Hello! My copy of the collector’s edition of Aksys Games’ Code Realize ~Guardians of Rebirth~ Collector’s edition came in today!
I won’t have a chance to actually play it until about two weeks from now (Curse all these assignments!) but I will be uploading reviews route-by-route as I normally do for these games!
I decided to try an unboxing post. I think these are usually videos but I barely have enough time to type posts, let alone edit videos. 
I wanted to get this out within the release date, but, well, Amazon lost my package. So I had to wait another week to get my copy. 
Then, on the day the replacement copy arrived….
so did the original 
If Amazon doesn’t tell me to send the other one back, I’ll do a giveaway for it. 
I can’t play it for another week or so anyway…. so I guess it’s better to gaze longingly at it for one less week than it is for two!
Also, I have a pretty bad cold so I just have potato photos from my phone. Sorry!
Sales Pitch
This is what Aksys Games promised us on the store listings:
The game (of course!)
Artbook (60 pages)
Soundtrack CD
3″ Acrylic keychain
Unboxing
The goods are safely packaged inside like so:
Pretty standard stuff.
Review
Well…. to be frank, I am disappointed.
The thing I looked forward to the most was the artbook. Even if it just had a collection of images taken directly from the game, I would have been fine. But the thing that breaks my heart is that most of it is in black and white!!
Of the 60-odd pages, only 22 are in color! 
The size of it is small (but it was like that in the photo so it’s not a big surprise), it’s not bound well (any sort of heavy reading is going to make it split apart; I recommend being gentle), and well, it’s mostly in black and white!
size comparison to the CD case for best idea of its actual size
Now, if the images were originally in black and white, like character sketches and whatnot, I wouldn’t have a problem. But these are originally in color and have been printed in black and white. Especially something like this spread —
should be in color, yeah?
(Sorry for potato quality; I really didn’t want to break the spine laying it flat to take a nicer photo)
The CD case is pretty flimsy and because I’m the Goddess of Destruction I broke it apart trying to open it the first time. 
It has 25 tracks, here’s a closer image of the tracklist:
It seems like the vocal tracks are missing?
The keychain is cute and a good size. I probably won’t use it because I prefer more subtle references to my fandoms.
Be aware that these keychains have a protective cover over it, so be sure to peel it off (and if it looks like it’s scratched on arrival, it probably actually isn’t!).
Let’s judge the quality of the items. It’s $60 for this versus $40 for the vanilla game, so is it really an extra $20 worth of content?
Not really, IMO. I see this more as a “tip” to Aksys for continuing their Otome Armada and localizing otome games but I am let down by this limited set. I think the last set they had for it, the Vita Wintertide Miracles set, had better-looking quality items… I didn’t buy that one though. (WTH It’s super cheap right now too 
)
In any case, the real meat of the buy was for the game, so here’s to my first physical otome game on the Switch! May our pockets be empty and our libraries be big!
*note: I purchased this with my own money and I am not being compensated to say any of this. And even if I was, I would still be 100% honest because being fake is exhausting.
Oh no, that’s such a disappointment for the artbook! I like the keychain a lot, but that alone certainly isn’t a reason to buy a special edition. The only otome game limited edition I ever bought was the Amnesia limited edition, and while there the artbook also wasn’t really impressive, you did get a body pillow cover and a set of coasters, which was really great. This seems a bit lackluster by comparison.