Space Fantasy Zone REPRINT - Takin' one for the team...

[nat]

I'll admit, I let my curiosity get the best of me. I pulled the trigger on one of the Space Fantasy Zone reprints from Anime4Ever. While I still paid more than I should have, I ought to preface by saying I got away with a copy for far less than the $160 asking price.

Why'd I buy it? Hard to say. I was really, really curious about the quality of the reprint and I guess I wanted to compare it with the Sapphire reprint that Anime4Ever also sells. I guess a small part of me also wanted to be able to rub it in the tool's face that bought a copy of the same thing on Yahoo Japan for over twenty times what I paid for it. If Anime4Ever has any business sense at all they'll take the rest of their stock to Yahoo Japan and make enough money to buy a small island and retire there.

So about the thing itself....

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the presentation, the quality of the inserts, spine card, etc, is really really good. On very close inspection you can tell it's a reproduction, albeit done on some very high end equipment. The disc is a CD-R and not a professionally pressed disc. However, they used some really high quality CD-R media-- the back is silver like a regular CD and resembles the higher end Diamond Silver CD-R media Missa turned me on to a while back. The game even played on one of my systems that normally chokes on CD-Rs.

The foldout is a scan and print of some magazine article on the game from 1992.

So is the reprint worth picking up? Not for $160 it's not. If I had to put a price on this, I'd say $40 would be a reasonable price point. I can't imagine Anime4Ever is going to sell very many for $160. But then again, judging by that Yahoo Japan auction, maybe they will. $40 is less than I paid, but anytime I start feeling remorse over my purchase I'm going to load up that Yahoo Japan auction and set myself straight. At the very least, it's an oddity that relatively few people in community will ever own, so I can take some comfort in that.

I took some photos, but they really don't show anything you can't see on Anime4Ever's website. Here they are anyway, just because.

[SignOfZeta]

Wow.

Yeah, I'd pay $40 for this if it wasn't a CD-R...but it is, so I'm staying away.

BTW, kind of being picky here, but "reprint" isn't really a proper term for this since the original never existed.

[Sinistron]

I'm interested in knowing more about the one that supposedly came with a pc-engine fan zine in Japan.  Was that just a blank-face cdr?  Something tells me no- that there was some printing on it- meaning that the one Nat bought can indeed be considered a 'reprint'.

That aside Nat- I'm definitely proud of you.  You always show tons of love for the community and the system.  That job looks hella sweet, the pics are fantastic, and you gave a good description of something that all of us instantly wanted to know more on but were apprehensive due to the price-tag. 

 

I bet that looks like a real cherry on your shelf 

[ParanoiaDragon]

Do some of the music tracks cut out, rather then continue & then fade?  That's how every rip of the game I've found seems to be.

[shubibiman]

A CD-R? OMFG! I really thought it would be the same quality as his Sapphire "reprints". 

[Joe Redifer]

I have the same question about the music that ParanoiaDragon has.  Please answer it, or we shall be sad.

Also, can you post a picture of the CD's underside?

[Necromancer]

This is pretty much exactly what I was expecting this 'reprint' to be.  Maybe I should have similar packages made up for Dynastic Hero, Might & Magic III, and Super Air Zonk.  Woohoo, I'll be rich!

[Black Tiger]

I thought that I'd be the first to give in shearly out of curiousity. Thanks for saving me a bunch of cash nat.

Although I may still buy one if I can get it for less than $160...

[Turbo D]

I'd buy it, looks super cool! I don't have that kind of cash atm though 

[Joe Redifer]

Nat we know ur here plz ansur question k thx.

[awack]

I checked out Anime4ever's site and this is what it said about the sound,


(The version available always suffered from faulty audio which caused cracking sounds and delayed audio when a new track was played. Prices on Yahoo Japan auctions are ranging from 30,000 to 60,000yen nevertheless.

The small-run version available now has corrected audio tracks)

[ParanoiaDragon]

Corrected audio tracks??  Hmmm.

[nat]

The end-of-level and high score table tunes still truncate early. All the in-game music fades and loops correctly however. But-- this is the same as the burn I made a while back though, so I'm not sure what they actually fixed/changed?

[esteban]

Dude! It was very kool to see the pic of the disc, manual and all of the inserts. Thanks, Nat!

Does anyone know the answer to Sinistron's question about a PCE magazine + Space Fantasy Zone?

I think it looks really nice, regardless.

[Black Tiger]

I checked out Anime4ever's site and this is what it said about the sound,


(The version available always suffered from faulty audio which caused cracking sounds and delayed audio when a new track was played. Prices on Yahoo Japan auctions are ranging from 30,000 to 60,000yen nevertheless.

The small-run version available now has corrected audio tracks)

So in other words, buddy used a CD copy instead of a downloaded rip with mp3s.