Japanese Niche Games Deals & Discussion Thread 4.0

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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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Can anyone recommend a legitimate place to order the MH wilds JP dualsense controller? Play Asia falsely advertises free shipping then jacks up the shipping costs at checkout.
 
Chaika season 2 originally released back in fall 2014 with a followup OVA in 2015. When I mention stuff coming to the Hidive linear channel, it's not the hidive normal service but a free linear streaming channel I can dvr with my tablo dvr (which also handles my over the air / antenna channels). They drop stuff on this channel in cycles and typically it's all english dubs.

Dragon Ball Daima was planned as a 20 episode series. So, yeah, just the near full five months of episodes.
 
Today is the last day to preorder Rage of the Dragons NEO at VGP. I think I read somewhere that the publisher physical mania will also be closing preorders at some point. I ordered the PS5 version at VGP, I can't say no to neogeo ports/fighting games.
 
February Purchases: Trails Through Daybreak II (Switch)

March (preordered): Xenoblade Chronicles X : Definitive Edition

Counting my preorder of XCX... I'm up to $187.45 for the year. The other two games were Zelda Echoes of Wisdom (used at gamefly) and Wii Fit U with pedometer (for the pedometer) which was $14 shipped off ebay.
 
There is a lot of new games added, although I'm not interested in any. There are some solid prices and Slitherhead I'll look at some gameplay and decide if I want to get it soon. If Woot guaranteed the Switch games were NA copies I would get like one of them at least, but yeah I'm a stickler for NA copies if they're avaliable.
 
I don't recommend ordering a controller from another region because they are fake, bootleg controllers.

becoming a running joke., eh? NA and JP are where most games come from. Not from UAE.

Come to think of it, even going back 20 years, a lot of my collection is split between the two regions. Though I do own a couple euro editions of Assassins Creed CEs from over the years.

and if anything,… the Japanese releases are the true real editions!
 
You could try Aitai Kuji. They do an as ordered basis

‘thank you. i was able to order it through someone in Japan thankfully. Got a fair price too.

it’s odd to be so see so many on eBay. Yet also the sellers have numerous quantity like 10+ for sale. It makes me believe it isn’t limited at all and just stocked on shelves as a normal controller. Or everyone is scalping this in Japan!
 
If a fake game is placed on a shelf and no one is around to see the non ESRB copy, does it become fake at the time of official licensing and production or just once it is observed? Is it still fake if it is never observed, even though it was official at the time of creation? Or if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, if an officially licensed non ESRB game is placed in a sealed box with a device that will stamp an ESRB logo on the front at a random point in time, the game’s quantum particles must exist as both fake and authentic at each moment before the box is opened! I don’t think the laws of quantum mechanics allow an agreement, but we all should be able to agree on official terminology of the English language.
 
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Some visual novel releases not all with launch discounts.

First of all Mangagamer released Beat Valkyrie Ixseal an Alicesoft game. Usually they're pretty good with launch discounts, but this one has none so you're going to pay full price if you didn't pre-order.

Mangagamer (NSFW)

They are also releasing another Alicesoft game in Rance 03 -The Fall of Leazas- aka Rance 3 Remake. It has a 10% pre-order discount, and I recommend if you're going to get it, pre-order it to make sure you get your discount. The Rance games are interesting, so this is a buy sometime for me.

Mangagamer (NSFW)

Shiravune announced they're releasing the full 3D remake of ToHeart. It releases on June 25th, 2025. I watched the anime ages ago and can't wait to play the remake.

Steam
VNDB (NSFW)

Shiravune released Geminism and it has 20% off for about 12 more hours on Steam.

Steam
18+ Patch (NSFW)

They also recently released HENPRI aka Hentai Prison. This is from the makers of Nukitashi, and is a must buy for me. I'm pretty sure the Steam release is cut a lot, so apply the 18+ patch for the full experience. This is very highly regarded and has a launch discount of 20% off.

Steam
18+ Patch (NSFW)

Nekonyan are releasing Love, Elections, & Chocolate in Q1 of 2025. JAST USA are also aiming to release Mojika - Truth Rears Its Ugly Head at the end of March.
 
I'm not sure I'm ready (or super interested) in VN's yet... but I could get interested. I was going to finish season 2 of Chaika, but ended up starting Clannad instead on Friday. So, fast forward through the weekend into yesterday when I finished the last OVA for season 2 (After Story). I'm not sure how I feel about Clannad, I'll post my ramblings below and spoiler them so it doesn't eat the page. Last night I started season 2 of Chaika finally, and while it's not the deepest series... it's interesting and hot damn are the opening/closing songs great. A nice rock/metal thing going on there.

As for Clannad....
there wasn't really anything that gut wrenching until episode 16 of After Story. So like 46 episodes and 2 ova before things really hit. That's when Nagisa dies giving birth. I felt like that was a real possibility especially when they decided on the hospital but got snowed in. A few episodes later (which I was happy for the 5 year skip) Tomoya was finally getting to know his daughter, Ushio, and it looked like there was maybe a possibility he'd move on to maybe Kyou since she was back in his life as Ushio's teacher (along with an adult version of Botan)... or maybe we'd see Fuko grow up since she was stunted from being in a coma all those years (though Kyou seemed like a perfect fit). But then Ushio gets the same sickness and dies with Tomoya holding her seeming like he was just going to die there in the snow too. Which, yeah, ok that was like, WTF.. pick your kid up... get to somewhere safe... run to the hospital... something. Then just when things hit their hardest... they rewind the last five years with the whole other world thing so Nagisa doesn't die. That's where I'm like, ok, yeah, I didn't want her to die in the first place but it undid all of the hardship and growth and reset things. Except it also didn't undo the growth as Tomoya does end up visiting his grandmother and stuff bleeds over like Fuko remembering Ushio's scent. In the end I felt a bit empty by it because nothing up to Nagisa dying was really that emotional. Sure they had a year where Nagisa did a second Senior year repeat and Tomoya had to grow up... but it was ok. All that said, I guess it does have a bit of a life lesson in there about family, forgiveness, sacrifice, and living your life. Still, I feel kind of empty even though I did really like all the characters and their distinct stories. The let downs? I kind of expected maybe Kotomi would have popped back in after the fact with more talk of other universes and bubble worlds or something... to make it all make a little more sense. We did get that one bit before Nagisa died but it just seemed to lay some groundwork and not really be fleshed out. Other characters barely got more than a quick clip (I get it's the same in the game) to show the careers they had. I had to go read someone's writeup on explaining the ending to fully grasp it even though I understood it was Ushio and robo-Tomoya and got most of it being out of time... I didn't put together the robot was becuase of the robot Tomoya bought Ushio for their trip before the big undo or the whole town being tied to Nagisa and then passing to Ushio when Nagisa died. Some really out there stuff, lol. Oh, and Fuko... not a single call back to the wooden starfish when she came to visit Ushio and play. Like, I was expecting a "I can't remember where I got that..." from Tomoya or at least Fuko flipping out finding one. Overall, I'm glad I watched it. It was really entertaining, though the fantasy side of it just kind of threw me. I can see the appeal of the games. I read up on the side stories compiliation game (originally 2 psp games)... seems it's just a visual novel with no decisions. The Tomoya After game seems kind of interesting especially it's mini game but I read the ending and I think just reading about these games was enouhg. Nicely they are all on switch digitally or importable physical if for some reason this hits me later. There's also a sale on seam for the whole set. Still, the anime kind of covered the main game and some of the side stuff that I'm not sure I need more.
 
Sorry for killing the thread talking about anime. 🤣

I ended up finishing Chaika (thought it was pretty good) and have been watching through The Demon Girl Next Door. I just finished season 1... and have been enjoying it. I did remove a few from my list of what's been recommended as I looked into them and they weren't really for me. But I've also added a few after having a nice discussion with someone on reddit about more heart felt slice of life anime. It's been nice just focusing on anime right now. I've dropped a few regular shows from view and am putting off Daredevil Born Again (I never finished the netflix series anyway) and most of the other marvel stuff for now.
 
I'm guessing you watch a lot of the free streaming channels like I do. If you want another nice slice of life, I very highly recommend Bartender. There's one series that came out around 2010, and a new series that came out just last year.

The first series is free to watch on Tubi IIRC. It's episodic and focuses only on the customers, and the new one portrays the manga more closely by following the lives and careers of the bartenders. They're both very pleasant, relaxing, and educational about the both the history and culture of alcohol.
 
It’s so crazy to me that we’ve built up this culture of sophistication and dignity around alcohol when, let’s be honest, literally the only practical reason to choose to drink booze over any other beverage is because we like getting buzzed. Like, alcohol actively tastes terrible, so we dilute it and hide it with other flavors, but it’s not like you can’t still taste the alcohol, so the same drink without the alcohol is always going to taste better, but somehow the boozy version is always seen as the more classy option. What other chemical intoxicant gets put on such a high pedestal?

Sorry, that’s my extremely tangential rant about the culture surrounding booze.
 
I like sugary drinks without the alcohol. The jawsie is one of my favorites at outback. But I'm probably unusual since I love sweets.
 
Sodas are too sweet to be consumed without cutting it with booze and ice tbh, and sadly most are unsuitable as mixers
Uh… are you “cutting” other drinks, like water, with booze, cause if you are…
Season 2 Comedy GIF by Brockmire
 
I'm guessing you watch a lot of the free streaming channels like I do. If you want another nice slice of life, I very highly recommend Bartender.

I haven't dipped too much into the free stuff through apps. It's just my tablo dvr let's me record everything on these couple anime channels so I can FF commercials making it like having paid Hidive with a lot less content but all free. I made note of Bartender... also looked it up and it appears to also be on Crunchyroll. Still, it's not super long... so might be a good one to do on Tubi. Thanks.
 
Uh… are you “cutting” other drinks, like water, with booze, cause if you are…
Season 2 Comedy GIF by Brockmire
Of course not like any well adjusted adult I am fine with drinking water I just don't drink a lot of either booze or soda because they both taste like trash and make you feel like garbage
 
For that limited edition box is trash, plush is awesome (only reason to get it for me at least), steelbook is nice and novel is basically nothing if I'm being honest. It's very short. Still glad I got it for a normal price at least.
 
It’s so crazy to me that we’ve built up this culture of sophistication and dignity around alcohol when, let’s be honest, literally the only practical reason to choose to drink booze over any other beverage is because we like getting buzzed. Like, alcohol actively tastes terrible, so we dilute it and hide it with other flavors, but it’s not like you can’t still taste the alcohol, so the same drink without the alcohol is always going to taste better, but somehow the boozy version is always seen as the more classy option. What other chemical intoxicant gets put on such a high pedestal?

Sorry, that’s my extremely tangential rant about the culture surrounding booze.


It’s funny you say that. I must be the outlier. My alcohol collection is similar to my games collection. I buy a lot, drink a little. I don’t drink often specifically because I DO NOT like the feeling of booze. I enjoy the flavors of my whiskeys. I used to hunt for the rarer 12/15/18 year stuff, mizunara, sherry, and port casks. Now I slowed down because of two reasons… my collection had to be scheduled with insurance. And the prices in the last two years doubled and I’m not paying $250 for a bottle when I used to pay $99.
 
Some alcohol is genuinely fantastic; there's a difference between alcohol as a means and alcohol as an ends.

I don't drink sake to get ripped, but the depth of flavor in premium sake is as much varied as wines versus your swill level wine. Same with certain harder drinks; rye whiskey is very pleasing to me, but most others are not to my liking.

There's a reason Japanese whiskey blew out the market; it focused on lighter floral notes and less burn than the American palette smashers, strong bourbons, or even Scottish peat.

And when you have a sherried Japanese wine... I had it before the fad blew up and Ichiro was cheap. Now it's like $100+ a bottle when I was getting an afterwork drink with coworkers for under 800 yen.

And Hibiki 17 was magical. I still have two sample size bottle left to drink... A website is selling these single shot bottle for $130 each. I got them for like 800 yen in 2018 or so...

Sometimes having a non-sweet drink it desired.

To relate to the animemes here, I recommend the short anime Bartender: Glass of God. It's like one of those anime with ridiculously detailed food, but this is one is about finding life's meaning, one glass at a time.

It's actually pretty good and the art direction is great. Slice of life vibes only.
 
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Some alcohol is genuinely fantastic; there's a difference between alcohol as a means and alcohol as an ends.

I don't drink sake to get ripped, but the depth of flavor in premium sake is as much varied as wines versus your swill level wine. Same with certain harder drinks; rye whiskey is very pleasing to me, but most others are not to my liking.

There's a reason Japanese whiskey blew out the market; it focused on lighter floral notes and less burn than the American palette smashers, strong bourbons, or even Scottish peat.

And when you have a sherried Japanese wine... I had it before the fad blew up and Ichiro was cheap. Now it's like $100+ a bottle when I was getting an afterwork drink with coworkers for under 800 yen.

And Hibiki 17 was magical. I still have two sample size bottle left to drink... A website is selling these single shot bottle for $130 each. I got them for like 800 yen in 2018 or so...

Sometimes having a non-sweet drink it desired.

To relate to the animemes here, I recommend the short anime Bartender: Glass of God. It's like one of those anime with ridiculously detailed food, but this is one is about finding life's meaning, one glass at a time.

It's actually pretty good and the art direction is great. Slice of life vibes only.


I never heard of that anime before. Thank you for the recommendations. I do enjoy Hibiki and have several bottles, some of the limited edition yearly releases. When I was traveling through Japan last year and visiting the various suntory houses, I was told to never open some of my bottles. Which is nuts only because I buy to drink, not to hoard. Yet when people who work for the company tell you that… it makes me pause. I use to buy yamazaki and hakushu 12 at under $100, now it’s $200 and up. Not cool.

And even more specific to being on topic, exactly one week to the day of release, shipped express from Osaka to me:
 

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Woot is where game values go to die. I like the sales, but it’s kind of odd how most of the stuff seems to just sit there even with good discounts. Blasphemous 2 CE at 50% off is a great deal, and it’s been sitting there for months. Blasphemous 1 CE being worse, but more rare, people pay 4x premium. The notion of worth and value in our world is fucked beyond repair.
 
Woot is pretty much were niche games get their lowest prices. We just rarely see those niche physical games dropping $20 and below anymore. Anything is worth what people will pay for it. A lot of these limited editions come out and are honestly not limited, or the limited edition is for something not as many want. Frankly putting future values on games is a bad idea, and it's just better to just...ummm....play games and enjoy them and maybe later they're worth something.
 
True, I’m saying there are more ways to look at worth and value than $$$ and rarity. But speculator’s with more money than sense have obliterated any other notions of value such as quality, enjoyment, production values, heart.

And woot as a website is just strange. That price for blasphemous 2 CE would probably sell out pretty quick at any normal retailer. I was going to use Bestbuy as an example, but actually it already did sell out there, at double the price. Thats just surprising. The mixed region games, and I’m pretty convinced woot sells some Amazon returns and dingers, it’s like an Amazon dumping ground.
 
True, I’m saying there are more ways to look at worth and value than $$$ and rarity. But speculator’s with more money than sense have obliterated any other notions of value such as quality, enjoyment, production values, heart.

Isn't it all speculation, really? Anyone that's searching for deals is speculating that they'll find it for less. Every time woot stuff games posted, I add it to my cart and then speculate if I should check out or wait for a bigger drop.

Hell, I'll admit to it: I've paid well above market for plenty of games because I speculated that I either pay 3x more retail now or I'll never have it. Of course, every time I did, VGP came in and reprinted it but that's now part of the speculation process... will VGP reprint it?
 
Isn't it all speculation, really? Anyone that's searching for deals is speculating that they'll find it for less. Every time woot stuff games posted, I add it to my cart and then speculate if I should check out or wait for a bigger drop.

Hell, I'll admit to it: I've paid well above market for plenty of games because I speculated that I either pay 3x more retail now or I'll never have it. Of course, every time I did, VGP came in and reprinted it but that's now part of the speculation process... will VGP reprint it?

Curious about this. Do VGP games have different spine codes and UPC? Or are they an exact duplicate that no one could ever tell?
 
Some of the ESRB games VGP sells are Canadian editions with French and English text on the box. A lot of publishers these days make one version of a game for North America with the French text that gets distributed to USA and Canada since it's more cost effective, but there are still ones that produce different versions for USA and Canada.
 
Well, they're reprints and not original, first run ESRB, so they're probably fake...

Well, that’s the point why I’m asking. I collect art. I don’t do prints, only AP or originals. Which is why I’m asking if the VGP editions are reprints or originals. Thank you for mentioning it.
 
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Some of the ESRB games VGP sells are Canadian editions with French and English text on the box. A lot of publishers these days make one version of a game for North America with the French text that gets distributed to USA and Canada since it's more cost effective, but there are still ones that produce different versions for USA and Canada.
Star ocean 3 ps2 is a funny example of that since it has like 4 different covers. As there's the blue cover with just the logo, pink color with just the logo, and the ones with the protagonist on it.
 
Star ocean 3 ps2 is a funny example of that since it has like 4 different covers. As there's the blue cover with just the logo, pink color with just the logo, and the ones with the protagonist on it.

Oh damn, I had no idea... I honestly never noticed it, I always thought there was the launch version (whatever it was called) that was in a box because I think the manual was too big to fit inside the standard PS2 case or something, and then the latter releases that weren't in the box.
 
Curious about this. Do VGP games have different spine codes and UPC? Or are they an exact duplicate that no one could ever tell?

VGP games are reprints from the actual publishers. All the games I've bought from VGP are identical to the day 1 release I've purchased from Atlus, Nisa, Best Buy, etc years ago. Even the saran wrap used has the same texture and sealing.

They're official reprints, or as you like to call it... originals.
 
VGP games are reprints from the actual publishers. All the games I've bought from VGP are identical to the day 1 release I've purchased from Atlus, Nisa, Best Buy, etc years ago. Even the saran wrap used has the same texture and sealing.

They're official reprints, or as you like to call it... originals.


I would expect at least the spine code or the code above the UPC would be difference. Usually Canadian releases have a -CA near the barcode on the back.
 
Oh damn, I had no idea... I honestly never noticed it, I always thought there was the launch version (whatever it was called) that was in a box because I think the manual was too big to fit inside the standard PS2 case or something, and then the latter releases that weren't in the box.
The only reason I even noticed was because I have 2 copies of 3. I think I won 2 auctions for ebay.
 
I would expect at least the spine code or the code above the UPC would be difference. Usually Canadian releases have a -CA near the barcode on the back.

I'd imagine It's possible if it's a first party title by a big publisher like Sony. I have four copies of The Last of Us Remastered (PS4) and they all have different spine code. But I mainly buy niche JRPG titles from VGP and they all have the same UPC and spine code as my day 1 release.
 
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