30th Birthday Haul

Welp, I'm now officially as old as Space Ghost claimed to be in Coast to Coast. Kinda surreal, not gonna lie. Celebrations yesterday were pretty relaxed (it being a Monday and all), but we still enjoyed a nice little family gathering with a friggin' awesome cake:

Courtesy of a combination of my Sister's hard work and some edible printing. Having the same birth year as one of your personal favorite gaming franchises definitely has certain advantages.

Anyhoo, let's get on to the gifts!

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury 

New Pokémon Snap

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (Switch)

NEO: The World Ends With You (Switch)

This year's gaming haul places the spotlight on LONG awaited sequels that you probably wouldn't have expected by a long shot just a few years back. (Well, except for 3D World. I definitely awaited the port for a good while, though.)

Only jumped into NEO so far (RPGs are kinda my thing and I adored the original), but just knowing that I'll still have one of my favorite 3D Mario games (complete with a bonus adventure), a Crash game with a super appealing cartoony aesthetic plus playable Dingodile, and a frigging POKÉMON SNAP SEQUEL to enjoy once I finish it is brain-meltingly exciting.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume 11

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume 12

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe Volume 3: Karai's Path

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe Volume 4: Home

Ghostbusters: Spectral Shenanigans Volume 2

Ghostbusters: Crossing Over

My reading material for this year sees my return to IDW's fantastic TMNT books with both my first offerings from their hardcover compilations (believe it or not, it was actually FAR cheaper than going for the individual trade paperbacks featuring these same stories) and the remaining entries from their Universe spin-off book that I still needed for my collection.

 

Also along for the ride are a couple of IDW's Ghostbusters books (both the last piece of Volume 2 of the ongoing that I needed and the Crossing Over mini-series) that officially complete my collection of Dan Shoening and Erik Burnham's collaborations up through 2018. I'm looking forward to seeing how an interdimensional portal created to get the Ninja Turtles back home (yes really, read these) leads to just about every 'buster in the franchise at that point (including the sprites from the New Ghostbusters 2 NES game) coming together to avert catastrophe like they do. It'll be the perfect appetizer for Afterlife!

Pokémon DP: Sinnoh League Victors The Complete Season 

Pokémon Adventures: Black 2 and White 2 Volume 2

Pokémon Adventures: Black 2 and White 2 Volume 3

It's Pokémon's 25th and Snap isn't the only new treat I've got to enjoy from the franchise! First, the final DP set officially completes the Sinnoh arc on my DVD shelf. Then, one of my personal favorite manga series returns after a bit of a hiatus (long story) to present the climax of Black and White's two-arc story. Looking forward to completing Ash's Gen 4 journey before my personal revisit on the Switch this holiday as well as finally getting back to collecting Adventures regularly.

Transformers Generations WFC: Kingdom Voyager Class Optimus Primal

Transformers Generations WFC: Kingdom Voyager Class Dinobot

Last but not least, in addition to the very nice cake (as well as a fun evening out to see Black Widow), my Sis got me these two beautiful beasts. I don't really talk about Transformers much here, but I'm a HUGE fan of the Beast Era of the brand, so to see Hasbro putting out modern versions of the Beast Wars cast that are pretty darn accurate to the way the characters appeared in the show (barring some more realistic touches to the beast modes) is a dream come true, especially in the case of my favorite character, Dinobot. His beast mode transformation is a bit finicky, but robot mode is just impeccable, blowing the 10th Anniversary version of the original figure that I owned previously completely out of the water. It feels so good to have a mostly-complete (barring Cheetor) initial Maximal cast standing all cool on my shelf together. A perfect way to celebrate 25 years of Beast Wars. (Yep, another Anniversary. When it rains, it pours.)

That should about do it for this year! Not exactly sure when the next post will be, but you can expect at least one before the holidays roll around. Until next time.