Update on CK’s Anime & PSP Games Site

If you go back to my old posts (& I mean WAY back), I had written about how I would find a new home for my original site CK’s Anime & PSP Games site.  If you are new here or don’t want to look up some history, here’s the gist of it.  Basically, my old/original site keeps getting taken down due to free web hostings going down or out of business.  As a result, I need to keep finding a new home for the place & reuploading my pages while relearning on how to use certain programs/apps to do it.

After many months (or years to be precise), I decided to give up & turn it into a blog site instead.  Finding a new free web hosting site & relearning the process of using it is too much time & hassle.  Although the main goal of doing the site originally was to learn about making websites, the standards & tools to make sites evolved so fast that it became too complicated for my small brain to keep up.  Once I kind of got the hang of using 1 tool, it becomes obsolete.  When I try to learn the new tool, another one pops up.  Plus, I got stacks of CDs that haven’t been opened yet.

On my main site, I got a section called CD Scans where I had scans of the CDs/DVDs cover, booklet, & inserts.  To make the scans look good, I have all these CDs (& probably more laying around somewhere else) unopened for a long time.  Which leads to another hit for me: the loss of a scanner.  Because I got an old all in one printer & Mac, I couldn’t use the machine anymore cause it wasn’t supported with the newer OS.  Buying a new scanner just to scan CD stuff is just a waste of money & I’m not making money doing these sites.

Basically, it’s just too much work to start again & lose it later on.  I should just cut my loss & make it a blog instead which is pretty much what the internet runs on now.  The contents will be transferred to the blog & reformatted to fit the blog format.  It will not be on this blog as I will make another one just for it.  I want to keep the 2 different & adding everything here will fill too much space.  I will put more information about it on that blog later on the future & mention the link to it in the future.

May 13, 2024’s Haul Has A Bit Of Korean In Them (NOA NO.A & Stellar Blade)

It has been a long time since I ordered something from YesAsia. It was one of my very first websites to order something anime or Japanese related, but I rarely go to it now due to a lot of options being available. However, I went to this website to preorder a game, but I had to add something on the side to get that free shipping offer.

This is the item that I added to get that free shipping. This is NOA’s NO.A (read number A). I didn’t realized that NOA released a CD; his first album to be more precise. When I saw that he had a second album coming soon, I was surprised. This album has some songs that I know of, but it didn’t have one track that I liked for some reason. The album has his other older Japanese tracks, but that one track isn’t there for some reason.

This is the main item that I wanted. This is the PS5 game Stellar Blade by SHIFT UP. It also comes with a DLC code of outfits & accessories. This is the Japanese version. Why did I go for this one instead of the North American version? Two reasons. One, it is actually cheaper due to the weak yen. But it wasn’t when you factor in that “free shipping” offer as it pretty much come close to the retail price here without the taxes. Two, it is (in my opinion) the “complete” version as it has Japanese voiceovers whereas the other versions don’t have it.

Another interesting thing about this version is that its supposedly can play any save file from any version. Other versions cannot do this. Also, this is probably “uncensored” before the day one patch came & censored things. Although there is a lot o bad press about it, there is also problems with its story & characters which is a common thing from a lot of reviews & opinions I’ve seen. I’m actually not too surprised about it since I’ve played all of SHIFT UP games. I don’t mean only Nikke, but also their first game which is now gone, Destiny Child.

If you have played those games, you will understand that SHIFT UP stories are pretty deep cause their stretch it out. Destiny Child was stretched so far that it didn’t seem it would end. It became so long that I almost lost interest in knowing what’s going on. There are good parts in it, but it took too long to get to them. Nikke seems to have corrected this problem by making it more entertaining, but it still feels long winded at times. Stellar Blade was probably going to be like that, but they probably cut out a lot of things to make it short. This probably lead to the story being nonsense or hard to follow.

That should be all. I don’t see myself getting something in the near future. If so, it will be much later.

March 14 2024’s Haul Is A Lesson I Should Learn Not To Do Again! (Adidas Fear of God Athletics 1 Basketball)

So, I get an email & notification on my phone from Adidas. Fear of God drop now on. I’m at work with a lot of free time on my hands due to the nature & situation of the business. I open the notification & see that the Fear of God Athletics 1 Basketball shoe is the drop & is happening now. It’s not a draw for a future date or time. It’s a drop that happened 2 hours ago.

Forgetting that I heard about this a few days ago & the clay colourway doesn’t look bad, I was curious. After seeing that the first colourway drop sold out fast for some reason even though it was expensive & a lot of people were complaining about it, I really wanted to know how the shoe was selling this time. After looking at reviews & opinions about the shoe months ago, I still have some interest in it as there are a lot of mixed reviews on it. Mostly negative ones though.

When I went further into the ordering process, I saw my recommended size available. At that time, my brain was thinking “future” drop, not “now” drop. I picked my size, fill out the necessary info, & submit. I then get instructed to keep my app open to wait for the results. Not even 10 seconds, I get notifications that I won from the app & email. At that moment, I knew I screwed up. If you win, you cannot back out. I did get some server issues after submitting, but I didn’t think I would win.

Next came the waiting. It took a long time to get here as it got delayed along the way. When it finally arrived at my door, I didn’t get a doorbell ring or notifications on my phone. I only knew they arrived when I manually did a package tracking 2 hours later.

Again, these are the adidas X Fear of God Athletics 1 Basketball shoe in the clay colourway. I believe this is considered the flagship shoe for the Fear of God Athletics lineup. The unboxing experience was indeed insane as I’ve seen in unboxing videos. But I was a bit surprised that the shoe was a bit chunky. I was expecting it to be on the slim side since it is recommended to go half a size up as they are narrow. I haven’t wore them yet, but I will in the future. But basketball shoes are usually on the chunky side. Very rare you see slim basketball shoes as those won’t provide much support.

Anyways, I don’t think I have anything else coming down the pipeline for awhile. But I have been wrong at times.

Persona 3 Reload Getting Expansion Pack Which Includes Episode Aigis & Official Soundtrack Coming In April 24, 2024

Yesterday (March 5), Altus dropped a trailer for Persona 3 Reload called “The Promise”. The trailer was a remake of the original Persona 3 announcement trailer. Today (March 6) during the XBox Developer Showcase, Altus drops another trailer for an expansion pass. The expansion pass has 3 waves. The first 2 waves are mainly BGMs from Persona 4 & 5. Wave 2 has DLC costumes. But wave 3 or the final wave is DLC for Episode Aigis or The Answer as it was known in the US. The Answer was the additional content from the original PS2 Persona 3 FES.

It was said by Atlus before P3R was released that they didn’t want to include Episode Aigis & what we got is the only version. But a bunch of data miners found evidence of Episode Aigis in the data files being a future DLC before the announcement. Episode Aigis is scheduled to be released in September 2024. The March dates & September drop is a play on the game’s lore. Hence, the timed (& early) announcements. Episode Aigis is said to keep the original story, but with the gameplay being enhanced & fine tuned.

Aside from those announcements, Atlus in Japan announced the Persona 3 Reload Original Soundtrack.

Apparently, this OST is not the same as the one included in any of the limited editions of the game as it contains some unreleased tracks such as as Reload mix version of Burn My Dread. This version of the OST has 2 CDs which is the same as the game LE versions have. There could be some tracks removed from the LE versions & replaced or the 2 CDs had more space in them to include more tracks. Releasing on April 24, 2024, I will most likely preorder it soon.

How do I feel about this? I think Episode Aigis should be re-written a bit as the original story kind of killed the original P3 ending’s feel. But I understand it makes the P3 series complete as the final chapter. But I do hope the gameplay part isn’t hard locked in as a single track path. It was more worse than climbing Tartarus. As for the OST, I did expect that the properly OST would be sold separately like this. So I ain’t mad.

Like A Leap Year, February 29, 2024’s Haul Is A Leap Of Hype (Final Fantasy VII Rebirth)

After getting part 1 at a very good price at the time, I was waiting to see if I could get another chance with part 2. But it never happened. Looking for another place to get a good deal, I realized that I had a gift card from Best Buy that had been sitting on my computer for who knows how many years. Using it, I preordered it & came in today.

It’s Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. No special, deluxe or limited edition. Just the regular edition. The deluxe edition wasn’t appealling to me & I didn’t get that edition for FFVII Remake as well. Interesting enough, I didn’t know that Best Buy had a bonus for the game as I rarely shop there now these days.

A special Steelbook case was included & is different from the deluxe edition’s. If I remember correctly, the Steelbook for that one is the same as the regular edition’s cover. The Best Buy exclusive is pretty much the same, expect you have Tifa & Aerith instead of Cloud & Zack.

I’m currently working on Persona 3 Reload at the moment & I’ve pretty much gotten out of the tutorial section. I don’t have a lot of gaming time so I can’t prowl though RPGs like it’s nothing. So getting to Rebirth is going to be aware unless I rotate between games from time to time.

Anyways, this is the last haul for the month. Anything coming soon? To be honest, I have no idea.

PS5 Unboxing: Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition

We will be looking at unboxing Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition. This is the PS5 version, but I assume it’s the same for all other console versions.

The cover image of this LE version is the exact same as the regular edition. Personally for me, this is a letdown as it doesn’t offer any difference which would make this unique from the regular edition. In fact, it’s more like a straight up copy of the image but more to scale. It doesn’t have any label or text of “Aigis Edition” on the front.

This is the back side of the box. Or more accurately, the back side of the sleeve cover. It shows what’s inside the box which we will get to in a moment. We will be seeing the artbook, the Aigis figurine, the soundtrack, & the DLC code card. Not in that order though. It will be based on what we will see first upon unboxing.

Removing the outer sleeve, you get this collector’s box. It features an image of Aigis since this is the “Aigis Edition”. I heard that the Japanese LE version has protagonist on the cover instead. Reason is that it doesn’t have the Aigis figurine, It has a replica of the SEES armband. But I’m not sure if the protagonist image is for the collector box or the outer sleeve as I haven’t seen the actual product.

The box is a cardboard box with heavy materials used. It has some glittering effects on the box. Probably to get that glass image effect going.

The whole box has images all around. Even the bottom of the box has an image as shown here. Listing the names of the SEES members, you can also see their face shots inside the same Aigis image but as a silhouette. I really like this image.

Removing the cover, you see the game. Inside the game case, you get the Persona 4 Golden BGM DLC code if you get the first release batch. As a side note, the collector’s box continues to have images on the side as you can see the SEES members in white.

Under the game is the DLC card. It’s mainly a costume pack from Persona 4 & Persona 5.

Under the DLC card is the 2 CD soundtrack. The packaging for this is pretty cheap. It’s just a cardboard sleeve like case. There is a mini booklet inside which contains the lyrics to some of the tracks.

This seems to be the full OST as it contains 60 tracks. The closest I’ve seen for a P3R OST retail version was an Amazon/Ebten version. That has 2 CDs, so I assume the OST included in this Aigis Edition is the same. Just better packaging for the retail version.

Under all that stuff & removing a sleeve, you get to the main event. The Aigis figurine.

This is the back side of the Aigis figurine box. Although it is for the English market, this figurine is available in Japan as a special exclusive through certain retailers. Personally, I really think the figurine is of crane game prize quality. I haven’t opened it yet since I got no shelf space as it is. The Aigis figurine is supposedly 17cm tall with the base. The design is too simple & plain to me.

Hard to get a shot in with the box window, but the face is too plain. The whole thing is not too great overall. I actually don’t like it very much even from the start when it was first shown. It’s disappointing since the whole selling point of this edition is this very figurine. That’s where the heavy price comes from.

That’s Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition. Although I am a P3 nut, this edition was too pricey for my taste. The amount of items included isn’t a lot. The reason for the expensive price point is the Aigis figurine which I didn’t want to get this too much. If the figurine had a better pose or upped the quality a bit, I would see this as a good package. But the OST is what got me. If the price was cheaper, I would have preordered it the second it was available instead of waiting it out.

It’s February 8, 2024 & I Can’t Let Go of 2023 With This Haul! (Perfume Moon LE & Vaundy replica)

I kind of forgot that I had this on the way. I ordered these from CDJapan & it took awhile for them to ship them out as the items were in stock. Usually they are bit faster. Not sure if there was a holiday in Japan that I didn’t know about. Anyways, it’s here.

First up is Perfume’s Moon. This is the limited edition Type A version which means it has a Blu-Ray as the second disc. Although I have been following Perfume for a very long time, I haven’t been up to date with them. In fact, this single is quite old as it was released in September 2023. Perfume stuff hasn’t been selling like crazy when they first came to the scene. So this has been sitting for most shops now.

I don’t know what the single sounds like as I don’t have the same levels of interest for the trio as I had before. I only brought this to not only add to my collection (which is pretty much what it is at this point), but to hit a minimum cap to use a CDJapan coupon. The next item is what I was aiming for.

This is Vaundy’s replica. This is the normal version as I wasn’t able to find the LE version. Although the price difference between the 2 versions isn’t too high, the only difference I noticed was the packaging as it the LE version came in a card sleeve packaging like you get from buying toy action figures from the pegged shelves.

Anyways, this album has 2 CDs as it contains Vaundy’s works from 2020 to 2023. Most of his releases were in digital format which is why there are 2 CDs here. My interest in him started with CHAINSAW BLOOD from the anime CHAINSAW MAN. Most of the tracks from this album is unknown to me. But I got this album mainly for 2 songs as they were only available in digital format before.

More stuff coming this month? Probably not. I think.

It’s February 2, 2024 & This Haul Is A Mass Destruction! (PS5 Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition)

Years in the making & dreaming & now it’s finally here. When Atlus announced Persona 3 Reload, I had to get in on it. Up to the point that I will get the collector’s edition. But I didn’t preorder it right away due to the high price tag. That delay cost me in losing out as preorders were all sold out. It was days later that I found Video Games Plus had another round of preorders opened. From there, I just went for it & finally it’s here. Although I didn’t get it on release day, I got it just after release weekend.

Again, this is the Playstation 5 version of Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition. This LE contains an artbook, 2 CD soundtrack, a DLC voucher code, & Aigis figurine. All in a collector’s box. In all honestly, I’m not too excited for this LE. I didn’t like it when it was first shown what was inside.

I have seen an unboxing video of this LE & my concerns about it were correct. The largest selling point of this LE & its price is the Aigis figurine. When it was first announced & I saw it, it wasn’t appealing. Seeing it on the video solidified my disappointment. It looks like an crane prize figurine that you get from those crane catching machines. I won’t be surprised if it actually is since this game is published Sega & they make game center prize stuff. I have yet open my LE to confirm this in my hands. 

Aside from the figurine, the artbook is a soft covered which is a bit disappointing. I think my PS4 Persona 5 LEs were hardcover artbooks. The OST I think isn’t the full soundtrack. I think it’s a selection of tracks, but I may be wrong. The P3 OST I have is 2 CDs if I remember correctly.

Regardless of the disappointment I have on the LE items, the game will keep me happy since I’m a big P3 fan & the reviews I’ve seen for this game are not too bad.

More stuff coming this month? Maybe.

January 11 2024 Haul Is New Life, New Life (Yukika Time/Lapse)

New year, new haul. For this particular artist, it’s new life.

My preorder from CDJapan arrived today & it nearly got away from me.

This is Yukika’s Time/Lapse. It is labeled a a City Pop Remix album for some reason & I don’t know why. I know her field was city pop, but not sure what the remix part is. Why I said “was”? It’s because Yukika is retired. Being her 3rd album (2nd to a major record label) to my knowledge, she announced this is her last album as she is moving on to married life. Looking at it too closely, this is her last “album”; not last “song” or “single”. So is she going to continue to make music? That’s for her to decide.

Anyways, this CD contains a folded poster, a random postcard (out of 3), & photobook. Although it is listed as an album, it’s more list a single or EP. It has 10 tracks, but 4 of them are instrumental versions. So technically, you can say it has 6 main tracks. Nevertheless, it is what it is & all the best to Yukika.

More stuff coming? Probably not for this month, but next month for sure.

December 7, 2023’s Haul Is A Long Awaited Album (Taeyeon Mini Album Vol. 5 To. X Myself Version)

Although it’s technically not a long awaited song release as Taeyeon has been release digital singles after releasing mini album volume 4, this has been a long awaited album release or some sort. Heard it was delayed a few times due to company management issues, but it’s here nevertheless.

When news of volume 5 was being released with 3 different versions, I didn’t know what to get regardless what the most expensive version was. It was the contents that I was looking for. It took a long time & close to release date to officially see what each version had. I had a tough time deciding, but ended up getting the most expensive version in the end. Once I decided what to get, I made the preorder on CDjapan. Today, it had came.

This is Taeyeon Mini Album Vol. 5 To. X. This is the Myself Version. It contains a photo, a photo card, postcard, & mini poster. All in a hardcover photobook.

Even though this is a mini album with 6 tracks, I feel this is too short. Just a little over 18 minutes in total, the songs seem to be a bit short. I have heard the tracks before getting the album & there are some that I do like. So, don’t get me wrong on it. I just felt that they could have made some of the tracks longer & remove 1 song or take more time on it. I don’t know how the Korean music industry works, but if that’s how they do things, so be it.

I have another preorder set for this month, but I don’t know if I will be able to get it this month. We shall see.

Persona 3 Reload Coming In February 2, 2024

During Gamescom 2023 week, Sega/Atlus showed a new trailer for Persona 3 Reload with a release date. February 2, 2024. Because of the marketing agreement with Microsoft, the trailer only showed the game being available for XBox Series X/S & Windows. As we know, the game will come to Playstation 4 & 5 & Steam as well. To me, the game & character designs are looking good. At the end of the trailer, it showed some different editions of the game that you can purchase. All digital though.

There are 3 digital editions available. Of course, you have the standard edition, then there is the Digital Deluxe edition & finally the Digital Premium edition. The price difference from the standard version is US$10 & US$30 respectfully. The Digital Deluxe includes a digital artbook & digital soundtrack. The Digital Premium includes all that & the P3R DLC pack. The DLC pack contains costume sets, Persona sets, & BGM sets from Persona 4 Golden & Persona 5 Royal.

With a big AAA game, there are physical editions of the game.

Aside from a regular edition, there is a limited or deluxe edition. This edition is called the Aigis Edition (I see that Atlus West wants to keep the original English translation of the name instead of the Japanese name Aegis). It contains the same things as the Digital Premium edition, but in physical forms & not DLC codes (expect for the P3R DLC pack). The number of pages in the physical artbook is unknown, but the soundtrack has 2 discs. It’s unknown if it’s the full OST. But this physical version has a figure of Aigis. All this for US$200 with a fancy collector’s box.

Regardless of which version you get, you will get a preorder bonus which is the P4G BGM set. This bonus is already included in the higher tier editions, so this bonus is only good for the other editions.

I myself will be getting the Aegis Edition once it becomes available in Canada. However at a price tag of CDN$280, I think that is too expensive. The main attraction for this edition really is that Aigis figurine & there is no information of what the scale or size of it is. The prototype shown doesn’t look too bad in terms of detail work, but the pose overall isn’t special or interesting. When that figurine hits mass production, that will be a different story in the detail department. Nevertheless, I did say if there was a LE of P3R, I will get it & I’m keeping my word on it.