Futuristic / Monorail style trains ??

It varies on where you live. I have only dealt with Amazon, ebay is just to expensive in a majority of cases of I'm to lazy to look. All of amazons products are brand new, which will explain high prices for the discontinued items. And I would look on local ad websites as you could probably drive and pick them yourself and not have to wait for the arrival. I would use that to get blue track as most people on there aren't like eBay sellers at all. Depending on where you live this could work better or worse.
And I am not an advertiser for Amazon. im just pointing out the good about it. And their prime (two day shipping) does not operate for very few of the plarail products.
Let me reword that. You cannot use their prime system for most plarail products.

I'll be honest I like the look of advanced but I know the special sections of track I have wont work with it, also I've heard that you can have issues with derailments if your track isn't perfectly aligned, finally there just doesn't seem to be the choice of rolling stock/trains that you get in the full version,

As for buying, the majority of my items come from eBay, with a few odd track master (Thomas) trains from local shops,

I have to agree with Tramp the range of locomotives available in Advance is considerably limited in comparison to standard plarail, however having said that I'm aware of at least 20 different locomotives and I'm sure there are more on the way as they seem to be pretty good sellers.

I also tend to buy most of my Advance stuff from Amazon as although sold in their marketplace directly from suppliers in Japan which means a bit of a time penalty they are considerably cheaper than the equivalent items on eBay. However I do use eBay for the odd locomotive I've not been able to find on Amazon and also I've purchased a few 'job lots' etc... off eBay which has delivered me a good range of track, the basic stuff I can use for either and the points and stuff which can be used for standard plarail locomotives. In other words as I'm interested in both scales its a win win scenario for me. I've also passed on some of the track and duplicate loco's to my young nephews

the advance range has only been around for a few years, compared to standard plarail which has been around for some 50 years. their production of new trains has been fairly fast and steady. i remember when the first 4 or so came out, and i thought i wouldnt mind when i had some money. by then, the line had increased and buying them went to the back burner in favour of more pressing things.

Plarail Advance has problems if you were an early adopter. A few of the early train sets such as the N700 Starter set has trains that don't work well with new Advance tracks even (the slope). I have quite a fair bit of Advance stuff and it is only there because it looks good. For excitement with kids, you should get the large Plarail because there is just a lot more scenery to choose from.

Another issue is that some tracks made during a certain period just don't work with Advance. Many tracks bought during the early 2000s (especially 2001-2002) just don't work because they modified the Plarail tracks during then. :|

-plarnold

Plarnold, out of interest when was Advance launched? I'm really new to the scene so have no history with them. Although I have noticed that some of the loco sets have been re-issued with the same code, but with a totally different loco. I assume this is perhaps to address issues with the original releases that you alude to. But the big question to a newbie to the range is which one is which? I mean if you have two totally different locomotives with the designation AS-05 for example is there any way to determine which is the original (potentially flawed) design and which is the latest new release?

[HankAmericanEngine]

Howdy Nigels!

After some quick researching, Plarail Advance debuted in 2011; I can't believe it's been four years since its debut.

Thanks for that Hank, always nice to know the history of a product

Although this set of video's is in (I assume) japanese it quite nicely demonstrates the capabilities you can have with Advance

Takara Tomy Advance

I would have never thought to look on Amazon for this stuff, as crazy as that sounds ... thanks for the heads up, guys!

I know exactly what you mean, I was quite shocked for some unknown reason to find them on Amazon myself, especially at lower average prices than eBay.

While you're looking at 'futuristic' stuff, check out the Tagamoto car range - although not trains these are super cool little motorised cars with all sorts of functionality including sound, lights and the ability to read bar codes on the road to make them do things. In my mind they are a superb addition to an advance layout

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Demo Tagamoto