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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I'm interested in Bullet Soul. Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds, and Witch Spring R would be my ideal pairings- but then because of Phantom Breaker my order wouldn't ship until February next year. Blazing Strike could be an OK substitution since that's October, and then maybe Phantom Breaker would show up in a future Target B2G1 (they don't have it listed at all right now though)

Normally Lost Ruins would be tempting, but it's only $9.99 digitally right now and I also already got it free through GOG.
 
I'm looking at Celestia: Chain of Fate, River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next (Multi-Language), and Tokyo Clanpool myself. I was hoping the newest Saga game would be in the list, but alas it is not.
 
Pheria said:
I'm interested in Bullet Soul. Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds, and Witch Spring R ....
Click to expand...

nitrosmob said:
I'm looking at Celestia: Chain of Fate, River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next (Multi-Language), and Tokyo Clanpool ...
Click to expand...

As bolded, I wanted those two items, but given they are so far out (2025 and tba respectively), that I will wait for another round of these sales to pull the trigger. Potionomics would likely be my third for that bundle.
 
Guess I missed it, they removed Bullet Soul from the promo. I guess it only applied because it had a sale price too, which ended?
 
Cross Posting from PSN thread:

Going to finish the Visions of Mana demo tomorrow likely and give my impressions, but here are my thoughts on INAZUMA ELEVEN: Victory Road played on the PS5. I finished the story mode demo and also played two matches.

First of all the story mode has very decent graphics. Everything animates well, the environments are a little bland but feel like a small town, the voices are excellent (mainly English but heard a bit of Japanese to see how it was), and the story itself has interesting characters and is very shounen like with protagonists in a bad predicament with soccer getting previously abolished in school. A new guy comes in and meets a kid who has a bad reputation, but he ends up being intertwined with him. Eventually we find out more about the main guy and his connection to soccer and how this other guy and others will advance the story. There are many well acted and animated scenes showing important story events. These are awesome. Other interactions with characters and side quests and such are very one note and not that interesting. It is interesting going around and doing quests with main quests advancing the story. You collect junk but also can get in battles which are real time based kind of turn based action battles. In these you press a button (believe it's L2) to show your enemy intent and then do rock/paper/scissors with the winning combination doing more damage. You can use items, and accumulate gauge unleashing a super attack. You also eventually get more people, but your first party is just the main guy. This gets XP and items, which honestly I had no idea what any items were used for. The mass grinding of items unlocks stuff in the match mode. Honestly these battles are gimmicky, but it's nothing terrible and it's cute every battle has different names for the attacks. Overall the story and character kept me going as it feels like playing an anime. There are also annoying training mini games, but those are mainly for players to get better. I think this story alone is about a 6.5/10. Nothing super amazing, but kept my interest. Overall I give the single player a decent 7/10.

The other mode you can unlock/train players with items gained in story mode, but also playing games earns items. These are soccer matches (can be played online but didn't try) and can be very complicated. It's not just shooting as player have special abilities that can break the matches. The goalies have values for defense too so if a shot breaks it or you get lucky/unlucky the shot goes in. It's very involved but very arcade like. It's a decent amount of fun although I do feel RPG stats may be too much for lesser teams as I played an AI team 4 levels above me and they felt like their stats were just a lot better. I really don't know exactly how all the stats come into play, but I felt weak especially for shots at times. This looks alright with smaller character models and fast moving actions. So many things are happening so you may not see prompts. I tied one game and lost the other, but it was alright fun. This feels a lot more deep than most arcade like soccer games, and I believe you can unlock so many Inazuma Eleven universe teams and members in the final game. I didn't love the gameplay, but it was fun enough and I was getting used to the weird controls near the end of the second match. More of a 6.5/10 in this mode.

Overall it's a decent enough package and I feel single player in both matches and the story mode will be pretty fun. I don't think I'll pick it up close to release, but a good sale would be nice like $30. I think the confusing nature of the main soccer matches (compared to the 3DS one I played...the only other localized one) brings down this package, but if you learn the matches and have relatively evenly stated teams, it will be fun. I'd slightly recommend it, and would recommend more to people who love Shounen sports anime/manga as well as slightly chaotic soccer gameplay. 6.5/10
 
nitrosmob said:
Cross Posting from PSN thread:

Going to finish the Visions of Mana demo tomorrow likely and give my impressions, but here are my thoughts on INAZUMA ELEVEN: Victory Road played on the PS5. I finished the story mode demo and also played two matches.
Click to expand...

Curious to hear what you think. I played a little bit of it and the game looks gorgeous but animations look like they're from the PS2 games.
 
Here's my impressions of Visions of Mana I wrote up on the Playstation thread:

Initial thoughts:
Tried out the Visions of Mana demo and it's pretty rough. To state the good first: it's absolutely beautiful in both graphics and design and has large, open zones for tons of exploration. I also really like the character designs, which look very classic Mana, and the music is pleasant, if not a little forgettable. Customization seems like it will get pretty deep and interesting, with a large number of classes to try in the full version.

Now, for the bad, which there's unfortunately more of. Movement and combat are very janky, like there are just way too many frames needing to be loaded to perform basic actions. I played on performance mode and it didn't seem like it got anywhere near 60fps at any point, which is super disappointing. This doesn't seem like a very graphically demanding game, so when I started the demo and was greeted with a performance/graphics mode choice, I was pretty frustrated and honestly insulted, especially when performance mode ran like ass. Upon playing again, I found the exploration typically hits 60fps, but battles feel like they're dropping frames and are more sluggish.

The battle camera is atrocious, sticking itself wherever it feels like when you lock onto a target. It doesn't try to follow you or the enemy or center itself at all, and when you swap to a character who's a mile away from the targeted enemy, it wildly spins in a desperate attempt to find something to focus on. Speaking of enemies being far away, running to them is a chore due to your movement speed being a little slow, and while you can click the left stick to dash, you'll be doing that a whole lot and it gets annoying. The settings have an auto run option, but that seems to do nothing since I had it toggled on and my characters never auto ran.

Voice acting is pretty bad and flat at times, and while I stated I liked the character designs, I don't like their models and movements in cutscenes, which look like a Robot Chicken sketch. There's this one character you meet whose pupils are set just too high so it looks like he's staring above who he's talking to. It was very distracting. One of the playable characters has a southern accent that seems to come and go a little bit, and the nonplayable escort character (let's call her Yuna, because it's that kind of story) delivers her narration bits like she's reading from a textbook. Lifeless is a good word for all this.

Finally, the combat itself is just boring. Triangle strong attacks have been removed, meaning it's just a mash square fest There are triangle strong attacks, but they don't really combo with square attacks, so they just get spammed, too (a worrying trend I've seen in a lot of newer action games) and the aforementioned jank makes battling more laborious than it needs to be. It can often be difficult to spot which enemies are selected when using magic and the ring menu's text is too tiny to easily read (side note: all the UI text is way too small and navigating menus feels delayed). Overall, it's just not that fun to play.

I actually have two pre-orders for this game, since I have good reason to keep either one and am deciding which to cancel: one at Target for $45 (got it during a BOGO 50% sale) and one at Gamestop at full price (for the steelbook), and I'm seriously considering canceling both. I don't know if I'd pay more than $40 for what feels like a serious budget title and my hype has cratered. I read this isn't the team who made the Trials of Mana remake and Squeenix outsourced Visions to another studio, and that was a serious mistake. Really disappointing.

Thoughts after playing again the next day:
So I played another hour of the Visions of Mana demo last night to try out the other classes and I liked it a little bit better, but I think I'm going to wait for a sale. It really doesn't help that this is one of those demos that just drops you into the middle of the game and only explains like half the systems that are unlocked at that point, so I was a little lost the first time I played, which soured my initial impressions. Val isn't really all that fun to play in any of his classes since he feels too slow, Careena is all right, and Morley is fun in all three playstyles since he's the most snappy. It still feels like the characters are dragging their feet when they attack, though. And yes, there is a triangle strong attack, but very few classes actually utilize it in a square/triangle combo string, so you could just mash it. The class customization certainly seems like it could get pretty deep, but the basic battling feels very primitive.

The world is so beautiful, but it's just too empty. I wiped out a bunch of mobs, then turned around to fight more when I wanted to show my husband the combat, and there was just nothing to fight. It's really amazing how so many open world/zone games have so few enemies, compared to something like Xenoblade that's littered with monsters. You walk and walk and walk just to find some syrup or one treasure chest and it's just not exciting.

Finally, the battle camera is still a serious problem. When you target an enemy and engage in combat, partway through the battle the camera sometimes zooms out so far, you can't even see what you're doing anymore. Then it'll rotate a bit and get caught on a tree and it's just a disaster. Also, enemies often outrun the camera, and since the battle zone is so large and the targeting system doesn't center enemies on the screen, I often had to manually reset the camera by swinging it 90-180 degrees.

These are all issues that could be fixed post-launch, and I really hope they are, but that's why I'm going to wait for a sale. It's really a shame since this looks right up my alley, and I typically love AA jank, but it's just a little too janky for me.

Oof, sorry for the length (this is two posts combined into one). I guess I had a lot to say lol
 
super1upqueen said:
Here's my impressions of Visions of Mana I wrote up on the Playstation thread:

Initial thoughts:
Tried out the Visions of Mana demo and it's pretty rough. To state the good first: it's absolutely beautiful in both graphics and design and has large, open zones for tons of exploration. I also really like the character designs, which look very classic Mana, and the music is pleasant, if not a little forgettable. Customization seems like it will get pretty deep and interesting, with a large number of classes to try in the full version.

Now, for the bad, which there's unfortunately more of. Movement and combat are very janky, like there are just way too many frames needing to be loaded to perform basic actions. I played on performance mode and it didn't seem like it got anywhere near 60fps at any point, which is super disappointing. This doesn't seem like a very graphically demanding game, so when I started the demo and was greeted with a performance/graphics mode choice, I was pretty frustrated and honestly insulted, especially when performance mode ran like ass. Upon playing again, I found the exploration typically hits 60fps, but battles feel like they're dropping frames and are more sluggish.

The battle camera is atrocious, sticking itself wherever it feels like when you lock onto a target. It doesn't try to follow you or the enemy or center itself at all, and when you swap to a character who's a mile away from the targeted enemy, it wildly spins in a desperate attempt to find something to focus on. Speaking of enemies being far away, running to them is a chore due to your movement speed being a little slow, and while you can click the left stick to dash, you'll be doing that a whole lot and it gets annoying. The settings have an auto run option, but that seems to do nothing since I had it toggled on and my characters never auto ran.

Voice acting is pretty bad and flat at times, and while I stated I liked the character designs, I don't like their models and movements in cutscenes, which look like a Robot Chicken sketch. There's this one character you meet whose pupils are set just too high so it looks like he's staring above who he's talking to. It was very distracting. One of the playable characters has a southern accent that seems to come and go a little bit, and the nonplayable escort character (let's call her Yuna, because it's that kind of story) delivers her narration bits like she's reading from a textbook. Lifeless is a good word for all this.

Finally, the combat itself is just boring. Triangle strong attacks have been removed, meaning it's just a mash square fest There are triangle strong attacks, but they don't really combo with square attacks, so they just get spammed, too (a worrying trend I've seen in a lot of newer action games) and the aforementioned jank makes battling more laborious than it needs to be. It can often be difficult to spot which enemies are selected when using magic and the ring menu's text is too tiny to easily read (side note: all the UI text is way too small and navigating menus feels delayed). Overall, it's just not that fun to play.

I actually have two pre-orders for this game, since I have good reason to keep either one and am deciding which to cancel: one at Target for $45 (got it during a BOGO 50% sale) and one at Gamestop at full price (for the steelbook), and I'm seriously considering canceling both. I don't know if I'd pay more than $40 for what feels like a serious budget title and my hype has cratered. I read this isn't the team who made the Trials of Mana remake and Squeenix outsourced Visions to another studio, and that was a serious mistake. Really disappointing.

Thoughts after playing again the next day:
So I played another hour of the Visions of Mana demo last night to try out the other classes and I liked it a little bit better, but I think I'm going to wait for a sale. It really doesn't help that this is one of those demos that just drops you into the middle of the game and only explains like half the systems that are unlocked at that point, so I was a little lost the first time I played, which soured my initial impressions. Val isn't really all that fun to play in any of his classes since he feels too slow, Careena is all right, and Morley is fun in all three playstyles since he's the most snappy. It still feels like the characters are dragging their feet when they attack, though. And yes, there is a triangle strong attack, but very few classes actually utilize it in a square/triangle combo string, so you could just mash it. The class customization certainly seems like it could get pretty deep, but the basic battling feels very primitive.

The world is so beautiful, but it's just too empty. I wiped out a bunch of mobs, then turned around to fight more when I wanted to show my husband the combat, and there was just nothing to fight. It's really amazing how so many open world/zone games have so few enemies, compared to something like Xenoblade that's littered with monsters. You walk and walk and walk just to find some syrup or one treasure chest and it's just not exciting.

Finally, the battle camera is still a serious problem. When you target an enemy and engage in combat, partway through the battle the camera sometimes zooms out so far, you can't even see what you're doing anymore. Then it'll rotate a bit and get caught on a tree and it's just a disaster. Also, enemies often outrun the camera, and since the battle zone is so large and the targeting system doesn't center enemies on the screen, I often had to manually reset the camera by swinging it 90-180 degrees.

These are all issues that could be fixed post-launch, and I really hope they are, but that's why I'm going to wait for a sale. It's really a shame since this looks right up my alley, and I typically love AA jank, but it's just a little too janky for me.

Oof, sorry for the length (this is two posts combined into one). I guess I had a lot to say lol
Click to expand...
Thanks for the detailed feedback. I'm probably going to keep my GameStop preorder for the steelbook and return the game to a different store after picking it up.

Apparently the Trails of Mana team is working on the Romancing SaGa 2 remake, so that might be handled better than I expected.
 
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Yeah the Visions of Mana demo is really overwhelming with the way it drops you into the middle of the game and tries to explain a bunch of systems all at once. It kinda put me off from getting further into the demo. That one character with the southern voice acting in the English dub is very grating and seems completely unnecessary to have that accent as well.. but after trying the original Japanese audio I can't say I like it any better so far either. They both kinda suck. I feel like this is gonna be one of those games where I'm gonna have to ignore the demo and just wait until the full game is out so that I can try it from the start and get a better first impression.
 
Best Buy gave me a random $20 certificate a while back that I forgot about until they sent a reminder it’d be expiring soon a day ago. Happened to notice P5T PS4 was $19.99 there on CAG’s front page, so I just had to find something cheap to go with it. Figured I could just grab something or other for $2 or whatever, but I couldn’t find anything remotely useful for cheap. Eventually found a little Kirby figurine blind box for $6, though, so hey, Kirby fig and a game for $6 and tax, not bad. Not as good as when I got Black Flag and a bottle of water there for the price of a bottle of water, but that was probably 10 years ago now, and I didn’t have to step foot in the store this time.

…I still haven’t actually played Black Flag, come to think of it.
 
After the beautiful Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime releases, Aniplex is deciding to release Fate/stay night remastered as digital only in the US. Booo….

Comes out August 8 - MSRP of $29.99.

x.com

x.com x.com
While Play Asia has placeholders for an Asian & Japanese physical release, we do not know if those are real since they put up listings before they have actual info.


Fate/hollow ataraxia remastered is also in development. https://x.com/aniplexUSA/status/1819602524023701792
 
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Kimi ga Nozomu Eien Enhanced Edition is being released by aNCHOR Inc., who do all the MuvLuv releases. I saw this anime ages ago and it's a lot of drama and sad things. I expect the same from the visual novel, and it's a highly regarded one. It releases on October 17th, 2024.

Steam
VNDB (NSFW)

Nekonyansoft had a lot of announcements from their Otakon panel:

First they are releasing Koikari: Love for Hire - After Hours, which is a combination of the 2 fan disks for Koikari, essentially covering all the same character routes as the main game. I for one quite liked the humor, art, characters, and just general flow of the original. All the characters were okay enough developed, so I hope we get some more development with them.

VNDB (NSFW)

They are also releasing Renai:Royale: Love’s a Battle- “Victory Parade”, which is also a combination of 2 fan disks covering the same character routes as the original. I haven't played this one enough (I think I completed one route), but by the time this comes out I'll be done with it. The art I remember being excellent in this, but the story and characters who knows.

VNDB (NSFW)

Another game is being released similar to one from before is Making*Lovers: First Blush from SMEE, which is the next in the Making*Lovers setting, but with some new characters. The first one is a fan favorite and has excellent art and was a lot of fun. I think I have 2 more routes to finish, but it was solid, wholesome, funny and just a good time. This one has the mc saying something about dating someone who isn't your soulmate is a waste of time, so he avoids relationships. He ends up meeting some girls and his viewpoint likely changes quickly when he notices how warped it is. In a contrast to Making*Lovers this takes place in high school, while the other had adults. Kind of a step back imho, but I'm sure it will be a good one.

VNDB (NSFW)

Another game from ASA Project being release from them is Futamata Ren'Ai: Two Times the Trouble, which looks another romantic comedy. This one has the mc take care of a girl after a mixer (she was drunk), and she believes she had a one night stand, so she asks the mc to take responsibility, and he ends up dating her. Later one the same day I believe he meets his long time crush and she pretty much says I know you like me so let's go out, and the mc accepts. Now he has 2 girlfriends and starts leading a double life. This is a comedy, so I'm guessing lots of misunderstandings happen, and eventually he'll be found out. Cute graphics as always at least. They will also be working with Kagura Games (Sweet) on this title.

VNDB (NSFW)

They also announced a license pickup of a former Sol Press license (garbage company) of Happiness! Sakura Celebration! from Windmill Oasis. In this one a festival occurs every ten years and is generally very popular, especially for love confessions. The mc is a magician and other girls he know may have this idea for romance in mind. Glad to see another previous license come back from the Sol Press garbage, and this one looks cute.

VNDB (NSFW)

Another announcement is Hacking the Moon to Find My Goddess from CUBE. In this one the mc is a skilled hacker and one day hacks into some central AI thing and requests a bunch of stuff to find a good love fit like big boobs and gets 0 results. He expects nothing, and a few days later someone comes to his door that matches these requests and is actually an android. This company is pretty well known and I hope to like this as it sounds unique.

VNDB (NSFW)

One announcement I forgot is Hatsuyuki Sakura: White Graduation from SAGA PLANETS. The mc is a diliquent and only comes to class to fulfill the graduation requirement. One day he meets a girl in a dress in the winter looking for her rabbit. A few days later this girl Sakura transfers into his class. This game is likely about making the best before graduation comes. It looks cute and has nice art.

VNDB (NSFW)

One last announcement is Hold Me Tight All Night Onii-chan! from Tinkle Position. This is from the same developer as Onikiss, except this one is about a guy with severe asthma, and his parents or something develop an idea where hugging someone for 10 seconds strengthens immunity. He has slept with a sister every day of his life, and now does this hugging before bed, which leads to eroge stuff eventually. The original game was pretty fun for a nukige and had good art. I'm sure this will be a silly good time as well.

VNDB (NSFW)

Frontwing released OPPAI Succubus Academy Sucky and Busty, Demonic and Lusty! on Steam and is in the same series as all the other OPPAI games. This has succubi and these games have excellent art and lots and lots of eroge scenes. The story is usually just there and I usually finish these games in about 2 and a half hours. Eye candy for sure and nukige to the massload.

Steam (NSFW)
 
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That's a bummer. I had the Japanese and Asian version of Fate/stay Night Remastered sitting in my cart at playasia and both have been pulled. I guess I won't be getting it now. Speaking of visual novels, what happened to the Muv-Luv Double Pack? Is it already out of print? It sold out right after release.
 
On a side note, it makes me sad how it feels like we're never going to get another high quality Fate anime series (or adaptation) again. I'll admit, I haven't seen these Lord El-Melloi Case Files yet, but Fate/Apocrypha was kinda the last straw when it comes to Fate quality dropoff. I don't know why the stuff they make now is so worthless and forgettable. All the ingredients are there; it shouldn't be so hard.

Fate GO (the game) was terrible. So don't have much interest in these merchandising and money-focused spinoffs. Though I would like to give the anime a try. But it's not looking very good.

I never played the VNs, so looking forward to those! I have faith that someone will do a physical edition.
 
Fate grand order anime you get the beginning which was pretty bleak then nothing since it cuts off during the first section in Europe? Before that thread even finished. It got another one later in goldies city which is OK but due to all the Flashbacks to previous areas you don't know about that hurts it. But it was enjoyable to see goldie non corrupted and evil and his friendship with ekinu sp?

Yeah apocrypha was a dumpster fire.

Wavers anime is eh. It's kinda nice but at the same time a lot of the characters came from the other series and 2 from apocrypha alone. It's more case closed murder mystery more than fate typical affair so you'd really want to be into that genre shift on top of knowledge of the other characters.

Extra last encore was relatively good minus them using the mc instead of femc and skipping shit every episode so you're completely lost pacing wise. Like for example rin was trying to catch up with him and red saber. But didn't at the end of the episode. Next episode she's with them without any explanation. Shit the one floor they completely skip and just give a Flashback for.
 
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Riki 8bit Game Collection announced for Switch. JP only announcement so far. I bet there will be a western release, and suspect Limited Run might be the ones to do it since they did all of the NES cart versions of these games over here as well, but nothing announced yet.

www.gematsu.com

City Connection announces RIKI 8Bit GAME Collection for Switch

City-Connection, in collaboration with Japanese artist and game creator RIKI, has announced RIKI 8Bit GAME Collection for Switch. It will launch on November 28 in Japan for 5,940 yen at retail and …
www.gematsu.com www.gematsu.com

Trailer:

They're pretty simplistic gameplay wise. Kira Kira Star Night especially so, you just hop around and collect stuff on screen before a timer runs out, but the visuals and sounds are nice for NES.

The shmup, Astro Ninja Man DX, is a little bit more interesting gameplay wise

I quite like the 8-bit music power albums. They have some minigame opportunities in the middle of the songs, but they're mostly listening and visual experiences.


It's a little less novel not running on an actual NES, but also a lot cheaper.
Play-Asia has some listings for Limited ($78.99) and Standard Editions ($37.99), no photos of the LE yet though:
www.play-asia.com

RIKI 8Bit GAME Collection [Limited Edition] for Nintendo Switch

RIKI 8Bit GAME Collection [Limited Edition] for Nintendo Switch * In our warehouse. RIKI 8Bit GAME Collection includes Kira Kira Star Night!, Astro Ninja Man DX, 8BIT MUSIC POWER, 8BIT MUSIC POWER FINAL, and 8BIT MUSIC POWER ENCORE.Note: Shipping cost subject to change.
www.play-asia.com www.play-asia.com

EDIT: The standard edition is also part of the 3 for $100 sale
 
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Visons of Mana PS5 review after beating the demo after about 2 hours including all the side quests I believe. I'm still getting it, but I don't think it's anywhere near RPG of the year.

First of all the demo is a bit strange as it takes place likely a few hours in the game I'm guessing. You are travelling to a new land, have some classes already ready, and are being thrown into it. Your characters consist of a beefier slightly slower reaction/action brawler type (can also be a defender), a mage girl, and a fast attacking guy. You are basically travelling to get to the mana tree and these people are tributes of certain types (fast guy is light I believe and magic girl is wind). You also have some other girl who I guess is a tribute as well, but they don't really say who she is, but she pretty much sends Flammie (flying dragon thing) to do bits and pieces of battle. I don't feel the story of this or the characters are super strong, so the classes, exploring and battles are where it will make or break the game.

To start with there is a lot not explained super well like the classes (you need a mana spirit) and can level up using elemental points gained from various areas. This is how you get more spells/passives/attacks in a class. This is somewhat similar if I remember correctly to Trials of Mana, and has a similar but more clunky battle system. In battle you use heavy/light attacks (with how long you push them leading to different attacks), spells and other abilities. For the most part you're using these attacks as melee classes, but even the mages attack a bit. You can bring up your spells by pausing as well as items to use them, but in battle you can set them up to be used. You can target enemies by clicking the thumbstick, like most games. Now the battles themselves have different enemies and your characters. You control one of them fully and the others go do their own thing. Everything in battle just feels a bit clunky. I mainly used the brawler type character, but also tried the other two at times. it's sometimes hard to hit some enemies that fly or are very fast. I was flying around the battlefield getting hit by attacks and it's similar for attacks against enemies as well. I don't think the battles are bad, but just feel slower and the weight of attacks is bad at times too. I believe Trials of Mana was pretty quick in attacks/combos in battle and all. This just chugs a bit. I'll also mention that your AI character eat MP like its candy. You will likely need to buy a lot of mana nuts.

The exploration is very average. You do have an open world and little stars are the main quest, while little flags are side quests. Blue rings on the map can be anything but generally are save points, challenge spots, treasure chests, and other interactions with the area. There are enemies roaming around and you don't have to battle all of them. The side quests are generally MMORPG feeling with generally you having to defeat a number of enemies, find an item, and defeating a specific set of enemies. You can get items, currency and some other stuff along with EXP. It's never exciting but generally the side quests other than defeating elite enemies aren't too hard. I still think it's okay to explore, but you may not find anything too exciting.

The voices in English are generally OK other than the magic girl. She has a weird southern voice that doesn't fit and is a bit annoying. In Japanese it's all fine enough, but I don't think any character stands out. The main character has kind of a boring voice, and the fast attacker is generally okay as well. I think the magic girl has the best voice being a lil annoying, but fits the character well. The other girl is very generic and I barely remember anything about her. Other characters sound fine for the most part. The sound is pretty good although a lot of battle sounds mix together. The music is kind of just there, but I did like the music from the harbor town. The story I mentioned before is about a journey of tributes of different mana tribes and a defender (the main guy). It's not super exciting and even though some drama happens it all feels very low stakes at this point in the story.

I need to mention the graphics because it feels very obvious that this is a lower rung game in the Square-Enix scope. Lots of environment details are very low quality, like a hay stack featuring very low res textures. The environments themselves are fine, but aren't exemplary. The character models are okay enough, but if you look at them you see lots of low quality parts of the model such as the weapons they're holding, and some of the outfits. The lip syncing is pretty horrible in both Japanese and English. Particle effects and such for spells are very simple. The models also don't animate super well mainly noticed during cut scenes. Nothing looks horrible per say, but you can see the budget staring at you in many parts. Stuff like mountain edges just look really low quality. I play many game with questionable graphics, so this isn't a main issue. A main issue is how much the PS5 chugs at times trying to render these things. I had slowdown a battle or two, and sometimes animations would go and then jump (like missing frames) like when walking or moving. Also the PS5 was running very hot (checked on it cause I heard the fans roaring launch PS5 here), and this quality of graphics shouldn't be doing that. This needs optimization as this was performance mode, and I can only imagine it running in graphical mode. All this made some platforming (yuck) a bit confusing, and you need to collect stuff in the environment to unlock things like special items gained from gathering honey (little orange balls on the map).

Overall I feel this game is made for me in a way, as Trials of Mana was one of my top RPGs the year it came out. I don't feel this is as good as that, maybe a better story overall, but the gameplay feels worse. Also there is other open world complications that Trials of Mana didn't have to deal with. I'll still likely get and play it on release, but this feels like no GOTY. It just feels like an adequate game to pass some RPG hours with clunky battle action, average story and characters, lower quality graphics, and some likely okay enough classing to get some customization on. I forgot to mention you can equip 2 other item abilities which can grant abilities (like a fireball spell) or something like more critical percent chance. I don't know if you get more slots the more you get advanced in classes, but I feel you want about 4 of those slots, and I don't know if you'll get them. I'm choosing this game to quench my thirst instead of Reynatis (another likely filler RPG) before the big ones come out this year such as DQ 3 HD, Romancing Saga 2 Remake and Metaphor: ReFantazio. A just good enough 7/10 to me so far, but for others who like cleaner action games, it's more in the just a bit better than good category.
 
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I was out of the Visions of Mana demo about 10 minutes in, and that was after switching to Japanese voice. The game is gorgeous, but the movement is slow, combat rather boring, writing rather typical for jrpgs in a bad way, and I wanted it to stop. For those that said dropping the player in the middle was not a good choice, I agree. Lots of systems with only text explanations. I'm bummed.
 
I wonder if the Fate situation is because they are also releasing Fate/Hollow Ataraxia & Fate/EXTRA Record later? Maybe they will do a physical compilation?

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HaloGX said:
I was out of the Visions of Mana demo about 10 minutes in, and that was after switching to Japanese voice. The game is gorgeous, but the movement is slow, combat rather boring, writing rather typical for jrpgs in a bad way, and I wanted it to stop. For those that said dropping the player in the middle was not a good choice, I agree. Lots of systems with only text explanations. I'm bummed.
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Yea, the weird southern drawl was a major turnoff. It just doesn't fit. I also do not like the character models and stiff animation, they feel like posable talking dolls versus characters.

Since I played Vision of Mana demo so close to GranBlue Fantasy: Relink demo, you can see how odd and off putting Vision of Mana is regarding its demo, presentation, and combat. GBFR feels like a better overall product. Maybe an unfair comparison as the latter is a well funded single player spin off of a highly succesful mobile game and the former is a nostalgia-based, lower cost title from a much older series. But I definitely would spend my money on GBFR before VoM. Or rather, I would play somethine else besides VoM. Maybe finally start Trails of Mana, which I really enjoyed that demo.
 
TheKbob said:
Maybe finally start Trails of Mana, which I really enjoyed that demo.
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I liked the demo of Trails of Mana as well. That's ultimately what pushed me to get it when it dropped to $20 at BB despite already grabbing Collection of Mana for $20 the previous year on Amazon.
 
To the woot buyers here, how often do you actually get a true ESRB copy? The last 3 games I bought from them were Middle East/Southeast Asia copies
I didn't see a woot thread anywhere and know SMTV was posted recently
 
I never got non-US ESRB games from Woot but I have from Amazon recently. Got a PAL copy of Starlink and a few months ago, got a copy of Super Mario RPG that looked like it was a NA release but the back looked weird, and looking further it noted it was a world edition. Honestly, most world editions are obvious but this one was almost exactly like an NA copy.
 
BrandonBlank said:
All 3 were Nintendo published games yes
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I'm guessing that's why. Like Vinny said, Amazon proper does this sometimes too. They just mix them together in the warehouse is seems. Though as far as I can tell, the only difference between the ESRB versions and world versions are their respective logos.
 
Seems like most items I've considered on Woot were listed as "Fullfilled by Amazon". Which says to me it's subject to the same regional mixing shenanigans as shopping on Amazon itself. Which is why I rarely ever buy games on Amazon. I hate the hassle of returning stuff.

While I will dip into other regions for good deals on some games... for the most part I stick with true ESRB usa releases because they fetch more if I opt to sell a game off later. Not that I'm in it for the resell value, but it has always been a motivation of buying physical games that they have some monetary value that I could recoup later if I wanted. So I'm going to buy complete copies which I keep as pristine as possible and avoid other regions unless that's not an option (or the domestic version has gotten so pricey that it's worth just going with a foreign version).
 
I just like consistency in my collection. I'd make exceptions for games that never came out in america, but this isnt one of them
Also, the newer MiddleEast/SouthEast Asia Switch games dont even have an ESRB on the front now, so it's much more obvious.
 
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