Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

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:
Upvote 4 Downvote
Heads up CAGS, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection for Nintendo Switch seems to have completely dried up from all of my local stores. GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon. All Out Of Stock at the moment. Maybe retailers will receive more copies soon tho for all I know, but I figured I’d mention it incase any CAGs still wanted to pick it up & have an available Nintendo Switch copy to purchase in their area.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Backlog Hog said:
Heads up CAGS, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection for Nintendo Switch seems to have completely dried up from all of my local stores. GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon. All Out Of Stock at the moment. Maybe retailers will receive more copies soon tho for all I know, but I figured I’d mention it incase any CAGs still wanted to pick it up & have an available Nintendo Switch copy to purchase in their area.
Click to expand...
It's Capcom. Selling catalogue titles is most of what they do. There will be restocks and reprints. It's not gone forever.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Draekon said:
Looks like the Trails from Zero fan translation is finally releasing this Saturday, the 14th. They even went as far as recreating the original trailer in English:

[customspoiler='Trailer']
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQWEc9rPhR0[/customspoiler]
Click to expand...
Finally where I left off, eh? I barely started Cold Steel but it didn't feel right.

Nothing- said:
It's Capcom. Selling catalogue titles is most of what they do. There will be restocks and reprints. It's not gone forever.
Click to expand...
I hope it isn't a trend! Atelier Ryza is already getting harder to find on the Switch...

 
theclaw said:
Finally where I left off, eh? I barely started Cold Steel but it didn't feel right.

I hope it isn't a trend! Atelier Ryza is already getting harder to find on the Switch...
Click to expand...
Atelier Ryza is actually becoming harder to find period PS4 or Switch, though the Switch is way harder to find. Seems like niche games are getting a bit harder to find sometimes, so it may be a good idea to get them earlier if you're interested. Rune Factory 4 SE was a bit hard to find at Best Buy, but is okay available now at least. Just a precaution and I am on the outlook for Atelier Ryza so I can still get one while it's kind of around. Waited a bit too long for this one.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
nitrosmob said:
Rune Factory 4 SE
Click to expand...
Finished the 2nd story arc today. I've enjoyed the base gameplay. Prefer this over stardew. Though this kind of game doesn't jive to well with me personally - I tend to try to min/max everything and then get bogged down in the grind. Regardless, for this being my first Rune Factory game I can recommend it. I realize it's a dated base game but the biggest issue for me was the poor music and voice acting. (The cast is good, it's just done copypasta with the same handful of lines x100).

The art book from the archival edition is softcover but still really nice.

Also the "Another Episode" dlc is free on eshop for another week or two. Not sure if it's only for game owners or not.
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/rune-factory-4-special-switch/

 
Last edited by a moderator:


nitrosmob said:
Atelier Ryza is actually becoming harder to find period PS4 or Switch, though the Switch is way harder to find. Seems like niche games are getting a bit harder to find sometimes, so it may be a good idea to get them earlier if you're interested. Rune Factory 4 SE was a bit hard to find at Best Buy, but is okay available now at least. Just a precaution and I am on the outlook for Atelier Ryza so I can still get one while it's kind of around. Waited a bit too long for this one.
Click to expand...
I had to track down an obscure merchant, Deepdiscount, to get a copy of Atelier Ryza for the Switch after it is OOS everywhere, paid like 60 bucks for one.

Sent from my SM-N970U1 using Tapatalk
 
And here I've been waiting for Atelier games to drop to the near $20 range since they punch one out every year. Guess I can't sleep on these anymore.

 
To be fair, everyone should look up atelier Ryza collector edition on eBay. Sells for at least double retail. It may be lower print but this game really brought the series back in my opinion. I recommend grabbing a copy as fast as you can
 
If I could find a cheap Ryza I would probably look at the rest of the series but never got into Atelier myself. Not really sure I trust a backorder on DeepDiscount either at retail. 

 
Pikagreg said:
If I could find a cheap Ryza I would probably look at the rest of the series but never got into Atelier myself. Not really sure I trust a backorder on DeepDiscount either at retail.
Click to expand...
Yeah and I remember DeepDiscount having near terrible customer service back in the day. I wouldn't trust it.

 
Pikagreg said:
If I could find a cheap Ryza I would probably look at the rest of the series but never got into Atelier myself. Not really sure I trust a backorder on DeepDiscount either at retail.
Click to expand...
Ryza is standalone (or probably game 1 of a new trilogy) so there’s no direct reason to connect it with any of the others. I wouldn’t recommend buying the $200 copy that’s on eBay though.

To go back one game, Lulua, which also disappeared in the wild before reaching 20 is available from Best Buy’s eBay store at 40 for either switch or PS4.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
nitrosmob said:
Atelier Ryza is actually becoming harder to find period PS4 or Switch, though the Switch is way harder to find. Seems like niche games are getting a bit harder to find sometimes, so it may be a good idea to get them earlier if you're interested. Rune Factory 4 SE was a bit hard to find at Best Buy, but is okay available now at least. Just a precaution and I am on the outlook for Atelier Ryza so I can still get one while it's kind of around. Waited a bit too long for this one.
Click to expand...
I've noticed this with other niche titles too. Mostly NISA and XSEED titles, but IFFY and Spike Chunsoft periodically as well. They're not dropping nearly as fast as they used to and some are actually going above MSRP.

 
Tothoro said:
I've noticed this with other niche titles too. Mostly NISA and XSEED titles, but IFFY and Spike Chunsoft periodically as well. They're not dropping nearly as fast as they used to and some are actually going above MSRP.
Click to expand...
Yeah I may not play Langrisser right away but I might have to bite on the Switch version when I see it in store. I do want to play it eventually, just not now especially since Amazon says 1 to 2 months to ship the Switch version.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
omegapokegod said:
To be fair, everyone should look up atelier Ryza collector edition on eBay. Sells for at least double retail. It may be lower print but this game really brought the series back in my opinion. I recommend grabbing a copy as fast as you can
Click to expand...
I pre-ordered the CE and sold it (minus the game) and got the game for free. Lmao

Sent from my Razer Phone 2 using Tapatalk
 
Atelier games (aside from the Dusk DX Switch release from Play Asia) never come with the full game on disk or cartridge. You get a complete story but then patches over the following months add more content like extra playable characters or maps as DLC and you end up spending like $30 ala carte or $50-80 for a "DLC Season Pass" to get the full story content.

There's kinda a sale price floor of $35.99 and $42.99 for current games digital if you ever want to go that route. Atelier Sophie (the first Mysterious trilogy game) hit $19.49 on Steam the other day which is probably a record for the series.

 
Pikagreg said:
If I could find a cheap Ryza I would probably look at the rest of the series but never got into Atelier myself. Not really sure I trust a backorder on DeepDiscount either at retail.
Click to expand...
Atelier wise it's generally rec'd to start with Ayesha from the dusk trilogy on ps3 or whatever system you have available to play it on (later versions have the dlc I believe due to being ports of the vita plus versions that came with the ps3 versions dlc for free). The older games minus mana khemia 2 are cheap and easy to find in my experience due to getting reprints from ayesha going forward. Ryza plays differently than the others however so it wouldn't be a good litmus on if you would like them or not.

 
bappt said:
Atelier games (aside from the Dusk DX Switch release from Play Asia) never come with the full game on disk or cartridge. You get a complete story but then patches over the following months add more content like extra playable characters or maps as DLC and you end up spending like $30 ala carte or $50-80 for a "DLC Season Pass" to get the full story content.

There's kinda a sale price floor of $35.99 and $42.99 for current games digital if you ever want to go that route. Atelier Sophie (the first Mysterious trilogy game) hit $19.49 on Steam the other day which is probably a record for the series.
Click to expand...
pc wise that probably is a record as I don't follow the pc versions prices. But hitting 20 and below used to be reliable for the series which is how many of the members here myself included amassed a backlog of them.

 
The Atelier games in the past usually hit $20ish physically, and then it was usually around $25-$29.99 dollars for some later later releases. I'm not such a massive fan after the pretty good PS2 Atelier/Mana Khemia series honestly, but I always try to give them a chance. Ryza been getting lots of praise compared to other more recent ones (not counting the spinoff game). Anyway I wont fret as much about it, but I see a few copies for the PS4 version at an OK price, so I'll likely pick it up soon enough.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Pikagreg said:
If I could find a cheap Ryza I would probably look at the rest of the series but never got into Atelier myself. Not really sure I trust a backorder on DeepDiscount either at retail.
Click to expand...
I get how you feel. I jumped in when Meruru (the final part of the original Arland Trilogy on PS3) was the newest release. And, even all of those years ago, that resulted in having nine games to get in order to be up to date with them all. And it's only gotten crazier since then!

 
I like the Atelier games and have played a solid chunk of them, but if you were to ask me what the stories were in each one or the key differences, I probably couldn't tell you. I still try to pick them up on sale whenever I can, but I wouldn't mind if they'd take a year off here and there.

 
What are the chances of Ryza reprint? I purposely held off since the Mysterious Painting dropped rather quick but was definitely planning on a purchase.
 
bappt said:
Atelier games (aside from the Dusk DX Switch release from Play Asia) never come with the full game on disk or cartridge. You get a complete story but then patches over the following months add more content like extra playable characters or maps as DLC and you end up spending like $30 ala carte or $50-80 for a "DLC Season Pass" to get the full story content.

There's kinda a sale price floor of $35.99 and $42.99 for current games digital if you ever want to go that route. Atelier Sophie (the first Mysterious trilogy game) hit $19.49 on Steam the other day which is probably a record for the series.
Click to expand...
As a matter of fact, they did recently patch Atelier Sophie. The Steam version added Japanese text after 3 years.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/527270/announcements/detail/1716373422379889909

 
^^ I have a feeling they're about to drop a Mysterious collection on Switch to squeeze out a little more money from those games which gave them the opportunity to fix the language issues.

-----------------------

Koei Tecmo is more likely to start promoting Ryza 2 in another month or so.

As far as differences go:

Arland, Dusk, plus Sophie and Firis of the Mysterious trilogy are dubbed, but Lydie & Suelle onward were changed to an in house "Asia English" translation. There's a quicker turnaround time (western release as the last Japanese DLC comes out) but that's the trade off. The NISA translation team stayed involved in the series, but after one Jack Niida left to go work for Arc System Works the dubs stopped. 

All the games changed up how alchemy was performed, but Ryza made it more of a skill tree thing with ingredients added on the fly instead of selecting them all at once. Mysterious has a sort of puzzle game when adding items. K-T Dusk introduced an element system to add traits, and I can't really say about Arland/Ayesha because I was never really into them. 

Ryza uses an ATB system in battle while the rest are all turn based. Arland and Dusk games limited item usage to the alchemists but Mysterious and Ryza so far have allowed for other characters to equip alchemy items (though they may not be able to use everything.)

It's probably worth mentioning but the Arland games and Ayesha in the Dusk trilogy were built under the original Gust before Koei Tecmo took over. A lot of the issues older fans have with the series were due to changes made under their management. The core idea of heading out, gathering items, and crafting remains the same but how progression is handled changes between games. The Gust made games had a time limit that was ticking down that required some time management to meet a deadline set for the character. The Koei Tecmo games changed it to a character being given a goal to meet and unlimited time to do so.

Arland is about young girls learning alchemy while trying to reach a goal. They were like 13 in the original games and got away with a few character traits and events that fell out of favor since the ancient year of 2009. Dusk is about young adults investigating a phenomenon known as the Dusk that is consuming the world. They don't start off as total beginners from a story standpoint, but you still start off with only basic potions and bombs. Mysterious goes back to being about girls wanting to learn alchemy. Ryza is also similar but she wants to explore outside of her secluded island village. 

 
Thanks for the heads up on Atelier Ryza.  I also normally wait for the $20 range, but figured I'd bite at $40 since I love the series.  Couldn't find one on Gamestop, but I saw one from the Amazon Warehouse for $38.

 
Midori Monkey said:
Thanks for the heads up on Atelier Ryza. I also normally wait for the $20 range, but figured I'd bite at $40 since I love the series. Couldn't find one on Gamestop, but I saw one from the Amazon Warehouse for $38.
Click to expand...
Good luck. Awd is hit or miss so hopefully you end up with the game in decent condition and the right region.

 
Time for some VN news. Been a while as I've been very busy.

First of all 3 what I consider bigger name releases came out. Marco & the Galaxy Dragon, OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos, and Funbag Fantasy: Sideboob Story 2.

Marco & the Galaxy Dragon doesn't look to be a long VN but features many, many, many images. It's supposed to be funny, weird, and pretty high quality.

Oshirabu came out on Steam, but recently was released as 18+ by Denpasoft. There is an 18+ patch (NSFW) for sale and its also on Denpasoft (NSFW) with a launch discount.

Funbag Fantasy: Sideboob Story 2 has been released and has a launch discount. It's available on Steam (NSFW) and Mangagamer (NSFW). This is coming at a busy for gaming time, but likely will get because these are high quality fantasy nukige games.

Mangamer's next release is Sakuranomori Dreamers (NSFW), with a pre-order discount on Mangagamer. It releases on April 9th 2020 . This is from Cherrystone, the same publishers of Princess Evangile and Imouto Paradise games. This seems like a horror, mystery, romance type game. It's a very high want and will purchase on release. There is no confirmation of it coming to Steam, though a Chinese version is currently on there.

Mangagamer also has a white day sale going on with listings here (NSFW). These are mainly BL and Yuri titles.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
gospelman said:
the geofront fan translation has been released for Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero.
Click to expand...
I have it setup now and can say it's impressive for a free fan-made project. No ultrawide resolution support so for this one I'm sitting back with a dualshock 4 and playing a 10-year old psp game in 4k

Anyone by chance know an easy way to batch convert ~21000 short audio files in ogg format to at9? :whistle2:k

 
Last edited by a moderator:
gospelman said:
I have it setup now and can say it's impressive for a free fan-made project. No ultrawide resolution support so for this one I'm sitting back with a dualshock 4 and playing a 10-year old psp game in 4k

Anyone by chance know an easy way to batch convert ~21000 short audio files in ogg format to at9? :whistle2:k
Click to expand...
I think I've done something similar to that before. First off you'll want the at9tool, you can get it from many places, here's one place: https://amicitiamods.jcink.net/index.php?showtopic=29

I think the at9 tools can only handle mp3/wav, not ogg directly, so I'd also batch convert from ogg to wav first. Use ffmpeg here: https://github.com/adaptlearning/adapt_authoring/wiki/Installing-FFmpeg

So now you'll want a script to batch convert. So in a windows text file save it as .bat and have text like this inside it:

@echo off

for %%f in (*.ogg) do (

ffmpeg -i "%%f" "%%~nf.wav"
)

mkdir output

for %%f in (*.wav) do (
at9tool -e -br 144 -wholeloop "%%f" "output\%%~nf.at9"
)

Then double click the .bat file to run it. Just make sure all the .ogg files you're starting off with are in the same directory as ffmpeg and at9tool

This isn't exactly how i did it a couple years ago but it was something like this. I believe I was modding Persona 5 Dancing to be JoJo's Bizarre Adventure themed LOL. I can help you troubleshoot if you want

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Neat they gave me my tifa theme and the midgar bracelet after I submitted a receipt today.  Guess they fixed whatever issue they were having last week.

 
weird, I got my theme last week but no dlc.  it's past the 3-5 business days they mention in the email.

regardless, I mainly cared about the theme and am happy with it

 
I'm hearing Amazon may suspend all shipments that aren't Medical or Household items, not sure if true or not but that's the rumor I'm hearing at the moment.

Edit from an e-mail "We are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and deliver these products to customers."

 
Shut in and bored, it was a good time to start another project.

Decided to build myself a little "colleseum" using PS4, Vita, and Switch games.

Won't you join me?

RJtZh1Z.jpg


A1lyK5j.jpg


tQZh8xq.jpg


96n8qkk.jpg


source.gif


 
Last edited by a moderator:
Kaiser499 said:
Anyone elses Final Fantasy VII Remake date from Amazon change? Mine doesn't have a release date now. I hope the game isn't delayed again.
Click to expand...
This shipping estimate on my deluxe orders is now indefinite. Release date on item page is still the same, as is my standard edition order.

 
Kaiser499 said:
Anyone elses Final Fantasy VII Remake date from Amazon change? Mine doesn't have a release date now. I hope the game isn't delayed again.
Click to expand...
Same here. CAG tweeted about it and it seems widespread. Most likely related to Amazon's prioritization of essential goods.

As much as it sucks, I understand. Will be anxiously waiting for it to arrive, though.

 
Finally got all 5 FF7R DLCs from Butterfinger promo. Their processing time is all over the place, but alas the DLCs are here and they haven't run out yet.

Sent from my SM-N970U1 using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top