There’s a massive (100+ item) Squaresoft collection newly up on eBay. There’s a load of wonderful gems here, including factory sealed copies of Super Mario RPG, Einhander, and Xenogears. There’s a large number of PAL titles in the mix too. (For example, I didn’t know that Final Fantasy Adventure for Game Boy was rechristened Mystic Quest in Europe.)

There are lots of photos, so this one is great even for the window shoppers.

The lot isn’t cheap — the seller is asking $10,845.12 or Best Offer.

I hope my collection looks like this some day. It’s a shame the seller doesn’t have a “group shot” as I’m sure this much RPG shwag all together looks pretty impressive.

HUGE Squaresoft Square-Enix Collection (100+ items!)

I mentioned a few weeks ago about a rare Aerith’s Theme music box from Final Fantasy VII. Well, one has just shown up on eBay with an opening price of $1000 and one bid so far.

The box is larger than I thought it was, measuring 10 inches on the longest side. The seller says this music box is an edition of only 500, with this one being #044. Here’s the seller’s description:

If you look at the silver part with the six screws and the strips, it is made to look like a piano and as the music box plays, the strips move just like it’s playing a piano (looks amazing). At the front of the music box there’s a gold harp shaped piece that if you move to the left it stops and if you move to the right it plays. The dimensions of its box are 10 inches by 4.25 inches by 6.5 inches. The reason why it’s so expensive is that the music box has 50 NOTES. Most music boxes have only 18 notes, and play only 1 tune. The music box is made out of curubixa wood which is supposed to be one of the best woods for music boxes (curubixa wood is an exotic type of wood : dense and excellent for sound insulation). This is very high quality item. Don’t miss out on this super rare FFVII item. Auction started from $1,000 (no reserve) and buy it now option $1,700.

I keep having an impulse to bid, but then I remember what an obscene amount of money that is.

Final Fantasy VII Aerith Music Box Limited Edition

Just a quick note about this — I was happy to see that eBay announced on Thursday that they will be retracting 2 of the disastrous changes that they made to their feedback system earlier this year.

First, neutrals will no longer count “against” sellers when their “positive” percentage score is calculated. This is good. That eBay decided that a “neutral” was the same as a “negative” was asinine in the first place, and certainly buyers never got the memo that leaving a neutral would negatively hamper a seller’s score.

Second, eBay will be re-instating a form of the Mutual Feedback Withdrawl system to let buyers change feedback after they’ve left it. Until now, feedback left under the new system was absolutely final. Again, buyers didn’t get the memo. Their news write-up pains itself to say that it will not be the “same” system as before — after all, that would admit that they were wrong in taking it away in the first place. God forbid. Among the biggest change is that a dissatisfied buyer will actually be able to change a negative feedback into a positive one, which was not possible under the old Mutual Feedback Withdrawl system.

As cynical as I am of the auction giant, it’s good to see that for the first time this year, eBay isn’t biting the hand that feeds them. (To eBay: I’m talking about the sellers, who actually pay you, despite your new president’s claim that the buyers are eBay’s customers, not the sellers.)

What I ordered:

What I got:

This is one “wrong item received” that I won’t be filing a complaint for.

I believe the look on my face was priceless when I opened the evelope and thought, “I………. didn’t order this…… did I?” The fact that I couldn’t answer that clearly is the reason I named this blog what it is.

eBay seller springledge_entertainment_inc has recently listed a huge number of games (about 6000) including a pretty large number of hard-to-find sealed titles. Their feedback is 235 and 100%. Most of their items also accept Best Offers, so you can probably knock a few bucks off if you’re patient. Here are some highlights:

• Growlanser: Generations PS2 PLAYSTATION 2 NEW — $42.99
• Growlanser Heritage Of War PS2 PLAYSTATION 2 NEW — $45.99
• Mega Man Legends PS PLAYSTATION 1 NEW — $23.99
• Mega Man 8 PS PLAYSTATION 1 NEW — $17.99
• Radiata Stories PS2 PLAYSTATION 2 NEW — $25.99
• Um Jammer Lammy PS PLAYSTATION 1 NEW — $17.99
• Irritating Stick PS PLAYSTATION 1 NEW — $19.99
• Armored Core Master Of Arena PS PLAYSTATION 1 NEW — $28.99

I’ve made it a point not to advertise my own auctions here on GameHoarders (as that’s not really my purpose for the blog), but I’ve just put up something special that I think will interest Final Fantasy fans, even if they’re only window shopping.

I purchased this Final Fantasy VIII “Eyes on Me” jukebox on a Japanese site about a year ago. I had never seen one before, and being a pretty avid Final Fantasy hoarder, that says a lot. It was love at first sight, and a few thousand yen later, it was mine.

Square Enix released an official Final Fantasy VII “Aerith’s Theme” music box in 2005, which was limited to one hundered copies and cost around 40,000 yen (~$400 US) . According to the folks over at the Final Fantasy Collectibles Forum, the music box, in the rare occasion that it goes on sale, now fetches over $2000 US.

I know surprisingly little about the one I own, except that is patented and manufactured by “Artec.” It looks to be part of a series called “Music and Harmony.” It may very well be unofficial, but that doesn’t make me like it any less, as this is as cool as unofficial items get, in my humble opinion. I have another photo and more specific details on my eBay listing.

My asking price is ridiculously high, I know, but my main purpose in listing it is a) to find out if anyone knows more about it, and b) to gauge any interest there might be among collectors.

If anyone reading here can give some insight on this item, submit some comments!

Back when Square Enix announced the limited edition Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII bundle in Japan, it seemed nifty, but it also seemed like a steep price at around $250 last year. Little did I know how good Crisis Core was going to be. The Japanese system was limited to 77,777 copies (Tetsuya Nomura himself said in an interview that he wasn’t able to buy one) and showed off a special Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary logo.

Now that I (and if prices are any indication, many others) have played and beaten and loved the American version, I’ve been uncontrollably coveting this limited edition. Prices have spiked to over $600 on eBay for the Japanese system, meaning that I really couldn’t justify buying one.

Sony Europe to the rescue! Just 2 days ago, Sony Europe announced that this hot item will be seeing a European release in just a few short days on June 20, showing that Europe doesn’t always get the short end of the release stick.

The MSRP is 189 Euros, or about $289 US. The problem is, many of the big European online retailers (Amazon France and Germany included) will not ship outside of the system’s intended region.

Long-established import shop NSCX just emailed me today to say that they have put the Crisis Core bundle on pre-order at $329, a bargain compared to some of the recent eBay prices for the Japanese system. Needless to say, I just put in my order for mine. They’ve also been very friendly in answering my email questions, so thanks guys!

If anyone finds another place where this can be ordered and shipped to the US, leave it in the comments.

Here’s a couple of recently ended eBay auctions that just about made my jaw drop.

The first, a complete set of Karaoke Revolution games for the PS2. Yes, I know they’re very much sought after, but the price? $800, sold to one “lvlovernpink.” Meanwhile, other complete sets sit unpurchased at $229. No one ever said eBay bidders were rational. (thanks to monkeydeew for the tip)

Karaoke Revolution 1 2 3 Party Country American Idol — ended price: $800

Silly me. I put in a bid of 3 GBP (about $6) on this next item, thinking that I actually had a chance of winning. I love Final Fantasy, but as I told my friend on this one, at $132, I don’t think the winner of this item can really be called a “winner.”

McDonald’s Final Fantasy Chocobo Dungeon Promo Moogle — ended price: 68 GBP, about $132 US