Don't Let This Metal Slime Vita Run Away

November 12th, 2015. The official PlayStation blog announced a new style of PS Vita today, the Dragon Quest Metal Slime Edition. Created to promote the upcoming Dragon Quest Builders, the new style will go out on January 28th, and retail for 25,980 yen prior to tax. (Approximately $212 at the current exchange rate.) It will come with a small Metal Slime figure that plugs into the Vita's audio jack, a copy of Dragon Quest Builders, a USB cable, AC adapter, power cord, Japanese manual, and original Metal Slime theme pre-installed. The directional pad also features a Metal Slime illustration on its topmost key.

Those looking to import one for Cyber Sleuth or Digimon World -next 0rder- will find the Vita to be an extremely import-friendly handheld, being both region free and able to be configured to English language settings at startup rather than Japanese. The only restriction on Vita importing is that it can only be linked to a single PSN account at a time, which are tied to region, restricting what can be bought through the PlayStation Store. Physical game cards will still function even if one's PSN account isn't of the same region. Hence it's fully possible to import a Japanese Vita and play American or European games on it.

Back view.

Original Cosmic Red Vita.

The Metal Slime Vita is just the latest in a number of limited edition and new color Vita releases, which have been ongoing in Japan since 2012. The original model of Vita is available in four colors in Japan, while the current PCH-2000 model has eight standard colors and countless limited editions made to promote various franchises on the system. The standard for game-original Vita editions is to have one design in black and one in white, but designs like the Metal Slime variant meet this demand halfway with a unified gray color.  In the US the Aqua Blue Vita debuted just last week, as a GameStop exclusive.