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Is it just me or has there been a lack in interesting import only titles lately?

PopetherevXXVIII

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When Region Locking became a thing of the past with the PSP and later the PS3 you'd think that we'd enter this golden age of great games the west never saw.

Instead it's been the exact opposite EVERYTHING is getting localized. Don't get me wrong that's not a bad thing. But there's something special about importing games that no many people know about.

On Switch for example the ONLY Japan exclusive that isn't a physical release of a digital only title is the Darius Cozmic Collection and DOAX3. There's also a new Super Robot wars and the medeocre Blade Arcus.

On PS4 I'm not even sure if it has any regional exclusives.

That said I do have a number of import games for PS4 and Switch. But they are for the most part physical releases of Digital only games almost all of them are Asia or Europe region though.

Shall we pour out a 40 on the curb for the import scene or do you see it picking up again?
 

cta

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> there's something special about importing games that no many people know about.
Yes, it's called "elitism" or "being a hipster". But don't worry, with the shitloads of games on the market these days there's bound to always be a few lesser known, not necessarily imported ones you can claim to be "yours".
 

PopetherevXXVIII

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No it's not

Somebody on Racket boy figured out what I meant

"I think what he's saying is, it's great that we kind of have access to every game now... but he kind of misses the thrill of the hunt. The same way that I love that streaming means I can watch almost any movie I want right this second, but I kind of miss going to a video store and browsing rentals and coming up with something weird that I had never heard of. (?)"

I still get that with old PlayStation, Saturn and even SNES/Super Famicom. There's always that awesome secret game few know about that you want to tell people about. My whole Super Famicom collection is full of those kinds of games.

Switch and PS4 there's none of that.

That's not being elitest.
 
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Arcadia

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If anything, games don't get released fast enough over here. In this age where everything is "digital" (i.e. non-physical), unless you're a small indie developer, there's no reason a game couldn't be simultaneously translated for a global market (by which I mean from Japanese to English). Yakuza 0 had a two-year gap in releases.
 

PopetherevXXVIII

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That's true, and many a time have I imported a game only for a localized version to pop up.
Going as far back as the Dreamcast.

It's interesting with Yakuza the gap between Japanese and western release is getting shorter and shorter. Hopefully By Yakuza 8 we'll have day and date with Japan and maybe MAYBE fingers crossed an XBOX version.
 

Mord.Fustang

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I'm not really sure how to explain "why", but my guess is the internet being what it is today has limited regional releases.

Remember the older Final Fantasy games and its numbering nonsense?

Or the good ol' story of Super Mario Bros 2 having the same name but being a different game in different parts of the world.

There's no way they could get away with that today.
 

Arcadia

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Or the good ol' story of Super Mario Bros 2 having the same name but being a different game in different parts of the world.

There's no way they could get away with that today.

Oh they totally could, only this time you can't just import a Famicom, you need to be in Japan with your Switch for the DRM to be activated.
 

Tongara

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> there's something special about importing games that no many people know about.
Yes, it's called "elitism" or "being a hipster". But don't worry, with the shitloads of games on the market these days there's bound to always be a few lesser known, not necessarily imported ones you can claim to be "yours".
Literally this.
 

cta

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only this time you can't just import a Famicom, you need to be in Japan with your Switch for the DRM to be activated.
...and that is why these days, instead of import shops on street corners, we have VPN ads on Youtube videos.
 
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PopetherevXXVIII

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> there's something special about importing games that no many people know about.
Yes, it's called "elitism" or "being a hipster". But don't worry, with the shitloads of games on the market these days there's bound to always be a few lesser known, not necessarily imported ones you can claim to be "yours".

Literally this.

This is a forum called obscure gamers.....

"You're a snob for wanting obscure games"

Oh they totally could, only this time you can't just import a Famicom, you need to be in Japan with your Switch for the DRM to be activated.

Is this even a thing? To my knowledge it isn't.
 

cta

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You're not a snob for wanting to have access to obscure games, but for wanting games to be obscure.

And the Switch is indeed region free. AFAIK we're not so far - yet - as publishers blanket-geo-blocking console games. Steam has already been doing it for years though, on specific titles. No activation on quite a lot, and no launching (after circumventing the activation block) on some.
 
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PopetherevXXVIII

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You're not a snob for wanting to have access to obscure games, but for wanting games to be obscure.

And the Switch is indeed region free. AFAIK we're not so far - yet - as publishers blanket-geo-blocking console games. Steam has already been doing it for years though, on specific titles. No activation on quite a lot, and no launching (after circumventing the activation block) on some.

VPN and hacks Can fix that. Nothing on PC is sacred.

Yeah I think you misunderstood me
All of Racket boy did. It's not that I want games to be obscure. I just miss finding things nobody really knows about. I still get that with retro consoles but not modern.
 

cta

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> Yeah I think you misunderstood me
Maybe you can clear things up then. What exactly do you miss:

- New, good, interesting games?
The gaming market has become so yuuuge, there's alyway something good around - sometimes you just might have to look for a bit between all the bought reviews for quintuple-A open-world FPSRacingMMOStrategySports bullshit. Same as always, really, just turned up to eleven.

- Games that noone knows about?
Well, at some point the internet happened. Good games (almost) always get the coverage they deserve. What gets ignored usually is bad. Do you believe that to be a bad thing?
The only reason the older consoles' libraries "feel" different to you is because of pre-internet things being somewhat less well covered, but still I'd argue that the "good bits" would be well documented - just not online.

- Recent games that despite being good, noone knows about?
..."I played so-and-so before it was cool", i.e. you're a hipster.
 

FamilyGuy

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> Yeah I think you misunderstood me
Maybe you can clear things up then. What exactly do you miss:

- New, good, interesting games?
The gaming market has become so yuuuge, there's alyway something good around - sometimes you just might have to look for a bit between all the bought reviews for quintuple-A open-world FPSRacingMMOStrategySports bullshit. Same as always, really, just turned up to eleven.

- Games that noone knows about?
Well, at some point the internet happened. Good games (almost) always get the coverage they deserve. What gets ignored usually is bad. Do you believe that to be a bad thing?
The only reason the older consoles' libraries "feel" different to you is because of pre-internet things being somewhat less well covered, but still I'd argue that the "good bits" would be well documented - just not online.

- Recent games that despite being good, noone knows about?
..."I played so-and-so before it was cool", i.e. you're a hipster.
While I get the hipster elitist argument, I feel like he's just nostalgic about the search. Just like grandpa would be nostalgic about setting up a film projector, or like going through a collection of old vinyls to find a gem.

It's a kind of experience that's bound to disappear with the democratisation of high speed Internet without data caps in a globalized world, but you can still feel nostalgic about it without being a snob.
 
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PopetherevXXVIII

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The search is alive in searching for Japanese retro games.

Just going through retro games Japan I found Nangoku Shonen PAPUWA Kun for the Super Famicom. Nobody talks about it, it doesn't have a wikipedia entry. But the game is pretty awesome. I guess it's based on a Manga? Now that I have it I still don't have much info on it and I want to dig into it more so I can tell people about it. My Super Famicom collection is full of odd games nobody really talks about.

Saturn is pretty well documented but I still find a few gems I didn't know about. PS1 has an entire database and there are still hundreds of games nobody talks about that are Japan only. You Tube is just the tip for the PS1 import scene.

The Hunt is there for retro. The hunt isn't same for modern. Many of the same kinds of games I'm collecting for my Japanese systems I'm getting on Swtich, but they're all American or European releases. There's still a Hunt there's still finding out about something on Switch that people aren't talking about. But it's not from some weird corner of the internet you're learning about these games or an Issue of Gamefan or EGM. It's going through the eShop, somebody on social media talking about this Metal AF Platformer (Valfaris, LOOKS AWESOME) or just amazon telling you, Hey you should check this game out. It's a different kind of hunt, it's less satisfying. Most of these games aren't exotic imports.

I'm not even somebody who only plays the weird and obscure stuff. I like an FPS as much any one, I played DMCV, I have an XBOX One What weird oddity are you going to play on that? There's just something about finding a game from a foreign land buying it, playing it and finding that game IS AWESOME. Then feeling the need to tell everybody about this awesome game nobody knows about. Now we have people on YouTube who literally do that for a living.

I like the esoteric.
 

la-li-lu-le-lo

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I can kind of understand why you think import collecting isn't as interesting as it used to be. The other side of that, though, is that the average gamer now has access to a much wider range of games. I think that's good; the more people are exposed to weird and interesting games the better, I think. So, it's somewhat of a tradeoff, but I think the end result is better. The entire industry and the gaming community benefit when people have better access to games. It sounds to me like you want to be the only person to know about a game - but isn't that kind of selfish? If you love a game, then you should want as many other people as possible to play it. I'm interested in collecting retro Japan-only games too, but I think that the situation for modern games is still better overall. I agree that obscure games are often interesting partly because of the fact that they're obscure, but I don't think that's a good reason to want games to be obscure. If a game is any good, then it deserves to get attention and people should play it. Your desire to build a collection shouldn't override other people's desire to play games.

Speaking of modern import games, I have a Hong Kong version of Parappa the Rapper for PS4. This game was released in the US, but only on PSN. Only Japan and Asia got physical versions. The Hong Kong version is all in English, including the packaging. As far as I can tell the game itself is identical to the US version. I wanted it because I was a fan of the original and I thought it was worth it to own a physical copy of the PS4 version.
 
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PopetherevXXVIII

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Yeah a lot of imports now are physical versions of Digital only games and I have a few of those.

It's not that I want to be the only one to know. I want to be the one that tells everyone about these games.
 

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