by the time I was 11 *with* parental consent. I think the censorship on both fronts is overblown.
And doesn't China have one of the most oppressive countries in all the world? It's almost as if guns = freedom

not that this has anything to do with japanese games. Your post is just THAT retarded that I had to respond.

 
And doesn't China have one of the most oppressive countries in all the world? It's almost as if guns = freedom

not that this has anything to do with japanese games. Your post is just THAT retarded that I had to respond.
Lots of free countries around the world without a gun culture. Try traveling some time.

 
China and India aren't exactly a model for ideal living situations either. Both suffer from gross overpopulation and drastic income disparity and the latter specializes in taking shits in the middle of the street and rivers despite having access to indoor plumbing.
Pretty sure the former has the same problem.

 
The Atelier Arland Steam page shows 5 hours remaining before unlock.

Unless you're in the US or Canada. Then it shows unavailable in your region.

 
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