2023 HAUL VER 11.1
(note: images are hosted via AUKN for the meantime)
We are now back to the weekend batches because of the days getting darker. Now I do have some time off here and there so you may expect a haul version update before the weekend but that depends on what items arrive.
Also a mini-update regarding the final Rightstuf haul batches, they made progress finally. One has cleared customs and the other is being processed for international shipping. If we're lucky both could arrive next week but we'll see how it goes.
First up are the items that have arrived on Wednesday. A while ago I made an order for the latest batch of 88 Films titles but rather than ordering directly through their official store I decided to go for Terracotta because of pricing. Now these were originally supposed to have arrived in October but one of them had a release date shift to early November so what we got in the end was an early dispatch of sorts.
Here we have Robert Clouse's 1980 film
Battle Creek Brawl (殺手壕), also known as The Big Brawl, which was one of the first Jackie Chan titles that the distributor released back in 2019 but those were before the time that the disc authoring was taken more seriously. So what we have here is not only a re-release in a deluxe collector's edition packaging but it's also using a 2K restoration so it'll look better than before. This release is also in English as it was one of Jackie Chan's attempts to market towards the international audience whilst working with Golden Harvest.
Also arrived is Wong Jing's 1986 film
Magic Crystal (魔翡翠), which is another sci-fi fantasy Hong Kong flick which stars a variety of actors including Andy Lau and Cynthia Rothrock, both in one of their earliest roles in their acting career which is really interesting.
And last but not least we have Gordon Chan's 2003 film
The Medallion (飛龍再生/免死金牌), and it's another one of Jackie Chan's English speaking roles. Now this one is notable on the licensing side of things because similarly with
Snake in the Eagle Shadow, this one will only be available for a short time period of around a few more months, so if you are interested in picking this one up I strongly suggest you buy it sooner to play it safe.
Next we have another batch of PlayStation 5 games which I ordered from The Game Collection last Monday. This is split into two orders because TGC weren't able to deliver one of them on Day 1 but I wasn't too fussed about that.
We'll start off with the two Bandai Namco remasters that were on a half-term sale offer so I got them both for about £26 overall. First we have
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R, a remaster of the rather rare 2013 PlayStation 3 game that was pretty good for what it does for a fighting title. The characters featured cover Parts 1-7 and the main lead of Part 8, but this remaster also includes additional characters on disc and via DLC to expand the roster which is a nice addition.
Next we have
Pac-Man World Re-Pac, a remaster/remake of the classic 1999 PlayStation game developed by Namco's North American team (i.e. a Western developer handling a Japanese IP). This is a game that has had my interest for a very long time now and it's cool to see it resurface in the same fashion that
Klonoa had with 4K 60fps performance.
The next day we have
Star Ocean: The Second Story R, a remake of the 1998 PlayStation game by tri-Ace and Enix. This game was remade on PSP as Second Evolution and then remastered on PlayStation 4 as Second Evolution R, but that was never released outside Japan, so instead of us getting the PSP remaster like First Departure, Square Enix decided to instead utilise HD-2D and remake the original PS1 version.
What's interesting about this remake is that you do have the option to switch between audio and art styles between the PS1 original, PSP Second Evolution and Second Story R versions. This game was also on offer on TGC as part of the £10 Reward Points.
And also arriving yesterday is the latest Bitmap Books book called
From Ants to Zombies: Six Decades of Video Game Horror which compiles various games centred around horror or has themes of scariness throughout video game history. It's a pretty great book as it delves into different types whether its space, bugs, gothic or retro focused.
The book does include games that while horror isn't the genre focus it does have a theme, like Darkstalkers and Ghouls n Goblins, but it does have the big ones like Biohazard, D, Dino Crisis, DOOM 3, Enemy Zero, Fatal Frame, House of the Dead, Prey (reboot), Silent Hill, White Day and more. Five Nights is not included and neither are any of the YouTube horror games from what I have noticed.
