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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Mattiful-Joe said:
Good to see VGP doing reprints. Always for publishers reprinting hard-to-find games so more players can access them at reasonable prices.

As for Steller Blade, I've got it preordered so am avoiding the demo. I feel like it's PS5's "Heavenly Blade," which was another one of those pretty-girl-with-sword games that Sony published (and coincidentally, also one Microsoft passed on as it Stellar Blade). I'm not surprised the gameplay is a bit rough around the edges; the reports thus far in the podcasts I've listened to have been pretty positive so barring news that the game turns out to be downright awful or not on the disc, I'll likely leave my preorder in place.
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I'm guessing you mean Heavenly Sword- I don't get any Heavenly Sword (which was a CRIMINALLY under-appreciated game) vibes from this at all but I can see what you mean (flawed but still great). This honestly gives me more... P.N.03 vibes except with swords.
 
The demo gives me more of Crymachina x Dark Souls/Sekiro vibe but that's just me. I'm very iffy for now, but I have a pre-order. I'm likely instead going to play Rise of the Ronin and hopefully have fun with it, even though I probably should have waited for reviews, but samurai!

Also just mentioning one thing since it's a surprise but PQube Games announced they would be bringing Mages SINce memories: Off The Starry Sky to the West. This is the newest iteration of the popular Memories Off series. I buy most visual novels that aren't otome games on consoles without a second thought, and I buy plenty of the otomes too. This is cool and I'll play it on release.

VNDB (NSFW)

Also very strangely Denpasoft just stealth released Re;Lord 3 ~The demon lord of Groessen and the final witch~. This is the third in the series and the other two are on Steam, but not this third one. This seems strange, but it may have gotten banned from Steam or something. It does have 10% off.

Denpasoft (NSFW)
 
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Vinny said:
I'm guessing you mean Heavenly Sword- I don't get any Heavenly Sword (which was a CRIMINALLY under-appreciated game) vibes from this at all but I can see what you mean (flawed but still great). This honestly gives me more... P.N.03 vibes except with swords.
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That's right. Heavenly Sword is what I meant. The game was okay -- the storyline was kinda meh but the graphics/technical merits from Ninja Theory were phenomenal. Not liking the P.N.03 analogy for Stellar Blade -- IMHO, P.N.03 is not at all a good game; I would call that one below average. Will keep the pre-order but will definitely watch some reviews to see if I hold onto it at launch.
 
Mattiful-Joe said:
That's right. Heavenly Sword is what I meant. The game was okay -- the storyline was kinda meh but the graphics/technical merits from Ninja Theory were phenomenal. Not liking the P.N.03 analogy for Stellar Blade -- IMHO, P.N.03 is not at all a good game; I would call that one below average. Will keep the pre-order but will definitely watch some reviews to see if I hold onto it at launch.
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I meant more in terms of style/setting (sci-fi) than gameplay. I'm not saying SB demo was bad by any means, I enjoyed it and will likely get the game eventually. I just don't get why it seems to be everywhere... it doesn't seem like a marketing thing.

Hard disagree with you on Heavenly Sword though- I thought story/characters were great, but the visual were ass just like every early PS3 game (screen tear/slowdown fest). But honestly the way you described Heavenly Sword, if that's what you're comparing Stellar Blade to, then I'm not sure why you'd want it. If the visuals/technical aspects are what you're after, there's much more technically impressive PS5 games than this (Ratchet, Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-Man 2), unless there's massive upgrades from the demo to the final release.
 
Vinny said:
Are the Ryza games that good/popular? I feel like the Atelier games were pretty niche but Ryza is one that seems to be talked about all the time.

I also had bit of time and played the Steller Blade demo... didn't really think it was that great, certainly not merit all the coverage at least (yes, I get the sexual aspect but come-on, there's tons of horny-games these days). Visually impressive at times (hair/cloths) but so lifeless (boring worlds, tons of foliage that's completely dead still outside of cut-scenes). Gameplay seems like it should be fun but it just feels too clunky, the parry system was great but the dodge felt off, not sure how to describe it (feels more like a Suda 51 PS3 game rather than something more modern like Nier Automata). Music sucks dong- almost put me to sleep.
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Ryza sold about a million copies much like persona 5 yakuza 7? And nier automata around that time period. So unlike the other atelier games it's not remotely niche anymore. Whether they properly handle the popularity and capitalize on it is up in the air. It could also just be a flash in the pan.

Time will tell. Look at tales of series for one that is mishandled. Its had multiple million sellers now with Symphonia being past 2 million between combined versions according to bamco and vesperia is around there as well despite the beta 360 version being the only one we got till "definitive edition" and both are poor ports.

Though vesperia de is significantly better off than symphonia minus the dub being papermache sp? Since they were too cheap to get Troy back. They chopped it up then removed some voiced sections and replaced them with the new va so it's very noticeable. Some lines bounced between the 2.
 
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zenamako said:
Corpse Party 2: Darkness Distortion - Ayame's Mercy Limited and Standard Editions up for preorder:

S https://ow.ly/gJyX50R5xVW
PS4 https://ow.ly/JYbr50R5xVY
Deluxe Ed. $79.99
PS4 https://ow.ly/43Wt50R5xVU
S https://ow.ly/4sTL50R5xW3
Best Buy https://ow.ly/nBFC50R5xVV
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what's with the weird links?? no idea what those redirects are. Please be careful, and don't click things which look like that.

EDIT: I'm sure he is well-meaning and intended. I don't mean for this to sound harsh.

When you highlight over anybody else's links on this page you can directly see the website it is about to take you to, from the text in the hyperlink.
 
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ow.ly is a link shortener, I see it used relatively often. My guess is they just grabbed the link from a tweet or something to share here. But in general, yes, it is a bad idea to click shortened links from untrusted sources.
 
Tothoro said:
ow.ly is a link shortener, I see it used relatively often. My guess is they just grabbed the link from a tweet or something to share here. But in general, yes, it is a bad idea to click shortened links from untrusted sources.
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I grabbed the links from a post on CAG's Facebook page. My understanding is that they are affiliate links, and that using these links helps support this site. But if you don't want to use the links, you can find the game on Amazon and Best Buy by doing a search.

I mainly wanted to alert people who might be interested in the game about the LE in case it sells out. I was glad I picked up the Corpse Party 1 LE on the 3DS when I did.
 
IIRC links stemming from the forum automatically get CAG's affiliate stuff appended to it, whereas on social media they have to manually append/redirect and all that fun stuff. Either way, appreciate the link and explanation!

Also, H2 Spring Sale at Play-Asia: https://www.play-asia.com/search/h2springsale2024

Not a ton of games on sale, but some more popular stuff like SaGa on Switch is listed.
 
Can someone tell my why copies of Star Ocean 2nd Story R on NS says they require a 3GB download..? A post on Reddit says it's for subtitles but that seems like a LOT for subtitles. Was that always there? Is the PS5 version the same?
 
Vinny said:
Can someone tell my why copies of Star Ocean 2nd Story R on NS says they require a 3GB download..? A post on Reddit says it's for subtitles but that seems like a LOT for subtitles. Was that always there? Is the PS5 version the same?
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I returned my switch Walmart copy for that. End up got PS4 and PS5 copy from BestBuy
 
Just finished Star Ocean 4. Good game overall. I liked it quite a bit more than SO3. Even though it didn't have a crazy plot twist like the former. Gonna take a break before starting Star Ocean 5. Since I know its the low point of the series. Really enjoying the series playthrough so far.
 
Vinny said:
Can someone tell my why copies of Star Ocean 2nd Story R on NS says they require a 3GB download..? A post on Reddit says it's for subtitles but that seems like a LOT for subtitles. Was that always there? Is the PS5 version the same?
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can't say for sure but was told in past even a small change of 1 mb can be 1 gig, if the file they replace is 1 gig, even if it just adding text to the file. least that what i was told when we would get CoD updates that where 20+ gigs and just minor changes like sound or cosmetics updates.
 
Everyone playing the crap out of FFVII Rebirth and I'm the only one playing P3R lol I think I hit 90 hours last night, been totally no-lifing it. I think I have a good chance of hitting max social links, but I always think that and then fall short lol made it halfway through November, so a lot of the major story twists have happened. Was not happy about the October event (you all know it, you all hate it), despite of course knowing it was coming. The new (and voiced) night hangouts and linked episodes for the characters made that event hurt even more.

Anyway, once I'm done with P3R, I'll probably give the Stellar Blade demo a try. I thought I was sold enough on the game to not bother with the demo, but I'm hearing it's less like Devil May Cry/Bayonetta/Nier Automata than I'd like, so I want to make sure it's something I'll enjoy. I pre-ordered it at Target with a 20% off coupon, bringing it down to $56, but I can always cancel if I don't like the demo. After that, maybe I'll give Princess Peach Showtime a try. Might not be a good idea to jump from one 100+ hour game (P3R) to another (FFVII Rebirth) so soon.
 
I've seen a bunch of people elsewhere talk about P3R, but I think leading up to launch there was a lot of skepticism about how they'd handle The Answer and general reticence to buy-in given how quickly a lot of Atlus games drop in price. I'm still looking forward to it, but I'm not planning to pick it up until after The Answer is out (hopefully as a complete on-disc edition but we'll see).
 
gmsick said:
Just finished Star Ocean 4. Good game overall. I liked it quite a bit more than SO3. Even though it didn't have a crazy plot twist like the former. Gonna take a break before starting Star Ocean 5. Since I know its the low point of the series. Really enjoying the series playthrough so far.
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I didn’t think 5 was that bad. I’ve heard 3-5 all called the low point, never played 4, but 3 is the low for me. It was a step back from SO2, and I did not like the plot twist trivializing all previous and subsequent games stories in one go.
 
Xenogears said:
I didn’t think 5 was that bad. I’ve heard 3-5 all called the low point, never played 4, but 3 is the low for me. It was a step back from SO2, and I did not like the plot twist trivializing all previous and subsequent games stories in one go.
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Outside the gameplay I agree for 3. The gameplay was fun for me enough to look past the stuff.

5 is just overall exceedingly mediocre. I really can't say there was anything that it did well. Most people quit due to the survive x number of enemies or time limit segments where you needed to protect Anne. Particularly difficult if you don't have the right Gambit like things equipped. As if you put the lowers being targeted and increases def ones on Anne and then the gets targeted more frequently ones on other characters that helps significantly.

But there's nothing that can defend the awful ship battle segment. It was so embarrassing I don't understand how anyone would have greenlit.
 
I didn‘t play 5 till well after all the negative impression's. Not expecting much, I still found enough that I liked to make it worth playing to me at least. The setting and atmosphere was done well enough, and better than the edge era SO3 came from, I like gambit gameplay, and I don’t remember the negative segments you mentioned. Game kind of just ends, which is the biggest negative I remember, but it didn’t retroactively mess up other games in the series like SO3 at least.
 
They should be extremely memorable given how many there were. One that was the hardest though was the outdoor map where you had to protect her. As obviously there is no cover unlike the other indoor ones.

The funny thing is one indoor segment was so easy. Especially because she's off in a separate room and you can just close the doors and camp in front preventing them from even touching her. And some of them couldn't go through the doors if they got them open it would just keep moving there against a invisible wall.

But yeah just using correct gambits presumably if you have them available make them more doable.

I didn't play 5 til a few years ago myself. I haven't played 6 yet.
 
Probably not niche enough, but just a heads up that Mario Vs Donkey Kong is $34.99 on Gamefly for used copies. Also, looking through other switch games I stumbled on Astral Chain actually being in stock for $39.99, so I finally grabbed a copy of that (also used). Total after tax and shipping $86.45.

I wanted Astral Chain for a while but just wasn't willing to pay a premium for it. Mario Vs DK, even though I have the original GBA version boxed and minty from when I bought it new back in the day... I will replay this. The 2player option and extra levels are a nice bonus.

So for 2024... I'm at $253.15 . Part of that was over paying for a copy of Metroid Dread when it was disappearing and I decided I did want to play it. If Only I had waited a week, I would have grabbed a $40 copy at Walmart +4 tax... instead of $65.26 new at GF. Still, that's Metroid Dread, Super Mario RPG, Silent Hope, Trinity Trigger, Akiba'S trip U&U, Astral Chain, & Mario VS DK ... which 7 games brings my average to $36.16 each so not really feeling too bad about it.
 
I picked up Astral chain presumably in a sale somewhere when it was cheaper iirc . as like you I wasn't paying the going rate for it.
 
Wasn't Astral Chain reprinted by VGP? I don't recall it ever going on sale but aftermarket price right now doesn't seem that bad for a Nintendo game...
 
Vinny said:
Wasn't Astral Chain reprinted by VGP? I don't recall it ever going on sale but aftermarket price right now doesn't seem that bad for a Nintendo game...
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yes I believe it did get a reprint. I got my copy before that. I want to say I got it on clearance at Walmart for 30 which was extremely ymmv.
 
A while back Astral Chain was $30 at Gamestop; that's when I got mine. I kissed out on physical and got digital. I'm not even particularly interested in it; I'm just a sucker for anything involving Masakazu Katsura.
 
For Astral Chain, I didn't want to slum it with GS knowing any copy from them was not going to be complete and I didn't want to go digital. Local/Regional Walmart stores I've visited sold out before the price drop except one that kept an MSRP copy for a while but eventually it too disappeared. I'm fine with what I paid.
 
Since we're all posting how we bought Astral Chain for some reason.. I bought mine at $27 and in a b2g1 set pre-owned & complete at GS a few BF's back. I'm hoping for future hardware that can run the game better before actually playing it. Low framerate arpg's ruin a lot of the fun for me.

My order from woot arrived from their 1 day 10% promo. The outer box of the P5R 1 More CE is higher quality than I expected, so I guess I'm not immediately throwing that away. But one big complaint is how warped the set of art prints arrived. I have them under weighted pressure right now but I have doubts that will be a lasting solution. Anyone else get a similar pack of prints?
Screenshot_20240405-143338~2.png
 
gospelman said:
Since we're all posting how we bought Astral Chain for some reason
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Too bad we're late for April fools. We could have done Astral chain avatars this year like the bebop ones from the previous year whenever that was.
 
City Connection and G.rev will release Under Defeat and Mamorukun Curse! for the PS5, Xbox, Switch, and PC. Since CC are releasing G.rev games maybe that means we will finally get a port of Border Down! Back in the day I had Under Defeat and Border Down for the Dreamcast, also had Mamorukun Curse! for the Japanese 360, great games!

NeverAwake is getting DLC called FLASH BACK.
 
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shadowysea07 said:
Too bad we're late for April fools. We could have done Astral chain avatars this year like the bebop ones from the previous year whenever that was.
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I... honestly forgot April Fools even happened. Feels like we don't get any good April Fools joke anymore. Then again, humanity itself has sort-of turned into a joke.

I must be the only person who didn't get Astral Chain on sale, looks like I got a used copy on eBay for $55. Pretty sure this was as the price was going up/it was gone everywhere and before VGP started doing their regular reprints. Not gonna lie, glad they're doing reprints but hate that they're getting into them so late in the game... I'm just looking at all the insane prices I paid for some of the games they reprinted (many of the Ateliers and Koei-Tecmo games).
 
I got Astral Chain when it went like $45 or something during one of its first drops. I have to hang my head in shame now that I didn't wait as long as some CAGs :p.
 
Vinny said:
One of the top 5 biggest lies in history.
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You never know. Their power could go out and their switch is the only thing charged. That's usually how I end up playing something new on the switch.

For me I usually throw my backlog into a randomizer and then make a poll for the 10 games that it picks. And have people vote on it/give recs and advice.

I'm still plugging away on banner of the maid.
 
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