2024 HAUL - JULY CHAPTER: BATCH #5
A whole bunch of items this week as we near the end of the month. My final haul for July is expected to be the Sentai Summer Sale haul (which I did delay its arrival expecting to consolidate it with another order but I changed my mind and shipped it out on its own).
Arrived last Monday. Since I have decided to move the visual novel genre over to the Nintendo Switch that does mean I need to make sure I have picked up specific titles that are available on the platform before the prices go up in value. One of those is a recent double pack collection called
Chaos;Double Pack featuring
Chaos;Head Noah and
Chaos;Child. This was published by Numskull Games and Spike Chunsoft in the west.
Now its worth noting Chaos;Child used the same translation as the one used for the PS4 & Vita release by PQube, which hasn't been well-received in terms of accuracy. In addition, Chaos;Head Noah is not uncut and that's because of the version used in Japan that they kept re-using for other platforms since (Xbox 360 & Vita versions are uncut but never released outside Japan), and what this means is specific key scenes were removed in one of the routes that is considered integral for the whole story. PC users have made mods to bring those scenes back.
On a positive note, I do like the steelbook design and its good to have the choice to own a regular Switch case and the steelbook case.
Arrived last Tuesday. This is probably one of the biggest surprising pickups of the year as I actually didn't think I would be able to get my hands on this. This is Stanley Tong's 1992 film
Police Story 3: Supercop (è¦å¯Ÿæ•…事3超級è¦å¯Ÿ), the third film in the Police Story franchise starring Jackie Chan. I own the Eureka Entertainment trilogy box set which included the first two films, but 88 Films had the US & Canadian rights for the third film and produced their own 4K limited edition box set.
In terms of on-disc content, it's almost identical but we do have a different 4K restoration by Fidelity in Motion and the Export Cut presented in 4K (compared to 1080p on the Eureka release). What also made me want to own this was the physical packaging because 88 Films does a great job with these releases and Eureka's was pretty lacking (they did have last minute issues so reversible special artwork was missing, and the booklet is dedicated to the trilogy as a whole).
Now I don't intend on getting every 88 USA release (because the UK versions for the other titles were very good and pretty much identical for disc content), but I do want to get their Project A 4K release which is out later this year.
Arrived last Wednesday. Keeping the Limited Run Games physical release bandwagon going, Video Games Plus finally had in stock
Quake II and I ordered it for the Nintendo Switch. I have already played this game twice (first from the Xbox 360 HD remaster and the second on PlayStation 5 4K remaster) but I wanted to own it on Switch for the platform and to be alongside the DOOM collection and other Nightdive Studio remasters.
Arrived last Thursday. Also picked up from the visual novel side of things is the latest Science Adventure title in the franchise which was in development hell for a while called
Anonymous;Code, published by Numskull Games and Spike Chunsoft for the west. The reviews for the game seemed promising so I'm intrigued to check this one out but it'll be once I've read through the Chaos games and Robotics games first.
After watching Deadpool & Wolverine (which I really enjoyed), I went to town and visited the local CeX to see if they had two specific games that I was interested in owning, and I found them alongside two others that I also decided to pick up.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is another instalment in the long-running franchise but was the last one I needed for the PS3 since I already own the Trilogy HD remastered collection and the reboot game. It was available for £3 which is a solid bargain compared to eBay prices that average at £5-8.
Spec-Ops: The Line is pretty much a cult classic third-persons shooter from the PS360 era for its noteworthy storyline but ever since the game was delisted from the digital storefronts the value of the physical version went up a lot. I picked it up for £20 which is cheaper than the £25+ range it currently goes for on eBay. I do own the Steam version (thanks to the free game offer the publisher did years back) but I wanted to play it on consoles.
I also picked up
MotorStorm for £2 which includes the promo booklet that goes over PSN which was neat, and
Tekken 6 for £6 because I was interested to see how the mainline Tekken games play since I only have the first Tag Tournament game via the HD remaster.
I almost bought
The Simpsons Game which was available for £20 but the condition of the game case wasn't great for the price. I did check the local Sore Thumbs Retro games store but they didn't have some PS3 games I was also interested in getting.
