Hauls: The Robo Knight Before Black Friday

Surprise! Wasn't expecting to make another post until Christmas proper, but Black Friday (and thrifting) works in mysterious ways. Here's some more stuff:

Power Rangers Megaforce: Robo Knight Before Christmas (DVD)

Another of my parents' thrifting finds, and a very seasonally appropriate one at that! Megaforce isn't exactly a well-liked season by a lot of people, but Robo Knight will ALWAYS be a major highlight of it, so I'm happy to finally have his Christmas special on DVD. (Despite it mostly amounting to a REALLY weird clip show.) Also included are two random, un-Christmassy episodes from Wild Force and Jungle Fury because I don't know and a digital copy that was still redeemable despite it being secondhand! Score!

Vintage TMNT Bandana

Persona 5 Royal (Switch) (Best Buy)

Yet another thrifting gem was this TMNT bandana. I'm not really a person who would wear a bandana, but the vintage art is so cool and it makes for a neat addition to my collection of random Turtle ephemera. (Still thinking of where/how to display it.)

The Phantom Thieves strike again! While I already bought Persona 5 Royal for PS4 LAST Black Friday, I've had my eyes on the Switch version since it was released last month, craving the ability to eventually replay it portably. However, the full $60 price tag for a game I already owned and recently played, even one as fantastic as P5R, made me shy away and decide to wait. Well, Black Friday 2022 came along and did me a solid! Despite the fact that the Switch version launched so recently, Best Buy had it at HALF PRICE, which I couldn't pass up. Probably not going to replay it for a while, but I'm definitely excited to eventually re-experience this amazing game in a new way, with ALL of the DLC along for the ride!

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch) (Walmart)

THIS was a long time coming. I'm a VERY casual Zelda guy, but after very much enjoying A Link Between Worlds almost a decade ago, I've been drawn particularly to the simple puzzle-solving, adventuring fun of the 2D overhead titles. So, when a remake of Link's Awakening was announced, I was excited to check it out. However, the full $60 price tag despite it originally being a Game Boy title and the modest length that comes from that origin made me prioritize other things and wait for a price drop. Said price drop certainly took its sweet time, though, as the best Amazon had it for at any one point was like $40. (Which eventually reverted back to either $50 or straight-up full price.) I got so impatient waiting for a good enough drop that I recently just decided to play the DX Game Boy Color version on my 3DS instead. In fact, I was already several dungeons into said DX version before I heard about Walmart's Black Friday deals FINALLY offering the Switch version for just $30. Needless to say, I jumped on that instantly and restarted my Koholint adventure with lots of wonderful modern quality-of-life improvements. (It's AMAZING playing an old game and its modern remake back-to-back and noticing just how many tiny tweaks improve the game immensely. Especially love how the remake gave the warp points their own map screen so you can actually CHOOSE where you want to go instead of hopping in and out of holes, continually warping until you arrive at your destination.) Having a lot of fun and very happy to finally have this game on my shelf.

That's it for the last of the pre-Christmas hauls, but I miiiiiiiiiiiight have something special planned for December, so you might hear from me a little sooner than I had originally planned. (Not counting this post, of course.) Stay tuned. 🎅🦔

Hauls: Shell Games

Time for another tried-and-true pre-holiday clean-up post! Gotta get this stuff out there so you guys can have a chance to see it before the Christmas Fallout beckons!

Min Min amiibo (Best Buy)

Been a little bit since the last amiibo haul! (Over a year if you're keeping track.) Fighters Pass Volume 2 finally hits the shelf starting with the Ramen-based Rumbler herself, Min Min!

Super Mushroom Bag

Imaginext Goldar and Dragon Shield Black Ranger 

McDonald's Knuckles Toy

TMNT 2012 Ooze Scoopin' Donnie

Bootleg Movie Star Raph

My parents did their usual thrifting thing and brought me back this assortment of goodies. That Bootleg Movie Star Raph is definitely the most interesting piece. (Thought he was the real deal at first until I noticed his distinct lack of elbow cuts and off-looking face detailing.) Also of note is the odd Super Mushroom bag. Not entirely sure what it actually is (it feels like a kid's lunch box, but there's definitely not enough storage for that to be the case,) but I still found a use for it.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman (Gamecube) (Amazon)

THIS was a fun, albeit sporadic, purchase! It all started when I checked out a fun little deep dive into this particular game and its development on YouTube. (Mostly brought on by my hype for the upcoming Cosmic Shake.) After enjoying said video, I got the itch to play this again after completing it during my childhood. (This was actually the very first PS2 game I got heavily invested in back in the day.) I still had my PS2 copy...but I lacked a PS2 to play it on. That made me shift gears to the Gamecube version I had somehow never previously owned despite having every other standalone SpongeBob game on the system. Were aftermarket prices reasonable enough to finally complete my Gamecube SpongeBob library? Well, I'm bringing it up here, so that's an emphatic "YES." Got a copy in good condition with everything but the manual on Amazon for like 30 bucks. (I still have the PS2 version's manual, so I wasn't terribly bothered by the lack of the GC version's.)

Replayed and completed it all over again over the course of the latter half of August. While it's certainly the most primitive of the SpongeBob console 3D platformers, I still had a lot of fun revisiting it. Game kinda has its own structure and flow that's very fun once you get it down and it even reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie in places, surprisingly. Clancy Brown even reprises his role as Krabs, which is an odd rarity among SpongeBob games, even the most popular ones. All in all, I'm glad that I decided to give it another go and it makes me even more pumped to experience the first completely new SpongeBob 3D platforming adventure in years when it releases in 2023.

128 GB microSDXC Card (Amazon)

Saw that SD Cards were on sale on Amazon, so decided to grab a bigger one to double my Switch's storage space. Simple as that.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection Limited Edition (Switch) (Amazon)

Ooooooooooooh, this is a big one! As you might recall from my 31st Birthday post, one of my gifts was actually pre-ordered, but didn't arrive on time for the actual day. THIS is that gift. A veritable DREAM collection of ALL of the classic 8 and 16-bit Konami TMNT games complete with both a suite of fun enhancements and display options for each title AND a HUGE museum of bonus content featuring everything from boxart to manuals to developmental sketches that had never before breached the innards of Konami's archives. How do you make such a collection even better? Well, how about also releasing a Limited Edition package that also includes a bunch of fun bonus swag such as an artbook and trading cards all wrapped up in a special box adorned with brand new Kevin Eastman artwork? Yeah, everything about this is amazing. I would've settled for just the ability to play Turtles in Time on my Switch, but the sheer extra mile that Digital Eclipse and Konami have gone to in producing this collection just warms my mutagen-pumping heart something fierce. 

NECA TMNT Adventures Slash (AliExpress)

Frozen II (4K Combo) (Disney Movie Insiders)

ANOTHER biggie! I thought I was done with NECA's TMNT figures, but they pulled me back in by not only announcing a new line based off of the Archie TMNT Adventures comic, but ALSO that Slash would be the first character released. If you know me, you know that Slash is my favorite TMNT character and the Adventures version happens to be my favorite classic version of him ("The Vultures named me...SLASH!") so this was an obvious must-have. They absolutely knocked him out of the park, too. While I would've included a mini palm tree with him instead of that weird alternate weapon that he never actually used in the comic, the detailing and look of him are superb. Definitely the best take on Slash that NECA has done so far and one of my favorite toys of him period.

As for the DMI redemption, it took a little bit of saving up, but I finally completed my Frozen animation library with the sequel.

Steve & Alex amiibo Two-Pack (Best Buy)

More amiibo! Not a Minecraft guy in the least, but the sheer startling oddity of Steve and his pals joining Smash Ultimate (and breaking Twitter in the process) entertained me quite a bit and they appropriately stand out just as much on the amiibo shelf.

Sonic the Hedgehog Archives Volume 17 (Amazon)

IT IS DONE. With Volume 17 of Archives, I finally have nearly every mainline Archie Sonic the Hedgehog issue for my physical perusal. (Minus an issue or two somewhere around the 120s.) I should give the whole run a read some time. (I started a readthrough before a while ago, but I didn't get far.)

TMNT Sewer Army Tube (In A Sewer Party Tube Box)

Knuckles and Tails McDonald's Toys 

More thrifting goodies my parents picked up! While I'm not huge on collecting toy vehicles, that intact vintage box (for a different toy than the one that was tossed in it) made it a must-have for my TMNT collection. (Especially love the $5.49 Children's Palace price sticker still on it. This box is a piece of history!)

Also, I wish the people who gave these Sonic 2 McDonald's toys to these thrift stores also included their little stand launcher things. They're kind of difficult to display otherwise.

Super7 TMNT Ultimates Slash (Big Bad Toy Store)

ANOTHER amazing Slash! Super7's been seeing mad success with their TMNT Ultimates line, producing wave upon wave of modern action figures directly based on the Playmates classics of old. While I'd never picked up any of them before (I'm usually one to prefer comic and artwork takes on TMNT character designs versus the original Playmates sculpts,) as usual, I couldn't pass up Slash. He's a great, hefty evolution of that original figure and just wonderfully detailed and accessorized. He looks especially nice alongside my other Slash figures. (INSANE to think that just a few short years ago, Slash's only toys were ones geared towards children, but NOW I can build a display with collector-quality figures of pretty much EVERY classic version of him! We really are living in the best timeline sometimes.)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Best Buy Exclusive Steelbook (4K Combo)

This was actually meant to be a Christmas present, but my Dad had me open it early because he feared it might be damaged. (It wasn't. It was just a paper insert flopping about inside.) Not typically a steelbook guy, but the instant I saw that Best Buy's exclusive used the wonderful poster art that directly homages the GAME Sonic 2, I knew that I had to have this version. (Also helped that it was the only version to include both the 4K AND standard Blu-ray.) Excited to give this 3D Blast of a film a rewatch!

Transformers: Beast Wars Volume 3 (Amazon)

Volume 3 completes IDW's Beast Wars series cut tragically short by license migration. While I still wish that it had gotten a few more years in to tell more stories about my favorite beastie bots, I loved all of what we did get and am very glad that they were at least able to collect the full series (including the Annual) in trade form before everything went out of print. Hopefully Rise of the Beasts will spark (heh) a new era for the Maximals and Predacons in media.

Pokémon TCG Trick or Trade BOOster Bundle

My parents found these for me while they were out grocery shopping. While I'm a very casual Pokémon TCG guy, I adore the sheer novelty of a whole Halloween-themed set meant to be given out to trick-or-treaters and had a lot of fun opening them on my Twitter throughout October. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (Switch) (Amazon)

Cowabunga Collection wasn't the ONLY huge win the Turtles had in gaming this year! Shredder's Revenge serves as a perfect spiritual successor and evolution of the classic Konami games and is ridiculously fun. Great music, beautiful sprite art, tons of deep-cut bosses, and even the original voices of the four Turtles on board to give it that extra little bit of legitimacy. It's just a complete love letter in every way and I adored my time with it. (Heck, I even got all of the Achievements for it TWICE. Once on Xbox through Game Pass and once on this physical Switch copy. THAT'S how much I dug this.)

Pre-ordered this with my Birthday cash (Knew the INSTANT it was announced that I'd need this game physically) and it arrived like two weeks after the listed date. (Limited Run. Nuff said.) So glad to be able to have this on my shelf. (As well as to have the code for a free Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza that came with it. Seriously.) 

Power Rangers X Street Fighter Lightning Collection - Morphed Ryu Crimson Hawk Ranger (Big Bad Toy Store)

Power Rangers X Street Fighter Lightning Collection - Morphed Chun-Li Blazing Phoenix Ranger (Big Bad Toy Store)

Wrapping up, HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER! Yep, the Turtles aren't the only crossover characters invading the Lightning Collection, as a pair of World Warriors have ALSO joined the fray, fresh off of their inclusion in the Legacy Wars and Battle for the Grid games. Not a huge Street Fighter fan by any means (mostly because I can't play the games to save my life,) but the sheer fact that I can have a Power Rangers display featuring morphed versions of Street Fighter characters AND the Ninja Turtles just gives me ALL KINDS of jollies as a huge fan of crossovers in general. They even both come with stands! (MORE OF THOSE, PLEASE, HASBRO.) 

That'll do it for this batch! See you guys for the Fallout post and hope you all have a great holiday season!