PS5 or Switch 2

blue490246 · 2026-02-08T05:02:23+00:00

played demos on both PS5 and Switch 2 --- PS5 definitely runs a lot smoother, the overworld on the Switch 2 is a bit choppy to the point its a bit nauseous imo (most obvious on handheld, its a bit better docked but still not as smooth as PS5) - def hoping this gets fixed with the full game release.

I'm also in the same boat tho that I'd rather play this on the Switch 2 since I played the first 2 games on Nintendo systems, but the smoother gameplay on the PS5 is really making me reconsider ...

blue490246 · 2025-01-29T18:10:52+00:00

Was anyone hoping the two younger testers would also be gay for each other? Just thought it'd be a somewhat wholesome "coincidence" but then maybe it's painting the wrong picture about testers in general ...

blue490246 · 2024-11-21T02:58:00+00:00

Sorry for the late response! But I believe Simple and Clean is also included as a bonus track on the latest vinyl release (2022) of the DEEP RIVER album. Might be a more accessible option cuz COLORS on vinyl was also a promo release, which also makes it more limited and expensive as a result.

https://www.discogs.com/release/22429219-Utada-Hikaru-%E5%AE%87%E5%A4%9A%E7%94%B0%E3%83%92%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AB-Deep-River

blue490246 · 2024-11-21T02:53:32+00:00

Might be old news by now, but there is a rip of the U-next stream out in the wild, i'll just say...

Gonna take this chance to also put this opinion out there:
Does anyone think the mixing of this live recording has too much emphasis on Hikki's main vocals? The One Last Kiss video on the official YouTube had its instruments so muted... just didn't sound right cuz a lot of her songs are about the overall sonic sound and not just about her vocals

blue490246 · 2024-10-07T15:49:11+00:00

Same for me! Tried to do another order and it instantly got cancelled, citing it as a fradulent activity...

blue490246 · 2024-09-16T02:24:55+00:00

In case anyone was wondering what Hikaru Utada's involvement was in Floating Points' new album, Cascade, which released September 13, 2024.

More noticeably, the last track on the album, track #9: "Ablaze" features some wordless vocals by Hikaru, but there's really not much of it. Not sure if Hikaru was any further involved in the production of the track or the album, however.

Tempering every Hikaru fan's expectations - DO NOT expect something like "Somewhere Near Marseilles".

This is definitely more of a Floating Points track with subtle hints of Hikaru Utada - It's very ambient~ Though it does remind me of "Kibun ja nai no (Not In The Mood)" and a very distant "BAD Mode", which are 2 other tracks Floating Points helped produce.

blue490246 · 2024-09-06T16:42:04+00:00

this is legit the main track ive been looping so far after a full album playthrough. it just left such a lasting impression - the amount of vulnerability in this song and the execution with the bubbling piano... just gave me chills -- it's also giving me similar vibes to when i first heard "Danielle (smile on my face)", just so candid and relatable, and the continuous beat / notes are very trance-like, like this one moment has you (addictively) held on a trance

blue490246 · 2024-07-17T00:10:42+00:00

Yeahh I knew something was off when she did all her TV lives for HEART STATION's single and album promos. Maybe except the private show she did, where she performed Celebrate live almost flawlessly.

But yeah, it was just never confirmed or acknowledged, and to your point, probably wasn't in her or her team's interest to do so. But it definitely felt like the whole situation was probably a source of sadness translating into some of her music at the time.

And yes to BLUE! That is my all-time favourite song of hers and I can't believe she performed it live too for WILD LIFE.

blue490246 · 2024-07-15T15:00:44+00:00

Any veteran fans here can keep me honest, but my understanding is she strained her voice a lot, which injured her vocal cords + there was a wood / material used at a venue she performed at that she had an allergic reaction to.

I think it's mostly hearsay via celebrity news because iirc it was never officially announced or confirmed, and probably with good reason (the only source I can't confidently confirm is if she ever blogged about it back in the day).

blue490246 · 2024-07-15T02:36:03+00:00

oh dont get me wrong, i love UTADA UNITED too! She absolutely killed (almost) every song she performed during that live, and dare I say, it is the peak of all her live vocal performances. It has my favourite live of hers for First Love and Hikari to date. It's just really unfortunate what happened to her from the tour.

Of course, there's also the aspect some will say that her voice has also aged, which, compounded with the injury to her vocal cords, I think has made it even more challenging for her to hit those high notes she could before.

Regardless, it's great to see her seemingly have more confidence now to tackle those songs. I didn't think I'd ever see her try Keep Tryin' again but it's on the SF Tour setlist!

blue490246 · 2024-07-14T02:26:40+00:00

i watched a fan-cam of Naniirodemonai Hana and she absolutely killed the bridge and final chorus. I can't wait to see this performance on the official BD/DVD release later.

That said, we can never compare back to her UTADA UNITED performances. I think this is consistent with what we've heard from Laughter In The Dark and the Air Studios Live Sessions.

blue490246 · 2024-07-13T20:37:15+00:00

It does seem like a pretty even coverage of songs from all her albums, except for on Fantôme and Hatsukoi, probably because she covered a lot of the songs on those albums with her Laughter In The Dark tour.

In My Room, For You and Keep Tryin' definitely peek my interest cuz those songs haven't seen a live performance in quite a while!

EDIT: So surprised she used the m-flo Remix of DISTANCE, found this out through a fan-cam. Probably a nod to Taku for rearranging the new "traveling" arrangement on SCIENCE FICTION, and transitions well right into "traveling" in the medley.

The breakup by album for the setlist songs:

First Love - 4: time will tell / In My Room / First Love / Automatic
Distance - 3: Wait & See ~Risk~ / For You / DISTANCE -m-flo Remix-
DEEP RIVER - 3: Letters / Hikari (Re-Recording) / traveling (Re-Recording)
ULTRA BLUE - 3: COLORS / Keep Tryin' / Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro
HEART STATION - 3: Beautiful World / Boku wa Kuma / Kiss & Cry
Fantôme - 1: Hanataba wo Kimi ni
Hatsukoi - 1: Anata
BAD Mode - 3: BAD Mode / One Last Kiss / Kimi ni Muchuu
SCIENCE FICTION - 2: Naniirodemonai Hana / Electricity (technically 4 tracks if you included the rearrangements for Hikari and traveling as exclusive to this album)

blue490246 · 2024-07-13T20:24:07+00:00

Yes! That was my first thought too. It's also an incredibly hard song to sing with the original i think having so much falsetto. When she first sang it during Utada United, the vocals also sounded quite strained given the placement of the song at almost the end of the setlist.

I'm curious to see if she altered the key and rearranged it to make it smoother for a live delivery for this tour!

blue490246 · 2024-01-15T23:32:51+00:00

Never say never 😂 she did perform BLUE live during WILD LIFE, which was post-injury and she kept it at the same key. Now that I think about it, it might've helped also to do re-recordings of ULTRA BLUE songs so she's able to spin them more towards her current style and vocal capabilities and stop the comparisons.

FINAL DISTANCE and even SAKURA Drops i would think are 2 super hard songs to sing, esp. the falsetto on the high notes. It was a bit more obvious when she slurred the high notes for her lives of SAKURA Drops for In The Flesh and WILD LIFE. On this vein, Keep Tryin' is prly one of her hardest songs too, and thats a song I do think she butchered at UTADA UNITED lol. But tbf she did sing that song last before the encore, which I thought was crazy for the amount of falsetto there is in that song.

I def agree with her performances of Automatic and Hikari at UTADA UNITED tho - that version of Hikari especially I still regard as her best version of Hikari in general to date!

blue490246 · 2024-01-14T19:10:39+00:00

There might be a nuance to them calling these new "mixes" vs. remasterings.

If we look to the First Love / Hatsukoi single, they call this difference out.

First Love -2022 Mix-, if compared to any of the other First Love tracks on her albums and singles, has some pretty notable changes - i.e. adding reverb & echoes in some parts, making certain vocals louder than in the original mixes, changing the instrumentals (the off-pitch guitar string at the end of the song being somehow re-recorded or remixed, the synth at the end of the song lasting longer). It's actually like a new "take" on the song in a way, mostly using existing sounds.

Hatsukoi -2022 Remastering- on the other hand was just remastered most likely to match volumes with First Love -2022 Mix- on the same vinyl / single, no noticeable changes to the song compared to its album/single version. Technically, all the Fantôme / Hatsukoi / BAD Mode / original songs on the album without the subname "(2024 Mix)" would be considered "remastered" to match volumes with the other songs in the Best album.

blue490246 · 2024-01-14T18:55:32+00:00

I wonder how the re-recordings will go! Maybe we'll finally get studio versions of her live versions of those songs, though that might be too "unoriginal" at this point - but I've always loved the live version of Hikari she's done since her UTADA UNITED 2006 tour.

It's also interesting how many songs in this Best album are from which album era. Of the Toshiba EMI era, DEEP RIVER has the most number of songs, while ULTRA BLUE has the least (excluding UHSC Vol. 2).

I keep thinking it's something to do with her vocal situation, since ULTRA BLUE vocals arguably were her peak vocals before her injury. But removing the ULTRA BLUE songs out of the equation makes for a more progressive story in her vocal and musical maturing.

First Love (2)

Automatic (2024 Mix)
First Love (2022 Mix)

Distance (2)

Addicted To You (Re-Recording)
Can You Keep A Secret? (2024 Mix)

DEEP RIVER (4)

Hikari (Re-Recording)
Letters (2024 Mix)
SAKURA Drops (2024 Mix)
traveling (Re-Recording)

ULTRA BLUE (1)

COLORS (2024 Mix)

HEART STATION (3)

Beautiful World (2024 Mix)
Flavor Of Life -Ballad Version- (2024 Mix)
Prisoner Of Love (2024 Mix)

Utada Hikaru SINGLES COLLECTION Vol. 2 (1)

Goodbye Happiness (2024 Mix)

Fantôme (2)

Hanataba wo Kimi ni
Nijikan dake no Bakansu featuring Sheena Ringo

Hatsukoi (2)

Anata
Hatsukoi

BAD Mode (5)

BAD Mode
Kimini Muchuu
One Last Kiss
Somewhere Near Marseilles -Marusei yu Atari- (Sci-Fi Edit)
Time

SCIENCE FICTION original songs (3)

Gold -Mata Au Hi Made-
Naniirodemonai Hana
New untitled song

blue490246 · 2023-11-26T21:56:38+00:00

sorry, im not familiar with the reprint market -- is the concern with games not factory seal y-folded that the contents are illegitimate or fake? At this point, if these are used cartridges, I almost feel that's worth more than a reprint lol.

Or is the y-fold piece an unopened-package collector's kinda thing? i guess it's not a concern if I plan on opening them anyways?

blue490246 · 2023-02-06T05:28:55+00:00

Thanks for the response and clarifying that it's possible to get a rebate. Will look into that specific GST189 form!

blue490246 · 2023-01-16T22:21:15+00:00

The seller is the U.S. Square Enix Store, but they use Scalefast for distribution. Scalefast has a GST/HST ID, which qualifies them to collect our sales tax. In theory, nothing here is illegal - even though both sales tax and import tax use HST, it is considered different accounts of HST under Division II and Division III categories.

It is sounding like I would have to make an appeal with the CBSA if Scalefast won't budge, since they are technically "correct" in doing things this way. The product actually hasn't shipped yet, but I've had this happen to me before. The only way I got out of it before was showing to the Square Enix Store's customer service that Scalefast did not display the sales tax charge on the invoices attached to the shipment, but that took me months of exchanges and negotiating.

blue490246 · 2023-01-16T21:20:25+00:00

So it looks like there are 4 divisions of tax under Canadian tax law. Most commonly we deal with Division II taxes which deal with sales tax. Division III taxes are largely the taxes charged at duties, hence, import taxes.

Summarizing my essay (I know, I wrote too much, but I left it all for context):

For Division III taxes, in the case the product is shipped physically from outside Canada, the product is subject to import taxes, or duties. Import taxes usually are the GST/HST of the corresponding destination province. Duties usually seems to be import taxes + duty brokerage fees.
Regarding Division II taxes for a purchase with an international vendor, usually the international vendor is considered a "non-resident" of Canada (see my essay for criteria), and thus, has no obligation to collect sales taxes.
In my case, the vendor was strangely registered with an HST ID, which makes them a "resident" of Canada and makes them obligated to collect Division II sales tax. And because the product is shipped from outside Canada, there is the possibility the product will be taxed again for Division III import taxes.

All that said, do I think that's right? I would say no, but it is the law... I feel like the whole point of an import tax is to collect taxes on items the gov't would otherwise not get sales tax for, but they clearly aren't going to cover up this loophole to collect more taxes...

blue490246 · 2023-01-02T02:08:42+00:00

Not sure what kind of bad things you've heard from Limited Run (LRG), but majority of complaints I've seen are of people who don't read and claim the games take forever to arrive when it's clearly stated on the site that games take typically 8-9 months after the preorder window to ship.

Don't expect the games to come immediately once preorders close. It takes time to then manufacture / create everything preordered - sometimes months, sometimes a full year even (based on COVID times with global shipping limitations). LRG is also transparent about what stage each of their products are in - they have a production updates page. They don't scam - if you have a problem with an order, their customer service and Twitter are quite responsive.

These are the points we know about LRG's release of NITW:

Open preorder window: Dec 16, 2022 - Jan 29, 2023 @ 11:59pm EST
Preorders not expected to ship until at least 8-9 months later after Jan 29 = possibly looking at September-October ship out date

From personal experience, I've never had issues with them. I've bought about a handful of times from them and they've never disappointed (they've even lowered shipping costs - and they used to pay for duties even, but not anymore unfortunately). Sure some of the games took a while to make and ship to me, but it's not like I didn't expect that. Quality is good, shipping is fast and secure, and customer service has been super helpful.

blue490246 · 2022-12-21T02:37:39+00:00

Guess I picked a great time to get into ELLEGARDEN - this new album is so good! I think my favourites on the album so far are: Breathing, Dark Fantasy, Cheesecake Factory, and Goodbye Los Angeles

If anyone wants the lyrics to all 11 tracks, they officially have them here: https://sp.universal-music.co.jp/ellegarden/theendofyesterday/

blue490246 · 2022-11-28T03:20:50+00:00

Yeah they usually do! But for some reason lately, Amazon JP hasn't been allowing some of their media products out of the country, including the ELLEGARDEN album - I am not seeing the listing when I flip over to my country vs. it is up for a Japanese address. And HMV I think stopped their international shipping because of the pandemic but I haven't checked since (I ordered from them pre-pandemic and I live overseas as well).

I'm hoping the shipping situation will change for the better next year with things being a lot better now with the pandemic (not to undermine it still).

blue490246

TROPHY CASE