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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Vinny said:
This is why I just end up buying games full price
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I have a few tiers that games can fall into for purchase. The small few that I absolutely can't miss, I'll get those at launch (DQ & Xenoblade primarily or new games in the Zelda and Mario franchises).

Then there are some I would really like to get but I can wait on a sale or for gamefly to drop them to $35. There is a tier below this of games that I don't really need but would like and if they hit $20 to $25 I might go for it. Then some that I'm curious about but wouldn't buy for over $20 and if they never drop lower I'm fine completely missing them. Tales of Symphonia Remastered (and patched) on switch for $16.85 for a new copy on Gamefly was an easy deal even though it made it $21.52 after tax and shipping. Which really, there are some even in the higher tier groups that if they never dropped in price, I'd probably be fine missing them. I ended up not getting Daemon X Machina ... even though I did think the demos were decently fun. It never hit a price that I was happy with and I had no issue just skipping it. Unicorn Overlord looked nice but if it never went on sale, I would have just skipped it too. Fire Emblem Engage at $40 was tempting but $20 was a must buy. Same for Star Ocean Second Story R.. SO:Second Sory R (switch) got hard to find for less full price but I wasn't going to pay retail as I haven't fired up the first one yet to verify I'm down for digging into the series. $20 though, no problem grabbing a copy. I probably would have paid $30 to $35 before tax and shipping. Astral Chain (sorry y'all), I wasn't prepared to pay retail for and never found a deal until it popped back up on gamefly for $39.99. Had a deal never surfaced, I would ahve just lived without it. All those XSeed games I got early last month for $20 each... were games I was interested in buying if they got in that $20 to $25 range. Free shipping and no tax made it an easy deal. But I did resist quite a few games in that sale that I really have no interest in.

I think having a very short list of primary series to follow helps me out quite a lot since my core needs as a gamer are met and missing something lower tier is not the end of the world at all. Heck it does me well if something never drops in price as I'm not adding to the backlog. Sure I'm missing some bangers ... but until I retire in just under 10 years, it's not like I really have a massive amount of time to game.
 
True that. For myself I support visual novels highly and buy the ones I want on release day hopefully with release day discounts. There is a lot of lost sales on PC especially, so I make sure they get some money from me. For series pretty much it's Final Fantasy, DQ, and Persona/SMT main entries, along with interesting new IPs (Unicorn Overlord). Spinoffs and remasters generally get my wait till it's cheaper or plenty of reviews are out.

For everything else generally I'll buy RPGs/other nice games around $25 if they interest me enough. $40 is for games I skipped over because of too many titles, but generally I wait for $30 or less to buy many games. Game series I once loved but am behind on like Yakuza also are waits since I don't play them right away and they drop quickly. It worked well for the latest games getting them both around the $30 range. Indie/non AAA games I do on a case by case basis but I generally like playing new rogue lites of all sorts. Steams refund policy also lets me "demo" them if needed.

Most of my backlog comes from PC game bundles. I have the bad tendency to get bundles I want for a game I want or two and hope the rest of the stuff is good. Sometimes I get winners, but a lot of times I throw more stuff in my bad/retired Steam categories. I don't just activate every key like I used to in the past.

Also it may just me, but after playing many games over the years I just don't have the patience for games that I used to. I'm okay with quirks and some other things, but if I'm getting truly bored with things or extremely frustrated I will retire/sell/donate/whatever games. I think this comes from me playing so many demos and just knowing when to stop them to get the idea if I'll like a game. I use the same mentality especially for bundled games, but it happens for physical games as well. I just don't have the time and generally I just want to have fun and get something out of playing.
 
This is dope.

Elden-Ring-mousepad.jpg
 
gospelman said:
If it's the cactuar summon, then no I don't think it was ever made available separately. At least I know that I still don't have it and I preordered the deluxe version.
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I see... shit, now I gotta see if I can find that email for that DLC, I don't think I ever redeemed mine... prob expired anyway.

Nothing- said:
This is dope.
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Thoughts on this?
store.bandainamcoent.com

ELDEN RING - Arm of Malenia Life-Size Replica

PureArts and Bandai Namco are excited to present their long-awaited, officially licensed Elden Ring collectible. After years of anticipation, the ELDEN RING: Arm of Malenia Life-Size Replica is available for pre-order on the BANDAI NAMCO Store!
store.bandainamcoent.com store.bandainamcoent.com
 
Vinny said:
Thoughts on this?
store.bandainamcoent.com

ELDEN RING - Arm of Malenia Life-Size Replica

PureArts and Bandai Namco are excited to present their long-awaited, officially licensed Elden Ring collectible. After years of anticipation, the ELDEN RING: Arm of Malenia Life-Size Replica is available for pre-order on the BANDAI NAMCO Store!
store.bandainamcoent.com store.bandainamcoent.com
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"Everything is a dildo if you're brave enough"

-a wise woman. or something
 
Aoi Tori is now out from Nekonyan. This one may come to Steam later, but for now you have to get it on other sites such as JAST USA or Mangagamer. There is a 15% launch discount.

Denpasoft (NSFW)
JAST USA (NSFW)
Mangagamer (NSFW)

Some Shiravune releases since they've had a lot in a short amount of time. First is Taimanin Yukikaze about demon slaying ninjas. The art is nice in this though beware the content can be a bit extreme. There is a 20% launch discount.

VNDB (NSFW)
Steam
18+ Patch (NSFW)

The other releases are two related releases Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Love is Pure White- and Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- . These are moege and the Sana edition is a single route for that character. There are 18+ patches for each game. Each game has a 40% launch discount and there is a combo with more savings on Steam.

Steam
Steam Sana
VNDB (NSFW)
VNDB Sana (NSFW)
18+ Patch (NSFW)
18+ Patch Sana (NSFW)
 
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Honestly surprised the Taimanin games hadn’t all been officially translated by now, they’ve been super popular since the mid-00s when they started coming out. Hell, Lilith Soft has basically abandoned doing anything else but their web-based Taimanin gacha, I think.
 
Guess this is stuff I never think nor care about. Living in the USA, puritanical prudishness rears its head often. Reverse that for violence v. nudity in Europe (generally). And Australia? Poor folks.

I don't see it as a game changer for enjoying the game, though.
 
It's not really about enjoyment of the game, so much as a matter of ethics in art. I don't like to financially support products that have been censored in one platform/region but not others. If I'm able to get the full version elsewhere then I see no reason to get the gutted one. If that's not an option and I really want the game, I'll just buy it used (like I plan to for Hogwarts Legacy; I want to play it but no way I'm putting any money in Rowling's pocket).
 
TheKbob said:
I don't see it as a game changer for enjoying the game, though.
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I don't either since the censorship is two images in an artbook and not the game. But then people also got upset at the tiny change in Pocky & Rocky Reshrined. A little cleavage was covered in a static image. Nothing that stopped me from getting the US version on the cheap. I'd imagine they made that change so it was rated E instead of T.
 
pjmomo said:
Tsukihime is rated M.

When was it that Sony decided to become the arbitrator of morality for adults?
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Since they moved headquarters to California. As mentioned earlier.
keyblader1985 said:
Yeah, there was a noticeable trend of censorship around that time on PS4 when there was none on Switch. Lots of people started migrating their weeb purchases to Switch for that reason.
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Some games Sony would not permit to release even censored thus why the switch became the go to instead of the reverse during the wiiu period where Nintendo was censorship happy. We live in the weirdest timeline.
Dmc 5 got censored and that was m rated.
gpn said:
Seemed to happen around the time they moved their HQ from Japan to California.
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^
 
nightc1 said:
I don't either since the censorship is two images in an artbook and not the game. But then people also got upset at the tiny change in Pocky & Rocky Reshrined. A little cleavage was covered in a static image. Nothing that stopped me from getting the US version on the cheap. I'd imagine they made that change so it was rated E instead of T.
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This is where I'm at. Have to pick your battles at a certain point. What bothers me is games either skipping the platform entirely due to the concerns (a la Chaos;Head NoaH, Aokana, probably others) and stuff like Senran Kagura essentially being banished to the shadow realm as a result of the policies changing.
 
keyblader1985 said:
It's not really about enjoyment of the game, so much as a matter of ethics in art. I don't like to financially support products that have been censored in one platform/region but not others. If I'm able to get the full version elsewhere then I see no reason to get the gutted one. If that's not an option and I really want the game, I'll just buy it used (like I plan to for Hogwarts Legacy; I want to play it but no way I'm putting any money in Rowling's pocket).
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Ethics in art? You're buying a mass produced product that will always be shaped by it being a product first.

I think it's quite hyperbolic to call said edition "gutted" since the game is untouched. It's kind of like everyone's terminally online when it comes to some of this stuff. Hell, I remember being glad we got games, regardless of content, versus them being forever in Japanese.
 
I agree, it's weird pearl clutching. most times, maybe 9 outta 10.

"I need my beatoff games unadulterated!" It's just strange to me. We have so many (free, streaming, pr0n) options for that kind of stuff now. What's the point. Except in severe cases of entirely cut or highly altered content, from major franchises. but that's almost never.

It's just Twitter noise. Manufactured outrage from non-customers. People who aren't buying the game anyways. It's poor people being angry and upset; you see that in all bubbles and corners of the internet these days, and that's precisely what it is. Find something to be angry about and then latch onto it. Doesn't cost you a thing.

We have more hentai beatoff games available than ever. Go play something else then. nitrosmob reviews like 7 of them per week. There's no shortage of options. We have so much content to consume that it's crazy. We have access to everything from Japan, it's all region free, and you can have it delivered straight to your doorstep for practically nothing extra.

It's like one of my good buddies used to always say: "If this is your problem then you don't have any actual, real world problems." Must be nice. When you biggest problem is clouds hovering over animu tits in some vg franchise you don't even care about. Get a life.
 
Tothoro said:
This is where I'm at. Have to pick your battles at a certain point. What bothers me is games either skipping the platform entirely due to the concerns (a la Chaos;Head NoaH, Aokana, probably others) and stuff like Senran Kagura essentially being banished to the shadow realm as a result of the policies changing.
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Sony's making sure you get both: a censored book with Tsukihime, and Fate/Stay Night skipping Playstation.
 
Where did the phrase "just an art book" come in at all? Who said that?

Nothing is pretty much strawmanning anyone on that side of the issue. As I said, this is all an issue of ethics for me, not wanting to support unnecessary censorship, just like I refuse to support Rowling by buying Hogwarts.
 
keyblader1985 said:
Where did the phrase "just an art book" come in at all? Who said that?

Nothing is pretty much strawmanning anyone on that side of the issue. As I said, this is all an issue of ethics for me, not wanting to support unnecessary censorship, just like I refuse to support Rowling by buying Hogwarts.
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Most of us said it's just an artbook. Then you said ethics in art. We then clarified, it's a product, not solely art. Products are modified for markets, and creation of products is usually antithetical to art for artsake.

Then you said "we're talking about an artbook." Which we all were. No strawmen present.

And comparing covering up two pictures (assuming its lewd stuff) is not the same as supporting a known TERF. That's taking the discussion into a needless arena.

If you won't buy a game you want because the add-on changed literally two images, which is inconsequential to the game, then that's silly. And further, "censorship" in these regards is usually a terminally online take given, again, historically, games have always been modified when transitioning cultural boundaries. It's been a part of games since the beginning. There's like the smallest molehill in the world to die on, so be it, but it's just an overall off putting take to have when most of the discourse around censorship involves a great deal of bad faith folks looking to latch onto something trivial to make a larger political statement (hence engaging the JK Rowling thing isn't in play here).

Just get the game you want on the system you want. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, after all.
 
This is what I'm excited about ordering from Japan this week:

Frieren-CD-soundtrack.png


pretty flipping cool if you ask me. Only costs $32 and I get a nice collectors set delivered straight to my doorstep. My gosh, we live in amazing times. I just finished watching Frieren last week and absolutely adored it. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys (D&D) fantasy, adventure, slice of life anime. It has such a slow start which had me suspicious, but then turned into masterclass in execution of a proper story arc. I'm also going to get the custom deck box from Mana Moon and use it at cards night.

Frieren-Deck-Box.jpg
 
I didn't ever compare censorship and TERFs, I compared my refusal to support the two as a personal stance. And for the record, I didn't even know about this game at all; I was literally just stating my feelings on the matter. But if I were interested in the game, then my problem would have already been solved by what I said earlier - the book is stated to be unaltered on Switch, so I would have just gotten that version.

It doesn't matter how big or small the issue is or that censorship and compromise in art has always been a thing. This was all just me stating my personal stance.

And if you don't see all the strawmanning in that post by Nothing- that I was referring to, I honestly don't know what to tell you.
 
keyblader1985 said:
It doesn't matter how big or small the issue is or that censorship and compromise in art has always been a thing.
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I got bad news; every game has been "censored" under your perspective since its been compromised to be a product, not art for arts sake.

At least any game sold as a product (not looking at itch.io indie stuffs). So I am once again saying it's a meaningless and silly distinction over something extremely trivial versus say not buying a product due to manipulative predatory pricing, issues regarding work place practices, etc.

It's your choice, but it's also ours to comment how weird that two pages of an artbook would get you to not buy a game. Again, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

The other dude's post is an extension on the absurdism of folks talking about censorship in general, mostly in bad faith, which is what I brought up. If you want to call someone out for their argument specifically, quote them. Don't expect us to read your subtext.
 
Just from my observations, it’s not puritanical censorship anymore, it’s political and cultural. With how much vulgar and grotesque trash is spewed at us in media, that slightly raising a bosom line is even done, is equally stupid as complaining about it in my view. That it is being mandated by the platform holder is also an issue. It’s not an artistic decision, or even a business decision by the producers of the content. The memes comparing some of the cut content to TLOU2 graphic violence and sex scenes, also do make a valid point of hypocrisy in my eyes.
 
Nothing- said:
Stellar-Blade-censorship-controversy.png


Sony supports a game as horny and stylish as Stellar Blade, and people still complain about it.
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I haven't played the game yet, but I don't really get how this game has "controversy" and yet sits at a 9.3 user meta score. Feel like usually whenever there's any type of "controversy", things end up getting review bombed which doesn't seem to be the case here (unless the game actually is THAT good).

I don't personally trust user reviews given how often people bring up the stupidest things to just bring a game down (like Spider-Man's water/shadow thing) but the following this game has is something else.
 
Nothing- said:
Sony supports a game as horny and stylish as Stellar Blade, and people still complain about it.
Click to expand...
What's also funny is claiming its all about artistic merit, but unless you're sitting down with every artist on the team, you don't know what their intent was when they made their characters. Perhaps management made them perv up the models a bit more than they wanted to get more sales and the more risque, yet covered model is the one they preferred.

In reality, most of the censorship discussion is bad faith and its more "I don't like this, give me what I like," rather than actual interest in artistic intent.
I cannot reinforce it enough, if you care about true artistic intent, breaking the cycle of only allowing "profitable" art to exist is far more important than anything discussed about this topic so far.
 
Reminder that this thread has previously derailed into the censorship vortex to the extent that there's a warning/request in the OP not to propogate it. At least in the past there wasn't this inexplicable bite back against other cags. Buy what you want - but keep in mind that for someone it's their favorite game and it legitimately matters.
 
gospelman said:
Reminder that this thread has previously derailed into the censorship vortex to the extent that there's a warning/request in the OP not to propogate it. At least in the past there wasn't this inexplicable bite back against other cags. Buy what you want - but keep in mind that for someone it's their favorite game and it legitimately matters.
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Additional clarification that the topic in question here, based upon what folks are saying on reddit, is that the so called censorship involves scantily clad teenage girls. And that none of the gameplay is touched.

Therefore, I certainly hope seeing underage girls naked in an artbook with no bearing on the game at all does not legitimately matter, if that part is true.
 
pjmomo said:
Tsukihime is rated M.

When was it that Sony decided to become the arbitrator of morality for adults?
Click to expand...

Nothing about an M rating tells adults they can't purchase the game, what are you even talking about? It's literally a rating scale for children, even 17 year old children can purchase the M game. They could have gone the AO route I guess.
 
Nothing- said:
Stellar-Blade-censorship-controversy.png


Sony supports a game as horny and stylish as Stellar Blade, and people still complain about it.
Click to expand...
I mentioned in the Playstation thread that I hate how the censorship issue is dominating all discussion of this game. Honestly, I agree they're stupid changes since there's a fucking skin suit in the game that gets you as close to naked as possible. I also understand that complaining like this is very first world problems-y and a few altered pixels don't ruin a game. I'm just so fucking tired of this shit. If you let Cyberpunk have full nudity, Baldur's Gate 3's horny-ass sex scenes, and whatever depraved crap was going on in Last of Us 2, then let the Asian games show cleavage and butts. It's just hard for me to ignore the countless times Asian games are "altered" (especially when countries like Japan don't even allow nipples and genitals in their equivalent of mature-rated games) while western games are left alone. This very much harkens back to when major stores refused to sell Catherine due to its suggestive cover and story about adultery, and Atlus made a video showcasing the graphic sex scenes and violence in western games, then compared it to the tame visual novel scenes and puzzle solving of Catherine. That was over a decade ago. Progress!

But like I said, this isn't preventing me from playing the game and I'd much rather talk about its fun but janky combat, interesting world and sidequests, beautiful graphics, and infuriately spotty platforming.
 
I'm cool with whatever y'all want to buy or whatever reasons you have not to buy something. It's all good. I don't think I've ever found the actual censorship in various region and/or platform versions of games is enough to change my mind about a purchase. But I'm more into gaming for playing games and less about graphic changes or even how the kanji was translated into another language and how the meaning of something was slightly altered. Even back in the SNES/Genesis days... bood changing color from the arcade versions of Mortal Kombat (Or SF2) didn't stop me from buying the SNES version when I didn't have a Genesis (at the time, I got one later... though SNES version think played more faithful to the arcade). There are a lot of weeds anyone can get into on this stuff, but most of it really doesn't concern me as a gamer. Does the game play well and is it fun (or faithful to the action in the original, for a port)... it does... ok, cool. I'm not really into the more pervy/fanservice side of gaming. That's usually not a factor in my purchase unless there's just so much of it that it's the core of the game experience.
 
I think someone brought it up before, but will PlayAsia have a separate Golden Week sale or is the Bundle Deal it?

I mean, they got me pretty good already, so my question is somewhat out of fear, not desire. I'm looking forward to trying Minstrel Song on Switch.
 
TheKbob said:
I think someone brought it up before, but will PlayAsia have a separate Golden Week sale or is the Bundle Deal it?

I mean, they got me pretty good already, so my question is somewhat out of fear, not desire. I'm looking forward to trying Minstrel Song on Switch.
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The bundle deal is it. Golden Week is just about over - it ends on Sunday.
 
keyblader1985 said:
So is the Tsukihime game a sequel or just the original game? I've always been kind of interested in it.
Click to expand...

It's a stand-alone game, but it has light connections to other Type-Moon properties if you want to delve further (The Witch on the Holy Night VN that came out last year and the Garden of Sinners anime that came out several years ago).
 
TheKbob said:
Additional clarification that the topic in question here, based upon what folks are saying on reddit, is that the so called censorship involves scantily clad teenage girls. And that none of the gameplay is touched.

Therefore, I certainly hope seeing underage girls naked in an artbook with no bearing on the game at all does not legitimately matter, if that part is true.
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Not dredging up the “debate” or whatever this discussion was previously, but could you link to this? I have no familiarity with the game, or characters / images in question, but could not find any reference to this additional info. I’m curious what they actually are now.
 
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