• Axersia Axersia
    Axersia ► JRPG
    7 years ago
    Saved!
    I feel like I’m completely out of the loop on localized Japanese games. There used to be a time where I’d just buy everything put out by NIS America and Atlus, but as more and more of those companies started popping up, and their output became less than stellar, I stopped following them.

    Meanwhile, I shifted my focus towards buying my games while visiting Japan, as so many major franchises just weren’t being brought over. That’s mostly been rectified since then. There’s still a big gap in the Dragon Quest series on 3DS, but at least the new ones are being localized. Tales games now get released just a few months after Japan. And heck, we even got the latest 7th Dragon (kinda odd as it marks the end of the story, but whatever).

    Now when I visit Amazon, pick a random RPG, and look at all the other games people have bought with it, I don’t recognize any of them. Like Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault. What the hell is that even? I’m guessing some sort of strategy game, but it’s hard to tell from the screenshots. Meanwhile, the Neptunia series seems to have like 20 entries now. I only played the first game and thought it was garbage, so I never paid any attention to it since.

    I also intended to get into the rebooted Atelier series on PS3, but I kept holding off as I wanted to wait for the Vita re-releases with additional content. Then when they finally did get released, I kept waiting on a price drop as I don't like spending full price on digital games. Now I’m way behind and they’ve already moved on to PS4.

    At some point visual novels also became a thing. I’m guessing after the Zero Escape series became a surprise hit. For years I've wanted them to bring these over, and now there’s so many of them… DanganRonpa, Steins Gate, Psycho Pass, Root Letter… I think I even got Amnesia and Code Realize as part of my PS+ subscription. How will I ever catch up?

    Overall though I don’t think I’ve missed out on too much. There’s a lot of fanservicy games and first-person dungeon crawlers (often times they’re one and the same) which I probably wasn’t ever gonna buy anyway, but I’m kinda curious if I haven’t missed out on a couple of hidden gems. Like, that Sword Art Online thing seems to be doing really well, and I’m completely unfamiliar with the series. Will have to do some digging.
    • Silent Gamer
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      Silent Gamer
      Editing … There is definitely a lot more out there than there used to be, and a lot easier to get hold of too. Sadly, this also means that a lot more sub-par/average titles are making it across too. I can understand that mentality of trying to get hold of them all, as you are used to them being this rare/niche thing that offers something wildly different from the norm. But I feel like those days are gone. With the advent of online stores and a shift in Japanese devs towards PC and handheld, these games are all the more accessible and I can only see this increasing with time. It seems more and more titles are coming to Steam each day, growing the audiences for these series. It's probably time to stop thinking of them as rare oddities to be explored and treat them like any other games.You'll never be able to play them all, and that's okay. It's easy to feel like you are missing out, but in the end you may never receive the same enjoyment from them that their fanbase did. Better to have fond experiences with a few than to waste your time playing tons of middle-of-the-road titles.
      7 years ago
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