Black label

This is the part 3 of the series of posts about my recent trip home and it will be about PS1 games today. In the era of PS3, PS1 is like ancient, isn't it? Oh well who cares? PS1 filled my teenage years with memories and experiences which play big parts to shape who I am currently. Lol.. okay that is an exaggeration but it is somewhat true. Disclaimer and warning: this post will be very heavy in terms of images.

PS1 games in Indonesia were mostly pirated ones. I heard the existence of "black disc" at the bottom as the original game CDs as compared to the shiny bottom of the pirated CDs. Of course internet was still very new back then and this "black disc" was like a myth which I never saw. I heard that one "black disc" would cost about Rp 200000-300000. Comparing that to pirated CDs which generally costs Rp 8000-10000 (or even Rp 3000-5000 near the end of PS1 era), the "black disc" cost 30-60x more. Simply impossible to buy at that time.

The first game that I wanted to have the "black disc" was Lunar: The Silver Star Story Complete. My mum actually went to Lucky Plaza during her office trip to Singapore and she did not buy me :( I heard it was about $200 so she freaked out. Oh well.. Now that I am in Singapore, perhaps she was tricked by the shops there lor. Oh wait, years ago SGD was not this expensive perhaps. Haha.. I wanted Lunar because of the bonuses which came with the original disc. Of course, the game itself is one of my favourite RPGs and it is the game which I repeated most (2x in PS1, 1x in GBA emulator, 1x in PSP).

Fast forward 1 decade later, I realised that the proper term is black label discs vs silver discs. Black label discs were the ones released initially and considered the original game discs. The silver discs were the re-release versions (or reprint version if we are talking about books). So yeah, silver does not mean pirated in the other part of the world lol. And finally in October 2012, I finally fulfilled another childhood wishes. Hehe..

First is Lunar The Silver Star Story Complete Collector's Edition by Working Designs which cost me $77.67 and its official gameguide by Working Designs which set me back another $27.36.

Lunar: The Silver Star Story Complete Collector's Edition and the quite-in-a-miserable-state official guide

The Collector's Edition consists of: 2 game CDs, 1 original soundtrack CD, 1 "Making of" CD, mini artbook, and Lunar World Map (and it is made of cloth!)

 

 The front and back cover of CD case

The images within the case

The front cover of the collector box

You can "flip open" the front cover to see this description

The back cover of the collector box

The top and bottom images of the collector box

I found out that Working Designs did the same thing with Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. So I bought the Collector's Edition and its official game guide for a total of $118.85. The game guide is much better and thicker than the first one! It also came with hard covers. Wow.

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete Collector's Edition and its official game guide

The Collector's Edition consists of: 3 game CDs, 1 original soundtrack CD, 1 Demo CD, 1 "Making Of" CD, mini artbook and Omake Box

Omake Box consists of Lunar 2 World Map (unfortunately it is made of paper this time), Lucia's pendant replica, and 17 character standees

The other side of the world map is a poster and the other side of the standees' base states Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete

 

 Zoom of Lucia's Pendant. Mine had some rust. Sad :(

Demo CD and original soundtrack CD are inside a separate sleeve. Unfortunately, the CDs were never removed from the sleeve by the owner. The glue sort of melted and the CDs were stuck inside. Managed to pull them out but I don't think both are playable now! Bleah

 The front and the back of the CD case. The right image was edited and thus looks akward here :(

The images within the case

The front cover of the collector box

You can "flip open" the front cover to see this description

The back cover of the collector box

The top and bottom images of the collector box

Due to more content, the box for Lunar 2 is actually much thicker. And thus the pictures for the top and bottom images on the box are bigger.

Sadly, Working Designs went bankrupt and their last Collector's Edition release was for Arc the Lad collection. Not a fan of this game to be honest. I completed Arc the Lad I and thanks to my pirated discs, I was unable to transfer the data to Arc the Lad 2 and thus I stopped playing. I bought this with the delusion that the data transfer with the original and official discs would be successful. Bah! Now I don't even have the time to play. Haha.. Anyway, I bought this was also partly because I like both Lunar Collector's Editions so I expected that Arc the Lad Collector's Edition would be great too. Oh ya, I spent $116.92 for Arc the Lad Collector's Edition and its official game guide.

Arc the Lad Collector's Edition and its game guide. Weirdly, the game guide only covers Arc the Lad I and II.

The Collector's Edition consists of: 1 Arc the Lad game CD, 1 Arc the Lad II game CD, 2 Arc the Lad III game CDs, 1 Arc the Lad Monster Tournament game CD, 1 "Making of" CD, mini artbook, and Omake Box.

 

Omake Box consists of: memory card case, 4 analog stick covers, and 22 character standees (8-7-7 from Arc the Lad I, II, and III respectively)

The memory card case is random as there are 3 versions: Arc, Elk, and Alec. Bleah.. I hate this kind of marketing leh! Do they expect people to buy 3 sets to get all 3? Pui!! Anyway, I got Elk.

 The front and back of the CD case

The images within the CD case

The front cover of the collector box

You can "flip open" the front cover to see this description

The back cover of the collector box

The top and bottom images of the collector box

I actually also bought the black label of FF Anthology (V-VI), FF VIII and FF IX. But since they are not collector's edition, nothing is really special with them so I did not take pictures. Haha..