Collector's delight: Fate is on my side

Indeed, it is—courtesy of Play-Asia and of my lightning fast change of heart. I still have trouble believing that I managed to snatch that much-coveted Special, to be honest. But enough self-patting on the back; we're not here to dwell on how lucky I am, but rather to discover that gorgeous all-included special edition of Fire Emblem Fates.

As you may have noticed, this is the Australian PAL edition. From what I've seen—or not seen in that case—the European edition of that Special is excruciatingly rare and nearly impossible to find, with only a couple of selected retailers stocking the thing and very little possibility to import it if you're not lucky enough to live in a country that hosts such retailers.

Here's the full package in all its glory:

The box contains a single cartridge with all three games safely tucked on it, yet unfortunately no booklet. I'm sad, I really am. The poster sports the exact same picture that's displayed on the box cover; as for the "steelbook", as it was called in the package's description, it is actually an extra metal case that can host the cartridge just as readily as its more mundane plastic counterpart. I still can't really fathom what's the point of including an extra case, but said case is undeniably pretty:

Last but not least comes the 74-pages artbook, which turned out to be quite a nice surprise. It features a nice variety of illustrations sporting various graphical styles as well as unexpected inclusions such as an illustrated chronology of the series or a gallery of pixelated sprites. I didn't expect much out of that art book in the first place, but it ended up delighting me in earnest and is very much a valuable addition to that special edition.

After having gazed amorously at that Special and taken pictures of it for this post, I'm going to indulge in something quite unusual for me: instead of squirreling that game away in my collection vault, I'm going to play it immediately. That will make it my first ever Fire Emblem game, and I can't wait to discover both the series and Fates. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!