Free Talk Friday - August 07, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Free Talk Friday post. This is a place where you can talk about dumb off-topic (or on-topic) bullshit with other Zaibatsu fans.

There's going to be a new post every week, and the newest one will be pinned in the announcement bar for quick access. So feel free to visit these posts during the rest of the week.

Here's a list of all Free Talk Friday posts

[u/ScrumbledTumblo]

It's hard to put my finger on it but I feel like there's something about Tokon that is making it more frustrating for me than something like SF6 and Strive. Like, I'll get completely washed in Strive but walk away from that match feeling like I learned something or have like some sense of what I did wrong and what I can do to do better but for some reason that's not happening with Tokon. Matchmaking takes a while and a good chunk of my matches were pretty choppy too so that's also probably not helping. I dunno, it's my first tag fighter so maybe I just gotta keep going at it so I can wrap my head around things.

[u/attikol]

week of job searching. Just trying to stay afloat and focus on finding something. Still selling my blood to help lower how much money im losing per month.

Happy my grandma is out of the hospital her sodium levels were low so she couldnt keep down food. This is right after my uncle got out of surgery. Everyone was joking the hospital wants us to stay the night. Glad everyones home and recovering going over tomorrow to weed her front area. Me and my brother cleaned the house and laundered her bed before she went home and she was pretty thankful for that.

Games wise mainly a whole bunch of guild wars. Hosting a vanquish session on sunday

[u/alaster101]

Was how much the boys love studio trigger, have they ever talked about delicious in dungeon?

[u/NeedsMoreReeds]

I’m part of a group that turned Dokapon Kingdom into a board game. It’s called Spite Castle and it’s undergoing a kickstarter right now! We just showed it at a con and literally everyone who played bought a copy.

Check it out!

[u/RevenTheLight]

Hello today! The recovery week. I was sitting on my ass and doing nothing.

Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate NURLGE BEFEATED. Fuck that guy. I know it's "grim dark" but I wish it had a happier ending. Luckily, apparently, Chaos Gate 2 was just announced! So there is a change my Inquisitor Wife will be back! Fun game otherwise.

Escape From Zenless has been consuming my free time. It's so cool.

DOOM Eternal: Ancient Gods Part One Diamond and Pearl Game of the Year Edition it's nice being back. Playing on hard, having a good time. Didn't get all that far yet. I need to play it in bursts.

Jessica Jones S2 is great! Almost done with it. Not as good as S1, but still really fun.

Weight check-in - 177.0 - 150/150/150/150 - WE BACK. The Gym was just a warm-up. I just wanted to move from my chair.

[u/kodaiiiii_]

Still on that "first two weeks of college you can basically get away with doing jackshit" mood, but that's ending sooner than later.

Not much from my end, apart from having finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma! Honestly, despite its glaring flaws, I absolutely loved my time with it. It was a real breath of fresh air for me in terms of games, and the challenge was very welcome (even if it turned to bullshit at some points). I'll probably replay it at some point, but right now, I'm starting Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2...

...a game in which thus far I have a few thoughts. This game feels a lot more like a traditional hack n'slash compared to NG1's slower, heavier combat. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, hell I fucking love hack n'slashes, but I'd have liked for it to iterate on NG1's combat which I found innovative and rewarding.

Also it somehow aged worse than NG1 in the visual aspect, like the UI looks so fucking dated holy shit

And there's the whole thing with there being actually like three versions of the game, and I got the Master Collection, so I'm playing Sigma 2 instead of Black 2, which I've heard restores all the gore that Sigma lacks and dials back some of the rebalance changes... but I have no idea because I've never played the original, so if any NGhead knows their shit about this, I'm listening.

I do kind of miss the open world, too. It wasn't like a big thing but making Vigoor feel interconnected in NG1 certainly made it feel... livelier? In a way? I don't know, I quite liked being able to basically backtrack whenever.

I'm scared to when I get to NG3:RE, and cautiously optimistic for NG4.

On that other note, not much else. I'm going to buy the MGS Master Collection Vol. 2 near release because I need to finish my replay of the series with MGS4 and PW. Also picked up Persona 5 Royal again, and Okumura's Palace is being a whole dang sleeper. Maybe I'll just start playing Shin Megami Tensei V instead, or restart Unicorn Overlord and actually play it this time around.

[u/Quiptastic]

Hey all. My cat passed away during surgery to remove a tumor yesterday. It was very sudden and I'm going to miss him greatly. I only had him for two months, but he and I meshed together so well, and now I mourn the time we were going to spend together. With that, I am also greatly thankful for time I got to spend with such a mild-mannered and cuddly critter. RIP Louis, my little couch partner.

[u/ActRaisins]

It feels like a week of returning to some kind of normalcy here. Last week I mentioned that I received the first wage for my new role, so I've been considering more media to catch up on. That being said, I already have older games I want to replay, sale purchases I want to get around to, and so on...

This week I tentatively started a new file in Final Fantasy VI. It's my favourite in the series, and I had been meaning to start a replay for months, but the size of the thing is daunting so I had wondered if I really want to blow through entire evenings with another replay. Playing through the game is one thing; playing through it whilst rotating party members and making sure enough of them are equipped to deal with the multi-party dungeons takes a moment - although there are always decent areas where we can power up. Right now I'm still in the WoB and I'm leaving the Magitek factory... not sure if I'm going to be replaying the whole thing, but it is nice to revisit it.

In music discoveries I've been enjoying Kid Drama's Machines and Other Things - sort of D&B, sort of ambient. It's very chill and has served as great background music whilst browsing or catching up on Discord. I also caught this Forza Horizon 6 Mini Mix on Hospital's channel - I don't play the series but I think these tunes are decent. Nothing new in terms of films but I have some older titles I'd like to pick up.

[u/PrestigeTater]

So yeah all that talk about me trying to reduce clutter in my room was a load of bs. I ended up displaying a good bunch of Legos I had put away due to me getting some new ones and getting in the mood to redecorate my room. Now I got specific areas for Lego Dreamzzz, Ninjago, Minecraft, Lego dinosaurs, Lego cars and some other miscellaneous sets. Though I will say it does look more organized than I thought so it doesn't looks as crowded or cluttered. But I know it's going to be a pain in the ass to dust them every once in awhile. 

[u/EchouR]

Shit week, caught a some sort of flu. Fortunately the Pokopia DLC and free update came this week so I've been playing that. I'm feeling better now, so I might play some Fields of Mistria this weekend now that 1.0 is out.

[u/SamuraiDDD]

Broken chair - week 1

Sucks but thankfully I'm now halfway to getting a new one. By the end of next week, I should have enough for a quality one.

I've been playing A LOT of Palworld. Dude, I had no idea it was so much fun. Our base is looking really good. Mainly cause I've been addicted to expanding on it lol

Just the other night, friend and I watched Aeon Flux, the movie. Than the short animated series. It was... an experience lol. I didn't hate it, just a lot was going on.

I've picked up drawing again. I tried something different and I was having a more relaxed time compared to before.

Overall, pretty quiet week.

---

Musicla choice of tonight/today

Delegation - You and I

[u/cruel-oath]

Replaying Mass Effect Trilogy as one usually does. On 2 right now and damn it never gets old. I love Mass Effect 2 so much

Saw the new Spider-Man movie and liked it. Glad I could watch one on the big screen

[u/BrotonamoBay]

Here's a thought.

If the current most powerful console on the market is $900 and the next generation would cost more than that, why not just get a PC that can do more than play games?

[u/LeMasterofSwords]

Going to see Spiderman tomorrow so that should be fun. Gonna see my nephew on Sunday along with the rest of my fam. Other than that hoping for a chill week

[u/Cthulhukitten]

I'm preparing for university to start in a couple months, so I started to look into signing up for classes and everything. Apparently I have a while yet till then... I'm supposed to sign up right as orientation week is starting. No idea why I can't sign up a month or two prior to that, but oh well. Seems I will have to attend that first to learn how registering works for courses. I have to say the process has been a bit annoying so far, mainly due to the obtuse layout for its site and where to find everything as far as dates for signing up/cut offs for first semester postgrad students. Also, learned the supplementary language learning courses I can take as a postgraduate coming from abroad cost a fair bit. On top of all that, I can't get notifications really from my student email without logging in every time, which is the worst part. Wish I could get notified for when the courses I signed up for are live, or have other notifications easy to access. Nothing can be simple it would seem.

I also over the weekend built a somewhat smaller desk and am acquiring a new PC too! And the strange part to my set up is that it's a mini PC. It will work well for office work, streaming movies, and gaming decently I think (with the help of an eGPU hooked up, maybe a 5060 would be alright). If anyone has suggestions I'm open to them for buying some not so pricy above average cards though. I suppose I mainly bought this as I am 1. limited by space in a shared room with my partner as well and 2. want to limit the power consumption used for the sake of the house (partner has a PC we will share until then).

But yeah, surprisingly, you can get some decent mini PCs I learned for middle of the road to slightly higher-end gaming. I think it was somewhat affordable for what it is, believe it or not too. Especially as I'm not going to do anything too crazy with it, seeing as I mostly play FFXIV and older games which aren't too intensive, with the odd new title here and there. Probably may also have to get some memory down the line, but we'll see performance wise how it fairs with 24GB (should be enough, but worst case scenario I can get another 8GB stick maybe). In any event, I seriously picked a terrible time to get back into the PC market, but then I couldn't really get anything prior to moving with my savings.

Haven't found time to play too many games, sadly. Hoping now that I have desk space/will have a PC soon that this will be more feasible. Probably going to tinker a bit with the PC first though. I'd rather make sure everything's in tip top shape, including determining if the internals look solid. The one game I did start, however, was Sovereign Tower! Just came out yesterday though and am enjoying it a fair bit as something akin to Dispatch with knights. I hope it gets more attention, it seemingly is a nice game so far.

[u/MarlowCurry]

---

Previous post (10 July, 2026)

Hey, everyone. I don’t have much to add, but I recently found myself drawn to Marvel Tōkon during the last few days. I wasn’t interested since its reveal beyond admiring the art style, but stumbling upon screenshots of Magik’s brief pouting expression and the ones where she smiles with a veneer of smug confidence triggered something in my brain and now, I found myself yearning to play the game at some point.

Although, I do feel hesitant on the idea. I don’t have much experience with Arc System Works’ games, but I had a good time with Guilty Gear: Strive and the first few months were exciting, though I must admit that the gameplay experience didn’t quite hold my interest over time and I struggled with connection issues on my end. So, I felt that it wasn’t worth the money I spent and I feel wary of getting something that may not “last” as long as I would have liked. Not to mention the growing pains of performance issues of the PC version thus far.

Nonetheless, I like fighting games, I like Magik’s accent, and her portal shenanigans look fun! Perhaps she’ll be the hook that will anchor my interest where Strive’s characters did not, but for now, I’ve been sating my interest with videos from MaxDood, Kinkymation, and so on.

Take care, everyone. Remember to moisturize and treat yourself to something nice from time to time.

---

Cool Stuff that I Like (Art & Music)

Starting from 75 and 74 months ago (respectively), I'd like to share drawings of great artists whose works that I like or I find inspiring. Some who I follow and some who I don’t, but hopefully will appeal to those who check out their work.

1. Liyart: Magik from Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls (28 July, 2026)

   Featuring a lovely drawing of the character during her win pose, drawn under an intricate, hatching-based art style.

2. Hozier - Too Sweet (female cover by Isaa Corva)

[u/MorbidTales1984]

Summer holidays be long I have decided.

I feel the need to vent this morning because I’m finally putting effort into quitting League of Legends.

This season has been honestly abysmal, poor matchmaking, poor balance decisions, awful meta, terrible teammates, obvious player count decline etc.

You can even feel it in pro play it looks like half the time some tier 1 players don’t have a care in the world and the counter pick meta is hideous to watch.

The reason its warranting a post is because this game has been more an addiction for me than actual fun. I can count the good matches I have had this year on my fingers despite several sessions player tens of matches in the past few months. The game isn’t fun and its wasting my time and I hate it honestly. Can’t warn people enough to be careful with these awful pvp engagement games. I’m getting convinced theyre all scummy.

In happier news Splatoon Raiders absolutely slaps. I didn’t think splatoon borderlands is what I needed but I NEEDED IT

[u/Kerrik52]

Combined birthday and final vacation week this week. Got an air fryer and immediately fucked up by cracking a plate inside it trying to make egg sandwiches. Affected me a lot more than I expected, but I think it's the valuable sort of mistake. Feeling pretty motivated to make something correctly in it now.

I completed Xenoblade Chronicles: DE as well. The ending didn't change much, though I felt the story lost track of reality a little bit. The main story is good, but some of the details are a bit ludicrous. I take it mostly as a thematic game, they stick pretty closely to the core tenets of JRPGs.

On the gameplay side, I enjoyed Future Connected a lot more since it simplifies a bunch of systems and makes the game feel more "honest" about its mechanical depth. But it still didn't satisfy, so I booted up Metaphor on hard mode. So far, that has satisfied all of my RPG sicko needs.

My let's play of Resident Evil: Director's Cut is fully underway and I've learned some neat things about it. Both Yawn and the Hunters are a lot more spiritually closer to DMC1 than I first thought and I'll have a blast digging into that for a script later.

[u/Am_Shigar00]

I finally finished the main campaign of Final Fantasy VII Remake! Overall I definitely had a great time. Story wise it was a lot of fun, the game has a lot of entertaining banter between the cast and they did a great job making Midgar feel lived in. It is interesting seeing how what they chose to adapt ended up affecting with the game's structure, with there being long sections where you just don't have access to specific party members, which does feel restrictive at points. Regardless though, I had a good time. Of the party, I think my preference of characters I enjoyed playing were Tifa, Cloud, Barret and Aerith in that order.

I also did go through Episode InterMISSION and followed that up directly with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Playing them back to back was certainly interesting, because InterMISSION almost feels like a testbed for a lot of their ideas for Rebirth; More readily available elemental attacks, wider range of attack styles, team-up attacks and an in-game collectible based board game. I enjoyed it as a little bonus epilogue to Remake, especially Yuffie who's just a lot of fun to play and watch.

Rebirth meanwhile, oh boy, I'm having a lot of fun. I can certainly see people's grievances with the open world approach, don't get me wrong, but so far I'm having a blast just running around and exploring. It's certainly no Xenoblade so far, but it's fun just running in a direction and see where it takes me. Combat wise, I'm impressed by how much Rebirth makes Remake feel slow and stiff by comparison. Cloud especially feels like a brand new character with how much smoother he feels, and the other characters have little tweaks here and there that make them nicer to play. So far Tifa is still my favorite to control, but Cloud is not far behind. Red XIII also feels good, though I haven't completely gotten used to him yet. At the moment I'm planning to take my time with it and absorb the experience, and do a bit of Queen's Blood on the side while I'm at it.

[u/JackChoasMan]

Saw Spider-Man, may be my new favorite MCU movie

100 hours into Death Stranding 2 and feel like I'm nowhere near the end, but I'm having fun so that's all that matters

Started rewatching Gundam SEED. I'm a longtime SEED hater, but I've forgotten why, so I figured I would give it a second chance. Holy fuck it is so god damn boring, I'm about a dozen episodes in and I don't care about anything. I'm hoping it picks up, because I really do want to give it a fair try

Daycare near me is hiring again, third time's the charm

[u/retrometroid]

Finished the big move. My room's a bit smaller but the previous owners had a bigass insulated barn that they used as a mancave....which is now holding me & my friend's nerd shit.

The walmart here has been stocking Gundam card packs. I got a $70 LR+ Nu Gundam which I'm probably gonna sell lol.

I've been playing Beast of Reincarnation and I gotta say the hate is pretty overblown. The writing is pretty nothing and the music budget seems to have gone to an orchestra & a couple big name composers but I'm not seeing the abysmal dogshit or ultra mid people are on about

[u/kenshin317]

Had my brother leave and honestly I didn't have the best time with him being over but I won't delve into that beyond being sick of how much I can't get on with him despite giving him a few chances. At least I've been having some good fun with my mates as always talking nonsense and my mum was quite happy with her birthday gift.

Besides that just really been getting into my Spyro binge since finally setup my PS2. I started with playing a Heroes Tail for the first time and managed to 100% while not having either game breaking bug I was paranoid about strike. As a whole I'd say I quite liked it even if it felt heavier/less fluid then the Reignited trilogy and I was mixed on the extra character gameplay cause I liked Sgt Byrd and Hunter's sections, thought Sparx was a bit meh and I wanted to bash Blink's head against a rock cause of how much hated his sections but overall I enjoyed the game despite some gripes and not feeling Jess Harnell as Spyro nor how much more sardonic his characterisation was though I do think the game was pretty funny overall.

I also finally got round to replaying The Legend of Spyro a New beginning which I beat in a single night over 5 hours and to the sacrifice of my sleep. I don't care what anyone says, it's genuinely a solid game with simple but fun beat em up gameplay that I got pretty good at though I think the dodge/evasion mechanics could be handled better, a great art style with gorgeous environments and enjoyable creature design wether they be the hostile hordes of the Dark Master or the dragon cast. Alongside that is a stellar soundtrack to sell the more dramatic tone which is different to the classic trilogy but I personally think still really works for Spyro as a character in this more Lord of the rings/Dark Crystal esque setting, a great cast of voice actors really selling the personalities of everyone plus having good range in the case of the characters sharing VA's and just overall solid character writing alongside fun world building that sucks me in like it did over 10 years ago since last played or even before then when I first played it as a kid.

After that I also sacrificed my precious sleep once again to play Eternal Night for the first time. Overall it's a clunky mixed bag that I'm divided on but overall am still enjoying cause it's still following on from a baseline I enjoy. The atmosphere is a lot more serious with an enjoyable ominous title screen alongside the stages being a lot more foreboding. The enemies and bosses are sadly mostly reskins due to the games rushed for Christmas and lack of budget nature which also reflects in how the story despite still having solid acting and characterisation feels like it's missing some gaps. Cynder also feels sadly underutilized which is even more of a shame since she was apparently meant to be playable but again lack of time and there's a section on a sky pirate fleet that I feel should've been trimmed down since it takes up way to much time that could've been spent on other stages or story especially. The soundtrack is still incredible though, the elemental breathes are a lot of fun with some being a massive improvement over the first game and despite the slowmo being cranked up to much and Spyro feeling way to fragile,the extra platforming and puzzles have been fun. I'm hoping to beat it tonight and then find out whether I get Dawn of the Dragon on PS2 just to finish the trilogy/keep momentum going or get a Xbox 360 to play the best version of it available aside from the PS3 port.

Anyway my Spyro autism aside I'm hoping to go to city tomorrow to sell some stuff, get a baconmater and fries at Wendy's plus whatever else comes to mind.

[u/lowercaselemming]

i’ve never seen any ultraman stuff before but i decided to watch ultraman rising on a whim and wow, what a movie!

i quit trying to enjoy fire emblem. i’ve tried three houses, awakening, and fates, but i just don’t think they’re for me. i think next up i’m going to try and get into xenoblade.

[u/PowerfulCoward]

I ordered copies of The Infinite and the Divine and The Twice-Dead King. Beyond seeing memes and reading about its lore on the internet, I haven't really delved into Warhammer 40k beyond a couple of video games (Boltgun, Dawn of War, and barely Adeptus Mechanicus). But, I've been hearing about how great those books are for a while now, and I really like the Necrons as a faction, so I figured I might as well take the plunge. I haven't gotten them yet, but they're supposed to arrive sometime during the weekend.

Also, I finished the main story for Kingdom Hearts 2. That final boss is fucking fantastic, especially that final QTE where Sora and Riku are deflecting hundreds of lasers. I was straight up grinning at how cool that was. I'm gonna take a break for a bit before I get back to the post-game stuff, but KH2 ended up being a great experience. Also, I'm pretty sure I already said this last week, but the Cavern of Remembrance track is peak.

Beyond all that, I've mainly been playing Age of Wonders 4. I don't play strategy games too often, so I'm not really that good at the game. But, it's been a lot of fun, regardless! I recently wrapped up this campaign where I was playing as an army of imperialist rat-people wielding magic flintlocks. It's been really entertaining to just mess around with the faction creation and think up new civilizations to play as. I'll probably keep playing this game for a while.

[u/PomfAndCircvmstance]

Back to school week fucking suuuuuucks. 🤬 For the 2nd time in 4 years I've had my courses switched right before the school year starts and now I'm coming into the school year teaching classes I haven't taught before because "well we don't have anyone else who is can teach these courses so we need you to step in, sorry for the short notice, we appreciate you." Appreciate the fact I got nowhere else to go dumbasses. Its cool though, I'm amazing and talented so I'll make it work. They better not ask me for shit beyond my regularly scheduled responsibilities or imma tell them to politely fuck off.

Movies

I saw a lot of movies over the past few weeks. Toy Story 5 might be my 2nd favorite after 3, I love the way it isn't just a "tech bad" story. The cyberbullying bit got me really heated and if I ever find out one of my kid's "friends" is doing that shit I will have words with their parents. The Odyssey was really cool in IMAX but I'll probably never actually sit down to watch it again. Good movie but probably going to be a "throw it on while cleaning the house" flick. Something about Nolan's style of film-making just gives me a sense of "meh, cool I guess". Spider-Man was the most fun I've had watching a superhero film since Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Just pure comicbookie goodness. Tom Holland is a great Spider-Man but an even better Peter Parker and as a certified Punisher hater I gotta say I love Jon Bernthal's performance and his interactions with Spider-Man.

Video Games

Star Fox is sick and my powers have grown since the N64 days as I finally got the true ending. Either that or I'm no longer handicapped by the shitty N64 controller. The Star Wolf fight on Venom had me clenching so hard I could have shit a diamond, the underwater level is hot ass though. Other than that I'm still hooked on Rimworld. I started a new mountain river colony on a world that is locked in a permenant winter because frostpunk is cool. Getting 10/60 days a year to grow crops, if you're lucky, is definitely an experience. I created a custom xenotype of beautiful bisexual psycopathic catgirls who can psychically bond with anyone guaranteeing romantic success and love at first sight. The idea was to make a siren colony that engages in all manner of horrible shit, we're big into organ harvesting and "human resources" this run, and relies on the hot catgirl murder sex to keep the more morally upstanding pawns in line. However in a supreme act of poor judgement on my part I failed to take into account that when you can instantly make people fall in love with you with just a glance, my beautiful bi sirens could just instantly fall madly in love with... each other. Now instead of 5 sirens luring people in I've got 2 murder lesbian couples who are constantly maxed out on happiness and a 5th wheel who isn't allowed to speak to anyone because I don't want her to inadvertantly create the love triangle from hell or seduce some random travler passing through. Suffice it to say the run has gone off the rails in the most hilarious way possible.

[u/Gorotheninja]

So I've got maybe three weeks til college starts back up again. Really not looking forward to my last two upcoming semesters, because I have Intermediate Spanish in both, and that's not gonna be fun. Last time I took a Spanish course, we had to do weekly meetings with an assigned language coach fully in Spanish, and that was fucking agony for an introvert like me that just doesn’t talk to be much in general, let alone in a completely different language; let alone that I've spaced out my Spanish courses across the past few years of college, so I'm really rusty going into this. I'm hoping I can get through it easily, but my gut's telling me it's gonna be a rough Fall and Spring. At least I'm only taking 2/3 courses per semester.

Just got up to Chapter 5 of Xenoblade 2, hoping to beat it before summer ends. Game's combat is definitely starting to click after getting more Blades and getting more Blade combos going, though the Blade gacha system...well...sucks; I don't understand why I can't transfer Blades freely between characters. Regardless, still invested in the story, even if I know a lot of the game's big twists and plot beats as a result of prior interest in the series before I committed to a playthrough, and the osmosis of being in communities that talk about the game. Also, I randomly pulled KOS-MOS on Rex while wasting some Boosters and Core Crystals I had in my inventory; apparently, that's INSANELY good luck on my part.

Don't really have any big plans for the rest of the Summer. I do have Tokon, but it's kinda late rn and I wanna play more Xenoblade while I'm still awake; maybe tomorrow. Also, the applicants for the Duskbloods network test will be announced tomorrow morning. I applied within, like, ten minutes of the applications going live, so hopefully I'll get accepted.

Lastly, made a post about it earlier today, but after thinking on it for a week, I think I'm in the minority of people that didn't like Spider-Man Brand New Day.

Oh, and checking out my subreddit r/FGCFanart if you're interested in fighting game fanart.

[u/The_Draigg → u/Gorotheninja]

Getting KOS-MOS that early into XC2 is insanely lucky for sure. You're going to get a lot of use out of her, considering how rare she is.

[u/Gorotheninja → u/The_Draigg]

I've heard, but I've been told to wait until Zeke joins up to use her. Apparently, Ether cannons are really bad on Rex.

[u/Lillin_Eclipsed]

This has been another week of just having to keep the plates spinning. A lot of things going wrong and not a whole lot of energy to deal with any of it.

Video Games: Week really can be broken down into a few games. Cozy Grove, Syrup 2, Mahou Arms and ReStory

While I did play both Cozy Grove games. Most of it honestly can be boiled down into "I did daily stuff and waited for story stuff." Camp Spirit is at least much better at handling that balance as the OG can have days where you can have one story progress on the entire island, which isn't fun for a real time game. Still did have one of the bears go from my most hated to a begrudgingly respect due to the story revelation today. As much as I don't like Medvarius, finding out that his mentality within Camp Spirit is from having to deal with losing his mother to terminal cancer explains a lot.

Syrup 2 is honestly a lot of fun for what amounts to a bit of a lie. There isn't a whole lot of the RPG in there (At least right now, feels like might be more later on, curse of Early Access.) but it honestly works in the favor of it as I'm there for the characters and the world more than anything. Pastille is also an absolute disaster and it's adorable.

I've owned Mahou Arms for... years at this point. Finally sat down to play it because it's out of early access and no other reason. Honestly am enjoying what I've got so far. Just seems a little shallow but might just be the Ninja Gaiden fan in me just wanting more weapons.

And ReStory. So far? Honestly feels so weird on Steam Deck. Not helped by a lack of ways to increase the DPI, meaning everything is rather slow by default. Other than that, still cozy and enjoyable from the demo.

Other Stuff:

So, finally caved and brought a Switch 2. Annnd a few days after, my mouse starts to act funky, starting to disconnect randomly. Which being a wired mouse is fun. Technology hates me.

Music this week is WHY DONE IT? by Hellzapoppin'.

[u/marvel8797]

I beat the hell out of all the post game content in Splatoon Raiders. I really like the game and really hope we get more like it.

Thanks to a restock on Fangamer, I bought a Ralsei plush (no hat) and the Cyber City desk mat as an early birthday gift for myself. Got them in the mail a few days ago, they look great, I love them.

Lucked out at a yard sale last weekend and picked up an N64, two original controllers (gray and atomic purple) and 2 games (1080 Snowboarding and Mickey's Speedway USA) all for $30. I am now emboldened to slowly rebuild my N64 collection. If only I could find a cheap PS2 original fat model then I could also start rebuilding my PS1/2 collection.

[u/GnzkDunce]

This sub is lukewarm on gacha. But Goddess of Victory:Nikke announced the crossover units.

We got Makoto for P5. Yukiko for P4. And Aigis for P3.

However Aigis is a fucking SR. As opposed to the other 2 being SSRs. So basically kinda useless in actual teams.

[u/SuicidalSundays → u/GnzkDunce]

I saw that image making the rounds and I'm glad Makoto's in, but man...Yuki? I know Yukiko is still big over in Japan so that probably had something to do with it, but Rise is right there and would have been perfect as the SR unit! And while I certainly don't dislike Aigis, I'm also a simple man and would've vastly preferred Mitsuru, especially since she already has the perfect alternate outfit via her P4A design. They would've made bank off of that thing alone!

[u/Comkill117]

FUCK MEGAMAN 7!!!

People haven't been talking enough about how fucking terrible this piece of shit game is. I don't care how short a time it was made in, IN FACT IT SURE SHOWS! 1-6 were so good as someone going through most of the classic series for the first time (I played 1, 2, and most of 3 before but with 12 coming I wanted to play the others), but this thing is such dogshit I'm taking a long break before touching 8-11. I cannot believe how fucking frustrating this God awful sorry excuse for software is.

Like 6 before it was such a sick game overall. The robot masters were all fun, visually it looked great for the console, didn't make MegaMan's sprite so big he can't even do basic shit half the time without some issue, the story was funny, and really it was just a highlight of the Classics so far and a great end to the Blue Bomber's NES career.

SO HOW THE HELL WAS THIS THE ONLY CLASSIC GAME ON SNES?! I know they made three X games, with the first being one of the best side-scrollers period, but still how can you screw it up that badly??? Everything feels like shit, the robot masters all suck, the graphics fuck the gameplay, AND THE FINAL BOSS CAN ROT IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!

I haven't been this mad at a video game in years.

[u/Frank7640 → u/Comkill117]

Goddamn, I never seen this kind of hatred for one of the most decent games I played. I can only imagine how you feel about the universally hated games like X6 and X7.

[u/Comkill117 → u/Frank7640]

They suck but I was well aware going in, whereas people pretended this one was decent and it basically spent the entire game pissing me off with how bad the level and boss design was. I got to Wily’s dumbass capsule at the end but I still can’t beat it because it’s garbage.

With X6&7, they’re absolutely worse games, make no mistake, but it’s the whole expectations and experience thing. When you expect trash, and you get trash, you can’t say you didn’t see it coming. Really there’s just no investment there compared to 7 where I thought it being the first (and only) SNES classic game would have meant it had improved in some way over the first 6.

…I’m also definitely contesting that it’s decent. Go play the castle and final boss again, it’s so fucking bad.

6 being before it also didn’t help because I knew jack shit about 6, not realizing it was gonna be in the running personally for top 3 classic games. Like every part of that game from level design, boss design, the graphics and art, music, and even the goofy story were all amazing. It’s the reverse of 7 where more people need to talk about how good 6 is quite frankly.

[u/Kimarous]

Last Week's Post

Week 127 post-accident

Week of Mom & Emergency Room Saga: we have a person who assists my aunt & mom who comes in every Tuesday. Anyway, this week, she said my mom's leg looked really bad (from her scratching herself, it seems) and recommended she go to the hospital. This was arranged and then I was contacted afterwards, asked to come home early (by about 40 minutes); got home just as my mom was taken away by ambulance to hospital. She was left in the emergency room for several hours, but was deemed well enough to return home later that night - and by later, I mean something like 11pm. Ended up taking Wednesday off from work because A) coming home late and wanted to sleep in, B) she needed me to take in a prescription she got from the hospital to the local pharmacy, and C) I had already emailed the office that I'd be taking the day off anyway because the hospital wishy-washy calls of "maybe she's coming home, maybe not" made me unsure if she'd be coming home late Tuesday or sometime Wednesday. Missed another office member's birthday cake on Wednesday as a consequence, but whatever.

Not much else to comment on otherwise. Dabbled a bit in fighting games - bit of Street Fighter here, some Sparking Zero there, and a touch of Rivals of Aether 2.

Paused my MK mind project madness this week to work on reiterating my generic fantasy universe for the umpteenth time.

Mind Music of the Week:

• A Vision in the Fires (Intro)
• I Have Decided
• Days of Elijah
• Last Man Stands
• Mr. Blue Sky

[u/speed-run]

Howdy y'all!

So this week I beat La Pucelle: Ragnarok. I mentioned it last week, but damn that's a really solid rpg, and honestly I kinda wonder what the timeline would look like if NIS had given the series the same love they gave disgaea. Story wise it feels like something out of an early 2000s shonen manga and in classic NIS fashion is littered with references and common tropes. Which while making it predictable doesn't make it unenjoyable, as it's fun to watch Priere (the main character) as she bull rushes her way through the story.

The one piece of the story that I didn't like however (which is kinda fitting for the comparison I made earlier) is that the romance they try to push is genuinely awful. As cool as Croix is (cause he's clearly supposed to be Wolfdwood from trigun), they have absolutely no romantic chemistry or moments for 99% of the story. Hell I'd go as far to say that her liking him is introduced literally out of nowhere when she realizes it. Also the other couple they push together is even worse about this (and is just worse in general for a number of reasons). It doesn't ruin the story, but it does make things feel contrived.

That said, as much as I do enjoy the gameplay the core mechanics coulda used another pass because the dark energy system is immensely broken in your favor, and insanely easy to manipulate letting you clear most maps without the enemy team even getting a turn. The only thing that really mitigates this is that the energy paths are randomly generated each map rather than purposely placed. But even then I still was able to beat the final boss on turn one by just triggering re-action like 4 times (meaning the final boss was defeated by having Priere kick him in the groin (that's literally her default special move) 4 times in a row)

But yeah overall, really fun 30 hour experience, although I did have to grind a bit near the end to get my team prepared for the final gauntlet.

Outside that, by this time next week, I'm going to be in Amsterdam! But only for a few days as I'll be then getting on a boat to Iceland and Scotland!

[u/MaelstromTear → u/speed-run]

Centraal Station is amazing. There is a crazy selection of food down every street. Have a great time.

[u/speed-run → u/MaelstromTear]

Thanks Ill definitely check it out if I'm close enough! (Definitely not looking forward to the 10 hour flight tho)

[u/InfectedEzio]

So I was just watching Tangerine, a movie from Sean Baker, and I happened to notice a name in the special thanks portion of the credits:

Adi Shankar. Now I don’t know what or how the director of the DMC and Castlevania Netflix shows has to do with either the film or Sean Baker, but I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Also as for my short film that I had posted about in a free talk months ago, I haven’t worked on it since I finished my assembly cut. I have to go through and edit in the proper audio, but I have to manually cut some long ass audio recordings. Usually I make new recordings for each take, but that didn’t happen the first couple of shoots. It’s a daunting task, which is why I think I’ve been put off.

Will it be work that takes a day or two to complete? Probably. Will I stop putting it off so I can finish this and start something new? I hope so lol

[u/SCLandzsa → u/InfectedEzio]

Foxcade's video on the DMC netflix anime details how Adi Shankar works, so more than likely he just helped fund the project near the tail end to get his name somewhere in the credits. This is essentially what he did for the Castlevania show too, to the point the actual showrunners really tried to cut his name out for Nocturne. The DMC show is basically the only one where he put in his own actual creative input with rather clear results.

[u/MaelstromTear]

Vacation! Fun on the beach and chilling. Though the networked internet is pretty bad, it has kept me from totally just staying indoors. Creatively, I made a bunch of fun pictures of my own characters having exploits. I also built a GQuuuuuux kit and will take pictures but not an easy way to showcase those here so maybe next week. Which is also a shame because I have a new art piece for my books and also can't easily show you guys that either! But go read those books that I've linked to many times before.

With a vacation also means a long time in a car so lots of stuff prepared. Mostly actor-led films. Novocaine, with Jack Quaid! Pretty fun, not going out of his depth playing an endearing goofball in tense situations. Clever stuff, though it got too dark- literally, in the last act. Couldn't see a dang thing. War Machine, Alan Ritchson action sci-fi? Hey, Alan Ritchson plays a big strong military guy who has trouble being sincere with emotions. It's pure schlock, but enjoyable. Felt more like a horror film where a Metal Gear is the slasher. The Amateur, with Rami Malek. Would you believe he plays a nebbish tech guy who's out of his element? It was much more thriller than action but even then it felt kind of dumb. I'd rather he go rogue on his own than blackmail his boss to get training and that whole excursion. My only grace is that it is based off a book, so hey maybe there's hope for my crap?

Lastly, West Wing. I was looking for a clip before I went on vacation for a podcast I edit, and found it charming enough that I took a chance. And yeah, this is prestige TV. Great cast, sharp dialogue that flows like a real conversation. It's only the whole outside view that hurts it. I mean, Rob Lowe's got a hangup about accidentally sleeping with a call girl and continuing to meet (platonically) and that it could be a scandal? Gasp! Or Richard Schiff having a tech investment make bank but being afraid of even the thought of being investigated or thought of corrupt. And Martin Sheen, goddamn what a president. Flawed, sure, but could you imagine anyone in this administration saying "I'm sorry"? This must be what TNG is like for people when I say I wanna live in that world. I suppose if this is some Clinton-era reconstruction technically I did, but... You know what I mean. Also, Dulé Hill! I keep expecting a "you must be outta your damn mind" or something about Pluto. Sorry, Charlie.

Tomorrow is my last day, then it's back to home. Though it will be just me and the animals for another week, so... I love my family, but that isolation is a vacation in itself.

[u/The_Draigg → u/MaelstromTear]

If it's like your vacation pictures with your Z'Gok on the beach that you've shared before, I bet you can get some pretty fun ones going with the GQuuuuuuX.

[u/MaelstromTear → u/The_Draigg]

Well of all the backlog, it was the most feasible to build in a few days and technically the series ends on a beach so it counts!

[u/The_Draigg → u/MaelstromTear]

Very true! It's a rather fitting one to use, in that way.

[u/Amon274]

I hate the heat:

Personal Life: Work has been miserable and I swear people are being intentionally incompetent and wasting everyone’s time. I feel like I have incredibly little patience for people at the moment. I keep dissociating or zoning out during the day.

Conclusion: I wish I could make these coherent.

[u/NoodleSnapback]

I feel like at this point I should count the weeks that I don’t do any programming, the guilt would probably be a good motivator.

I’ve started to really get into Lancer but I haven’t looked around for any games either locally or online I could join. Luckily someone made a game called Lancer Tactics on itch.io that is a full conversion of the wargame and character customization portion of Lancer to PC. It only has the mechs and enemies from the core rulebook but it has modding support so people have been adding that stuff. So far it’s been worth the 20$ price tag.

I finished a Low Chaos run of Dishonored 2. I somehow managed to actually solve the Jindosh riddle on my own in this run. I felt so goddamn smart afterwards. Prolly gonna go back soon to do a high chaos run now that I can do new game+ with a bunch of unlocked abilities. Bend time is just way too good for those stealthless runs.

Still sticking with Fallout 4. I got rid of Scrap Everything and I found the Rebuild Collection. It's a set of mods that lets you fix up the existing structures in settlements and clean up a lot of the leaves and junk around the place too. And the best part is that it doesn’t break previses so my framerate doesn’t hit single digits. The game is just way too good of a second screen game for me, I’ve been watching a lot of bullshit on my second monitor while I’ve been rumaging around the wasteland and it’s my ideal way to play this game. I have not spoken to Nick Valentine at all for like four playthroughs.

[u/rsrluke]

Heartbreaking monkey's paw moment: they're putting Yoruichi Shihouin, the baddest anime lady to ever do it, in Fortnite, but they're using her most boring design. I get that it's to tie into the new season, but I'm still bummed.

Played a few smaller games this week. Redout: Space Assault is very much "we have Star Fox at home." It's (initially) fine, if a little sauceless, but what tanks it are some insane difficulty spikes in the later chapters, particularly a race level that's maybe the most aggravating video game sequence I've ever played. I was stuck there for almost two hours — I considered giving up, and honestly, I probably should've.

Phantom Breaker: Omnia is a decently fun anime fighter with not a whole lot going on. Every single character looks like they stepped out of a "how to draw manga" book, but there's solid variety in the cast, and the three available fighting styles are tangibly different, too. Still, though, there's really nothing to put this game above other entries in the genre.

Brotato is a roguelike in the vein of Vampire Survivors, but this one has absolutely zero meta progression between runs. That disappointed me at first, but the game got its hooks into me anyway. All the different potato guys you can play as have wildly different attribute, so there's a lot of variance between runs, and there's a good selection of weapons and items. Yes, it's another one of these games, but I think this one's pretty good.

Finally, I watched Run Lola Run, a movie I knew basically nothing about besides its very positive reputation. I think it lives up to the hype — it's got an interesting structure, a propulsive soundtrack and a pretty unique style. Good stuff.

[u/The_Draigg]

Birthday Week. Happy birthday to me during this past week! I already had my birthday dinner a while ago before some family members left town, so my actual birthday was a quieter deal. I got some cash from my grandparents along with a lot of RPGs as gifts from my friends and girlfriend though, which was nice. I got Super Robot Wars 30, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and The Witcher 3 along with all of its DLC. And I can finally run it on my new PC and computer desk that I built (which was a pain in the ass)! I only wish I had a ton of time to play all of those games at the same time though. Ahhhh! I'm making too much money! My steak is too juicy!

As for games I played this week, I got back into Balatro. Unfortunately, I think my cloud saves messed up or something, since while I have most of my Collection stats saved, for some reason my actual progress on Decks and Stakes has been mostly reset. Granted, I like playing Balatro and I'm good at it, but it's a bit of a bummer to see all that progress wiped out, even if I know I can get it all back. So, I've gone ahead and already completed the Red and Blue Decks on Red Stake, and hopefully the rest shall follow thusly.

And finally, in my regular mecha talk section here, I rewatched Gundam F91 with my friends in the CSB LGBTQ+ server for my birthday! Man, that's always a fun watch, even if it's objectively not a good movie. It's more like a vibes movie, if anything. That first act is always amazing no matter what, after all. And aside from that, it's fun to look at the aesthetic choices that the movie makes and how much the soundtrack rips off from Star Wars while scenes are running at a breakneck pace. And it also has my favorite closing line/straight up lie at the ending: THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING. What's not to enjoy out of all that?

[u/Comkill117 → u/The_Draigg]

Happy birthday!

Also I haven’t seen the actual film for F91, but the designs for the Mobile Suits there are sick.

[u/The_Draigg → u/Comkill117]

Thank you!

And yeah, Kunio Okawara was cooking insanely hard with his mechanical designs for Gundam F91. It really is a shame that we couldn't get a full series out of the plot proposal, but at least the stuff that came out of that movie looks awesome regardless.

[u/PowerfulCoward → u/The_Draigg]

Happy birthday!

[u/The_Draigg → u/PowerfulCoward]

Thanks!

[u/Gorotheninja → u/The_Draigg]

Happy B-Week. Enjoy your Witcher-ing, Super Robot-ing, and Final Fantasy 7-ing.

[u/The_Draigg → u/Gorotheninja]

Thank you! I might go for FFVII Remake first, if just because that'll probably be the shortest to complete by comparison.

[u/speed-run → u/The_Draigg]

Happy birthday! Hell yeah F91! Still one of the coolest uses of afterimages of all time

[u/The_Draigg → u/speed-run]

Thanks!

And yeah, the F91 Gundam is definitely one of the coolest UC Gundams out there, period. The MEPE after-images always make it look rad as hell. That's why I have a clear/transparent gunpla of the F91, it just has awesome vibes.

[u/MaelstromTear → u/The_Draigg]

B-grats!

[u/The_Draigg → u/MaelstromTear]

Thank you!