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Curated playlist

Japan-exclusive video games

  • Mitsumete KnightMitsumete Knight, a 1998 PlayStation game, leaves a church bomb threat unexplained. Audio dramas later explained it.
  • Gensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no TokiGensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki sends three heroes back a hundred years. A monster wakes every century.
  • Star Wars (1987 video game)In a 1987 Star Wars game, bosses look like Darth Vader until hit. Then they turn into a shark or a scorpion.
  • Final Fantasy IIIFinal Fantasy III's developers followed a programmer to Sacramento after his work visa expired.
  • Gensō SuikogaidenGensō Suikogaiden was a pair of Japan-only visual novels, never officially translated. Fans translated them in 2013.
  • Tokimeki MemorialIn Tokimeki Memorial, the character with the highest love meter confesses at the end. Who will it be?
  • Tokimeki Memorial (video game)Konami, known for the punishing shooter Gradius, made a high school dating game.
  • Durarara!!A headless rider on a black motorcycle searches Ikebukuro for her stolen head. She is a dullahan from Irish folklore.
  • Namco × CapcomCapcom broke an industry norm by teaming up with its rival Namco. The 2005 game Namco x Capcom never left Japan.
  • Cardcaptor SakuraCardcaptor Sakura begins when ten-year-old Sakura Kinomoto accidentally opens a book in her basement. The book was made by a sorcerer named Clow Reed, and it holds a set of magical cards that now scatter into the world. Unless she gathers…
  • Tetsujin 28-goIn the manga Tetsujin 28-go, a ten-year-old boy inherits his dead father's giant war robot.
  • Lucky Star (manga)Lucky Star, a four-panel comic about high school girls, also spawned chemistry textbooks.
  • Granblue FantasyA live-streamed 700,000 yen spending spree forced Granblue Fantasy to apologize.
  • Revolutionary Girl UtenaRevolutionary Girl Utena begins with a teenage girl in a boys' school uniform who raises a sword to win another girl's hand. Her name is Utena Tenjou, and the prize is Anthy Himemiya, a mysterious student known as the Rose Bride. Anthy is…
  • Touhou ProjectOn the 15th of August 1997, at a large dōjin fan convention called Comiket 52, a university student released the first Touhou Project game. According to its creator, who goes by ZUN, only 30 copies were sold. Touhou Project is a bullet…

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