My Gaming Freebies and Merchandise

I've been really lazy about keeping up to date with all my nice pre-order bonus or freebies, so this post is basically a show case of all my game-related merchandise that I haven't gotten around to showing up till now. It's nothing fancy, mostly freebies and a few minor things that I've actually bought.

Club Nintendo 2009 Gold Member Award: Calendar

This is the calendar I got in December 2009 for reaching Gold status on Club Nintendo. These pictures were taken a while back and I've been meaning to upload them onto this blog...but I just never got around to it. Basically it's a little stand with cards that feature a Nintendo franchise and a calendar at the bottom. You switch the cards every month. If you flip the card over, you can see a calendar layout (bottom right - February) for each month. I usually just leave the one with the picture out since it looks nicer. As an additional bonus, Nintendo also gave me a mini mario calendar (top right).

Mario Candy Cases

One of the few game-related things I've actually bought. These two are separate candy cases. The mushroom case has little cherry sours shaped as mushrooms inside, while the Question Block case has little coin candies inside. Both are pretty neat and I bought both on whim. Club Nintendo calendar in the background for added effect! xD

SoulSilver Preorder Bonus: Lugia Figurine

The pre-order bonus for SoulSilver. I love the angle of the shot. It actually took me a while to get a decent angle because Lugia's neck is a bit too curved and it's hard to see the whole figurine from a side view. The figurine isn't the best quality, but it was free so I can't complain.

Dragon Quest IX GameStop Event: DQIX Pamphlet

This doesn't seem worthwhile to even mention, but I was actually surprised by the quality of this pamphlet. The cover is dusty, with the title being glossy. Inside has nice art and is very colourful. Being so well made, I could not resist taking this with me and showing it off on the blog.

Dragon Quest IX GameStop Event Prize: Slime Shirt

The second prize at the GameStop DQIX event. There were four of them and I was lucky enough to win one. I wear it with pride! =D As a side note, this event made my brother want his own copy of DQIX! One more convert!! >:)

~Joanna

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Preorder Goodies!!

I love Fire Emblem, so naturally I pre-ordered the DS remake of the very first game. EB Games gave out this decent Laser Cell with a pre-order of the game. The game came out in February, but I've just been taking my time with posting my spoils =P

The game itself is fun, but it's missing a few staples of the franchise; like unit bonding. But it also has a few nice addition as well, like the harm button (which is X) that shows you the range of all enemy units (helpful when your trying to protect your frail units)

Also, is it just me, or is this Fire Emblem more RNG harsh than other FE games. I mean 80% of the time, my units get only 0-2 bonuses when they level up. Usually I get at least 3-4 and only on rare occasions do I only get 0-2 from any unit (and I use them all, so this includes the 'crappy' units as well), but with this game the problem seems to be even more apparent. Right now I'm playing on Normal Mode (which is the easiest mode) so the problem isn't too bad (since enemies are low leveled and in smaller numbers), but it will become a problem when I play on the harder difficulties.

Oh and the prologue (which you have to play on normal to see) was alright, but the last chapter was annoying (why do I need to sacrifice a unit!? this does not bode well for OCD players like me. I did sacrifice Jagen, but I was NOT happy about it, not one bit...grr.)

~Joanna

Atlus Spoils: Luminous Arc 2 Pre-order Goodies!

I've been meaning to get around to taking a picture of the nice bundle I got with Luminous Arc 2. Sorry about the horrible lighting ^^;;

The CD actually comes with all purchases of LA2, but the art book was a pre-order bonus. I was so happy to actually get it since I live in Canada, and we Canadians usually get "shafted" when it comes to pre-order bonuses. =(

As you can tell by the art book cover, the second game has as much fan service as the first. In this game Fatima, the shadow frost witch, is the new Vanessa. But surprisingly, most of the pictures aren't fan service oriented at all, most are beautiful full color character collages. The majority of the book is filled with character profiles, which as far as I can tell don't contain any spoilers. =)
Also, this art book has art and profiles from both games! ^______________^

The CD has eight tracks, and some really nice ones too. Actually both Luminous Arc games have beautiful musical scores!

I'm currently progressing through the game, and the story is less typical so far, than in the first game; there was plot twist that I actually didn't see coming! The voice acting is also very well done; I'm satisfied with all the castings this time. And true to the developer's word, LA2 is more difficult then the first game. It isn't hard, but it isn't easy either, and you're going to have to be more careful this time around. Also, I am very happy to report that not only are the battles more balanced, but so are physical and magic attacks. In the first game, half way through, magic became obsolete. So far, magic attacks do a good amount of damage, and your going to be using the witches as casters majority of the time. In the first game, I never made most of the witches casts spells unless the enemy was too far to reach, because they did more damage physically attacking than when casting a spell!

~Joanna