After the relatively dry month of August, September looks to be bringing it back in a big way, especially in terms of games.  I seriously doubt I'll be picking all of these up at once (the majority of them are landing on the same day, September 23), so I'm gonna have to pace myself by using the two-tier priority listing here.  The first are likely day-one pickups, the second maybe within the coming weeks or months:   

Tier 1:
Samba de Amigo (Wii)
Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS)
Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)
Dragon Quest IV (DS)
Mega Man 9 (Wiiware)

Tier 2:
Lego Batman (PS3)
Silent Hill Homecoming (PS3)
Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (DS)
Time Hollow (DS)
Disgaea (DS)
Yakuza 2 (PS2)
Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2 (Wii)

I'm super-excited for Samba de Amigo and Dragon Quest IV, in particular.  DQIV was always my favorite DQ game in the series; I've had some fond memories with the NES Dragon Warrior IV back in the day, and I never did get to check out the PSOne port for which the DS game is based on.  It's gonna be awesome having Kirby Super Star on the go; Gourmet Race in my pocket!  I placed Lego Batman as a Tier 2, since I haven't even gotten halfway through Lego Indy yet.  I'll wait on reviews for Silent Hill Homecoming, and I'm moderately curious about Atlus' Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, seeing as how I missed out on the PSOne version from years back.  The change to a turn-based combat system sounds like something more up my alley.   

On the home video front, it's Iron Man, preceded by my most wanted movie this year: Speed Racer.  It's a damned shame that Warner is skimping on the Blu-ray release for Speed Racer though, with paltry extras, a BD-25 transfer, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track instead of lossless TrueHD.  The community is an uproar over it, and rightly so; one of the most technologically-advanced films in recent times getting such a second rate treatment?  How are they culling films from their 1970s collection like Gauntlet with lossless but not this?  This could've been the demo disc of the decade, but I guess when a film did as badly as this, they felt it was justified to skimp. 

For you Phoenix Wright fans, just a heads-up: Del Ray is releasing the English-language version of the manga this month.  The first of two releases, this one is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Official Casebook: Vol. 1: The Phoenix Wright Files, which will include the first six chapters.

Music-wise, I'll probably want to hear the music in-game first before deciding to go for the Rockman 9 Original Soundtrack.  Soul Calibur 4 Original Soundtrack also hits, and Smile.dk's seven year hiatus will finally come to an end with Party Around The World.

I'll pick up season 4 of the Office on DVD when it hits this Tuesday.

As far as VGM goes, I have a few items on queue:

- Rockman 9 OST
- Sigma Harmonics OST
- Pixel Junk Eden OST
- Siren 2 OST

My tier system is fairly easy to manage, as there are only 2 items.

Tier 1:

Rockman 9 OST

Tier 2:

Sigma Harmonics OST

I'm more sure about Rockman music than music by Hamauzu, since I've never really been fascinated by anything I've heard by him. For instance, there are only 2 tracks I listen to on the Dirge of Cerberus OST, and those are the Gackt tracks. I've never managed to survive the Saga Frontier 2 OST despite many efforts.

I'll probably get the Rockman 9 soundtrack since I have to seek a refund from play asia since they couldn't get the one item I wanted. Probably just shift that money over, make up the difference and get it. Got Rockman 1~8 soundtracks so why break that up?

Definitely Dragon Quest IV for me. I'm a sucker for RPG goodness in portable form (even though I still haven't beaten FFIV. Made it to the sealed cave though!). I'll also be getting Mega Man IX (who isn't?) and Iron Man on Blu-ray.

Fortunately, there are no other major releases until October, giving me the time to catch up until Star Ocean 4, Fallout 3 and Fable 2 come out. That's gonna be a busy month...

Hey Wanderer, was just curious if you ever saw Speed Racer?  Knew you had expressed interest earlier before.... ever did?

My monthly purchases:

Games:

Dragon Quest IV
Rockman 9
Kirby Super Star Ultra

VGM:

Rockman 9 Original Soundtrack
Tales of Series Piano Collection

Non-VGM:

6th Story Moira - Sound Horizon

Speed Racer Blu-Ray
Transformers Blu-Ray
Wario Land: Shake It!
Samba de Wii-migo
Rockman 9 (Wii VC)
Ys I & II (Wii VC - I haven't purchased it yet)

Is that Phoenix Wright manga just of cases that were in the games or are they separate stories?

Unfortunately, by the time I considered it, it was long gone from Seattle-area theaters. I'm definitely going to rent it when it comes out.

This might be a slightly expensive month for me.

Megaman 9 OST
Megaman 9, on PS3 or Wii, not sure which one yet. Have to get an Internet connection up first :S
Silent Hill Homecoming, provided the Import store in DenDen Town can get it this month, and it's not too expensive.

And most importantly, Infinite Undiscovery.

Easy: Mega Man 9.

Hot damn, nearly forgot about it! Is this the one with Turnabout Gallows?

At any rate, I can't say whether September will be feast or famine for me. I didn't think I'd be doing much with August, and then splurged on a PSP with 9 games, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Megaman VC, Ys I & II, and a handful of titles for the other decks. So take what I say here with a grain of salt.

I can say I'll be getting Megaman 9 come hell or high water, even though I'm not entirely convinced the retro-formatting is a good idea. Playing Powered Up has been a revelation; I'd rather have new Megaman titles in that style.
DQ4 is also interesting, but I'll be damned if I'm paying the S-E tax for it. The arrogance involved in assuming your rehashes are worth a 25% markup over brand-new first-party titles is staggering (which isn't to say I won't bend when Chrono DS hits; I've said this before, I'm a gigantic hypocrite).
I'm cautiously optimistic about KSS Ultra, but I can't get the bad taste of the Nightmare in Dreamland port out of my mouth. I'll wait on footage of the final product to decide.
Wario...I'll wait until I hear whether Nintendo's slipped a Homebrew Channel killer in a mandatory update first. Man, do I love not having to dig in the closet to play SNES Monopoly on my TV.

So 1 definite, and 3 maybes. Whether I'll stick to this, I've no clue.

I'll be buying the Soul Calibur IV OST, mostly out of habit. Listening to it in-game mostly made me realise how much I love the SC2 OST but there are actually some really good tracks in there. In the game, they are totally overpowered by the sound effects, so I'm hoping I'll love them when I'm just listening to the music without the sound of the effects or the sound of me grumping about the designs getting in the way.

I'll also pick up SimCity Creator on the DS. I love SimCity games and the last DS outing was soooo close to being good. But wasn't. It was stripped down and broken. The fact that the new one covers loads of time periods makes me suspect it will actually end up further watered down but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless. I would love a great handheld SimCity.

Actually I already have that - SimCity2000 on my Dell Axim thingy. But I never use that these days.

I'm also say I'm going to wait for reviews for the new Silent Hill game but the reality is I'll probably end up buying it regardless. I know I shouldn't. But I probably will.

Hmm, Megaman 9 in September, the ninth month of the year...Coincidence? Probably, but both the game and the OST are must-haves for me. And...I believe that's about it.

That means we'll never get a Mega Man 13. Lol.

Hrmm . . . forgot about Yakuza 2 coming here. Play says it is just a rehash of the first game, which has me very wary. Not a truly big complaint, I guess. Beating a dude senseless with his own bike in the first game never got old for me. And I saw a trailer where goddamn Kiryu beats the hell out of a tiger. I am expecting good things.

I'll definitely pass on the Phoenix Wright manga. I have a disdain for the medium that inexplicably doesn't carry over to animation.

I'll take a gander at Rhapsody for the DS, only because I missed out on the PSX iteration, and Time Hollow looks absolutely dandy.

Sign me up for Megaman 9 (and it's OST releases; They DID announce an arrange album, didn't they?), and while I'll pass on Soul Calibur IV OST, I will definitely endeavor to find the OST for II. Not really a new release, I guess.

PS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9o5_W6hn9k
Been keepin' me entertained all mornin'.

They're separate stories not related to the games.  You can check out a couple of scanlations from the original Japanese versions at Court Records.

Pretty sure it'll be included.  The book's number of pages appears to dictate that it'll be featured as the last few chapters.

You do know you can adjust all three sound volume parameters (music, sound effects, voices) freely, right?  I always set the music at the highest and the sound effects and voices about five notches lower to strike the perfect sonic balance - because you're right, the SE/voices are set overbearingly loud by default.

Yeah.  I just really wish they'd pop the first two Yakuza games over to more powerful hardware; that is, if that'd help with the unbelievably slow load times.  From what I've heard, the load times aren't much better off in part 2.  With Ryu ga Gotoku 3 headed to PS3, maybe they'll release a 2-in-1 compilation someday.

I think Season 3 of Robot Chicken dropped last month/drops this month. I was rather iffy about picking it up to begin with (sketches were much more hit and miss in the latest season) but I came to find that it's only the first half of the third season as the second half hasn't aired yet. Is that correct? If so, that's pretty much a stake though the heart as I'm not going to buy two volumes which will probably cost more than if it came out in a single set.

Probably just Rhapsody DS for me... I've been way too busy with work to spend much time gaming or listening to music or... anything else!  Maybe things will have settled down by October/November.

whats the big deal about this rhapsody game? shana has it here but neither of us has played it. Since its a musical game, wouldnt that mean a HUGE deterioration on a DS port?

I'm sure they'll find a way to secure a Smarch release.

My selections from September 2008's releases:

DVDs
[None]

CDs
-Rockman 9 Original Soundtrack
-Sigma Harmonics Original Soundtrack

Games
Mega Man 9 (Wii or PS3)
Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS)

Well, Rhapsody plays largely like an RPG -- the only time the musical element comes into play is during cutscenes and non-interactive event sequences.  The DS version is apparently changing up the combat system, though; where the original was tactical-based strategy, the new one is adopting a traditional RPG turn-based one.

Actually, the thing I'm most curious about the DS version is just how much of the original score will be retained - and as you say, if deterioration in quality will be a glaring factor.

I played Rhapsody for the PSX several years ago and thought it was... well, really disappointing.

The battle system was a very light SRPG-influenced grid-based system that didn't work too well, but it's nice to hear that they're going to make it more traditional. The music was pretty bad, especially the sing-a-long songs with vocals, and the dungeons (kicks in around 5:30 or so, video is sped up) were nothing more than the same seven or eight rooms layered over and over again, making for really annoying and poorly paced exploration.

VGM:
Rockman 9 OST
Siren 2 OST
Fantasy Zone Complete Album
Fate/tiger colosseum upper OST

Game:
Dragon Quest IV (maybe)

I'm on the fence about Sigma Harmonics. Didn't like Dirge, and I hear its more in that style? Is there a site with samples to listen to?

Yeah, here's the main site for Sigma Harmonics. It has samples if you haven't heard any already.

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/sigma/

SquareTex provided a link to the game rip in this thread. I don't think it's very similar to DoC; it sounds fresh but it's still more traditional Hamauzu than DoC. You should give it a change whether you enjoy DoC or not. The rip left a good impression, and I'm definitely going to pick up the OST.

And maybe Rockman 9 OST, too. We'll see..

Thanks you two, I may have missed that thread the first time around. I downloaded the web edit and that was pretty good. Dunno how to play ADX files (plus its 30MBs) so I have to pass on that. Wish more shops would just put up samples for new releases; that was one reason I passed on Soma Bringer as well.

I believe there is an mp3 format of that rip floating around. I don't believe I have it anymore, but I'll look around for you.

Well I just came back from holiday but I had Infinite Undiscovery home ready to play, which I bought mainly as I got a really good deal on it.

As always there isn't a lot of money but there are a few releases that I really want which are:

-Samba de amigo because when I played it brielfy at a SEGA gamer's it was so much fun. I am new to it due to never buying the original cult dreamcast game as well but didnt do too badly.

-Sonic chronicles for my blue hegdehog fix because once again what I got to play at the Gamer's day made me want it.

-Wario Shake dimension because the 2D games were always the best.

I doubt that I will buy any soundtracks until I have quite a bit of money saved up once again. While playing through a hour of Infinite undiscovery I quite liked the music so that might be a soundtrack that I will purchase. I also want the Megaman 9 soundtrack just out of curiosity and will definetly buy the game on xbox 360 mainly as the wii has very few memory block left!

I think that is it for me because I want to focus more on getting my life ready for 2nd year in uni.

Happy playing guys!