CD's
FFXIII Theme song single - Sugawara Sayuri - Kimi ga Iru Kara
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - The Crystal Bearers Music Collections

Games
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (NDS)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - The Crystal Bearers (Wii)

Blu-ray
Star Trek Original Series Season 3

I think that's it for me this month...

Can't believe we're in December already.  Seems like only yesterday we were pining for the likes of Street Fighter IV in February and Resident Evil 5 in March.

The year of gaming is pretty much over for me, with all the must-play releases now behind me.  I never could finish up Phantom Hourglass, so I'll probably pass over The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for a couple of spells.   
 
There are plenty of '09 movies coming home, though.  Chief among them is Inglourious Basterds, which is perhaps my most anticipated release since Coraline.  The Blu-ray edition of Terminator Salvation may not be worth it for that additional three minute of footage, but if the sound quality is anywhere near as mindblowing as it was in the theaters, I'm definitely checking it out.  Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince and District 9 cap off, though I'll likely just give 9 and Paranormal Activity a rental.  Probably The Hangover, too; everyone I know had seen it in theaters and loved it.

I'll hold off on the Oboromuramasa Original Soundtrack until I've actually played the game, but I'm curious about the Genso Suikoden Arrange Collection Vol.1 ~Vocal & Piano~.  I'm rooting for the release of Contra 4: Rocked 'n Loaded, as well as Duane and BrandO's/The Adventurers' LP of Devastation.

Hey Udon, where's our Mega Man: Official Complete Works already?  (I sure called that delay..... unfortunately.)  Let's hope it finally makes it this month, along with the originally intended Mega Man X: Official Complete Works.

Just a note for those wanting to pick up Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince... I'd wait until the Ultimate Edition set with everything comes out first.  It may be a few years off yet until the final movies are done, but this way you can avoid the double dip.  I'll probably gift off my Harry Potter 1-5 years Blu-ray collector set to my parents or someone else and just get the full Ultimate set (cause you're know they're going to do one - even if there aren't any plans yet for one).

Final Fantasy XIII, baby!

Still not sure whether I should be pre-ordering. It looks to be the cheapest and safest way to get the game, but I'm pretty sure there will be places breaking the street date by a couple of days, so I might go for that.

Spirit Tracks is another no-brainer, and, despite the fact that I really have no hopes of it at all I will also be trying out Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. If anything, I'm in need of a good horror-fix.

And that will be enough, because I have a backlog that is big enough as it is.

Games:
Final Fantasy XIII
Play Station 3 slim
I'm pretty skeptical about this, as it smells like nothing but a spiritual successor of VIII, X-2 or X, the bottom of FF series in my opinion, yet a numbered FF is painful to miss.

Soundtracks:
Muramasa: The Demon Blade Original Soundtrack
Kumatanchi Original Soundtrack (mostly to support the label rather than to listen to this)

deathsmiles II Original Soundtrack is a must, if ever released. I expected it would be sold on 27th Dec (Cave Maturi) like Daifukkatsu, but now it's getting too late to announce it. I'll skip Tekken 6 Original Soundtrack, as Monaca and Basiscape portion sounds like a filler

Slim pickings in December...

Music

Whatever I get on my STC Gift Exchange
Whatever I give on my STC Gift Exchange

Mushihimesama Futari reprint off YJA

Inglourious Basterds
District 9
But I'll probably get those for Christmas or after it in the case of District 9.

Terminator Salvation
I sure hope everyone within an earshot remembers I don't want this one right away; I can wait until the price goes down.

My only purchases for this month are Naruto Shippuuden Original Soundtrack II (which again should be good stuff, like the first one, Yasuharu Takanashi's score is really good) and Tomoyasu Hotei's (probably the only person on this board who's even heard of him) new album MODERN TIMES ROCK'N'ROLL, which is full of 50s-80s rock (and pop) covers, ranging from Steppenwolf to Chuck Berry to Kraftwerk to the Rolling Stones, really can't wait for that (though, oddly named as that, doesn't seem to have the Queen song in it).

@Ashley, the price for Terminator: horribly unwatchable Salvation gotta be pretty cheap to someone in their right mind to buy it. I would probably not even get it if I would get it free.

(edit, note myself, don't try to be smart when tired, it will show up, thanks angela)

How can something be unhorrible *and* unwatchable at the same time?

I don't know if I'd go as far as to call Salvation unwatchable, but it really made me pine for the earlier movies. I think a lot more of Rise of the Machines thanks to Salvation, although its anti-climatic ending was always awesome in my book.

Still, I can totally wait to get it if I ever bother to. Not to bash it but it's not a priority like District 9, Inglorious Basterds and Zombieland are.

I have long wished for a figurine of Terra Branford atop Magitek Armor, and my wish is soon to be fulfilled.

Since someone brought Terra up, might as well ask this: is there an explanation as to why her sprite in the game has green hair and every other representation of her (like the opening FMV in FFA) has blond hair? Without knowing better, one could say (the green) hair color could be a pun on her name (terra=earth=green) but when you consider her name is Tina in Japan that's pretty unlikely.

Don't get me wrong, it's not really important but growing up with the SNES version of the game the green hair was and still is pretty iconic of the character. I'd say blue hair is iconic as well, but I think that ship has sailed.

OK, I take that back. Blue hair is still kinda cool.

To continue with the 360 shooter theme from October (I believe), I grabbed a new copy of DeathSmiles LE.  A happy gamer is I!

Um... EVANGELION WIND SYMPHONY! Both discs, gonna cost about $70 for both -- but it will be worthwhile. This will be extraordinary -- the best sax players in Japan will be on the discs! Takeshi Ito (T-Square), Masato Honda (T-Square, solo), Osamu Koike, Hidefumi Toki and Kazuki Katsuta!

http://extr.b-ch.com/cgi-bin/eva_news/o … ws_c=11061

What? They're going to make a FFVI FPS along the lines of Mech Warrior, in which you play as Terra, brainwashed by the Empire, in a phoned-in prequel to the main story of FFVI, in which we get to see what life was like for her, before she managed to escape the clutches of the Empire?!

You KNOW you want it...

I would SO not be surprised if they actually made that...

Added Dangun Feveron OST to that mix. Found one off of YJA.

Well, her hair was represented as being green in her in-game portrait as well.

I would venture to say she was a blonde in the Anthology cutscenes because she was modeled after Yoshitaka Amano's original rendering of the character.  (And of course, practically ALL of his characters are freaken blonds.)  Perhaps they felt that having two blondes - she and Celes - would have been too redundant.

Interestingly enough, Nomura designed both blonde *and* green-haired variations of Tina in Dissidia.  Now there's a man who knows how to compromise.

Hell. Daioujyou/Ketsui, Espgaluda I&II, Pink Sweets, deathsmiles, Daifukkatsu, Futari, Voice don are available at Cave Maturi. My schedule is already booked, but...

oh, another one of those cuddly cave pillows. who doesn't want one in their bed?

I concur, I've had these pre-ordered since June/July. Unfortunately, it looks like no go on getting them in 2009 unless the MM book does ship on December 24 (not holding my breath) The X book has been pushed back to January 10.

Add the new Heavenly album Carpe Diem (Dec.18) to my release purchases, though I'm going to opt for the Download despite the sexually explicit cover art.

We were asked for doll suggestions and we're trying to convince Groove / Jun Planning to release a FF or even Chrono Trigger collaboration pullip/taeyang/dal... they already have a good squeenix relationship since Grell, Sebastian, & Ciel from Kuroshitsuji last year (http://pullipstyle.com/pullipstyle/prod … cts_id=170).

Bought several Cave soundtracks today.

Espgaluda Original Soundtrack
Espgaluda II Original Soundtrack (not for me)
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Original Soundtrack
Dodonpachi Daioujyou / Ketsui Original Soundtrack
deathsmiles Original Soundtrack
Pink Sweet Original Soundtrack
Celebrity of the voice premium compilation album "Voice bowl"

OK, I was wrong, the X book just shipped out, but that confounds the problem of where the first book is considering it was ment to be out a month earier than the X book. WTF?

Hmm, according to the Amazon entry, the placeholder release date for the first book is now January 6th -- yet they also claim that it's now in stock.  Which has been known to happen before; my copy of the SF20 art book shipped a full week before its placeholder date came about.

I just placed my order for both.  A word of warning: when I placed my order for Mega Man X, the page stated there was only one left in stock.  So.... go for broke?  Quickly?

Actually, I just got an e-mail (later this evening) saying the MM book shipped today as well.