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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Finally beat Star Ocean 3. You tend to forget that rpg grinding was a real thing back then. Lol! Only ever used 4 characters since other don't get exp outside of battles. Fun game though, decent plot twist. Half way through the series playthrough. I'll start on SO4 after Rebirth and Ys 9.
 
You don't need to grind for disc 1 due to equipment synthesis and or throwing a bunch of atk gems on weapons plus the atk % increasing accessories.
 
I couldn't really spend time during the week on the GS new>preowned conversion. Late to the vulture party but still decided to drive around to a few stores this evening while listening to spring training baseball. Still some decent options on shelves. All of the following was ~$48 total. Took $15 off that by trading in a SMTV nsw cartridge.
Unstickered games are Soul Hackers 2 $3, Scarlet Nexus $1, AI Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative $5
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Shiravune announced both Mashiroiro Symphony HD and Mashiroiro Symphony: Sana Edition from Palette. This is a love story visual novel about a guy who lives in a new part of the island, but goes to school on the old part of the island. These two parts of the island kind of conflict with each other and stories with the characters ensue. The Sana edition is the route made into a game that was part of the original PSP version. I actually saw the anime way back in the day and remember nothing about it. It had a weird round cat thing and I have the nendoroid for Sana somewhere as she was cheap back in the day and I added her onto an order because of the cute hand hearts. Honestly it's a pretty cool choice even though the original is pretty old by now, but these are HD assets. I'll buy these easily on release and very likely post when they're released along with some 18+ patches.

VNDB (NSFW)
VNDB Sana (NSFW)
Steam
Steam Sana
 
I wouldn't trust CEs/LEs at Gamestop. Heck I don't trust them for new either. My last order was just lame with too many new games with generic covers and one "New" game was quite beaten up too. If you can trade in store I guess they're OK, but unless stuff is hard to find or very, very cheap they're one of my last go tos for ordering stuff now. Also the shipping threshold is a bit too high for my liking.
 
His link is to the LE on Amazon. Wasn't on my radar (jaded after buying & regretting the RF5 LE). But I might bite at that price. I assume it's safe to expect RF3 to run similar to RF4 and not 5?

If anyone does, make sure you select the option to ship in Amazon packaging at checkout, otherwise it might just be a label slapped directly on the shrink-wrapped LE box.
 
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Found a few more when you click the search by publisher. There's seems to be a NISA clearance happening at Gamestop:

The Legend of Natuya: Boundless Trails on Switch $24.99

The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie PS5 preowned $24.99

Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Revenants Deluxe PS5 preowned $14.99

Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles Deluxe Edition - Switch OR PS5 $24.99
 
Xenogears said:
No Vincent? All they need to do is replace the generic Shinra Soldier with Vincent and this series could be complete, but guess they are planning on squeezing out a 3rd set. Can’t imagine what else would be in series 3.
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Elena (to fill out the Turks) seems like a safe bet. Possibly Don Cornero, Bugenhagen, Jessie/Biggs/wedge, etc to fill out another set. But yeah it's lame to separate VV from all the other party members.

Without naming specific reasons, I don't think that's supposed to be a generic Shinra soldier. On that same note, the chosen VA used for that generic Shinra solder was my favorite subtle "nicely done" moment in the Rebirth demo. I didn't love all of it though, such as mako sucking.. sucking.
 
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Rune Factory 3 Special Golden Memories LE has been on my front page bookmarks for two months at $65 and is clearly a candidate for dropping. It just went to $34.99 this morning.

Ys IX Deluxe PS5 is $19.99 at Gamestop.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R on PS4 is down to $24.99 at Gamestop.
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Saw the $35 Rune Factory deal at Gamestop last night and scoffed at the $10.99 shipping. Their shipping charge ruins every deal unless you're actually going to buy $79 worth of stuff. So thank you for pointing out that Amazon matched it. May pull the trigger at that price since I doubt it's going to go any lower.

Really hoping the PS5 version of Star Ocean goes on sale at some point since I've been really trying to get PS5 versions of games I know I will only play on the PS5. I know that sometimes means I'll spend a little more money, but I just like having a PS5 disc over a PS4 disc that needs to download the PS5 version. Plus, looks good on the shelf to have an actual PS5 game collection.
 
gospelman said:
Without naming specific reasons, I don't think that's supposed to be a generic Shinra soldier. On that same note, the chosen VA used for that generic Shinra solder was my favorite subtle "nicely done" moment in the Rebirth demo. I didn't love all of it though, such as mako sucking.. sucking.
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I just played the Junon portion and my mind was blown by the open world... and then you look at the map and realize how HUGE it is.

But then the combat... JESUS. I know I'm not as good at games as I used to be but holy fuck, I got my ass kicked hard. I couldn't even beat that water snake boss in the lower Junon town. It seems like this area's got a lot of range combat but without the ability to swap party mid-battle (at least I don't think I can), I don't see how you can't NOT avoid bad combat situations. I had Tifa as my main and she can't hit shit that's airborne.

Also crazy how bad graphics mode is in the open world... ran at like 15 FPS for me, not sure if that was a glitch or what. Didn't seem that bad during the Nibelheim part.
 
Vinny said:
Also crazy how bad graphics mode is in the open world... ran at like 15 FPS for me, not sure if that was a glitch or what. Didn't seem that bad during the Nibelheim part.
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Yeah the graphics mode setting to me was unplayable. Performance should be the default. I held off playing the Junon update since I haven't played the remake dlc yet. Did that present any issues for you?
 
gospelman said:
Yeah the graphics mode setting to me was unplayable. Performance should be the default. I held off playing the Junon update since I haven't played the remake dlc yet. Did that present any issues for you?
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I also haven't played the InterMISSION DLC so can't say. Gonna have to squeeze that in somehow before I start Rebirth.
 
Why would you think anything you order from Gamestop would be complete? Assume it will show up in a black broken case with no disc and if it's better than that you can feel lucky.
 
beenaround said:
Why would you think anything you order from Gamestop would be complete? Assume it will show up in a black broken case with no disc and if it's better than that you can feel lucky.
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Yep, everything you ordered, you should expect nothing more than a disc in a yellow sleeve. That's "new" per GS standards.
 
Ugg I was one of the ones who requested Demon Gaze PS4 price on Amazon and it was price matched some time when I was asleep. I own the game digitally, but yeah was hoping for a physical copy.

For Gamestop "New" you should expect it to come in a brand "New" Gamestop generic case with the disc/cartridge in it in a yellow sleeve. If the game comes in an actual real box you can expect it to likely be a bit beaten up and labelled as "New" with the same yellow sleeve inside. My last batch of games ordered had one of the generic ones with the title of the game on that box having the name of the sale on it as well, one very beaten up real box copy, one beaten up day one edition, and one pretty normal looking opened but clean copy. Still pissed I missed Demon Gaze since that was the one I wanted.
 
Damn missed Demon Gaze, but was able to get Legend of Nayuta. Been wanting to get that for a long time. Also got in on Daybreak restock.

Still trying to figure out if i should get Crymachina
 
nitrosmob said:
Ugg I was one of the ones who requested Demon Gaze PS4 price on Amazon and it was price matched some time when I was asleep. I own the game digitally, but yeah was hoping for a physical copy.

For Gamestop "New" you should expect it to come in a brand "New" Gamestop generic case with the disc/cartridge in it in a yellow sleeve. If the game comes in an actual real box you can expect it to likely be a bit beaten up and labelled as "New" with the same yellow sleeve inside. My last batch of games ordered had one of the generic ones with the title of the game on that box having the name of the sale on it as well, one very beaten up real box copy, one beaten up day one edition, and one pretty normal looking opened but clean copy. Still pissed I missed Demon Gaze since that was the one I wanted.
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For Demon Gaze prob best to wait for VGP they still have it in stock, should be on sale sometime in the future.
 
I'll go ahead and play Demon Gaze again on the Switch (were I own it digitally) and see if I'm interested in it for Gamestop or whatever. I can give new impressions but back when I played it on Vita I remember feeling like a speedrunner because I blazed through the game and had next to no difficulties with it. Seems to have been a game designed to be someone's first first person dungeon crawler. I will see though.
 
February truly is the month of Japanese games lol.

It's cyclical every year now how Feb. is nuts with sales, and some big new releases. Digital sales and physical clearance directly following the retail Christmas hangover, after people have paid their January bills.

Sonic-Origins-1.jpg


Didn't find anything at the single GS I stopped at yesterday. But I did over at Target, and got them to price match a pristine copy of Sonic to GS.com, and they had Sora as well. That was a very satisfying shopping trip! 😀 He even mistakenly marked the game at $14.99.

I tried to do a cart at GS.com but ended up loading it up with $100 of stuff I didn't really need and that just wasn't working out for me... Gonna hit a couple GS later today instead if I have time, while getting my steps in.
 
Aside from Rune Factory 3 (which I got on Amazon), I've avoided the Gamestop sale because I just have way too many games to play. Also, everything on sale is only available for shipping for me and I already know none of the locations around me are going to have these games in stock. Considering we've got Rebirth coming in a few days and I've got Persona 3 Reload on the shortlist, my schedule is packed. February is basically Japan's Broketober.
 
Yeah most of my Gamestops (have a decent amount around) are not niche paradises and usually niche games get a copy or two in the whole city. I doubt I would be able to return it locally, as was the case last time I did a sale and got a "New" used case and I just took the hit as a lesson.
 
Since the gs website only shows store inventory if the actual inventory is 2 or more, the best way to find something from a local store is just to find a decent gs employee and have them print you a list on receipt paper of the nearby stores. "Low stock" means at least 1 techincally in the store's inventory. If they can't look up the game properly, just give them the sku number which you can extract from the url of the item page.

Also some of the low new>preowned conversion prices from last week were reverted back up today, so just a warning before anyone hunts this week.

Just recently the Rune Factory 3 LE sold out on gs.com and consequently doubled in price on amazon. Glad I was able to get that order in yesterday.
 
Some of these sale prices were pretty solid but I just am not dealing with Gamestop. Which is good as I don't really need anything I was looking at.

Loop 8 (Switch) was also $15. Figured that was a pretty good price for it, but just not going to bother trying to track down a copy.
 
With how low print games are going, it's either grab them now or hope for a VGP reprint.

Or hope they're not popular and the aftermarket stays low. But that's rare for NIS and similar games.

It's riskier to play the waiting game these last few years. If you're not going to play it now, worst case is you can sell it off later for what you paid for it. Otherwise, hope VGP does a reprint and you're paying full market price.
 
Yeah stuff from NISA, AKSYS, XSEED, PQube, Iffy, whatever other niche companies don't get many physical copies made anymore. Atlus (also Sega) and S-E stuff can be niche content wise, but have so many copies out there that stuff goes cheap and usually has plenty of supply. I don't take chances with some visual novel games, niche strategy type games, games like Shiren (just heck yes on this I'm playing this over the new FF!), dungeon crawlers, etc... There are so many games now though that I can't support them all and I still wait for games to go cheaper, even if most have one sale and then disappear until they're reprinted.
 
Twilightsparkle said:
If you really want it, Amazon matched the 14.99 price. https://www.amazon.com/Loop8-Summer-of-Gods/dp/B0BHM3JZ1P
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I don't have prime so I'd need to bundle something else in there to get over the $35 minimum. Not a big deal, but I don't have time to see if there's anything I'd want to get right now.

gospelman said:
Feedback here was not kind to Loop8. Going to hold out for $8.
(The LE is still on woot at $20.)
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Oh, I've gone through a lot of the feedback here, watched reviews, and caught most of the complains were around the need to repeat conversations over and over with each loop. Which could be a bit of a pain, though the game is only around 15 hours to finish everything possible... so it might not bother me as much paying so little and not being a day 1 purchaser. I can imagine those early purchasers that paid full price would not be happy.

Same issue with Woot... no Prime... after shipping and tax we are nearly to $30 for the LE. Not terrible, though I don't typically buy LE's.
 
TheKbob said:
The PS4 versions will likely be the desired ones, since they work on two systems.
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I've been thinking about this for YEARS. and it's paralyzed me with many buying decisions. It's still really hard to quantify to this day.

with Switch too. I've often found the best solution for me personally is to wait until it hits $20 and buy both versions when it comes to seminal jrpgs and core titles. $60 game decreases to $20 clearance / OOP then just buy both Switch and PS, without overthinking it. Like with Persona games.

But now I mostly buy everything on PS5 whenever there's a choice.

I wonder what happens to these two disc designations, their compatibility and version install options, when we move to PS6. (don't say "there won't be disc drives".)
 
beenaround said:
Did they fix the crashing bug in Reverie on ps4?
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I had maybe 2-3 total application crashes on PS4 when I played that version near release. None that I recall on my ps5 playthrough a few months ago. Wasn't a huge deal though.

What is a huge deal are numerous errors made by nisa localization that were never fixed. Pretty inexcusable that they never fixed them in an update (they did push out a patch for a broken gameplay mechanic). Guess it's dead in the water and they moved on to Daybreak.

Very frustrating when an item/quartz description, mission completion details, or a vantage masters card straight up says the completely wrong thing.
 
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