Messages

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General / Re: February 2024 - Recently Added to Collection/Recently Purchased New

« on: February 07, 2024, 07:07:36 pm »

It's been a somewhat slow year so far but that's probably because I'm trying to harpoon me some BIG ol fish n white whales of my list (Pray for me, I want Kuon)

So far,

(PS5)
Persona 3 Reload Aegis Edition
Persona 5 Tactica
Tekken 8
Post Void Steelbook Edition

I so have some great Pre-orders in the wings tho. Unicorn Overlord, here I come!

I also got a Sega Pico CIB for my lil one but with that, I only realized after the fact that finding games anywhere but online is a post game DLC tier quest xD

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General / How do you feel about Store Exclusive CE's?

« on: October 03, 2023, 03:19:29 pm »

Hey everyone! Been ages since I hit the forums but something's been on my mind and I figured, who better to talk to about this?

Lately I've noticed a trend in store exclusive collectors editions. In particular, I'm referring to things like Armored Core, Tekken 8, Octopath Traveler 2 & even NEO: The World Ends With You (Which was a Japanese Squeenix store exclusive) How has this recent pattern of behavior with 3rd party companies left you feeling? I myself personally am not a fan of this at all. Scalpers are already a bane of this hobbies existence but something about this practice makes it inherently worse. The price for a lot of these CE's have skyrocketed enough without having to worry about the fear of mishandled packaging/shipping, late arrivals, or even cancellations. (My condolences to anyone who has to import anything overseas, I know your struggle is real  ) Do you see this trend continuing or getting worse? How do you feel about direct company sales of Collectors Editions? I'd love to discuss and hear your opinions, everyone!

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General / Re: Will you be sad when Gamestop goes out of business?

« on: February 18, 2022, 04:03:48 am »

The idea for this thread came to me after I went to pick up a preorder today from one of my local Gamestop's and surprise, surprise, they didn't get the game in even though it came out today (the game is KOF XV in case anyone is curious). While I'm aware that this likely had to do with delays in delivery and also supply chain issues, the truth is that this has been happening to me for several years now, and it seems to happen on every other preorder I make.

This was especially true for many MANY people who pre-ordered Monster Hunter Rise. It was my first time seeing it on a state-to-state basis, as people all over the country were experiencing the issue of either next to no copies or straight up none at all arriving in time to fulfil their pre-orders on time or even within the week. I myself was lucky enough to bag KOFXV's Omega but the clerk said "I'm surprised we got this one in, honestly. Only one we're probably gonna get" which was probably not as reassuring as he meant it to be. More to the point though, I don't think I'll be too bummed about it. They're not really the outlet anymore; they're just an option.

It's funny this comes up because while I was there, I was thinking to myself if there was anything else I wanted to lay some money down on but in reality, most of the time I pre-order from BestBuy for better incentives. Stranger Of Paradise, in this instance. Sure, GS has it's exclusive things, but they're often not exactly of particular value to me personally. They have a very.. dad's fishing hat-esque hat that's just black with the game's logo on it in white as a pre-order bonus. BestBuy on the other hand.. has an exclusive steelbook with gorgeous artwork featuring a more familiar version of Garland I'm sure many of remember, which sells me immediately. Sure, I could pre-order the GS version and grab the steelbook second hand, but after missing out on the P5 Scramble steelbook I'd rather not test my luck!

All in all, I do find a lot of use in GameStop as a retailer, but it's just a matter of it being a (sometimes) convenient option for me. Ultimately, they still have a lot of issues as a business to correct if they want to stay afloat and if we're being perfectly honest here... I'd rather a return to FuncoLand than another few years of being chased around a sales floor by a pressed employee trying to meet their daily quota 

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General / Re: December 2021 - Recently Added to Collection/Recently Purchased

« on: December 29, 2021, 08:39:32 am »

Christmas money hopefully well spent.

Just pre-ordered this Evercade Vs. bundle along with a handful of games (Technos Cartridge Collection, Atari Lynx Collection 1 & 2, and the Renovation Collection). I've heard good things about it from reviewers.

I'm actually mega curious about this, think you could share your opinion on it once you've had hands on time? I'd love a personal non-promoted opinion as I've been looking at these myself!

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General / Re: Video Game New Years Resolutions 2022

« on: December 24, 2021, 10:42:31 pm »

Well, it's been a heck of a year for us all in so many ways, so I'm honestly just glad to be a part of the community! But my gaming new years resolution's are pretty simple;

-Pay attention to any games getting CE's ahead of time so as to avoid the viciousness of third party resellers (Scalpers)
-Diving into & streaming my backlog
-Staying away from casual trips to eBay
-Finding more local multiplayer/couch co-op games to play with my wives instead of raging out in online ranked modes
-Focusing on disc based media instead of diverting to cartridge cardboard boxed games bc WOW are they expensive, goddamn

Hoping everyone here has a great holiday season & get some of the goddies they have on their wishlist!

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General / Re: December 2021 - Recently Added to Collection/Recently Purchased

« on: December 12, 2021, 11:32:24 pm »

Actually made a BOAT load of grabs this last month, the most notable of which were;

-Tales of Symphonia JPN Gamecube (Boxed w/ Xeno mod)
-Sonic CD CIB
-Travis Strikes Again - No More Heroes Pix-n-Love Signature edition
-Shin Megami Tensei V Fall of Man Premium
-Metal Max 2 Reloaded Limited Edition
-Metal Max 3 - Limited Edition
-Metal Max 4 Moonlight Diva Collectors Edition

And a minty working Genesis CDX!

I've been buying loose ends to my collection & doing that thing where you search for someone selling something you need only to stumble into a rabbit hole of "What the hell is this?? Why didn't I know about this??" items in the related? You guys know the struggle. Nonetheless, it's been a good year for collecting despite the price hurdles. I've got my eyes set on a bunch of things & I'm expecting at least 25-30 more packages in the mail still! I really hope you guys are having the same luck filling in any gaps in your walls, too!

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General / Re: Video Game Inspired Baby Names, Would you consider it as a parent?

« on: October 30, 2021, 02:58:40 am »

My son's named after a character from the Final Fantasy 4 lore. I've wanted to be a father more than anything ever my whole life, and I think we did good with his name.
Though.. I do like the idea of a NAME and not a BRAND. That's, well...
Ridiculous, you know?

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General / Re: The itch to collect never ends!

« on: July 24, 2021, 02:56:17 pm »

I suppose we all have this in common. I also collect TMG cards, and recently I've been collecting records of my favorite albums/artists as well as movies of good films that aren't consistently available on streaming services. I've even been getting Bishoujou statues of horror icons (much to my partners' dismay) It's become something that's snowballing but does take pauses. My collection personally has been of titles/genre's I love personally, as well as oddball/bad games I think would be funny to stream. It's always evolving in small ways, but it truly never ends. I agree with emperordragon that Manga's a great hobby to get into now; I've resurged with that a lot too and I've been buying a lot of the recently released Junji Ito books, as well as the big volumes of Shaman King. I'm on the hunt for a complete Love Hina collection! All in all, I think it's pretty amazing that, though our tastes are so varying and our age groups are so diverse, we all have so many mutual hobbies. Kinda makes this place a nice comfort zone!

Also, if I EVER make the money for it best bbelieveI'm getting arcade ccabinets Segasonic the hedgehog is a NIGHTMARE to emulate, and I'd like to do my III'rd Striking the way it was meant to be done; shoulder to shoulder!

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General / The itch to collect never ends!

« on: July 23, 2021, 02:52:28 pm »

Hey all. Been a while! I've been racking up titles left and right and lately it's been dawning on me that I have a very persistent habit. I get a little comfortable with where my collection is and then things pop up out of the woodworks and my collectors itch flares up like a bad rash! I've never been too into Xbox 360 games but I remembered there's a good handful of Atlus 360 exclusive RPGs that are a bit up there in price. Operation Darkness showed up on a local shop and got snagged before I could bag it and now I'm like a mad boar searching high and low to score my own! In the midst of that, I remembered a bunch of watchlist games I had pertaining to an anime series I loved as a teen and I'm scouting those now, too!

Anyone else have these sudden waves of collector-mania? What's your experience been like? What random games if any have you had your eyes on?
 I'm curious to know how mild/persistent my collectors mania is!

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General / Re: What is the most regretful thing in your collection?

« on: February 11, 2021, 02:57:15 am »

Cyberpunk 2077 Collectors Edition.

I'll die with a scowl because of it.

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General / Re: What are your highlights buying stuff from online store this 2020?

« on: December 30, 2020, 09:49:23 am »

This year has been a real blockbuster one for my collection. I'll start with the two biggest ones, which my S/O's got me each respectively and those being;

-Sealed FFIV Collectors Edition Gameboy Micro
-Sealed FFIV Advance (US)
-Sealed The World Ends With You (It's A Wonderful Life) edition DS Lite
-Sealed World Ends With You DS/Switch

These two games are very important pieces of my life, and did a lot to change my perspective on life and people, odd as it may seem to say so owning these things really meant beyond words to me.

As far as things I've added to my collection this year that really stand out,

-Ghost of Tsushima CE
-Sekiro CE
-Blasphemous CE
-Streets of Rage 4 CE
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle US release/Japanese CE
-Metal Max Returns US Patched Repro [ PLEASE PLAY METAL MAX ]
-Metal Max Xeno/Xeno Reborn CE's Respectively
(Not related to video games but I also got the Secret Lair MTG x The Walking Dead cards and ohmahghad)

Big Disappointments this year so far are just The PS5 in general and the CE for CyberJunk1277. The PS5 feels like a let down and I've since built a PC now it just looks like a house decoration.

Today is also my first year on VGC! So I'm happy to be a part of this lil community and feel a part of something so well made and enjoyable.

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Classic Video Games / Re: Boxes for loose games/replacement boxes/cases

« on: December 15, 2020, 07:10:39 pm »

I'm one of the fellow "No case, no point" folks here but before I took this collections seriously I did buy some really great games disc only. Mostly PS2 games but unfortunately, rare ones. I'm talkin Chulip, Fight for New York, and Gradius V. Realistically, it's easy to fix if it's a PS3 game or something cheap. But when you're missing the manual for a game that's expensive it's pretty hard to justify buying what you already own for the books you never read but it's also irritating to do without. At least for me.

My compromise was to make my own case art. There's a really amazing website that has basically as many boxarts as you could hope for (they also allow submissions) and the files are sized for the correct dimensions of a PS2 case. I took these images in a thumbstick and got them printed with Photo-gloss paper (what PS2 box art essentially is) and printed as close to near perfect copies and they did the trick. This helped me a lot when the only affordable Wild Arms Alter Code I could find had so much water damage I couldn't stand to look at it. Now it looks pretty decent! There's plenty of options. But I know this much; no good disc should ever be left behind!

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Modern Video Games / Re: Super Smash Bros

« on: December 11, 2020, 11:58:02 pm »

*Stereotypically unpopular opinion alert*


I absolutely cannot stand FF7 and only own the games because my SO's like them. But me personally, I can't stand the game or it's characters and I see Sephiroth as an utterly wasted slot especially if it's with the intentions of having a FF character. Could've done far better. As for villains,

Majora's masked deku kid
Shadow
Metal Sonic
Eggman
Mr. L
Bald Bull
King Hippo
Darkrai
Gengar
Sagat
Dracula
Bass
Sho Minamoto

All viable options. Would've been better than swordy mc shirtless. I won't ramble off any more than this

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General / Favorite Soundtracks, New & Old! Let's hear 'em!

« on: December 08, 2020, 01:54:32 am »

A question done to death a thousand times over but what the hell, right? What's your favorite oldies and new jams for games?

As far as old games, Streets of rage 1-3 (And 4 for new bc hot damn) are easy picks. I also enjoy the OST to Lack of Love on the Dreamcast, and The NA version of the Sonic CD Ost

As far as new stuff goes, Hotline Miami and Mother Russia Bleeds have had me thrashing Honorary mentions to Sleeping Dogs for having a collectively diverse OST of amazing talented artists.

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General / Re: Has Anyone Heard Of (Disc Reply) Brick and Motor Stores?

« on: December 07, 2020, 09:54:33 pm »

I haven't. It's probably hard territory here in PA tho. Especially in my city since there are several B&M shops mainly Classic Game Junkie. But I am interested in the idea of a chain.. it sounds shocking to me for some reason. I guess after watching Not For Resale I feel like the idea of one store seems hard enough. Are they anything like CEX in terms of sales and inventory? Sounds like a place to hit up when I visit Michigan again soon.