Collector's delight: Latest catch

A lot of special editions of high-profile Vita and 3ds games have been released lately and just as many are slated for release in the next months—to my utter delight. I have a couple of these appetizing packs pre-ordered already; but for now, let's concentrate on the ones that already graced my letterbox. Without further ado, here's my latest collection catch!

Let's start with the "Lionheart Edition" of Trails of Cold Steel. This special edition comes with a very reasonable price tag, and there's a reason for it: it is actually quite lacklustre. The case could have been beautiful, had it not been marred by a bunch of garish logos, and the Erebonian Empire pin is just a bauble that could as well not have been there for all the value it adds to this special edition. I was expecting the 140-pages artbook to be a work of art similar to the one included in the Silver Edition of Ys: Memories of Celceta, with strategies and a full description of the game world included. We're talking about the same developer and same publisher in both cases, so there were good reasons to hope, right? Alas, my hopes were dashed by the actual content of Trails on Cold Steel's artbook. That deceptively thick tome is all fluff and contains nothing more than mundane descriptions of the characters along with a few pages of concept art and tons of nondescript illustrations that bring strictly nothing to the gaming experience per se. In a nutshell, I'm disappointed, and I think Nihon Falcom and XSeed could have done better.

Then comes the special edition I couldn't have done without for the life of me, namely the one and only physical release of Atelier Escha and Logy Plus on Western shores. Despite having been released hardly ten days ago, this special edition is already quite hard to find and the prices will probably skyrocket before long, so I'm glad I managed to secure a copy on time. Collectors must be early birds to get their paws on coveted games, indeed! Putting aside the fact that this special edition is made valuable by the fact that it is the sole physical edition of the game available in the West, there is nothing too extraordinary to be found in this lovely paper box starring the titular characters. It's your run-of-the-mill special edition with soundtrack, poster and a small 38-pages artbook that certainly didn't require hours of work.

One last paragraph for my very first Japanese Vita game, the roguelike Omega Labyrinth. I decided not to wait for an hypothetical Western release, especially since that release may never happen given the risqué content of the game, and took instead my first steps into the vast world of Japanese Vita games. And blimey, didn't I discover a shocking truth whilst doing so: Japanese Vita games are insanely expensive. All the more so if they are loaded with fan-service. My copy of Omega Labyrinth cost me a whopping $60, and many Japanese Vita games boast similar prices. And unfortunately, there's no hope of witnessing a price drop once the Vita's tenure is over; if anything, it would probably be the opposite. Not that it matters, mind you: I was surprised by these steep prices, but they certainly won't stop me from purchasing more Japanese Vita games. There are so many inviting Japanese exclusives that it would be a shame not to get my collector's paws on them, really.

That's all for this post, fellow gamers; I'll see you soon with more mouth-watering special editions. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!