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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shadowysea07 said:
My ps4 has seemingly died.
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You could try to unplug the power cord and let it sit for a while. then after giving it a break, reconnect power & try to boot it by holding down power button for 10+ sec. I've had to do this a couple times in the past when I feared mine had bricked.

 
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gospelman said:
You could try to unplug the power cord and let it sit for a while. then after giving it a break, reconnect power & try to boot it by holding down power button for 10+ sec. I've had to do this a couple times in the past when I feared mine had bricked.
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It was not staying on long enough to attempt that but now it finally came back on in safe mode after I randomly tried again. Hopefully after it finished updating it will be fine.
 
shadowysea07 said:
It was not staying on long enough to attempt that but now it finally came back on in safe mode after I randomly tried again. Hopefully after it finished updating it will be fine.
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Fingers crossed your PS4 ends up ok. My PS3 just recently got itself stuck in an update loop and I've been unable to boot it in safe mode to bypass the issue and get the thing working again. As of right now, it's bricked, and some research online has led me to believe that the update loop was caused by a faulty wi-fi/bluetooth chip. I wouldn't even know where to begin fixing that (I have a Super Slim, meaning everything is soldered onto the motherboard).

 
super1upqueen said:
Fingers crossed your PS4 ends up ok. My PS3 just recently got itself stuck in an update loop and I've been unable to boot it in safe mode to bypass the issue and get the thing working again. As of right now, it's bricked, and some research online has led me to believe that the update loop was caused by a faulty wi-fi/bluetooth chip. I wouldn't even know where to begin fixing that (I have a Super Slim, meaning everything is soldered onto the motherboard).
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I have a super slim so that is useful info to know. I might be able to bypass that issue then myself by using wired connections though that would be incredibly inconvenient. I shouldn't be surprised that the slim has issues when the 3rd version was already seemingly cheaped out on parts wise. It's too bad my regular slim went as I liked that the most. Powersurge took it out. My phat surprisingly still works but it does shut off and blink red occasionally. I already transferred all of the stuff onto the super slim from it just to be safe but I failed to get the chance to do that with my slim :/. If it wasn't for the pandemic I was planning to get another one to replace it. Really wish sony would just let you pop the harddrive into another console and keep all your saves and such by using your profile as an activation key instead of stupidly tying them to the system. Makes me miss the old days of memory cards.

ps4 wise it crashed while updating twice but 3rd time it managed to stay on, repair the database and external hard drive after resetting from the update and seems to be working for the moment. So lucky there. As it would be pretty impossible to replace it right now with how few new ones are available in store and I'd prefer not to buy a used one unless I can get it for under 200. I managed to get my game out so even if it craps out again at least that's safe. I'll probably avoid playing any other physical games for the rest of the week to be safe but I do want to at least finish fairy tail while I am on my vacation.

 
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My 60gb fattie turns off nearly immediately after turning on. I’m hoping it can be repaired, but I don’t really know the first thing about electronics.
 
Just noticed I had this code I don't plan to use.  For some reason I love jrpg's but find watching actual anime uninteresting.
Dragon Ball Super Season 1 (xbox platform)
MVGX3-M*JWC-4Y4K*-32WGW-DQDCZ

* = the first letter of the reason everyone bought Ryza 2.  Also please post if you've used it.

 
gospelman said:
Just noticed I had this code I don't plan to use. For some reason I love jrpg's but find watching actual anime uninteresting.
Dragon Ball Super Season 1 (xbox platform)
MVGX3-M*JWC-4Y4K*-32WGW-DQDCZ

* = the first letter of the reason everyone bought Ryza 2. Also please post if you've used it.
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Was it T for title??

 
super1upqueen said:
It's T for thighs, baby.
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Erinys.png


 
Looks like Persona 5 Strikers is having launch day glitches that weren't patched.  The trophies won't sync to PS network, just gives an error and won't recognize the game's trophies.  The english dub also wasn't mixed properly and seems to have the music drown out the voices in some spots of the game.  No word on when or if we'll get a patch for these problems. 

 
tangytangerine said:
Looks like Persona 5 Strikers is having launch day glitches that weren't patched. The trophies won't sync to PS network, just gives an error and won't recognize the game's trophies. The english dub also wasn't mixed properly and seems to have the music drown out the voices in some spots of the game. No word on when or if we'll get a patch for these problems.
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I'm not able to pick up my pre-order from Best Buy until tomorrow, but it sounds like it's for the best I don't play right away anyway. Hopefully it's patched quickly.

I guess I'll stick with Thyza 2 for now :razz:

 
Heh I couldn't get a copy myself. Went to walmart like I usually do to save some money but they didn't have any new games out yet, figured they would have them on the shelf by 4 pm but apparently not lmao. Said screw it and went to gamestop and the lady inside said their truck got delayed by weather and won't be in until tomorrow.

Oh well, gives me time to finish up P5D. Wanted to finish it before Strikers came out but I got bit by the Valheim bug and didn't get to it.

 
tangytangerine said:
Looks like Persona 5 Strikers is having launch day glitches that weren't patched. The trophies won't sync to PS network, just gives an error and won't recognize the game's trophies. The english dub also wasn't mixed properly and seems to have the music drown out the voices in some spots of the game. No word on when or if we'll get a patch for these problems.
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The first problem is relatively common, but I can't remember the last big-name game that it happened with. The fix is essentially the equivalent of the dev flipping a switch on their end. If you earn any trophies in the game before they do that, they'll still sync once the trophy list is "live" on PSN.

 
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BoxPizzaBox said:
If your TV is 4K I wonder if it's some kind of fancy scaling it's trying to do to upscale to 4K. You could try turning off any option that sounds like scaling, or a marketing term for fancy upscaling (if game mode doesn't automatically get these). Also any interpolation / motion enhancement sounding stuff (but game mode will usually get these).
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Thanks for the pointers. The screen in question is a relatively recent 4K. I dug into the settings, and tweaked a few things. I switched off any automatic scaling or resizing, switched on Game Mode, and made sure any sort of motion enhancement was disabled. That seems to have cleaned up the issue. Games from the same input that the Switch is going through seem to be running properly now without the noticeable lag.

I also changed my Switch's docked output down to 720p, and activated the mClassic I have rigged up. This gives me a little boost to framerate in some games, and also helps with the upscaling. I was concerned that it might smooth out the pixels a bit too much in The Mummy: Demastered, but it still looks great even with the mClassic active.

 
And my ps4 wont turn on again.  So I went ahead and ordered a new one from best buy but sadly that won't be here till the 6th of next month at the earliest so there goes any chance of playing ps4 stuff on my vacation.  I had to youtube a video to see how to get the disc out since they changed how to do it for every other model it seems.  But once I found a video for my specific model it wasn't too hard.  Main thing was to listen to hear if the gears are clicking since you don't want that apparently when you are trying to manually eject the disc. Took a few minutes to even find the black rubber gear from the video since its at a really odd angle. 

It is a shame that sony quietly discontinued the pro apparently in january and only slims are what's remaining stock is on the market.  Had I known I would have bought a pro before they went out of stock as I haven't owned that model only a slim. 

 
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shadowysea07 said:
It is a shame that sony quietly discontinued the pro apparently in january and only slims are what's remaining stock is on the market. Had I known I would have bought a pro before they went out of stock as I haven't owned that model only a slim.
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With the PS5 on the market Sony likely doesn't see any more need for the PS4 Pro. The PS5 basically does everything the Pro did and more, so it is now the "premium" offering for the Playstation line. Not really surprising to see them de-prioritize it in the production pipeline.

 
I would agree the PS5 sounds like the much better option, in a world where everything is in stock.

They need a system though. The PS5 is probably the best, but isn't guaranteed to be available for maybe even the rest of this year.

I didn't realize most places were charging $300+ for a slim, still! That's insane. At that price I'd be tempted to get a Pro instead too (if one could be found, which it sounds like it cannot), and just hold off on the PS5 a bit longer. So I get the line of thinking

 
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BoxPizzaBox said:
I would agree the PS5 sounds like the much better option, in a world where everything is in stock.

They need a system though. The PS5 is probably the best, but isn't guaranteed to be available for maybe even the rest of this year.

I didn't realize most places were charging $300+ for a slim, still! That's insane. At that price I'd be tempted to get a Pro instead too (if one could be found, which it sounds like it cannot), and just hold off on the PS5 a bit longer. So I get the line of thinking
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Yep. I mean I could wait for the ps5 to come into stock and possibly go down in price. But given that not all ps4 games are compatible with the ps5 that wouldn't be a solution and a ps5 isn't going to be available until who knows when. Also why would I buy a launch ps5 when they are gonna have issues and have a better one down the road?

Obviously ps4's are still going for the price they are due to the shortage as most stores don't even have stock of the slim either. Target, walmart and numerous other stores are out of stock or at least are online. I was lucky to find one available through best buy.

 
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There's like 5 games that don't work with the PS5.

Stock issue is a problem, but I don't think spending $300 on a PS4 right now makes sense, but that's just me.

 
"but it costs more"

yeah, so does throwing good money after bad.   Your system would also cost more today than the ~$280 I paid for my brand new Pro three years ago. 

This would be like buying Gamestop stock after the price soared.  A poor financial decision; even moreso when you point to the finances involved. 

 
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If you think of the console strictly as investments I agree you are basically setting yourself up to spend more money in the long run, but I do think the desire to play games you already own without dealing with the uncertainty of when you'll be able to again has unknown value that will vary from person to person.

Most of us have giant backlogs though across multiple systems so we can ride out nearly any waiting period if we need to by just playing something else for a bit ;D If possible, I would advise that too- but you know better than anyone how you'll enjoy your free time so it's your call and I don't think there's a 'wrong' answer. If this PS4 could arrive in time for your vacation I personally hold the opinion that enjoying your free time how you want is the most valuable thing we have, and I wouldn't question it at all. It is unfortunate that it will not. A really crappy situation all because your PS4 decided to kick it right now, sorry dude.

 
Your March 2021 JRPG releases:
 
- Harvest Moon: One World (Switch)
- Saviors of Sapphire Wings/ Stranger of Sword City Revisited (Switch, PC)
- Monster Hunter Rise (Switch)
- Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (Xbox GamePass)
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon (comes to PS5)
- Kingdom Hearts series (comes to PC on Epic Store)
 
also finally got this figure!
 
y8U5CED.jpg

 
 
IceyD said:
Your March 2021 JRPG releases:

- Harvest Moon: One World (Switch)
- Saviors of Sapphire Wings/ Stranger of Sword City Revisited (Switch, PC)
- Monster Hunter Rise (Switch)
- Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (Xbox GamePass)
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon (comes to PS5)
- Kingdom Hearts series (comes to PC on Epic Store
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Harvest Moon, Monster Hunter, and Yakuza 6 aren’t RPGs, though.
 
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Souffrir said:
Harvest Moon, Monster Hunter, and Yakuza 6 aren’t RPGs, though.
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I include them to just cover the bases and to avoid arguments. Better than leaving them out, it's a small niche already.

Although if you want to tussle, I'd agree that Yakuza 6 and Harvest are not, but I am a Yay on Monster Hunter.

Anyway, most excited for Stranger of Sword City. Played it when it first came out and it was really good.

 
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For folks looking to buy a PS4 or PS5, as BoxPizzaBox suggested, I agree that if you have other video games to play on older systems, that doing that makes much more sense.  Frankly, at this point, the PS5 is neither worth the hassle nor the early-adopter headache with its obviously small library.

I also agree that purchasing a PS4 right now at the current inflated price points isn't a great idea, either.  Sony having pulled the plug on most PS4 production would not be a problem, but for the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic has created all sort of supply/chain problems that have significantly reduced Sony's ability to pump out PS5s. 

Eventually, one would expect that as PS5 stock reaches normalcy, you'll see the prices for PS4s drop precipitously.  Whether people are selling or trading them off, there are millions of PS4s that will eventually enter a used marketplace, and that supply should easily outstrip the demand for them when PS5s can be easily found in stores and online.

So bottom-line - I think waiting will save you a lot of money.  Also, by the time you can pick up a PS5 (or cheap PS4), prices for games will probably also go down (presumably as vaccine rollout improves and more people can spend time outside, even if still wearing masks and socially distancing), and most importantly, there will be more worthwhile games on both systems (as you know, Sony will likely put previously big PS5 games also on PS4 to help its sales numbers).

 
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Yeah mine's been dusty since December. Demon's Souls was a really short game.

Nioh 2 and 13 Sentinels were also great but yeah, don't need a PS5 for those. The extra performance on a lot of games may make it worth it if you missed the PS4 library entirely.

 
IceyD said:
I include them to just cover the bases and to avoid arguments. Better than leaving them out, it's a small niche already.
Although if you want to tussle, I'd agree that Yakuza 6 and Harvest are not, but I am a Yay on Monster Hunter.

Anyway, most excited for Stranger of Sword City. Played it when it first came out and it was really good.
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I mean if we really wanna get into it, Stranger is a dungeon crawler and KH is an ARPG, both of which are RPG subgenres distinct from JRPGs, but I didn’t mention those to avoid arguments.

As for MonHun... well, RPG is a only a pseudogenre (for video games) since there isn’t an agreed upon definition and games considered RPGs tend to have less in common with each other than they do with games in different genres. That said, I would argue that MonHun doesn’t check any of the usual boxes that games called RPGs tend to check at least one or two of—no mechanical character growth, no significant choice system, no randomized game mechanics, no deep story. It shares certain characteristics with games that are considered RPGs—for instance, it has a loot focus that might loosely remind one of something like Diablo, or the skill-based action might vaguely resemble action-focused ARPGs like Dark Souls or Dragon’s Dogma—but those characteristics aren’t typically associated just with RPGs. I’d call MonHun a mission-based action game.
 
Samurai Warriors 5 launches on June 24th in Japan and July 27th in the West!

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/02/samurai-warriors-5-launches-june-24-in-japan-july-27-in-the-west

New trailer! Those painting finishes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCxu6n3VhU&feature=emb_title

Also, the website is officially open. Take a look at those new character designs! Ieyasu is no longer a five-foot-tall fat man!

https://www.koeitecmoamerica.com/sw5/

Considering the game seems to indeed be squarely focused on the Nobunaga era (meaning we may experience several events that led to the legendary victory in Okehazama) and the roster has been cut down to 27 characters, this strikes me as kind of a series reboot. While I enjoy the large roster and varied time periods in these games, focusing on one clan a la Spirit of Sanada could be what this series needs to keep it fresh, while still true to its pseudo-historical roots. And speaking of Spirit of Sanada, while that game had all the characters from the previous entries, only like half of them really belonged in the story, so there's really no issue with cutting the roster down to give everyone some kind of significance in the narrative.

This seems like the exact opposite kind of reboot Dynasty Warriors 9 was. That game just carelessly threw musou gameplay into an open world with little regard for story cohesion and enjoyable exploration. I'm really hopeful that Koei Tecmo and Omega Force learned their lesson from that one and took a lot more care in Samurai Warriors 5's reimagining of the series.

 
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I always want to like MH games, but the grind I always never like and the control is just OK to me. I prefer the offshots like God Eater and Toukiden (my favorite). I will always try them cheaper though. Story of Seasons is one of my favorite series so that's my most looked forward to March game, and likely one of the only ones I'm getting that isn't an indie game or something like that (think I have a rogue-lite game coming soon).

 
I like God Eater a lot (enough to plat 1 and 2) but it's a total mess game design wise, at least those, I haven't gotten to 3 yet. But the games just encourage spamming 1 overpowered attack repeatedly while the rest of your kit is useless. In GE1 it's all about the custom bullets, melee attacks are pointless because bullets can kill every monster in the game in literally just a few seconds, before most of them can even reach you. GE2 still has strong bullets (though I think they got nerfed a bit) iirc but Blood Arts let melee weapons be somewhat viable, though it still just amounted to spamming that one attack over and over until the monster died.

Only played a few hours of Toukiden so far (just haven't felt like committing the time to it fully) but it was wayyyyy more fun. Wouldn't say I liked it as much as Monster Hunter but not a fair comparison since I only put about 5 or 6 hours into it. But I absolutely enjoyed it more then all the other clones I've played which is probably the majority of them at this point.

 
nitrosmob said:
I always want to like MH games, but the grind I always never like and the control is just OK to me.
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62t said:
Same, I had a much better time with Toukiden and Gundam Breaker than Monster Hunter
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I’ve had the exact opposite experience with MonHun clones. I’ve played a fair amount of Soul Sacrifice and Freedom Wars, and tried the demos for the original God Eater and Lords of Arcana, but I was never able to get into any of them like I was MonHun. MonHun’s gameplay loop just felt more satisfying as a goal in itself than as some sort of intermediary between plot segments, and I feel like, some missteps aside, the action just feels more focused and satisfying in MonHun than in its imitators. Monster and world design have always felt better to me in MonHun, as well, and you can tell there’s been a lot of love put into even small things like character animations, which gives the games a ton of personality. I don’t put dozens of hours into every MonHun that comes along, and I do occasionally enjoy checking out similar games, but I’ve never been able to get into any MonHunlike the way I’ve gotten into some MonHun games.
 
Zenax[zd] said:
I like God Eater a lot (enough to plat 1 and 2) but it's a total mess game design wise, at least those, I haven't gotten to 3 yet. But the games just encourage spamming 1 overpowered attack repeatedly while the rest of your kit is useless. In GE1 it's all about the custom bullets, melee attacks are pointless because bullets can kill every monster in the game in literally just a few seconds, before most of them can even reach you. GE2 still has strong bullets (though I think they got nerfed a bit) iirc but Blood Arts let melee weapons be somewhat viable, though it still just amounted to spamming that one attack over and over until the monster died.

Only played a few hours of Toukiden so far (just haven't felt like committing the time to it fully) but it was wayyyyy more fun. Wouldn't say I liked it as much as Monster Hunter but not a fair comparison since I only put about 5 or 6 hours into it. But I absolutely enjoyed it more then all the other clones I've played which is probably the majority of them at this point.
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Is it fair to say Monster Hunter has less story? I recall the God Eater and Toukiden series as having much more character/story driven paths by comparison.

 
Mattiful-Joe said:
Is it fair to say Monster Hunter has less story? I recall the God Eater and Toukiden series as having much more character/story driven paths by comparison.
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The Monster Hunter game with the most story by far is World, and even that’s relatively spare compared to most Japanese story-driven games. MonHun has some interesting lore (though you really have to dig to get to it), but for the most part the story exists as a means to gate certain monsters past certain checkpoints. That’s not to say the characters aren’t well-realized, because as I mentioned previously, the devs really take the time to give everyone distinct personalities; and each game does have a story to help contextualize the action. Just don’t go in expecting typical JRPG fare. The point of the series is 100% hunting monsters, not getting to the next story beat.
 
I actually don't even think World has more story then the previous games as much as the fact that they just added in more cutscenes. The village quests in MH have always been pretty wordy with lots of NPCs but it was always just running from NPC to NPC to get through a bunch of text boxes. World turned most of those sections into cutscenes.

The biggest change with World was that they forced you into playing through it since previously you could just jump right into multiplayer (guild) only questing. Rise is actually going back to the village/guild split which I am looking forward to since trying to play through the main quests in World with a friend is insanely annoying because of the cutscene stuff. 

But yeah, Monster Hunter has never been about the characters, it's about the atmosphere and lore. I've always assumed it was very intentional because a big thing they always do is not even give most NPCs a name, just a title.

 
Zenax[zd] said:
I actually don't even think World has more story then the previous games as much as the fact that they just added in more cutscenes. The village quests in MH have always been pretty wordy with lots of NPCs but it was always just running from NPC to NPC to get through a bunch of text boxes. World turned most of those sections into cutscenes.

The biggest change with World was that they forced you into playing through it since previously you could just jump right into multiplayer (guild) only questing. Rise is actually going back to the village/guild split which I am looking forward to since trying to play through the main quests in World with a friend is insanely annoying because of the cutscene stuff.

But yeah, Monster Hunter has never been about the characters, it's about the atmosphere and lore. I've always assumed it was very intentional because a big thing they always do is not even give most NPCs a name, just a title.
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Have there been any MonHun NPCs with a name? I can’t think of any. Outside of spinoffs, anyway.

And yeah, there’s always been story there, but I meant more in the sense of having a more cohesive, prominent plot than in the sense of actual story length. In previous games it’s been much less prominent, even in the single player experience—essentially just text fields, like you said, with little character engagement. There are more action beats in the story in World, and more instances of characters interacting directly with the world around them instead of mere descriptions of events after the fact, would you please go do something about this now, hunter?
 
Souffrir said:
Have there been any MonHun NPCs with a name? I can’t think of any. Outside of spinoffs, anyway.
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Don't think so but I am not 100% sure as I can't remember every single character off the top of my head, so didn't want to say definitively there wasn't one.

 
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