Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

shivan128

CAGiversary!
Feedback
163 (100%)
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!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm all-in on that Lunar collection. Lunar Silver Star Story was the game that finally got me to get a PS1. Games were sparse for the N64 and whenever I went to Toys R Us to check if there were any new ones, Lunar always caught my attention, and when they got down to one copy of it, I had to grab it and a PS1 to play it on. That ended up being my gateway into JRPGs and I followed it up with Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears.

I had my PS1 for years before FFVII came and opened the floodgates for me into JRPGs but I have two fond memories of Lunar SSSC. First was preordering it to get the demo (your save carried over!!) and second was how my PS1 stop reading discs as I got near the end of the game and I somehow figured that turning the PS1 upside down allowed it to work... that lasted long enough for me to finish the game but that PS1 died soon after. Funny thing is I still have that Lunar demo disc and the box for the PS1 (but not the PS1 itself).

EDIT* Official website for the remaster: https://www.lunarremastered.com/
 
I honestly forgot that game existed... (Stellar Blade, I remember Nier quite well). Hopefully it's in the bargain bins soon (again, Stellar Blade; I paid retail price for Nier and was happy for it).

Bargain bin? It's a game Sony co-developed. Best you'll probably see is $39.99 this year.

Picked it up at launch - excellent game.
 
Reposting this from the PS thread:

I just got done with the Metaphor ReFantazio demo and the game looks fantastic.

Let me just say: the game is legit. It's an auto-buy, for jrpg fans and fans of Atlus. MR borrows a lot of signature moves from Persona 5 and SMT but is a wholly original new and refreshing IP. I'm at 6+ hours and the game is going to kick me out as soon as I progress in the next dungeon, or 3 more calendar days pass, whichever happens first. World exploration and traversal feels a lot like Persona 5. The dungeons are smaller and feel a lot like Mementos and the P5 palaces. There are about 4 little dungeons in the demo. The demo doesn't get you very into the depth of the turn-based battles yet, so that is something to look out for. But enemies all have slash/pierce/strike or one of six elemental weaknesses just like in other games.

Everything else is wholly new. It feels like a completely original Atlus title and IP. It's a medieval fantasy and there are some sort of storybook world inversion going on. "Humans" are the bad guys / mutant boss creatures. The capital city is very racist, and everyone hates you. NPCs are being killed in the town square and soldiers are sent off to die in battle. Big bad guy is going to take over the world, and "save" the kingdom. This world reads storybooks about modern America/society. The MC has a Tinkerbell companion and they're trying to save the sleeping prince and the world from inevitable doom. Kind of feels like a darker toned Ni no Kuni, in its world atmosphere. You meet like 20 companions along the way, some of whom join your party, that act similar to the tarot card relationships in a brand new system. There's this Da Vinci-like Virtruvian Man map in the menu with hexagonal pieces that appear to unlock about 20 different classes, called "Archetypes". Which begin unlocking one at a time during story mode as you meet new characters. They're like original persona summons, that have a couple spells each, and you level them up. Each one ranks up to 20 with exp, starts with 2ish abilities, and gets and handful more as they rank up. So each party character has to choose 1 Archetype creature/class to level up at a time, then you spend a bit magi currency (alt exp) to unlock a different Archetype on the map, but can then get into starting with inherits. The goal of the game seems to be to win the will of people in town, and become righteously and populist elected King of the people, and fell the usurper.

It all looks very addictive. The more I played, the more I wanted to play. The game starts off feeling very on-rails and as an anime episode. The animation and art design are top notch. I was surprised by the production quality. and the amount of detailed anime sequences. The character designs, personalities, and voice work are superb. The soundtrack is very good too. A couple of gripes I have is that I dunno why we always get such a choppy and stuttering during FMV anime sequences in these types of games. Another complaint is that the screen window is always slightly bobbing and gyrating, and the text box outline morphs and flashes during all of the text based and dialogue cutscenes. They clearly did that in order to add some dynamism to the presentation, and I don't like it. But was able to get past those things, and everything else seems perfect. Everything is not turn-based battles either, as you can real-time run up on enemies on the map and whack them a few times to debilitate them in battle, or single whack everything in a pack of low-level enemies to prevent the battle. Most of the game was story, text based, the introduction of new characters and new Archetypes, delightful side-character depictions and witty street banter that sets the world stage. The presentation is excellent. Clearly a 90-hour game but everything moves at a very quick pace. There are a lot of diversions and modes in the gameplay.

Metaphor ReFantazio is another contender for JRPG of the Year. Man we have been eatin good in 2024. This demo was really important to me, and to people in both the JP and CE threads because we've got an $149.99 collectors edition coming up in exactly two weeks and we need to decide if we want to let this expensive item ship. I will probably repost this in those threads, bc that's where this conclusion is more applicable to those premium customers. I can't tell you how fast it's going to sell out and become OOP, but I can absolutely promise you that if you're one of these customers and you miss out on this CE, you're going to be incredibly disappointed. If it goes OOP it's going to become absurdly expensive and sought-after. I didn't get very far yet, but the game appears to be excellent. If you've played other Atlus games then you know whether or not this is going to be right up your alley.
 
Last edited:

Venus Vacation PRISM - DEAD OR ALIVE Xtreme - "immersive romance adventure game" for PlayStation and Steam


Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian - this is a spin off of the Gacha game for PlayStation and Switch

Of course - will be importing Venus Vacation PRISM - DEAD OR ALIVE Xtreme for PS5.
 
Does anyone see Fantasian PS5 on Amazon? I search for it but it doesn't come up. The link for the PS5 version is up on the CAG feed but it leads to the NS version.
 
Late to the Metaphor Re:Fantazio (remembering this title sucks...) demo party, but played two hours last night.

I like that it hits the ground running for the most part. Due to being in a different setting, it can get into the plot without built in expectations (and the subversion there of) regarding normal teen life in Tokyo.

The action-lite pre-combat combat is a nice touch and a definite upgrade from previous Persona-style approach to "smack 'em on the butt" combat encounters. It feels very snappy and in control. Being able to mulch lower level enemies without entering into turn-based mode, but still get the rewards will likely help for item farming in the future, if that's a concern.

The mascot character is, so far, leagues better than the damn bear or cat.

The first boy bud (assuming) you get is also not your hamfisted idiot friend (so far) and I like that, too.

What has me mixed is the art. There are definite moments where the direction pops and you're like "goddamn, Atlus, chill." The no-load transfer from 2D to 3D segments is also great. But there are still artifacts from being a relatively lower budget studio versus other big boys that show through. The intro sequence where you abandond the caravan has a road with ruts. The ruts look so low poly, you could tell me this was a PS3 remaster and I would believe you.

And I bet they're reusing a lot of 3D model animations, as well. When you get your first persona archetype, I don't like the look of it at all and the animations also scream PS2/PS3 era.

The color and density of certain scenes, with lacking of key contrasting elements, also makes it very visually muddy. The first parts within the big city lack a distinct depth that makes it seem like a blur on my screen. I love the color choices, but they needed to have better legibility to the aesthetics.

Overall, since I'm a bigger fantasy fan than other genres, I'm thoroughly interested, but not bought in enough buy it day one without reviews first. And most Atlus games get a better version later and/or cheap fast, so... perhaps I continue to work through BG3 and Xenoblade titles.

Oh, and the combat music? Slaps so goddamn hard.
 
I dunno why I didn't notice before but... the Pirate Yakuza CE is just plain bad.

Like I'm used to CEs being overpriced/terrible value, but this thing is on another level. $70 more for a 6" tall acrylic standee, pin, eye patch and (tiny) flag. Like... $70... fucking insane.
 
I dunno why I didn't notice before but... the Pirate Yakuza CE is just plain bad.

Like I'm used to CEs being overpriced/terrible value, but this thing is on another level. $70 more for a 6" tall acrylic standee, pin, eye patch and (tiny) flag. Like... $70... fucking insane.
I thought the same. Pretty disappointed, especially when the JP CE gets a Majima-ed pop-up pirate game: https://www.play-asia.com/like-a-dragon-pirate-yakuza-in-hawaii-complete-box-limited-editi/13/70hq9t
 
I'm sad it didn't extend to video games. I have a very small physical anime collection (Steins;Gate, Promare, Hyperdimension Neptunia - that's it) but I used this to add a few things to it. Gushing Over Magical Girls, Akiba Maid War, Vermeil, and Seven Mortal Sins.

This works the same as the Target video game B2G1's, you can order 3 and immediately cancel 2- so you don't need to pick a factor of 3 number of items nor worry about organzing the cart into multiple orders by price for the best deal if you do it that way.
 
Speaking of anime (BDs).... this was the first and only order I submitted at the start of the week.

AoT steelbook order 1.png


You can get all three brand new Attack on Titan steelbook releases for only ~$110. That's a very good preorder price (on items of a limited nature). They contain episodes 1-59 in total, prior to "The Final Season". Out on Dec. 15.
which is like 30 more episodes (of 3 parts).
There has never been a better time to buy AoT. going to sell off my previous fragments. Cool Chipboard box of Final coming up, but again that's more fragments.
 
Now for my demo impressions of the Metaphor: ReFantazio demo aka the prologue of the game. It took me about 3 and a half hours to get to the scene where it says the prologue demo is over. Long story short I think this will be a good game, but I feel it may not reach Persona 3/4/5 levels. I'll explain below:

First of all we're kind of just thrown into the world with just a tiny bit of information as our hero has a fairy with them and they're travelling to complete a task. After said task area is gotten to, more of the bigger picture of the story is revealed. The game's story seems like it will be a big one over a big conflict of which does occur close to the end of the prologue. I'm not 100% sure, but I feel the characters will be less important here overall compared to the big story picture. This is a bit opposite to the Persona games I mentioned, and feels kind of like a Final Fantasy XII type story where some characters are important, but a big picture story is what is presented. I'd antiquate this story so far to a fantasy Shounen anime where a group of party members are facing a bigger picture thing and powering up and doing things along the way. In fact one story plot point was so predictable near the end of the prologue that I had no feeling at all towards the scene. The twist was so obvious and could be seen coming a million miles away. It ended up stupid, but so much stupid junk happens in Shounen anime. I'd give the story about a 7/10, but it could get better. I feel it's very predictable, but it seems to be high fantasy done OK.

The graphics are very stylized. I'm not sure when this takes place but there are kings, lords and magic. I laughed actually when the fairy character I believe says to not stand out and the main character has a very garish looking out of place fashion for this time. It's very newer SMT like. The rest of the party members so far look more like a medieval period of time. The characters and enemies look good for the most part. Background characters and backgrounds in general feel of a lesser quality and lack some details. The bosses are excellent looking and very, very Persona inspired. None of the settings really stand out honestly and I couldn't tell you much of anything about the capital city or the other places in the game. There are anime cut scenes similar to the Persona games and they're all top notch from what I've seen so far. The CG for things on other hands is not laughably bad, but doesn't look anywhere near as polished and feels like a smaller studio game. The menus are almost too busy compared to the cleanliness of Persona 5, but they're stylized and good enough. Overall I'll rate this a higher 8/10 for being stylized enough and the excellent looking bosses, but I doubt people will really remember these cities and such.

For the sound I used the English voices and frankly found them to be very, very good. I was going to Switch to Japanese to hear the difference, but I was enjoying the English voices enough to keep them. I don't think anyone stands out as annoying, and even the fairy has a nice voice. The sound effects for things in battle and such are pretty good as well. The music is very grandiose and feels a little bit generic at times because of that, but it's still very good and great feeling. I'm not really sure if any of the music will stick in my head. So far nothing has stuck in it from what I've played. 9/10

This game employs a system with classes and such, that feels a lot like personas. It feels a lot more simplified, but still customizable. This isn't Final Fantasy Tactics for sure. I feel this game will be easier to approach then a Persona game, and will gain some audience for sure. The gameplay loop generally has you travelling a bit and in areas doing things like quests/dungeons/progressing the story. The battles are turn based and have a kind of Persona like system, but interrupting all enemies doesn't get an all out attack unless I haven't unlocked it. If you have played Persona 3-5, you'll feel at home and have a simpler battle system here (not stupid just simpler). At the end of the prologue it opens up a lot and feels very Persona like as you have a certain amount of time to take care of the big task at hand. You can do side quests, grind stuff, have character events (similar to Persona) and such as long as you complete the task on time. I can't guarantee it because I stopped the game after I finished the prologue, but I believe the main area has dungeons and some mini bosses and a major boss at the end of it. This would be very similar to the Persona games, and I'm pretty sure that's how it is. I think this game may get more repetitive because I'm not sure the characters will bolster the game like the Persona games. I don't think they'll be super flat either, but I just don't feel it at all, and it may be similar to Tokyo Xanadu Ex+. Gameplay is about a 7.5/10

Overall I'm excited enough and will keep my pre-order for the game. $69.99 is a lot to chew, but there is a lot of hours to game. I really hope the story is a pretty good one along with the characters, but I'm guessing everything will be just good enough. There are lots of Shounen tropes already abound in the demo, and I'm sure there will be plenty more in the main game. 7.5-8/10
 
Last edited:
Woot’s marked Unicorn Overlord Collector’s Edition down another $5 on Xbox Whatever It’s Called (to $55), and finally marked it down $10 on PS5 (to $70).

Steve_henry_97.png
 
I'll still buy it when it hits $50. I'm hoping woot will do a 10% discount through the app again soon while the prime event is going on. Right now it's just 20% on certain items and a free shirt with $30+ purchase.
 
Last edited:
Finally uninstalled Persona 5 Royal. Sorry I tried multiple times & just couldn't get into it. Over 30 hours in and it just feels like busy work. The pacing just isn't my style & the school/home stuff is so boring to me. Started Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth a few weeks ago and currently 41 hrs in on chapter 7. Loving it so far.

Backlog update. I've actually been finishing games over the last few months. I took a small break and bought Astro Bot, but everything else is backlog. This year has been fun clearing it out.

PS5:
Death Wish Enforcers - Fun arcade game similar to Sunset Riders, Great in multiplayer
Fate: Samurai Remnant - Very fun action RPG with strategy element, cool characters based on historical figures & branching paths
Samurai Warriors 5 - Loved the updated battle system & graphical style, Didn't like that they removed playstyles. A lot of clone characters.
Ys 9 -Great game, fun battle system & great characters. Good story with nice twist. Monstrum gifts made the kind of bland city fun to navigate
Astro Bot (Platinum) - Must buy, best platformer released since Super Mario Galaxy in my opinion. Everything is great.
TMNT: Shredders Revenge - Great game, with lots of replay ability, The new characters and survival mode are addicting.
Air Twister - Neat little arcade shooter in the vein of space harrier. Surprising amount of content after the main game. Oddly enduring soundtrack
Jitsu Squad (Platinum) - Fun multiplayer brawler with a nice battle system and soundtrack. Tag mode is oddly lock behind a playthrough.

Switch:
Kirby Forgotten Land: Surprisingly good. I though Star allies was bland as hell, but this is the right direction for Kirby. Great levels, bosses & abilities. Still super easy, but the optional goals will give some challenge. It has a nice little postgame campaign too.


I'll update again in a couple months. The battle continues ✌️
 
Finally uninstalled Persona 5 Royal. Sorry I tried multiple times & just couldn't get into it. Over 30 hours in and it just feels like busy work. The pacing just isn't my style & the school/home stuff is so boring to me.
Try the main SMT games if you like the battle system at all. I prefer those to the more popular spin-off Persona because I don't care for the social links either
 
Try the main SMT games if you like the battle system at all. I prefer those to the more popular spin-off Persona because I don't care for the social links either

Wait, is that what divides the SMT games from Persona? I played every Persona 1-4 and just could not get into any of them past like... 5-10 hours (not sure I made it past the first 3 hours of P3) and knowing they were hard games didn't motivate me to keep going. The only SMT game I played was Nocturne and that was hard but it was weird/interesting enough where I just kept going.
 
Wait, is that what divides the SMT games from Persona? I played every Persona 1-4 and just could not get into any of them past like... 5-10 hours (not sure I made it past the first 3 hours of P3) and knowing they were hard games didn't motivate me to keep going. The only SMT game I played was Nocturne and that was hard but it was weird/interesting enough where I just kept going.
Pretty much, yea. There's usually a couple endings for SMT based on your choices, but that's the gist.

If you liked Nocturne, you'd probably like SMT5. Strange Journey if you like Persona Q / Etrian Odyssey.
 
"and knowing they were hard games didn't motivate me to keep going."

Persona games are generally easier than smt main line thoughit varies by game. From easiest to hard I'd say p4g p3p p4 vanilla p5 vanilla p3 fes p3 vanilla. So if you are going into those and thought persona were hard don't play smt 3 nocturne. Smt 4 is definitely easier than the norm so if I had to rec it'd be that one as a jumping point. However since you can no longer get the map exp and money dlc it wouldn't be as easy.

Its funny too. Despite mainline having a full party you can control the makeup of vs persona and dds having fixed party members smt is somehow harder.

But besides that there's lower difficulty options in persona to make it even more reasonable.
 
"and knowing they were hard games didn't motivate me to keep going."

Persona games are generally easier than smt main line thoughit varies by game. From easiest to hard I'd say p4g p3p p4 vanilla p5 vanilla p3 fes p3 vanilla. So if you are going into those and thought persona were hard don't play smt 3 nocturne. Smt 4 is definitely easier than the norm so if I had to rec it'd be that one as a jumping point. However since you can no longer get the map exp and money dlc it wouldn't be as easy.
"The only SMT game I played was Nocturne and that was hard but it was weird/interesting enough where I just kept going."
 
Smt 4 I forgot about the beginning portion before the game opens up. That one's impossible unless you luck out for encounters and manage to recruit mons, not have them die and get in and out. But that games super weird balance. I don't know why they designed it that way.
 
I have a much better experience with Nocturne easy mode. IV I didn't think was that hard.

Nocturne had an easy mode..?

EDIT* I played it on PS2, just before the HD remaster or whatever came out, not sure I remember the PS2 having an easy or at least if it did, I completely missed/ignored it.
 
Nocturne had an easy mode..?

EDIT* I played it on PS2, just before the HD remaster or whatever came out, not sure I remember the PS2 having an easy or at least if it did, I completely missed/ignored it.
Easy mode is in the new HD version. PS2 doesn't have it.
 
I ended up buying quite a few RPG & Strategy games this year so far (not all released this year). Really this year has been my most expensive one in a while... current total on just games (and Nintendo Online Family) is $873.20... and there's still probably a half dozen or more games I probably will grab once they drop in price either in regular retail or over on gamefly. My current spending does include DQ III 2D-HD. I was going to resist but I just couldn't.
 
I hope we continue to see what I'd call "The rise of AA".

All of these remakes have been fantastic by me; I never had a chance to play Silent Hill 2 or MGS 3. Can't wait to play those. Right now I am in the middle of Octopath Traveler II and Resident Evil 4 remake. They are both incredible. I have 57 hours on the former but just haven't been able to finish it and do a short write-up on here. So I'm about to put that down and start playing Metaphor today. I had never played RE4 before; it's kind of a slog to get me to start survival horror games. Well it is a perfect 10 and one of the best video games I've played in my life! Really gets the old OG RE1 formula down to perfection. The direction is excellent and it's perfectly paced.

But it has been seven years between the release of Persona 5 (2017) and Metaphor Refantazio. I'm delighted that we are finally getting a new original Atlus game. But I want to see the cadence of new releases start happening with a faster occurrence. That's why I would never complain about 'draw detail' or some low resolution. We should be getting a new AA from them every ~2-3 years. not just spinoffs and retreads.

It's the same reason why I have no complaints about FF16. Love seeing all these new game releases, at much higher frequency. FF16 is pretty good! No one has surprised me more during the current gen that SquareEnix's return to excellence, in regards to turn-based / traditional jrpgs, AA games (for lack of a better term), and their release cadence. Yes, developing modern games has become an absolute timesink with immense diminishing returns (HDR, raytracing, high-res and HRR). So I'm perfectly happy when games need to cut corners somewhere in order to speed up development cycles, and we get more solid game releases.

Everything else is struggling this generation but Japanese titles and franchises are flourishing. Atlus & Sega, SquareEnix, and even Nintendo. Western gaming and all it's associated nonstop GAAS can go DIAF, and it currently is. There is so much other great stuff to go play right now.
 
Yeah my weekend gaming will be a mix of metaphor, romancing saga 2 remake demo, and a variety of demos before Steam Next Fest starts Monday I believe. I got about 9-10 demos to try.

Also that Autumn Sale for Play-Asia doesn't have much, but it's good quality stuff. I wish this ran before I bought Saga Emerald during the Free Shipping event they had. I am getting the Shin Coal Town physical though (this is an English version and recommended if you want this). Also good to get Tsukihime if you missed the NA release. I have the Asian English version of the previous game Witch on the Holy Night and it's fine. I'll figure out something to pair with it to get free shipping. I also hate to say that Bunny Garden aka Booby garden looks kind of fun as well.
 
Last edited:

I've only beaten Rebirth and played demos of a few games, so speaking from limited experience- are all of these worth noting? Most of them I think are great games based on demos (Granblue, Overlord) or impressions (P3, Erdtree, TTYD, ). Like Mana, the demo was just... meh. Eiyuden Chronicle felt hallow even though I wanted some old school JRPG when I played it. As others mentioned, it seems like there are some better options here like the NIS or Falcom games.

A lot of these games just seem like they came and went with little hype or fanfare.
 
If we are being honest some of these are very mixed reviews (can't confirm didn't play any of these) Dragon's Dogma 2, Eiyuden Chronicles (basic story), Dawntrail, Elden Ring DLC, relink (for length/story not quality), and p3 reloaded (mixed because expensive Aegis DLC and no femC),. I think the all timers from the list are some that are already all timers or have the potential (TTYD, FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor, DQ3 HD, Unicorn Overlord), and some are unknown to me though highly regarded on previous platforms (Fanatasian (I think this will be another one that fades on release though I want to be wrong)). SMT V game is better than the previous version, and is the all timer for SMT V at least but likely will be in niche obscurity like all the previous versions, and Visions of Mana will be forgotten by bigger releases. Brothership will likely be pretty niche too. Infinite Wealth is a little more obscure for the Yakuza games (I still don't think everyone who was a Yakuza fan is playing all these...I'm behind).

I still want to play all these sans FFXIV DLC since I'm way to far behind and these are opinions. I'll know more about metaphor soon though.
 
errr I don't really think the point was to get finicky over the contents of the list. lol. That is just one random guy making a post on Twitter.

The point is that we've been getting a ton of decent jrpgs lately. That some didn't even make the list drives the point home a bit further. 😀
 
bread's done
Back
Top