What did you RECEIVE today? PHOTOS EDITION!

New arrivals over the past few days/week.

Planetes 1 & 2 from Blackwell's arrived today.

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Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth (Hardback) from Books etc. arrived today.

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Over the past few weeks or so I've had the History of Middle-Earth paperbacks arrive slowly (top shelf) - the final book arriving yesterday. I also finished off collecting the illustrated hardbacks of Tolkien's legendarium (lower shelf).

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Fulfilling a childhood dream of having a nice set of Tolkien's main works. Just a few more art books and biographies to arrive, and then I think I'll be done adding to this collection, I promise.
 
2024 HAUL - FEBRUARY CHAPTER: BATCH #3

Just two games for this batch as there's a lot of items arriving much later in the month.

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So last month a whole bunch of American fans noticed a select number of Nintendo first-party games were delisted or out of stock entirely, suggesting the Nintendo Selects budget label is making a return. Granted we have no clue if that will even happen so I wanted to ensure I have those original copies sorted as soon as possible. Last month I picked up four games that were among the ones listed and today we have another one.

Yoshi's Crafted World is a platformer that has honestly caught my eye ever since it was first revealed. Looked like a good time to check out and the last time I played a Yoshi game was probably Yoshi's Island DS over a decade ago. Now while the US are panicking about their stock, the UK/Europe side of things are mostly fine but both Paper Mario: The Origami King and Yoshi's Crafted World are both very limited in terms of availability and has been like this for about almost half a year. Retailers don't have them so it's down to the second market, so I paid retail price for a used copy though it's in pretty good condition. I did find a copy at CeX when I went into town but the condition was not as good and the price was £42 which is more than what I paid here.

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The second instalment in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy is almost here but I have yet to order it and on top of that, I also wanted to revisit the first game again because it's been almost four years since I had played the original PS4 version and there's added content exclusive to the PS5 remaster.

So with that said, I ordered and received Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. To recap, this remake adapts the first disc of the original PlayStation version and expands it a lot with new content, stories and much more. I probably will start over the game from scratch than use the trophy/save transfer idea to be honest.
 
Guaranteed Capelight will now finally announce a UK release for these but German reversible cover FTW!
Both also seem to just be straight clones of the US release (but Region B) as they include the dub & sub 🤷‍♂️
Now I just need the 1st film!!
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2024 HAUL - FEBRUARY CHAPTER: BATCH #4

As I've been working the past weekend there were a few more packages that had arrived at the end of the week. So here's a recap of what those were!


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Around late January, retailer VideoGamesPlus revealed another batch of new stock from Limited Run Games which included Cursed to Golf and Persona 3 Portable. I had to wait patiently for payday before placing the order but they are both still in stock at the time of this post which is good.

Cursed to Golf looked like an intriguing golf roguelike game and while it is available on multiple platforms, Switch felt like the way to go for its style. As for Persona 3 Portable, I have played the FES version so I had wanted to own a physical version for one of the original versions. P3P is beloved by many so it's great to see a physical version made available once again.

VGP will have more new stock in March for titles like Castlevania Advance Collection, Konami Arcade Collection, Persona 4 Golden, Radiant Silvergun and Telenet Shooting Collection for those who missed out on the LRG pre-order window.

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In my earlier haul post I mentioned that I had picked up Yoshi's Crafted World. To recap, that was one of two Nintendo first-party games that were much harder to find in Europe and the other was Paper Mario: The Origami King which I found on eBay. Surprisingly the prices were cheaper than the former so I figured I'll get it now whilst I found it fairly affordable.

In terms of my experience with the franchise, I've finished the original on Nintendo Wii and the platformer type Super Paper Mario also on Wii, but I never played any of the others (so seeing Nintendo remaster the Gamecube game Thousand Year Door is great). I heard the reception for the games post-Wii were not particularly great but some have said the Switch one is better than the Wii U and 3DS ones.

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Shoutout to @Birdie Num Num for recommending Scifier, as I received the first six manga volumes for The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You. It feels surreal to find another retailer that has manga available as there's a lot of Seven Seas manga volumes that I want to pickup but the prices just aren't there. Blackwells has been good but Scifier had each of these for solid prices, and there was a 10% discount code to help with the £1.99 per item cost.

It was also packaged really well with a big box that had a lot of bubble wrap, so while each volume wasn't sealed there were no damages or dents from what I can see which is a good first impression.
 
NormanicGrav said:
Shoutout to @Birdie Num Num for recommending Scifier
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I'm sure you've noticed, but for anyone else who isn't familiar, you also get reward points for your purchases (much like The Game Collection) that can be used to redeem 'in-store' credit.

They used to give 5 points for every £1 spent, but they lowered it to 3 points recently. 200 points is £2, 400 is £4, 600 is £6 and so on.

I believe they started up some time in 2023 and are an offshoot of 'Booksplease' for anyone who is familiar with them. As you mentioned they package really well, lots of bubblewrap and whatnot + free bookmarks! They're the only book retailer/site I can rely on not to just stick their books in a cardboard envelope and shove it in the post. I also believe that if you're in the UK, it's a £1.99 flat shipping rate for any amount of books.

I've had about a 90% positive experience with them - there's been a few books that have arrived a bit battered but they're more than happy to replace them if you contact their customer service which is quite quick to respond. They're dispatch times can be a little long if you're used to Amazon Prime delivery as not all stock is seemingly held on site and so they order from the publishers/suppliers in a lot of cases, but other than that they're great for anything manga related as well as fantasy, sci-fi, comics, etc.
 
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Got this from CeX's online store, took two weeks to arrive though from dispatch and arrived by special delivery on the last day before I could request a refund so not sure what happened there.

At the time of order they only had one copy left and this is quite hard to find now for a decent price it seems, got season one a while back but was waiting to get the second season before watching it.

Birdy the Mighty: Decode (Season 2) (DVD)

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Lucky_Deity said:
Got this from CeX's online store, took two weeks to arrive though from dispatch and arrived by special delivery on the last day before I could request a refund so not sure what happened there.

At the time of order they only had one copy left and this is quite hard to find now for a decent price it seems, got season one a while back but was waiting to get the second season before watching it.

Birdy the Mighty: Decode (Season 2) (DVD)

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I love this series, one of my favourites! Hope you enjoy it! :)
 
Lucky_Deity said:
Don't know much about the series except I've heard the name over the years and that she is some type of superhero / super sentai inspired character?

The style is what stuck out the most to me.
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It's an engaging sort-of-body-swap anime and handles it's themes really well such as the very human pain and cost of war and terrorism, it also balances that really well with the "smaller" interpersonal things of everyday human love and connection.

Here's a trailer for the series that I really love, I'm not really a super-sentai person but I adored it and I still wish they'd made the full 52-episode production run they had planned!

 
RadFemHedonist said:
It's an engaging sort-of-body-swap anime and handles it's themes really well such as the very human pain and cost of war and terrorism, it also balances that really well with the "smaller" interpersonal things of everyday human love and connection.

Here's a trailer for the series that I really love, I'm not really a super-sentai person but I adored it and I still wish they'd made the full 52-episode production run they had planned!

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Aah, okay, sounds intriguing for sure, think I'll defo enjoy it!
 
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