"-PLUS-" is Japanese for "extra good yeah!"

Say you’re a Final Fantasy nut who just can’t get enough of XIII’s ridiculously overblown nature, tunes and posters and figurines included. You’re the type of person who buys videogame soundtracks on CD and listens to them while jogging in the park, having ripped ‘em and stuffed ‘em in your iPod with each track correctly labeled even though you’ll never look at the labels and you had to type them in manually because iTunes doesn’t deign to recognise such muzak.

What you need, chum, is a copy of the Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack -PLUS- to complement your mint copy of the Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack. So here’s the good news: -PLUS- is out in Japan on May 26th, will cost you 2,500 yen and features all of the additional Western-version music that wasn’t considered tasteful enough for the original Japanese version. Happy?

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Lot 1: Super Wildcard DX

This fine piece of bric-a-brac is a bit of a steal, marked as it is with a Buy It Now price of just 5,000 yen. It’s also a “steal” in another sense of the word: the whole point of the Super Wildcard DX is that it enables you to play Super Famicom/BS games on your Super Famicom … FROM FLOPPY DISKS! I’m sure you can imagine the possibilities. Only slight hitch is that the SWC is probably not capable of running that Star Fox 2 beta, what with it being a Super FX game and all, and this being a dodgy piece of back-up/piracy hardware built in a shed in Hong Kong circa 1992. But still.

Lot 2: Bayonetta 5-CD Original Soundtrack collection

You know Bayonetta, that bloody new adventure game from Hideki Kamiya? Well, it’s got some music in it. Pretty good stuff, too, including the odd ditty from J-pop’s own MiChi. As you can see in the auction listing, the complete Bayonetta Original Soundtrack compilation spans 5 CDs, which may seem wildly excessive, but the bids have already taken this one to 5,250 yen and it’ll probably finish nearer the 10,000 yen mark.

Lot 3: OutRun 20th Anniversary Box

With a Buy It Now price of 50,000 yen (£330/$560) and 11 – yes, eleven – CDs full of OutRun music part of the bargain, this makes that Bayonetta thingy look as tame as a neutered Doraemon. Frankly, I’d just settle for the original OutRun soundtrack (i.e., the good one, before it got tampered with) on gorgeous vinyl instead – only 1,000 yen and less liable to get snapped beneath a dining chair.

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