It has been almost ten months since my last unboxing post, which I wrote up for Madman Entertainment’s 25th Anniversary Edition for Kiki’s Delivery Service. The reason there are so few of these articles on The Otaku’s Study is that Collector’s Editions tend to cost a lot more than their standard counterparts, and for the most part I consider the game/anime to be the most valuable component of any purchase. Therefore, there is a need for me to determine there is at least a decent chance of me getting my money’s worth before throwing money at a title. But after all this time, I have decided to see just what Bandai Namco Entertainment had to offer with their Tales of Zestiria Collector’s Edition.
Launched yesterday, Tales of Zestiria is the latest in a long lime of “Tales” video games to be launched internationally. This follows the publishers prior launches of Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2 on the PlayStation 3. Unlike its predecessors however, Tales of Zestiria is a multiplatform title which has been launched on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC. Unfortunately for those looking to play on other platforms, this Collector’s Edition is only available on the PlayStation 4 – and set fans back about $179.95 AUD. Compared to the game at launch, this Collector’s Edition needs to make up an extra $80.00 or so in value.
Does it accomplish this? Read below for more information.
The Collector’s Edition contents are all stored in one large box (Pictured at the top of this post). Although it looks nice on the outside and is overall quite sturdy, it is more or less just a standard box with items snugly fit within it. Based on the promotional imagery used for the Collector’s Edition box, I was expecting something a bit more significant and tome-like. Not too sure if this is worthy of being displayed on my “Top Shelf of Well-Designed Special Editions”, which already features the tome inspired packaging adopted by the Tweeny Witches Book of Spells edition several years ago.
Next up as one might already expect is a copy of Tales of Zestiria on the PlayStation 4 itself. The package also comes with the VIP content, consisting of the Exclusive Arte DLC for Mikleo, Lailah and Alisha; in addition to Alisha’s Story DLC. Not much I can say really apart from “check back soon for my extensive review of this game”.
The next item offered in this collection is an adorable Normin metalcase, featuring what could be considered the game’s mascot character (Like Teepo in ToX and ToX2). Inside it are two extra discs, a bonus 30 minute anime episode 44 minute anime episode ‘Dawn of the Shepard’ and an “Original Music Selection”.
While I was expecting a DVD copy as originally promoted, ‘Dawn of the Shepard’ actually comes on a Blu-ray disc. This is a change I am certainly not complaining about, especially given the PlayStation 4 alone supports the Blu-ray format. Although I will be saving my full thoughts on the anime for an upcoming review, the episode itself is English dubbed, and features good visual/audio quality. There are four audio options on offer (English 5.1, English Stereo, Japanese 5.1 and Japanese Stereo), alongside a plethora of subtitling languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian).
I personally have no qualms with publishers offering selection CD’s with pre-order bonuses, however with Special Editions I like something more substantial. Unfortunately, the bonus soundtrack CD for Tales of Zestiria only includes ten songs, which in my case were not annotated with track names etc. The songs selected for inclusion however were of a high standard.
Next in the Tales of Zestiria Collector’s Edition is the ‘Lady of the Lake’ sanctuary cloth artwork. It is a well designed piece of artwork overall as you can see above, however I have absolutely no idea what I am able to do with it apart from keeping it in the aforementioned box.
In the case of Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2, I decided to forgo the Collector’s and Day 1 Edition Artbooks to pick up myself a copy of the original Japanese artbooks. Despite being in Japanese, I found them to not only be bigger, but have a lot more content in them then what was offered in the western market. I decided to give the English artbooks a try for Tales of Zestiria.
Coming in at 100-pages in size, ‘The Art of Tales of Zestiria: The Visual Celestial Record’ is a petite hardcover artbook which offers quite a lot for its size. Across its pages is key artwork, character profiles/artwork, skit illustrations, ending artwork and a look at some of the environments. While there isn’t much textual content, there are English character profiles for the key characters.
This was a nice artbook overall, even if personally I still wouldn’t have objected to something larger and more heavier in content.
Arguably one of the more important bonus goodies in this Collector’s Edition is the four Chibi Kyun Chara figures based on Sorey, Mikleo, Alisha Diphda and Edna. First up, I would like to say that these figures are of a high quality and are nicely detailed, from the individual character designs to the weapons they hold.
While I do think the production quality is high, I found myself getting a tad frustrated about them being fiddly and not particularly stable when completed. While Sorey is connected to the base through a white holder in his side and easily the most stable, the other three are just sort of held up as you can see in the image above. With exception of Sorey once again, the weapons held by the other three characters were also not the easiest things to attach, and even once attached were not particularly stable. Unless there is something I am missing here, I will most probably be displaying these figures without their weapons sadly, and think having weapons attached to each character would have been the better option.
… and finally, the Tales of Zestiria Collector’s Edition also came with a separate DLC code for the five Tales of Weapon Skins and eight Classic Costumes as pre-order DLC.
Overall Thoughts
The Tales of Zestiria Collector’s Edition features a nice compilation of goodies, with some being quite interesting and others being sort of average. I eagerly look forward to the opportunity to dive into the artbook and anime more closely, and spending more time on the Chibi Kyun Chara figures so I can stably display them with their weapons. All that said, I wouldn’t have objected to a more extensive soundtrack CD.
I hope you enjoyed this look into the Collector’s Edition of Tales of Zestiria. While I don’t see too many copies of this edition floating around post-launch, you can now purchase Tales of Zestiria through your local video game retailer. Please look forward to my review of this game soon!
