Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

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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I am going to start using VGP as well. I actually used Play-Asia enough before to get some higher status (not sure what it really is). I would generally wait till enough games are coming/out and make a free shipping order. Now without the free shipping, I am incentivized to just not use them unless that's the only choice (they still do get some Play-Asia Asian-English only games, but they do appear on other sites now). I really do want Saga Frontier 2 Remastered, so I will experiment with VGP. I do hope it all goes well and I also do hope Play-Asia patches up some stuff and provides a better experience for the consumer. Honestly I think many people are going to really learn which places really care enough to make the shopping experience well in the near future.
 
nitrosmob said:
I am going to start using VGP as well. I actually used Play-Asia enough before to get some higher status (not sure what it really is). I would generally wait till enough games are coming/out and make a free shipping order. Now without the free shipping, I am incentivized to just not use them unless that's the only choice (they still do get some Play-Asia Asian-English only games, but they do appear on other sites now). I really do want Saga Frontier 2 Remastered, so I will experiment with VGP. I do hope it all goes well and I also do hope Play-Asia patches up some stuff and provides a better experience for the consumer. Honestly I think many people are going to really learn which places really care enough to make the shopping experience well in the near future.
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Aside, I found 60% of the Ranma 1/2 manga (OG release) for $1 a book at a used book store.

23 total from the series.

Was quite happy.
 
Most of my GS purchases from the last week. Roughly ~50% of the new games arrived gutted, which is a lower rate than expected. And since half of my purchases were preowned, it's acceptable that i'm stuck with only 1 game (smtv:v) in a generic case. It will get tossed since I have an extra steelbook that I'll use. All of these games aside from Trails and the xbox/atlus games are new to me, so it's nice to have more to play and less gs trade credit.

Good sale.
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There was a ~3hr window between the time I posted here about shipping availability and the time Wario hit the dog whistle. Hopefully people got what they wanted. As you can see I bought an extra Potionomics since I was indecisive on platform. I'm up for helping out a cag if you're still looking.
 
gospelman said:
Most of my GS purchases from the last week. Roughly ~50% of the new games arrived gutted, which is a lower rate than expected. And since half of my purchases were preowned, it's acceptable that i'm stuck with only 1 game (smtv:v) in a generic case. It will get tossed since I have an extra steelbook that I'll use. All of these games aside from Trails and the xbox/atlus games are new to me, so it's nice to have more to play and less gs trade credit.

Good sale.
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Wow they had Sword & Fairy in stock for shipping at one point crazy pickups
 
lakers714 said:
Wow they had Sword & Fairy in stock for shipping at one point crazy pickups
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S&F, Granblue Relink Deluxe, and Anonymous;Code I had to drive to hunt down locally. Easiest way is to find the sku in the item page's url and ask an employee to print a receipt of local availability for the sku you give them.

There's one more CE I sniffed out but failed to obtain. The only one in my area. The employee tried to give me the standard edition and then "couldn't find it" when I asked them to check the drawers & back room. The sku is on the sticker (355870) if anyone else wants to hunt locally.
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gospelman said:
S&F, Granblue Relink Deluxe, and Anonymous;Code I had to drive to hunt down locally. Easiest way is to find the sku in the item page's url and ask an employee to print a receipt of local availability for the sku you give them.

There's one more CE I sniffed out but failed to obtain. The only one in my area. The employee tried to give me the standard edition and then "couldn't find it" when I asked them to check the drawers & back room. The sku is on the sticker (355870) if anyone else wants to hunt locally.
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WOW. GS got so tired of people complaining about their gutted new games that they're now starting their own "Certified New" line. When the standard, nice and sealed in original plastic shrinkwrap from the factory that you can get from every reputable retailer isn't enough, and you want a copy that's been man handled and absorbed the farts of various GS employees, then you buy Certified New.

Only at GameStop.
 
W
gospelman said:
S&F, Granblue Relink Deluxe, and Anonymous;Code I had to drive to hunt down locally. Easiest way is to find the sku in the item page's url and ask an employee to print a receipt of local availability for the sku you give them.

There's one more CE I sniffed out but failed to obtain. The only one in my area. The employee tried to give me the standard edition and then "couldn't find it" when I asked them to check the drawers & back room. The sku is on the sticker (355870) if anyone else wants to hunt locally.
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Wow that would be a sick find I had the same thing with the S&F CE at a store they tried looking for it in the store or back room but could not find it same with the AC Mirage one too
 
scorponok said:
I only use the economy free shipping at playasia. That does make sense, there are probably tons of packages being shipped now. Here is some of my tracking from a Feb order, 3 days to get to CA (I live in PA):
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That's beyond amazing. They must have slipped it into air shipping instead of the slow boat.
 
For me for Play-Asia it generally was about a week and a half to two weeks after they said it's been shipped. I'm guessing it's slower now. In the distant past it used to be about 5 days.
 
erehwon said:
The Lunar Remaster for the PS4 came back in stock at Amazon. It's $55.
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In a perfect world, Amazon will stop allowing third party sellers on the platform. I’m so so sick of an item being sold out, meanwhile third party sellers have it for sale for 10x the price shipping from Amazon in their warehouse!

In my mind Amazon never even ships the item, they collude with the third party seller to just keep the stock and do direct shipping. Same nonsense as ticketmaster making money on selling the ticket and then reselling the ticket on the same platform.
 
Romeo said:
In a perfect world, Amazon will stop allowing third party sellers on the platform. I’m so so sick of an item being sold out, meanwhile third party sellers have it for sale for 10x the price shipping from Amazon in their warehouse!

In my mind Amazon never even ships the item, they collude with the third party seller to just keep the stock and do direct shipping. Same nonsense as ticketmaster making money on selling the ticket and then reselling the ticket on the same platform.
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Why would Amazon do that and let eBay get a cut of the sale instead of keeping it for themselves?
 
Bloomy said:
Why would Amazon do that and let eBay get a cut of the sale instead of keeping it for themselves?
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Same for eBay. They have rules such as:

Presale listings must clearly state that they are "presale" in the title and description, and guarantee shipment within 40 business days of purchase.

In order to protect buyer and seller guarantees, presale listings must follow eBay policy, including listing the date the item will be available to ship.”


Again, in a perfect world all of this nonsense of reselling is stopped. Way too much greed. Back when the PS5 30th items came out, I reported countless auctions for fraud and rule violations. About half were deleted and the other half were denied as “no problems with the listing”.

The Amazon issue is resellers buy out a product, then keep the SAME item in an amazon warehouse and that ships prime direct to the consumer. Tell me how that isn’t collusion!
 
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Yeah Lunar Remastered is back in stock and shipping slowly I'm guessing. I ordered mine that first restock and I think I get it this week or the next. I do believe all versions have come back in stock by now. If anyone sees Clair 33 back in stock though please holler out here.
 
Romeo said:
Same for eBay. They have rules such as:

Presale listings must clearly state that they are "presale" in the title and description, and guarantee shipment within 40 business days of purchase.

In order to protect buyer and seller guarantees, presale listings must follow eBay policy, including listing the date the item will be available to ship.”


Again, in a perfect world all of this nonsense of reselling is stopped. Way too much greed. Back when the PS5 30th items came out, I reported countless auctions for fraud and rule violations. About half were deleted and the other half were denied as “no problems with the listing”.

The Amazon issue is resellers buy out a product, then keep the SAME item in an amazon warehouse and that ships prime direct to the consumer. Tell me how that isn’t collusion!
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It's almost like capitalism as a whole is a corrupt conspiracy

More and more people are saying this!

Has anyone seen the switch Lunar in stock in a while? Don't have a Ps4 but would like the switch version but I haven't seen it and have been checking for a while
 
25% off in-stock items at Crunchyroll store. some exclusions apply. one day only

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Sale ends 5/27/25 at 11:59 PM PT. Regular exclusions apply. Aniplex is excluded from the sale and member benefits do not apply. In-stock products only, while supplies last. See Sales & Promotions link on Crunchyroll Store for details.
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Mattiful-Joe said:
Trump's stupid tariff tax and the elimination of the de minimus exemption will probably mean I order from PlayAsia a lot less. Will do everything I can to avoid paying for that idiot's tax breaks for the richest a$$holes.
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sadly the only thing that would work at this point is inventing a time machine, traveling back 45 years and making sure John Hinckley finished the job

Happy Memorial Day!
 
I think I’d rather save Kennedy and see what happens. Or, I know it wouldn’t save me from paying $5 more on my video games and it would help the world more than just my nation, but you know, could kill Hitler.
 
Covnam said:
Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD Collectors: https://na.store.square-enix-games.com/dragon-quest-i-_-ii-hd2d-remake
$90 ($150 total) seems like a lot for some acrylics and a box imo, but if you want it, there you go
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It looks like the collectable box was exclusive to the $200 DQIII HD set, so it's just the acrylics here.
Had my hopes up with the notion of a slipcase for both games. I wish companies would offer them, especially for when there's multiple games in a set, like with the DQ HD games. Never got the appeal of steel books personally.

As an aside, I wonder how sales for the SW2 game-key version of DQ I&II will fare against the SW version.
Sales data from Japan shows about 30% of SW2 games sold being game-keys with SW2 game cards and SW2 editions at 40% and 30%. So it doesn't seem like people there are too bothered by keycards
 
I guess some versions of cyclical time theory would allow for Reagan’s assassination to somehow prevent Hitler. While we are going back in time to maintain an easy video game import experience, can we prevent acrylics from becoming a thing?
 
Acyrlics and Steel Plates do next to nothing for me for gaming goodies. They're both alright to look at, but don't have the pizzazz of a plushie or a cool statue for me. I think plushies are really the only thing that gets me to budge on LEs/CEs nowadays unless they're discounted pretty well already.
 
I'm quite over plastic tat in CEs.

Now if there's an actually full soundtrack (not that bull crap "selections") and/or some hefty artwork and behind the scenes literature, then perhaps.

The real cost of CEs is space. I will never buy them, only stumble upon a discounted one or used one that's reasonably priced or turns out being something I've wanted.

Having worked a GameStop during the "big CEs with big garbage" era of the 360/PS3 (remember the Call of Duty ones?), I know how much of them are truly junk. The BioShock Big Daddy statues being absolute junk was a big turn off to many.

But I still have my Halo 3 Cat Helmet™.

I would say don't waste your money, 'cause you know, CAG, but people get mad at rationality on this site, so... consume conspicuously responsibly.
 
thankfully those Dragon Quest CEs have been so bad for a few iterations that I haven't even had to consider buying them.

This one is literally just a few pieces of acrylic. That's it. for $150.
 
I'm good for just DQ I&II standard switch release. I probably should lock some regular switch game pre-orders on some stuff at BB. DQ 1&2, Trails beyond the Horizon, TitS 1, and probably Raidou. It kind of makes things easy missing the Switch 2 launch and then seeing some of these have Switch 2 versions but they are just key cards. I don't mind if they load slightly slower.
 
For my own Gamestop gets 2 of my games were decent enough condition with a bit worse cases, and one was sealed. At least they all had the original artwork and such, especially since I got more niche games than most (Otome VNs). I'll see how my Sailor Moon Stars Bluray set comes in but I'm guessing just alright enough like most Gamestop stuff.
 
Are you guys seeing GS orders made at one price and then your credit card shows a different charge? It's honestly hard as hell figure what charge is what...
 
Vinny said:
Are you guys seeing GS orders made at one price and then your credit card shows a different charge? It's honestly hard as hell figure what charge is what...
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Double checked my own charge and it matched what was said to be charged in the email Gamestop sent when I did my order. Anytime something has different charges than expected it's fishy for sure.
 
Finished up Silent Hope this evening. Turned out to be a better than expected arpg dungeon grind. Feels like it's from the makers of the Rune Factory games.. the game world itself reminds me of taking something like Persona 3's Tartarus and fencing that off as an isolated game. It's not a lengthy or high budget project, but it's still polished with a solid English VA cast. Recommended as a brief, light change of pace game. i believe it's still on sale at $13-$15 through this Sat.
 
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