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7 Crazy Imports You Won’t Believe

7 Crazy Imports You Won’t Believe

You know, the fact that Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 never (legitimately) made it to the West still surprises me. I understand that cultural norms, and therefore consumer demand, are vastly different in Japan than in North America, but you’d think that the appeal of scantily clad women (or men, for that matter) is damn near universal. We’ve received localizations for much stranger, more risque games in the past, after all. For anyone who thinks that DOA X3 is a little too out there or controversial to merit localization, I submit the following 7 games to prove that we’ve paid for weirder.

Pocket Card Jockey

Pocket Card Jockey

We’re kicking things off with a brand new 3DS game, the concept for which will leave many of you scratching your heads. This is how Bill Trinen describes Game Freak’s latest oddity: “In Pocket Card Jockey you’ll play as a jockey who has to partake in a fast-paced, simplified version of solitaire to propel your horse through intense races.” That must have been a rough pitch in the board room. Seriously, some Japanese Nintendo employee probably showed up to work one day, still drunk from the night before, and spat this out of his mouth after forgetting his original game pitch at home. It’s been a success in Japan since 2013, though, and released to very favorable reviews in North America at the beginning of the month. Give the demo a shot; you may be pleasantly surprised.

Catherine

Catherine

Catherine is brought to you by the same team behind the Persona series, so you can bet it’s going to deal with some taboo (or otherwise esoteric) psychological issues in an interesting way. On the face of it, this game deals with themes and issues that should be perfectly relatable to the average, aging male: the blues of responsible adult life, workplace anxiety, pressure to settle down and start a family, temptation and infidelity… these aren’t themes we see dealt with normally in games, but we understand them. What’s harder to understand is how a game where you race to the top of block mazes among sheep-people in a dream state – in order to face off with a giant, literal butt-hole with a tongue hanging out of it – ever made it to the West. We’re glad it did, though, as this is one of the best games Atlus released on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Rule of Rose

Rule of Rose

This game isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s actually banned in some countries. It’s famous for its rarity, infamous for its disturbing depictions of violent and borderline erotic ritual carried out by young girls, and it’s notorious for its reputation as a terrible Silent Hill clone. You play a woman who gets swept up in the doings of a malicious secret society dominated by a hierarchy of little girls who repeatedly torture you between the many, random (and boring) missions you complete for them. The ending has an incredibly predictable twist that will make you question why you bothered playing the game at all, but that doesn’t stop serious collectors from seeking this game out and paying big bucks for it. If you don’t own it, you probably never will. If you do own it, you have a strange, disturbing, and valuable treasure in your possession.

Katamari Damacy

Katamari Damacy

This is the first game that came to mind when I decided to put this list together, and after a quick flash-poll of some friends to see what games occurred to them, this was the game recommended by 3 out of 4 of them. It is so bizarrely Japanese but so inexplicably entertaining. Your father, the King of All Cosmos, drunkenly wiped out the stars, and as a good prince it’s up to you to roll around a big sticky ball, collecting tons of random stuff. As soon as your ball reaches suitable size, sometimes with entire buildings or mountains stuck to it, your father the cosmic king will suck it up in some rainbow vomit and turn it into a star because – density, and physics, and Japan.

Drakengard 3

Drakengard 3

This is the JRPG that you probably shut off and hide (next to your Catherine box) when your significant other or parents get home because you don’t want them to think you’re messed up in the head. It’s strange and violent, and even if you’re cool with that, you’re going to have a hell of a time figuring out exactly what’s going on. You play as a goddess with a flower growing out of her eye-socket who has made it her life’s mission to go murder her five sisters who control various regions of the game world. You have a reincarnated dragon companion who’s much nicer than you are, and the two of you are willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone, to take down your divine sisters and recruit their disciples to your cause. Those disciples are mostly weird sex maniacs, by the way. It’s overly melodramatic and convoluted; a kind of satirical take on the genre itself. No one gets it, and why anyone thought this would make a lot of money in North America is beyond me.

Freshly-Picked: Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland

Freshly-Picked: Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland

I’m kind of cheating on this one, because while it’s in English and it released in Europe, Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland never did make it to North America. If you can’t tell from the title and the image above, this is a bit of a niche game. It came very close to taking the number 1 spot on my list. The game stars The Legend of Zelda’s Tingle as he attempts to reach a paradise called Rupeeland. To do this, according to a mysterious deity named Uncle Rupee, Tingle must continually feed rupees into a spring next to his house which will in turn cause a great tower to grow out of it, leading Tingle to Rupeeland. The whole thing sounds like a bad salvia trip. In the end you figure out that Uncle Rupee is a fraud who has been getting rich off of your desire to reach paradise. There’s a clever analogy about religion in there somewhere, we’re sure of it.

Hatoful Boyfriend

Hatoful Boyfriend

Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel. It is a visual novel about finding love. It is a visual novel about finding love in an elite school for anthropomorphic pigeons which you attend. You were with me until that last bit, right? The WTF factor is off the charts with this one, but this game has exploded in popularity in Japan and in North America. It’s inspired sequels, webcomics, a web series, and four drama CDs – I shit you not. The game actually attempts to explain how this alternate reality came to be, as if it really needed to, and it’s a backstory for the ages.

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