Japanese Niche Games Deals Thread: Atlus, NISA, Aksys, XSeed and More!

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The following thread are for niche-based Japanese video games by smaller companies such as Atlus, NIS America, AKSYS, XSEED, D3 Publisher, KOEI/TECMO, SNK Playmore, Ignition, Natsume or any sweet deals for those who are passionate and hardcore about Japanese video games even from the bigger companies like SquareEnix, Sega, Bandai Namco, etc.

But to avoid any messiness of links everywhere, we'll focus on games within the last 2-3 years as opposed to the last five-ten. [although, if you do see older titles on sale, please post them regardless].

The theme of these deals are Japanese video games distributed in the US by the smaller niche companies. The thread is literally for those who love Japanese games. There will be a few Korean games that you may see on this list, such as the "DJ Max" games.

If you see a deal, please post!

NOTE: Please check the most recent page for the latest deals.

And I want to thank many of you in advance who submit their deals and their support!!!
 
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Well Atlus is put under the SEGA Dream Corporation branch, so I like to be optimistic.

MakenX 2 anyone?

 
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Well, that came out of nowhere, hope whenever it releses in either format localized is fine by me (just hope it doesn't cost too much). Now I wonder how they will issue with the names and such if they'll keep everything intact.

 
62t said:
The fear here is what will happen to Atlus USA. There is no need for Sega to have 2 USA operation. One of the article said Sega will be asking Atlus to make mobile phone games.
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Sega might keep Atlus USA open. It would actually be a very strategic move to have Atlus's Localization team do their smaller print runs on games that would have the niche market. Bring more games over. Actually the brilliant move would be to even keep the Atlus name but port over niche Sega titles too. Also have Sega on the box though for brand name recognition.

vince_carter said:
other devs they bought like creative assembly seem to be doing fine
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Bingo, Creative Assembly has not changed much. Same devs putting out good games. I think this will happen to Atlus. I expect nothing more than sega giving more money to Atlus.

 
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Hopefully SEGA's mindset has changed in the past 15 years. When I worked for them all the other divisions did what the Japanese division thought was best for the market. They wouldn't take any imput on how to run things in other countries. Other areas had little control. I would think they learned from the demise of SEGAworld and the loss in the console war, but you never know...

 
slowdive21 said:
Hopefully SEGA's mindset has changed in the past 15 years. When I worked for them all the other divisions did what the Japanese division thought was best for the market. They wouldn't take any imput on how to run things in other countries. Other areas had little control. I would think they learned from the demise of SEGAworld and the loss in the console war, but you never know...
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well as the old saying goes, money talks. when they were well off they did not need too worry about input an did their own thing, then Sony an Microsoft jump in with more willingness too adapt an Sega sunk fast.

i always enjoyed Sega but hated their lack of support for the west, which pushed me to Sony an i been much happier since. Thu still longing for Sega too release something beside sonic. like dragon force or panzer dragoon rpg!

 
I doubt it will affect Atlus USA. They said that the Index issue would have no effect on them and I expect Sega would rather leave them be as then they don't have to deal with anything.

 
SeraphiMichael said:
I doubt it will affect Atlus USA. They said that the Index issue would have no effect on them and I expect Sega would rather leave them be as then they don't have to deal with anything.
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Disagree. There is no way Sega is going to allow Atlus USA to continue operating as it currently exists in the US. It simply doesn't make sense to have duplicate marketing and management people when Sega already has a viable means of doing translation, marketing, publishing and distribution and has done so with niche titles in the US including Yakuza and most recently Hatsune.

 
bojay1997 said:
Disagree. There is no way Sega is going to allow Atlus USA to continue operating as it currently exists in the US. It simply doesn't make sense to have duplicate marketing and management people when Sega already has a viable means of doing translation, marketing, publishing and distribution and has done so with niche titles in the US including Yakuza and most recently Hatsune.
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Where was I when Sega marketed these things?

fujishig said:
This is still in my current amiami order, to ship out later this month, so you're welcome for buying the import and guaranteeing a domestic release.
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That has nothing to do with anything.

 
admiralvic said:
Where was I when Sega marketed these things?

That has nothing to do with anything.
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Not sure, but Sega has a pretty aggressive social media group and I know they constantly were pushing Hatsune over Facebook, Twitter and on forums. They also secured a lot of coverage on gaming websites. Marketing nowadays doesn't mean buying magazine or television spots for smaller games. Frankly, Hatsune sold out at Gamestop.com, so they must have done something right.

 
bojay1997 said:
Not sure, but Sega has a pretty aggressive social media group and I know they constantly were pushing Hatsune over Facebook, Twitter and on forums. They also secured a lot of coverage on gaming websites. Marketing nowadays doesn't mean buying magazine or television spots for smaller games. Frankly, Hatsune sold out at Gamestop.com, so they must have done something right.
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Speaking of Miku. Which is the better game: Miku or DJ Max on vita?

 
I doubt their social media push had much to do with it.  People who bought it was going to support PDF anyway and their social media is just selling it to the same audience that would've purchased it anyway.

 
bojay1997 said:
Not sure, but Sega has a pretty aggressive social media group and I know they constantly were pushing Hatsune over Facebook, Twitter and on forums. They also secured a lot of coverage on gaming websites. Marketing nowadays doesn't mean buying magazine or television spots for smaller games. Frankly, Hatsune sold out at Gamestop.com, so they must have done something right.
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I don't know where you live, but I think you're giving them way too much credit here.

Like take "aggressive social media" for instance. That costs them virtually nothing to post and ultimately has no risk of losing money, so of course they're going to push it. Most game companies push everything pretty hard. Not like it makes a huge difference, since you're telling Sega fans to buy something they most likely would have anyway. As far as a lot of gaming websites go... well they work off views. Not like Sega begged them to publish the news about MIku. They just so happened to think it was news worthy and posted it. Don't discount the number of niche gamers who tend to become journalist and would have an interest in this game. Finally, many people reported that Hatsune Miku PDF had a very small print run. I can't find any number, but it wasn't enough for most stores to stock it.

@ Asmith906

PDF is a higher quality game with better music and more doable gameplay. DJM has okay music, easier to follow (I tend to get lost in the background) and might be better suited for you if you don't love Japanese things.

 
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admiralvic said:
I don't know where you live, but I think you're giving them way too much credit here.

Like take "aggressive social media" for instance. That costs them virtually nothing to post and ultimately has no risk of losing money, so of course they're going to push it. Most game companies push everything pretty hard. Not like it makes a huge difference, since you're telling Sega fans to buy something they most likely would have anyway. As far as a lot of gaming websites go... well they work off views. Not like Sega begged them to publish the news about MIku. They just so happened to think it was news worthy and posted it. Don't discount the number of niche gamers who tend to become journalist and would have an interest in this game. Finally, many people reported that Hatsune Miku PDF had a very small print run. I can't find any number, but it wasn't enough for most stores to stock it.

@ Asmith906

PDF is a higher quality game with better music and more doable gameplay. DJM has okay music, easier to follow (I tend to get lost in the background) and might be better suited for you if you don't love Japanese things.
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I think you fundamentally misunderstand how video game websites decide to cover things. There are very few that proactively go out and grab news like this, other than the initial rumors about a US release. Almost all of the stories after the release was revealed were planted by Sega's PR folks. My point remains the same that Sega has the resources to do marketing and publicity already and they aren't going to retain Atlus' teams to do that as there is no need for duplication. It's not like Atlus is so great at marketing either. For the past two years they've essentially done the same thing, initial announcement and then a couple months before launch, an announcement that something like a CD or art book would be included. Not exactly rocket science.

 
bojay1997 said:
I think you fundamentally misunderstand how video game websites decide to cover things.
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I've only been working as a Game Journalist for 3 years and have had reviews published both on company sites and metacritic, so I guess I wouldn't fundamentally understand how Video Game Websites decide to cover things...

My point remains the same that Sega has the resources to do marketing and publicity already and they aren't going to retain Atlus' teams to do that as there is no need for duplication. It's not like Atlus is so great at marketing either. For the past two years they've essentially done the same thing, initial announcement and then a couple months before launch, an announcement that something like a CD or art book would be included. Not exactly rocket science.
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Of course it remains... I never disagreed with it in the first place. I just asked where I was when those games got marketed.

 
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admiralvic said:
I've only been working as a Game Journalist for 3 years and have had reviews published both on company sites and metacritic, so I guess I wouldn't fundamentally understand how Video Game Websites decide to cover things...

Of course it remains... I never disagreed with it in the first place. I just asked where I was when those games got marketed.
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I was a part time computer and gaming print journalist for almost 15 years starting in the early 1990s and it's actually how I paid my way through college and grad school. I have quite a few colleagues who still run video game news websites as well and I provide them with legal advice on things like FTC disclosure compliance, so I think I have a pretty good handle on how both the commercial and the hobbyist websites cover things like this.

I've never heard anyone claim that getting published on metacritic makes one a "journalist", but perhaps you mean that some of the reviews you were paid to write for commercial websites were reprinted. If you want proof that most of what these sites do nowadays is just regurgitate the official company PR materials, all you need to do is a Google search and you'll find that literally hundreds of these gaming websites are cutting and pasting exactly what they are provided on a daily basis. I'm sure there are a few sites that actually proactively seek out news and cover things without such encouragement, but given how little money is out there to pay staffers even with ad revenue and corporate backing, I doubt there is much of that type of more traditional journalism going on.

 
bojay1997 said:
I was a part time computer and gaming print journalist for almost 15 years starting in the early 1990s and it's actually how I paid my way through college and grad school. I have quite a few colleagues who still run video game news websites as well and I provide them with legal advice on things like FTC disclosure compliance, so I think I have a pretty good handle on how both the commercial and the hobbyist websites cover things like this.

I've never heard anyone claim that getting published on metacritic makes one a "journalist", but perhaps you mean that some of the reviews you were paid to write for commercial websites were reprinted. If you want proof that most of what these sites do nowadays is just regurgitate the official company PR materials, all you need to do is a Google search and you'll find that literally hundreds of these gaming websites are cutting and pasting exactly what they are provided on a daily basis. I'm sure there are a few sites that actually proactively seek out news and cover things without such encouragement, but given how little money is out there to pay staffers even with ad revenue and corporate backing, I doubt there is much of that type of more traditional journalism going on.
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While you should really be the "mature" one here, I will just say you win and drop the subject. I rather not argue with someone wants to put words in my mouth and assume incorrectly at what I am talking about.

So in the spirit of being mature...

Sega is an evil PR machine that completely dominates social media with the vocoloids and Yakuza members. Every game that failed was 100% because their marketing of these titles was SO INTENSE that people were literally afraid to bring their products into their home (like Annabelle the doll). Since their marketing power is so almighty that it's an affront to god himself, they will no doubt kill off Atlus USA so pathetically under marketed games like Call of Duty can maybe (if they're extremely lucky and all things go right) turn a profit.

 
SeraphiMichael said:
I doubt it will affect Atlus USA. They said that the Index issue would have no effect on them and I expect Sega would rather leave them be as then they don't have to deal with anything.
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I don't see how a division can possibly say "it doesn't effect us" when the parent company goes bankrupt, and subsequently the gaming parts are sold off to new owners. When they originally made those comments, there was no way for them to possibly know what the final outcome would be. No idea who would aquire them, if anyone would at all.

Even if Sega has confirmed that Atlus USA will be untouched for now (which I don't know that they have), that could literally change at any time based on Sega's own financial results. Basically it's up to Sega now. Companies often say that initially, then within a couple of years they will have cut out all the duplicate employees and costs (basically keeping nothing but the IP's).

It's interesting that Sega was busy gutting their own USA operations just 2 years ago, and even very recently have basically said Yakuza is not coming west anymore due to lack of sales. To me, that doesn't bode well for Atlus USA going on "as-is". But then again Sega brought Project Diva F west, So it seems like Sega almost has no clear strategy, and they just do everything on a whim. There's no way to predict what's going to happen IMO.

 
Agent Orange said:
It's interesting that Sega was busy gutting their own USA operations just 2 years ago, and even very recently have basically said Yakuza is not coming west anymore due to lack of sales. To me, that doesn't bode well for Atlus USA going on "as-is". But then again Sega brought Project Diva F west, So it seems like Sega almost has no clear strategy, and they just do everything on a whim. There's no way to predict what's going to happen IMO.
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It's not "on a whim". How much translation would they have to do for a game like Project Diva? Almost zero - it's not like they translated the songs. How much translation would a Yakuza game require? Substantial. They are extremely text-heavy games. They've already released five Yakuza games in the West and all of them have sold like turds. Even in Japan, they are a break-even project at best. I don't fault Sega one bit for not localizing further titles even though I'd like to see more myself.
 
whitereflection said:
It's not "on a whim". How much translation would they have to do for a game like Project Diva? Almost zero - it's not like they translated the songs. How much translation would a Yakuza game require? Substantial. They are extremely text-heavy games. They've already released five Yakuza games in the West and all of them have sold like turds. Even in Japan, they are a break-even project at best. I don't fault Sega one bit for not localizing further titles even though I'd like to see more myself.
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Not only that, but Sega has shown an interest in porting the game for a while. They had a playable demo at E3 2012 to gauge interest too. Hardly a whim when you decide to bring it to E3 and then nearly a year later do a Facebook poll to gauge interest.

 
Why do discussions always devolve so quickly on this site? I love this these forums and all, but there's so much latent hostility--between the people that couldn't form a proper argument if their life depended on it, to the people that immediately retreat to ad hominem attacks. There's a lot of interesting angles to the Sega acquisition of Atlus. There's some ways that it could be pretty awesome, and there's a lot of ways it could be pretty shit. There are very valid points to be made on either side--in all honesty, though, there's more evidence for it being a bad thing, but we can certainly be hopeful for the potential good points, at least. Can we all just put our big boy pants on and have a grown up discussion? 

 
argyle said:
I saw this early this morning, and I'm super psyched about a new Deception. Last one (in the US, at least) was Trapt on the PS2 if I remember correctly.
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How is Trapt anyway? I picked it up a while ago for $1 at my local Pawn Shop and haven't gotten to play it yet due to my ever growing backlog. The Pawn Shop sales all Last Gen games for $2 and once a month they have have a sale and last Gen games are $1. Found some great finds and it continues to help me fill out my collection, especially PS2, but it makes my backlog even worse.
 
SpidrMnky said:
How is Trapt anyway? I picked it up a while ago for $1 at my local Pawn Shop and haven't gotten to play it yet due to my ever growing backlog. The Pawn Shop sales all Last Gen games for $2 and once a month they have have a sale and last Gen games are $1. Found some great finds and it continues to help me fill out my collection, especially PS2, but it makes my backlog even worse.
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It's good - if you've never played any of the series, basically you're in a castle and can't actively defend yourself against the people coming in to get you, but you can setup elaborate traps to kill them in some very interesting ways. You score higher for chains, so for example a swinging blade could hit them & knock them into some spikes on the wall. Heh, I've never thought about it but I suppose it was a precursor to the tower defense genre, tho you play a more active roll in Deception than in most of those games.

 
argyle said:
I saw this early this morning, and I'm super psyched about a new Deception. Last one (in the US, at least) was Trapt on the PS2 if I remember correctly.
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agree love them an was sad it was not more popular

SpidrMnky said:
How is Trapt anyway? I picked it up a while ago for $1 at my local Pawn Shop and haven't gotten to play it yet due to my ever growing backlog. The Pawn Shop sales all Last Gen games for $2 and once a month they have have a sale and last Gen games are $1. Found some great finds and it continues to help me fill out my collection, especially PS2, but it makes my backlog even worse.
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argyle said:
It's good - if you've never played any of the series, basically you're in a castle and can't actively defend yourself against the people coming in to get you, but you can setup elaborate traps to kill them in some very interesting ways. You score higher for chains, so for example a swinging blade could hit them & knock them into some spikes on the wall. Heh, I've never thought about it but I suppose it was a precursor to the tower defense genre, tho you play a more active roll in Deception than in most of those games.
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argyle sum it up well, each version was self contain story Thu i heard some tied together i never notice.

in trapts you can pre load 3 traps per room, each can be different in other rooms. their also pre set traps you can combo off of IE fire place, chandelier, pillars, their was think 4-5 different endings.

i first got the darkest ending for killing everyone showing no mercy, unlocked it in a pitch black room freak me out watching it back in the day.

traps can also be upgraded an theirs secret traps that unlock depending on ending? or beating game forget.. either way, game worth your time an others. it was fun an different, trying lure people into traps. some enemy's were cunning an were not easily tricked.

 
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Zaku77 said:
Why do discussions always devolve so quickly on this site? I love this these forums and all, but there's so much latent hostility--between the people that couldn't form a proper argument if their life depended on it, to the people that immediately retreat to ad hominem attacks. There's a lot of interesting angles to the Sega acquisition of Atlus. There's some ways that it could be pretty awesome, and there's a lot of ways it could be pretty shit. There are very valid points to be made on either side--in all honesty, though, there's more evidence for it being a bad thing, but we can certainly be hopeful for the potential good points, at least. Can we all just put our big boy pants on and have a grown up discussion?
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I think it happens because some companies are so despised, that anything good or bad is always taken a bad way. A perfect example of this is Capcom, who gets nailed left and right for anything they do.

Like I recall a lot of people on other sites complaining that Sega didn't really market a lot of their games and that was their chief reason for the hate. It's certainly a valid point, though you can find countless examples from every company if you look hard enough. The other issue is that Sega has been screwing up their long standing series (like Sonic had some dreadful games), slow turnaround (PSO 2 still isn't out in the US) and not localizing games people want. It's certainly an interesting subject, but I can't say many titles would do it "right". Maybe someone like NISA, though I doubt they could afford to buy Atlus or perhaps Koei (they seem to localize something regardless of it being a good or bad idea). Beyond those it's really just Sony, since I doubt M$ has a large enough demographic to justify buying Atlus and Nintendo at bringing in demand items to fans (look at how long it took to get a digital version of Earthbound and we still don't have Mother 3).

 
I'm still waiting for PSO2. Normally I don't care much for F2P games since they generally end up bad but PSO2 could have been an exception.

I used to play the original PSO on the Dreamcast a lot when I was younger and I have nice memories of it.

 
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At this point im  not sure why everyone who's interested in PSO2 isnt just on the Japanese Version. With the english patch, its been great, and there are tons of US players on the servers! Because knowing Sega,PSO2 isnt going to ever make it here.

 
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Zaku77 said:
Why do discussions always devolve so quickly on this site? I love this these forums and all, but there's so much latent hostility--between the people that couldn't form a proper argument if their life depended on it, to the people that immediately retreat to ad hominem attacks. There's a lot of interesting angles to the Sega acquisition of Atlus. There's some ways that it could be pretty awesome, and there's a lot of ways it could be pretty shit. There are very valid points to be made on either side--in all honesty, though, there's more evidence for it being a bad thing, but we can certainly be hopeful for the potential good points, at least. Can we all just put our big boy pants on and have a grown up discussion?
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You realize you just made several rude and childish attacks in your post condemning rude and childish attacks, right?

 
acpstunts said:
At this point im not sure why everyone who's interested in PSO2 isnt just on the Japanese Version. With the english patch, its been great, and there are tons of US players on the servers! Because knowing Sega,PSO2 isnt going to ever make it here.
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Some of us hoped that Sega of America would actually care enough to release an English version sometime before December 2013.

 
acpstunts said:
At this point im not sure why everyone who's interested in PSO2 isnt just on the Japanese Version. With the english patch, its been great, and there are tons of US players on the servers! Because knowing Sega,PSO2 isnt going to ever make it here.
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The last I heard, the patch doesn't translate everything (like item names I believe). Is that not true?

I'd really rather not jump through all the hoops to play something that they had originally said they were going to bring over here anyway.

 
I'm not really a big mmo player but I really wanted to try PSO2. At this point i'm starting to lose interest in it. I just hate when companies don't give yo a straight answer on if they are localizing a game. I don't like waiting years for a game on a maybe when I could just import it.

 
biledriver said:
You realize you just made several rude and childish attacks in your post condemning rude and childish attacks, right?
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For one thing, the remarks were absolutely spot on, and there's nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade. When one infers from an argument that someone is stupid, has bad taste, etc, they are taking the evidence of the argument and extrapolating it to other areas of who the person that they are remonstrating with is. I am only referring to the actual arguments themselves, so that's merely an observation based on observed evidence. As for the other 'questionable' point I made--when did two become several, by the way--that is also simply relaying an observation. There are people that retreat to ad hominem attacks. Saying that is in no way an attack or insult--it merely means they are bad at arguing. If I was to say they were rude and childish for doing so, that would be an attack, but I left that little editorial out. I also didn't name any names for the sake of harmony and not derailing things further, but I may have another name to add to my mental list... ;)

 
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