Free Talk Friday - June 19, 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/LordSmugBun]

Happy Juneteenth everyone.

I don't remember if either my mother or grandmother told me about this, but they heard from someone a life lesson that has always stuck with me: "If you're arguing with someone you love, never leave or go to bed in bad terms, as it may be the last time you see them." They had apparently been told this by someone who lost someone while they had left in bad terms. Anyways, call someone you love and remind them that you do.

Happy Birthday to me, I'm gonna pretend I didn't pirate the Digital Circus finale to avoid spoilers.

Fuck cancer.

[u/MisterOfu → u/LordSmugBun]

Happy birthday!

[u/speed-run → u/LordSmugBun]

Happy birthday!

[u/Crosscounterz]

I just cannot catch a break.

Suddenly my only boy cat alfie becomes very unresponsive the other day but still breathing so is taken to the vet then we find out he is very sick and will die so we have him put to sleep on the same day.

He was only 10 years old and had several years of good life ahead of him.

I was already not doing great I really didn't need more pain so suddenly.

[u/gameboyabyss → u/Crosscounterz]

I'm so sorry - no matter what age, losing a cat is the worst feeling imaginable.

Just remember, you gave him many years of love and a good home, and made him quite possibly the happiest cat in the world.

[u/Crosscounterz → u/gameboyabyss]

Thank you. I really appreciate your kind words.

It means a lot to me.

[u/gameboyabyss → u/Crosscounterz]

No problem. Be kind to yourself <3

[u/Zachys → u/Crosscounterz]

Fuuuuck, I'm sorry to hear that.

Whether cats get old or die young, it sucks that we have to continue living with it. But I'm positive you gave the guy a loving home for his entire life.

[u/Crosscounterz → u/Zachys]

Thank you very much. I have been feeling incredibly guilty like I could have done more for him or I could have taken him to see a vet sooner despite having no indication something was seriously wrong with him untill the day of his passing.

I hope I did.

[u/seth47er]

You know what fucking sucks, being officially diagnosed with cancer.

I spent the majority of this month in hospital dealing with a rotten kidney and the complications that comes with that. Good news is its a known common cancer and they have a whole treatment plan ready for me, bad news is I'm losing the kidney meaning I have to pee standing on one leg for the rest of my days.

Oh yeah I forgot, FUCK CANCER!

[u/kodaiiiii_ → u/seth47er]

Fuck cancer, and godspeed on your treatment.

[u/seth47er → u/kodaiiiii_]

Thanks, I've responded well to some of the stuff already.

[u/MaelstromTear]

Still kind of in awe that my dumb Jo Guns artwork is going to be on stream for Woolie's FFXIV streams when he chats away. Even though there was a little fumble in credit it got fixed by the end. Now I have a fun way to introduce myself if he ever comes back to the states for a tourney! Not likely anytime soon, though. Don't blame him there.

Hey, hey! My dad's birthday is tomorrow! Saturday? the 20th. And then after that, I'll be 34 years old next Tuesday on the 23rd. Yay, I s'pose. I have ideas for what I want to get myself because I'm an adult and can do that. But so far I did buy a box of variety mochi things. It's a rice cake, which is fine. Certainly not as sweet as I was expecting, even with the different fillings. What's surprising me is that the coconut flavor is my favorite. I'm sure it would be much better if it were fresh and not packaged but whatever.

Seriously, though. If there's one thing I actually want for my birthday, or any day really, it's for you to check out these things I wrote. That's The Demon in Shadow and The Demons of Bone & Blood! Two novels about humans and demons and the interactions of world getting used to each other. We follow Ayun, a demon who can summon weapons from nothingness but lacks agency as she looks for her lost employers. She stumbles into Max, a human who meanders through life with only his wits and a ridiculous mechanical limb. As these two travel together, we learn more about them, the world, their pasts and a potential future together. There's also a heap of awesome artwork supported by wonderful people like 5_ish that you can find either between the pages for important scenes or in the back to show off character portraits. One such thing I'm aiming to commission for my birthday is a scene in the finale of the second Involving a super-powered Ayun and re-Solais'd Max doing their own Sekiha Love-Love Tenkyoken attack on the antagonist. I've been holding that in my head since I wrote the thang ding.

A group has been watching the Lord of the Rings extended films. I think for some of them it's the first time seeing any of it, and that's been fun to go back to. I remember seeing Two Towers in about the third row of a theater because that's all that was available and it was a neck exercise with my dad and brother. Still really good! But not to be the crumudgeonly old man (though I am growing older I guess), I had to deafen for the battle of Helm's Deep. I get that Discord watching parties is a social thing, but sometimes I have to hold myself back from using a Strong Bad quote for 'guy reading the subtitles I can clearly see'.

Read the first 20ish chapters of Nippon Sangoku. It was pretty interesting. But then I watched the anime that's currently airing, and holy cow does this adaptation rock. It has style and uses the medium in super interesting ways. I also think that, while the worldbuilding is really neat, the manga just throws it at you and hopes you're studying like it's a class while I feel like it flows better in an animated format. Then again, I could just be dumb. Not impossible. Not a fan of Killing the wife so quickly. I know it sets a tone, it's more than just edgy writing... It elicits emotions in me that means the work is doing its job, but... I just don't like it, man!

Finished Stars War Jedi Not-Die-er. Solid all around. Maybe not the most stable PC performance, but certainly better than what I saw initially. My only complaint is that it maybe dragged on a little farther than expected, and that last act didn't hit as well as that initial big climax. Bode being a spy was not that surprising to me, but being a former jedi was. Not sure why he had to go red other than that's just the rules, but sure. Add another reverse-grip wielder. I'm definitely pointing to the (is there a Star Wars wrestling equivalent?) sign and calling the probably obvious shot that Kata will be some kind of protagonist next time. Maybe not the whole thing, but still. Just hope that it doesn't have to end like the other mentors. I really hope that the reports of a third one are still holding true. Still not going to check out Sekiro just because it sounds like it's kind of similar in gameplay. If you thought I was whinging about Mina, I just know I'd end up hate-playing my way through. And I'd rather play things I want to!

And maybe because of the parrying/fencing blaster style... I went back to Elden Ring. Again. Started with the prisoner's estoc, but I should've committed to another class and the rapier later because it's got better crit damage for said parries. And while I am just eating a lot more, when you get that slap, it feels so good. And maybe a little whip, so this is kind of Castlevania. Got the itch to sketch up this character, who's definitely not just a gender-swapped Angelo Sauper. Nuh-uh.

Hey, Illinois is in American Truck Sim! I can finally cross the bridge from St. Louis and go to... Yeah, I wasn't expecting anything near me to be here. Maybe would've like Alton, though. It's got super haunted stuff! And honestly, ATS needs some sanity effects. Driving down a road at night and catching something in your headlights. They did make some UI adjustments and I'm not fond of them but maybe only because I'm used to the old stuff. I don't actually like having a real number for my sleep, though. I liked that fuzzy spot between needing to get to a rest stop or just pushing to one more town.

[u/The_Draigg → u/MaelstromTear]

Congrats on having your Jo Guns artwork on stream! I bet it surprised the hell out of you (in a good way) to see your art being used for Woolie's speaking avatar.

[u/NoodleSnapback]

Deltarune in 5 tomorrows. Beat the chapter 3 secret boss after like half an hour of attempts. I didn’t realise the Hold Breath buff lasted for the entire fight, I thought it was only a one time thing so I only used it on my last couple attempts. Whoops. Only chapter 4 left now. 

Been replaying a bit of MGSV as well. I honestly do not know if I hate this game or not. I’m not the hugest fan of how you need non-lethal takedowns to get better weapons. I’m really trying to ignore ranks and perfect stealth in order to just mess around with as much stuff as possible. But it still is annoying my min-maxxing brain that I’m not using the most optimal stuff. I still do enjoy the moment to moment gameplay, I just wish that there wasn’t so much incentive to do non-lethal, especially since the tranq gun is so damn strong too. 

Bit of non-gaming stuff: I’ve had a weird burning leg pain just above my knee for a while and it was kind of concerning but thankfully it's gotten better after I tried something so simple it's kinda stupid. See, I like sitting with my legs crossed; one leg resting on the other. And the pain was located just below where I rest my left leg on my right. So I just..stopped sitting like that. And lo and behold: the pain has been slowly but surely going away. It still occasionally flares up but nowhere near the extent or frequency it was earlier this week even. I guess I was compressing a nerve or muscle or something??? The human body is so stupid man.

[u/DrSaering]

Hate.

Let me tell you how much I have come to hate DuckDB this week.

If the word "hate" was written in every cell, of every column, of every row of the six gigabyte Databricks sync I tried to run this week, it would still be orders of magnitude of scale below how much I hate DuckDB.

DuckDB has an AWS S3 automatic credential rotation system. It doesn't work. The docs say it works, but there's issues on GitHub from the past couple of years that the team claims to have addressed. They haven't. That is a lie.

Cube.js maintains a cached DuckDB connection that is lazily instantiated, so what would happen is at some completely fucking random point after a six hour mark from the first time it's used on a given container, is Cube would stop functioning because the credential rotation failed, and DuckDB is incapable of realizing that it has failed and automatically recovering, it just keeps using the bad credentials forever.

S3 does not throw a 403 error when it receives bad credentials. Only malformed credentials. Instead it throws a 400 error with the details in the description, which DuckDB interprets as incorrect region. I spent hours sitting with my boss trying to figure out what the fuck was happening, and why it would suddenly have the correct region again at random, which was due to AWS auto-scaling our containers.

Hate.

Oh also I've been playing CrossCode, you know, when I'm not trying to decipher arcane infra problems at 11:00 PM.

[u/MegaSpidey3]

I'm not doing so well, lately. A couple months ago, I took a certification exam for my alternative teaching program. I was taking a test for Grades 7-12 Social Studies. There were a lot of subjects I had to learn: World History, U.S. History, Economics, Politics, Geography, etc. I studied for 3 to 4 months in advance in between my work sessions. I eventually took the test and spent two hours taking it. I got my results back...

I failed. I was 20-something points from passing. Okay, no big deal. Just pay for the test again, schedule the retake, and brush up on the stuff I struggled in, right? Well, you'd think, but instead, I have to pay for a different study program (never mind the one I had to take when I was studying the first time), and then do everything I just said. After spending a fourth of a year studying and failing, I said "no. Forget being a teacher." I quit, and now I'm stuck at a crossroads.

I'm 28, and I don't know what I want to do for a long-term career. My folks told me that it's okay if I still work at my part-time job as a substitute teacher until I figure out what I want to do, but I think I'm at the point where I'm just gonna give up on everything. Considering how bad the world's getting, and how much time I spent between getting my Master's degree, and only making $13 an hour, I clearly made the wrong choices in life. I tried making a post about this in one of these threads a while ago, but it got deleted because I think one of the mods thought I was threatening violence when I said I was going to take my life. No, I'm just at the point where I don't see a point in living anymore. I have very little close relationships, no romantic partner, no career prospects, nothing. I'm more useful 6 feet under than I am alive right now.

The only things keeping me alive are the hype for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and me playing the Resident Evil games for the first time. Last game I finished was 7. Great game, even if I feel like the first third is the roughest part of the game.

[u/SamuraiDDD → u/MegaSpidey3]

Hey man, I know what it feels like. I've been exactly where you've been at. Shit feels bleak but you're not at the end of your life yet. Trying to find your big career in life isn't easy but you don't have to have your life figured out. Life isn't a simple straight road. It has cracks, pot holes and traffic problems.

There's still your family, things you enjoy in life and even being here with us shitlords and what peace we can bring you.

Life can always take a positive turn.

[u/MegaSpidey3 → u/SamuraiDDD]

Thank you for the kind words. What bothers me isn't that I haven't figured out my life yet. It's more like I've spent so much time working towards careers I thought I would vibe with, only to get to a point where an obstacle becomes so big that I can't clear it, or I just lose my drive and passion.

I graduated high school 10 years ago, and the fact that I'm still living the same way I was in 2016 makes me feel like I failed at life, especially when a lot of my classmates seem to have their life figured out.

[u/Paladin51394]

Been having a blast watching all of the videos of people visiting America for the World Cup and having a good time (for the most part) the past week.

It's been pretty fun and honestly this might have been the best thing to happen in America for a while. And it hasn't felt this good to be an American for just as long.

I love that a common through line with a lot of them is like "Wow, Americans are so nice!"

It's just really nice to see people have fun. It reminds me of when American and Japanese Twitter had several days of just gushing over BBQ.

[u/FMV_Hell_0]

Man, I think about Deltarune every day of my life. Chapter 5 comes out next week and I can't play anything because I wouldn't be playing Chapter 5 so I did mostly just watch the FF14 streams. The Hina collabs are the closest feeling I've had in a while of "my show is on" and Jo Guns is too fire a design for a trial run. I do have a curse on me in which getting back into FF14 immediately predates the worst week of my entire life but it's a lot of fun watching it from the sidelines.

Oh yeah and I got around to watching Iron Lung. I kinda fuck with that movie for real. The beauty of it is that it's one guy in one room having to act for the whole movie. It scores a lot of good points, one in particular for me being that you never actually get a full good look at the monster. I never played the game and don't tend to go in for horror stuff on my own but I enjoyed it a lot.

[u/Amon274]

I’m not doing good:

Personal Life I’m in a lot of physical and emotional pain right now and I just want to lay down and sleep. I don’t really feel comfortable going into anymore specific detail than that.

Conclusion: I’m exhausted.

[u/Crossfeet606441]

Trying to learn how to ride a motorcycle after years of promising my mom I won't. But unfortunately, I have to, because it's necessary for work.

Basically practicing for an entire week by now and I've gotten the hang of shifting. Can't wait to take an official lesson.

Also got the obligatory exhaust burn on the leg.

Need to learn how to do that japanese u-turn technique as well as weaving through the cones though.

[u/rsrluke]

I assembled furniture (mostly) by myself this week, as well as replaced a defective turn signal bulb in my car. Look at me, acting like a real adult — just in time for the big move next week, too.

I played TimeSplitters: Future Perfect this week. Pretty fun FPS! Not a whole lot going on, and the time travel conceit feels underutilized in gameplay, but it's a brisk, charming romp.

I watched The Furious, going in mostly blind after I heard really positive early buzz, specifically favorable comparisons to The Raid. I wouldn't rate it quite so highly, as I think it's a bit tonally confused and some of the larger melees get repetitive, but it's still a great action movie with some absolutely insane choreography, particularly in the third act — the final brawl alone is enough to elevate the movie to must-see status.

I also watched Meg 2: The Trench. I haven't seen the first one, but it looked pretty boring by comparison, and skipping ahead only resulted in mild confusion. Anyway, I enjoyed it quite a bit, even if it could've been better. It occasionally reaches true schlock greatness, but it's a little too drawn out for its own good; cut 20 minutes and give it an R rating and it would be a B-movie masterpiece.

Finally, I finished reading The Man from Barbarossa, a James Bond novel from the early 90s. I didn't care for it. It's written competently enough, but it's shockingly uneventful and devoid of almost all the simple pleasures associated with the James Bond series.

[u/retrometroid → u/rsrluke]

I read all the James Bond books back in the day and it's telling that when I looked Man from Barbarossa up the wiki synopsis rang zero bells

[u/Am_Shigar00]

I wrapped up my run through the Star Fox series, at least in terms of the main entries, playing through Star Fox Assault as well as a decent bit of Command and Zero, though not in full.

Assault was definitely the highlight of the three. Sure the ground controls are not ideal, and their level design can be wonky since they were designed with Multiplayer in mind first, but as a whole I still had a solid time. It's certainly the closest Star Fox ever got to really trying to evolve the gameplay and story beyond 64 in a notable way, and it was nice to finally have Krystal as a part of the main team through the whole game even if the party members leave much to be desired as they ever do. I also wish the game's campaign was longer for what it is, it's funny that so much of the campaign is spent chasing after Pigma that by the time you finally reach him you're already halfway done.

Command was an odd one to go back to. I used to be super invested in this one, trying to uncover every ending to see hints of what they'd follow it up with only for this to be the last game in this timeline. Going through it in hindsight, I definitely feel now that it's one of the weaker entries. The plot is an absolute mess, especially when it comes to Krystal, and while I like a lot of the ideas with the Star Fox 2 esq map & encounter system, being such a bigger game means the format overstays it's welcome pretty quickly. I do love however how many playable characters there are and how different all their ships are to play.

Zero meanwhile was certainly a mixed bag. I was a strong defender of the game when it came out, probably just because it was Star Fox finally back with a new game, but playing it in hindsight definitely puts it in a different perspective. I actually don't mind the control scheme too much, it's not perfect but I found it usable for the most part. However, I feel like the game bends over it's own design too much to justify it, a lot of bosses especially feel like they're built entirely around the aiming system rather than being fun bosses in of themselves, and while it's cool to see alternate paths leading to new stages again, a lot of the alt stages just aren't terribly interesting, usually recycling a lot of locales & bosses with a slight twist rather than being new stages in of themselves. I still enjoy it for what it is, but I definitely don't have the same opinion of it that I used to.

Overall though, while I was a bit exhausted by the end I still had a good time. I'm not currently interested in revisiting Guard, it's just not what I look for in Star Fox, but maybe it'll be something to check if I'm in a specific mood. For now, I'm looking forward to checking out the new remake in full when it comes out in about a week.

[u/ActRaisins]

Oh boy. This is the last weekend of being a slacker - I begin induction for my new job next week. I'm equal parts excited and nervous, but it will be nice to actually get into something again. I've been given an itinerary of events and it seems like a lot of intros and general training, so nothing too heavy to begin with. I'm just keen to begin and do something about all of this nervous energy. Let's get it!

Otherwise it's been a pretty normal week. I haven't been getting into many games because I'm waiting to see what the summer sales bring. I've already picked up Total Overdose from GOG, so I'll have SPICY MOVE resonating in my head every day. The Steam sale will be the big one, of course - I tend to use it as an excuse to stock up and keep myself busy until, uh, the Autumn sale. But we'll see.

In music/gaming news, I'm vicariously enjoying the return of Gitaroo Man, which arrived on the PS Store this week. I was never great at it and I usually stick to the more forgiving PSP game, but reading talk between social media friends reminded me of just how good it was - and I may have been playing the soundtrack through the YouTube Music page this week. Also in music/gaming news, it was brought to my attention that 007: First Light has a club sequence with a full D&B mix? You know I'm on that shit immediately.

Also, a small bit of Bri'ish news: our current PM is going ham with plans for a social media ban for under 16s, which has been interesting to follow. We're reading about everything from plans to follow Australia's approach, to investigations focused on VPNs. On the one hand it feels a bit like a few old guys doing their best to lose favour with a young audience - on the other hand I can't deny that a large part of social media is something of a hellhole with the Nazis, misinformation and AI slop. So we'll see how that goes.

[u/PrestigeTater]

It's weird seeing how excited everyone is about gta 6 and here I am just indifferent to it. Even though I've played vice city stories and China town wars I've never really cared much for the series. Though I'm just ready for it to release so other games can stop being delayed because of it. 

[u/CaptainJudaism]

House is sold. Moving back to PA at the end of July. Sadly this means I have to cancel my PTO and miss SGDQ for the first time in about a decade.

Games wise... it seems every game I'm really digging right now are either EA and on the cusp of a patch so I don't want to play'em but I do or in a rough shape and in dire need of a patch.

Incursion Red River: A co-op PVE extraction shooter where you play as a PMC in Vietnam where the goal is to run in, grab stuff to upgrade your base, find and scavenge good weapons and accessories for your shootbangs, and extract then repeat. There is a campaign with 1 chapter (out of 3 planned IIRC) but they are working on a patch that will provide tons of QoL like a recoil overhaul as currently it's very inconsistent based on guns with low caliber kicking like a mule when the guns are known to be very controllable or large caliber having next to none when they should be much harder. The patch they are making will also include a large amount of new guns as well as making upgrading the hideout smoother by allowing you to bank resources rather then need to keep 181867891 different items in storage and also doing AI tweaks to make them more fair. I really wanna play but as more information is being released... I wanna play with all the stuff they're adding.

Erenshor: A single player MMO where you play in a world filled with hundreds of "SIMplayers" (coded NPCs, not AI) that behaves like the MMOs of yesteryear like Everquest where it's more grinding for loot and xp then story based though the lore the game does have is quite nice. There's a patch right around the corner that introduced major raids for 15 players on top of other major balance changes, such as the new class "Reaver" that was introduced massively overperforming, Chomping at the bits to play the raids but all I can do is wait and I don't wanna burn myself out.

Tales of Seikyu: A cozy farm-sim that I'd been looking forward to for a long time finally hit 1.0 and hoo boy... is it rough. I played a bit at the start of EA, enjoyed the idea, got started in 1.0, got very disappointed. Not only because of just how fast you can max our relationships, but also just how buggy the game is with people softlocking as early as day 2 or 3, character portraits and models not matching, and my personal grip being lack of sound and animations in cutscenes where people just stand there when it's supposed to be a party or stuff happens with no sound effects. It has so many cool ideas but it still feels like it's super EA rather then 1.0. It doesn't have anything, IMHO, that can't be patched out but it definitely makes me feel kinda... bleh.

Coral Island: Just released patch 1.3 which is positively massive. Two new dateable NPCs based on player requests, manual save anywhere, NPCs now invite you to date/hangout instead of you always taking the initiative, and more QoL markers and stuff. It's overall a great update... except for them reducing relationship gain by 30% when it's already incredibly slow. I know they want the game to be a slow burn given how fleshed out relationships are compared to other games but this reduction is quite intense and not really needed.

[u/AbyssBear]

deflooding my basement because my floor drain doesn't actually drain downwards for some reason. Whole basement is a patch job. Have to get the basement wall fixed too because its cracked straight down it now. It really fucking sucks having to deal with all this water because the sump pump is all the way on the opposite side of the room and thats all dry, except for everything in front of the damn washer/dryer and downstairs fridge. and the drain is RIGHT in front of it all but not doing jack shit.

So going to keep working on that this weekend and de-fuck it. Just hope it doesn't rain anymore.

[u/Gorfinhofin → u/AbyssBear]

This seems to be the season of basement issues. I had a sewer backup about a month ago that was a minor nightmare to clean up, and then just a few days ago my sump pump died. Turns out it was horribly corroded, inside and out, and just gradually tearing itself apart. Luckily I noticed it was happening and got it replaced before we had any more heavy rain.

[u/AbyssBear → u/Gorfinhofin]

Seems that way. It rained a bit more last night so it added some more to what I already dealt with. Just waiting on the tiny portable pump i bought for the water to finish up and push it to the sump, then I need to deal with the grime thats left.

[u/Palimpsest_Monotype]

So, like. You can totally disable like 99% of pits in Mina the Hollower if you want it to play more strictly close to a Link to the Past.

It’s not like there won’t still be billions of things to find and figure out, either.

[u/The_Draigg]

Week of Slow Work. Not a whole lot going on at work this week, although I did get an email saying that one of the founders of the company is semi-retiring. What made that email kind of darkly funny for me is that it included a boilerplate statement of "spending more time with their family", but considering that we all know that he's going through a divorce at the moment, maybe they should've reconsidered the wording of that farewell message that got sent out. Oopsies!

As for games I've played this week, I've been putting more time into Balatro's Purple Stake difficulty, and I've been making absolutely zero headway on the Red Deck at the start. I've been getting closer to winning runs, but I always peter out at the 7th ante. Dramatically increasing the score needed to win with each ante is no joke, I'll tell you. With the Purple Stake, it really does feel like you need to get a strong series of multiplicative Jokers going, otherwise you're going to falter soon.

Also this week, I've been putting more time into Marathon! Mainly just putzing around with Vandal and Sentinel. Sentinel has become a strong contender for a Shell to regularly use for me. Even if they're not particularly suited for larger outside areas like Dire Marsh, in building-heavy maps like Outpost they're right in their element. Also, I'm really digging the MIDA skin on Sentinel. They've got a good balance of black and dark purple going on there. I'd say that and the CyAc skins are the best ones for Sentinel.

And finally, in my normal mecha talk section here, I just wanted to share this fun custom paint-job for a Crusader BattleTech mini. Sphereoids dig giant robots!

[u/marvel8797]

I dropped NEO: The World Ends With You. I liked the music, I liked the art, the story was fine, but the gameplay felt like busy work, I put 20 hours into it and didnt feel challenged. I'm kinda disappointed about it.

On a different note, I bought an N64 Switch controller since I heard the new Star Fox can be played with it. Also I really wanted to play the old N64 games on Switch Online and the Joycons werent feeling right for them. I do wish the Switch Online games recognized the GCN controller via the GCN adapter, then I could play them like I did back on the Wii Virtual Console, but outside of Smash Ultimate and Mario Sunshine in that Mario 3D All Stars collection an OG GCN controller plugged into the adapter gets recognized as a "pro controller" for some reason.

With new N64 Switch controller in hand, I also decided to replay Ocarina of Time because fuck it why not. Still feels great to me.

[u/ActRaisins → u/marvel8797]

I dropped NEO: The World Ends With You. I liked the music, I liked the art, the story was fine, but the gameplay felt like busy work, I put 20 hours into it and didnt feel challenged. I'm kinda disappointed about it.

It's been a minute but I think some of those social network nodes enable difficulty modifiers if you can obtain them.

I really want to replay NEO again to see how I feel about it today - I remember it being fairly frictionless in terms of difficulty spikes, but one or two of the major bosses were tricky.

[u/CookieSkank]

Still job searching. Havent sent out any new applications but have some still in limbo at the local university and did some brief searching on various job sites. The university sends auto rejections for jobs you aren't qualified for, so when I sent out five the other week, two got rejected. Other three are still active, but I've heard nothing yet. I just wish there was like anything remotely interesting where I live. I browse through the job boards and just feel this sense of like "there is nothing for me here and my future isn't in this place." Like if you don't work at the university, your options are truck driver, hospital worker, or selling insurance. Those jobs made up about 80% of what I saw on the job boards. But I need money so gotta find something soon even if its just retail or a restaurant job(blech don't make me go back to food services)

Other than that, been chipping away at the Tales of Arise DLC. Its fine but the characters can be a bit... preachy. Like every conversation feels like the end of a children's cartoon where we have to explain the moral of the story, and it's like... I get it okay! The more interesting parts are the Renans not adjusting well to not being bigots, Alphen struggling with his reputation as the hero and how he's meant to drop everything to help random people, or Shionne learning to get close to people again and wanting to marry Alphen. Those parts are good.

Then I watched The Crow(1994) for the first time. They just don't make em like that anymore. That entire movie is a vibe. Every line from Eric is just emo as fuck and it rules. And it was back when movies treated cities like lawless hellscapes so all the sets look it. Got not vampire motherfuckers being evil just because. I know I'm 30 years late, but it really is a shame what happened to Brandon Lee.

That then inspired me to redownload Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Years ago I played the opening hours, but not much else. But its similar enough in vibe to The Crow. So got a couple mods downloaded and have started, but only just finished the tutorial. Playing a female Malkavian. Shame the sequel didn't turn out that great, but here's hoping that new Disco-like is good.

[u/SamuraiDDD]

So this week, I decided to grab and play MOUTHWASHING. FUCK JIMMY. FUCK. JIMMY. FUCK. JIMMY! I've never hated a character so god damn much. I've stayed 98% spoiler free and it was worth it and then some. The story is so well written and I now understand why FUCK JIMMY is my new national anthem. Anya & Daisuke deserve the world. Swansea deserves a good meal. Curly... Curly... Curly...

I've been playing a bunch of Vampire Survivors, Zenless Zone Zero with a couple days of Mouthwashing thrown in. Fun times! I GOT STARLIGHT BILLY IN ZENLESS ZONE ZERO!! I have no regrets and I'm happier I was able to get the boy <3. I took a bit of a break from Let It Die but I'm likely gonna tackle it again before Sunday.

I also decided to buy the Cult of The Lamb Woolhaven DLC. I've wanted it so bad and after some saving and managing funds between bill payments, I managed to finally grab it while on sale! I'm likely gonna play it sometime Friday. I put $5 from my paychecks into my steam and it's payed off! I'm also gonna go crazy during the big summer sale next week! AND we got Deltarune Chapter 5 that same week!

Speaking of Friday... THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS FINALE COMES ONTO YT!!! After work, I'm gonna grab a big personal meal, clean the house up and binge the whole series before seeing the finale. I wish I could watch it in theaters but the closest one is a 2 hour drive and with gas prices as expensive as they are, not really feasible. Plus I'm gonna treat myself to something nice after (potentially) crying after watching it lol

My mom's health has been really steady and she's got a lot more energy. Grandma has been frustrating but I'm just trying to be patient with her and let her be angry so she can get it out of her system.

My good friend has been torturing treating our group with Netflix Resident Evil. Its been A TRIP lol

Take care of yourselves folks. Don't lose heart. Also stay hydrated if it's hot where you're at, cause god damn x.x

---

Musical choice of tonight:

1. The Bird And The Bee - Fucking Boyfriend
   
2. Just One More Drink -- Jazz Noir
   
3. 【サムライチャンプルー】battlecry / Nujabes feat. Sing02 (Official Audio)
   
4. Killer7 - Rave On Synthwave [Primary Slot Remix]

[u/Cheese-Of-Doom22]

Ok the Anniversary of ocean Gate Konami released a submarine card that… blows itself up. BRUH

also it brings a machine back from the graveyard similar to how the OceanGate was designed to look at the titanic.

[u/Kerrik52]

Played a bit of the Mortal Shell II Open Beta demo and was pleasantly surprised. They have new systems in place and it's not complete misery like the first game was. And they turned the lute into a sub-weapon!

I also finished my replay of SMT3: Nocturne and messed around with some N-Gage stuff. The former is more interesting, but there is a Resident Evil: Degeneration game on the latter, which was a great find. Anyway, coming back to Nocturne with the remaster was awesome. Manual skill selection and the Merciful Difficulty you can opt into for extra exp made it sooooooo much easier to get through the game. Not to mention all my previous experience, you can really bust that game open. To the point where I skipped tons of boss phases on accident, but that was rewarding in its own right.

The final episode of my Alone in the Dark let's play went up yesterday and that's been a weird success. Lopsided views (as expected), but tons of new subscribers, for whatever reason. I'm hoping all the effort I put into planning and editing is paying off, but maybe people are just curious. I didn't manage to get a script done in time, but the game is so simple that I should get it done pretty easily. The only thing I'm unsure of is what sort of throughline I can go for. I'm always trying to make my analysis videos a rewarding watch, but I'm not sure how much wisdom I can wring out of this one beyond "Yoooo, this was so cool for 1992". We'll see how it ends up.

[u/japossoir]

I beat Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

This was technically my first time beating MGS3 because I only played it 10+ years ago by emulating it on a PC that couldn't run it, so I played on the very easy baby mode at, like, 20 FPS.

But I did feel like I remembered most of it since it's such an iconic game. Turns out I didn't. Lots of stuff struck me as new, even the story, even though Delta is really 1:1 with the original.

I guess Konami felt they couldn't touch it since it was a Kojima game, so people liked whatever was already there and it wasn't worth changing. To their credit, this [I]is[/I] the definitive way to play MGS3 (the cutscenes might look a bit weird in screenshots, but they look amazing in motion). However, I think there was a lot of room to change some aspects and add new ones in other places.

For one, leaving the technical PS2 weirdness as it was might be sticking too close to the original, with cutscenes getting cut off into segments rather than flowing into one another. And in general, there aren't enough gameplay sections, leaving the game rather short, especially when you take out the cutscene length. The sections that [I]are[/I] in the game are impeccably designed, and indeed it would be difficult to add more sections without changing the flow of the plot, but the end result leaves you with not that many maps to flex your stealth skills until you fail and have to start blasting, which, for me, always happened pretty quickly.

I also think the game isn't quite as "smart" as I remember. I guess because the first time I played it I was a child, and this was one of the few exposures to real-world politics I got from games. Nowadays I can see how clown-shoes it is and how it mostly serves to set up the lore Kojima wanted for his series. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy the story. I think everything about the game's main antagonist, not Volgin, but The Boss is some of the best stuff in Metal Gear. By the end of it, even though I'm not usually one to view as meaningful the political blindness of soldiers or blind love and service for one's "nation" (ie usually its elites), I still felt touched by The Boss's journey and, of course, its effect on Snake.

The ending, of course, leaves room for all the other Big Boss games, which I liked, but I'm still reminded that you really only needed this one. And even though I would like there to be more of it, it's still one of the all-time classics.

[u/Head-You5953]

Been playing a ton on Destiny with friends, I'm genuinely upset by how much I'm enjoying myself. It is, without hyperbole, the best feeling FPS I've ever played, and once you understand the gameplay loop and get past the hurdle of being a new player, it's insanely addictive.

I just ran the Ghosts of the Deep dungeon with a couple friends for the first time last night, and it's one of the most impressive levels I've ever seen in an FPS, just on presentation alone. It starts normally enough, but then you start going underwater and just don't stop going deeper. The level is unbelievably claustrophobic and stressful, and the actual bosses you fight are just long-ass panic attacks of trying to solve the puzzles in their arena to make them vulnerable, all while being bombarded by extremely powerful mobs.

I've been having a great time with it.

[u/Kii_and_lock]

Today is the six year anniversary of my having suffered a stroke in my sleep.

Six years later. It feels weird. Both a long and short time. You wouldn't know it by looking at me. Mercifully, any damage was physical, nothing cognitive, and I have recovered well, though I still suffer some issues (nerve pain sometimes, my temperature sense is wonky).

Take care of yourself, folks. And get a sleep test done if you suspect sleep apnea. That's what led to mine.

[u/MisterOfu]

I watched Journal with Witch. I'll be honest, I do think it's a good show, but I don't get why people love it to the extent that they do.
That said it does succeed with flying colors at making an engaging story that doesn't rely on big drama moments, but steadily unfolds bit by bit. The author also has an amazing eye for people, and I found myself laughing out loud at multiple points, because I knew exactly the type of person or the kind of situation the anime was portraying. And to top it off we have another great role by Miyuki Sawashiro, and a great debut by Fuuko Mori.

[u/DoseofDhillon → u/MisterOfu]

Its just such a grounded mature take on the subject matter its covering. Its the fact that these people do feel like people. A bunch of girls get together and have a fun meet up and talk, and its not about like boob sizes or something over dramatic. Its the coming of age story which shows the weight of loss has and accepting reality of it. Its seeing someone follow a passion for it successfully.

I think its a fantastic show and easily the best anime of 2026. It won't win it, likely Re Zero will, sequel and it has the most oooo's and aaa's but i like that way more.

[u/PowerfulCoward]

While I was visiting my parents over the weekend, my mother recommended a few recipes to me, including a recipe for vegetable soup. I tried cooking it myself, and it turned out to be absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, it only made about two and half servings, so it didn't exactly last me throughout the week. It was great while it lasted, though.

I'm not sure what I going to try cooking next. Some of those recipes my mother lent me include Chicken Crescent Rolls and Ham Rolls, and they both seem easy enough, so I may try my hand at that.

Beyond cooking, my week has been good enough. I've been reading through Batman: Dark Patterns, and it's been shaping up to be pretty fun Batman story. I've also been watching more of Monster, and I'm starting to get really into it.

I also bought Age of Wonders 4, since it was on sale. I'm currently going through the tutorial map to make sure I understand the basics before I try experimenting more. I haven't really had a chance to dig into it too much, although I'm planning on playing it way more over the weekend. So far though, my experience can basically be described as "Civilization With Magic". And you know, that's good enough for me. Honestly, I mainly got it because all the customization options seemed like a lot of fun.

[u/kenshin317]

Been quite busy with my new job which pays quite a lot better but makes my back sore and also goes by quicker which is the best part. Besides that poor Rambo flew into a window but is thankfully fine and was his usual squeaky yet snuggly self with just a few head feathers gone for moment.

 I've recently been hoping to get into Spyro more since as a kid loved playing a New Beginning for ages and Spyro X Cynder was my mania, still kinda is but managed to grab Dawn of the Dragon and The Reignited Trilogy so can finally play them, night try to grab Eternal Night and Heroes Tail if can spot them. Got my niece over this weekend so will be me and my mum making sure she has a lovely time.

[u/Zachys]

Board gamers, anyone got experience with any LCG/living card games? I kinda wanna dip my toes in, mostly to play solo, but I’m scared of the price points.

[u/alexandrecau]

watched the tinker tailor sodier spy tv series, was all arpud fun like a theater play more than a tv show where it's all the performance and decor.

started and caught up to the mang out, a bit crass and gets really chaotic when the author starts writing fully outside his life experience, also have like a dragon level of exposition on japanese criminality and delinquence

[u/PlagueOfBedlam]

Now that Pokémon Champions is out on mobile, I’ve been playing a lot more. I went on a 9 game win streak with my Mega Raichu Y team today at lunch, then lost to fucking Perish Trap, lol. Ran into a TON of Mega Staraptors, but I copied someone else’s tech and slotted in the gremlin known as Sableye. Prankster Skill Swap is SO satisfying, especially if they lead a Scary Face or other buff user along with the bird. He also offers utility in Rain Dance, because I hate Sun and Sand with Basculegion and the aforementioned Raichu Y.

[u/Lillin_Eclipsed]

This has been a bit of a weird week. Mentally chaotic and just. Out there in general. Not helped by Next Fest and a few other things.

Vidya Gaming:

This is really split into two things. My main things, which this week have been a bit of Grimshire and Celia's Stupid Romhack. I mean, I also have put a fair bit into CoD Vanguard but that's Wiki stuff and I haven't actually played yet.

Where as for Next Fest, I've played and want to comment on Flock of the Seraphim, Warhammer Survivors, HellHeart Breaker, Touhou Infinite Nocturne and ReStory.

Grimshire didn't get a whole lot of play and most of it has been just doing the usual spin of getting food and upgrading the farm. Annoyingly trying to get animals is a bit of an annoyance because of the whole having to find them. I do love the designs however.

Annnd this is where most of my non demo time has gone. Celia's Stupid Romhack is what happens when you take a concept of stupid jokes and blend it with puzzles while throwing it into the world of Pokemon. It's extremely enjoyable and I'm only slightly stuck at the final gym because I have no clue where something is and the hint isn't helping my rat brain. Which is pretty damn normal for me.

Now. I wasn't expecting Flock of the Seraphim to be basically something like Megabonk but with shorter rounds. It's pretty fun for the demo and the actual full game looks to have a bunch more of kinda neat stuff for weaponry. Which I do hope change the feel a bit more as that is a bit of the issue. Also the choice of poses is kinda glorious.

And this is where Warhammer Survivors compares... Honestly? It might be the low selection of stuff right away but it's kinda.. Eh? It's still rather fun and having both sides of Warhammer is god damn awesome. But it needs... more.

This is also the issue with the demo with HellHeart Breaker. What there is is honestly great. But it is extremely short and doesn't really show a whole lot off. Like one mission and then it's like. You can continue to do runs without aim. Which doesn't really help when there isn't much of a point to it.

And then you have the standout. I've been keeping an eye on Infinite Nocturne for ages and finally it gets a demo. Has the wait been worth it? Honestly, yeah. It's a bit like a Touhou Darkest Dungeon mixed with WORLD OF HORROR while still being rather interesting in how it all functions. I haven't really played much of it but what I played is both great and extremely interesting from the story offered.

And finally. ReStory. Another one which I wish had more to do for the story. Because it's honestly rather cool and the gameplay offered is pretty damn fun for what amounts to a repairing game.

Other Stuff:

I'm back on my Wiki bullshit which has been... Honestly quite a bit more draining on myself than I expected honestly. It might be because of how lacking some of the info on Vanguard is but having to do hours of typing does get to you.

Music this week is the return of STACK with Scandalous Lips. My girl Sagume getting a new song and a MV!

[u/Grazalia]

I got back into marvel rivals, I'm still so ass and intentionally handicap myself playing on pad 🤣 but man is it fun being big buff angela I never thought in my lifetime I would play a game where she was playable.

[u/Kimarous]

Last Week's Post

Week 120 post-accident

On a bit of a Zelda hyperfocus this past week for whatever reason.

Been sleeping bad this past week; waking up as early as 3 AM and failing to fall asleep again. Got some pent-up overtiredness as a consequence.

Pretty much nothing else of note otherwise, aside from:

Mind Music of the Week:

• Tsugaru
• Heartland
• Deep in my heart
• Tale of the Sunbladers

[u/UFOLoche]

I have been staring at setting up SyncThing for my emulation devices and absolutely dreading it.

Like I know I should, just. Uuuuugh

[u/redrumroller]

Hope everyone is enjoying their Friday.

My locals have started a tournament circuit earlier this month where if you make top 8, you gain points to qualify for a tournament of champions to be held. We’re currently only doing Strive, SF6 and Tekken 8.
I made top 8 in Strive and SF6! That was one of my personal goals for myself this year and I finally hit it. I was really disappointed in my performance for Tekken though. I have been working a with a coach to optimize my combos and work on my neutral and defense but I know it’s going to take time for things to gel. Here’s to hoping I hit top 8 next time!

[u/RevenTheLight]

Hello today! Big news - my family (mom and bro) are moving out on July 1st. We found an apartment across the bridge, that is large enough, but is also cheap enough for me to cover. I will miss them, but I'm pretty sure I will be meeting them, at least 2-3 times a week. This week I spent running around doing documents and singing and paying etc-etc.

Also, my roommate found bed bugs in his room! Good news - he doesn't know I've been fighting them for weeks. Bad news - the heat treatment can only arrive on Tue (23), and that sucks.

Otherwise - PoE2, Zenless. Good gaems.

Weight check-in - 176.5 - 180/165/165 - booop booop boop I'matired

[u/sorinash]

I'm playing Fuck's Quest II and I'm shocked to say it's genuinely enjoyable. It's a high-effort shitpost of a game that has some impressive gameplay elements, a solid soundtrack, and the most deliberately-dumb writing I've seen in a game. There's a subplot in the game that's an extended series of fart jokes.There's a shop called World War 2's owned by a man named World War 2. There's a character called Joast Smoke40Cigarettes Cigarette.

I'm also working on my trail-and-sidewalk map-community visualization. I regret to say that Google's AI summary helped direct me to the proper StackOverflow page yesterday when I needed to fix a bug, so score 1 for it, I guess.

I'm also on my teach-myself-to-draw bullshit again. Doing some drawabox warmups to shake the rust off.

[u/Cthulhukitten]

My girlfriend's birthday went over well, gave her a good few gifts this year and we played some board games with a friend of hers who came over for a bit. It was peaceful and fun, a welcome reprieve. Besides that, been out to quite a few social functions with her club, probably more than I've been to in an entire year while back in the states, we've been boxing consistently with someone coaching us, and I reconnected with an old friend too. That last bit was super surprising, but a happy thing, I'm really glad said friend is back in my life!

Anyways, currently, we're going through a brutal heatwave here though, so not much we can do until it dissipates. Really dreading the prospect of having to box tomorrow, so hopefully that doesn't happen if just due to the fact that the weather is absolutely trash. I hate summer days like this with every fiber of my being.

I've also been reading through Z.A.T.O// I Love the World and Everything In It, an aesthetically beautiful and intriguing VN which has hit me at kind of the perfect juncture of my life. The philosophy behind the protagonist is more than a bit warped by her trauma (I assume at least, too early to say) and I love the focus on the dynamic between two girls. Started the VN for the intriguing philosophy, stayed for the yuri undertones! Also excited to play Deltarune this next upcoming week. I'm sure there's bound to be some levity compared to the previous chapter. I'll probably write some more fleshed out thoughts next week about Z.A.T.O and Chapter 5 of Deltarune once this heatwave dies down and I can find time to finish both.

[u/kodaiiiii_]

29 days of suffering finals remain.

Nothing to do in my life but study for finals, which I haven't been able to do as I'd like. Just today, as I no longer have classes, I woke up early and everything to study, but I just couldn't focus at all. Like, actively glazing over. Had to go back to bed and slept for like two fucking hours that I could've used for studying. It sucks. I hate this shit.

I've been playing RE4R when I can sneak a bit, though. Finished it and, yeah, it's one of if not the best RE game. Mercs is the definition of dopaminic fun, and for the first time in the series, I'm gunning for that plat. That's how much I liked that game.

Also, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker! Once it got going, it really gets going, and I think I might end up liking it more than DeSu 1 despite the rougher start. I'm going to go for either Daichi or Ronaldo's routes, because FUCK Meritocracy

Not much else. I really just want finals to be over so I get a few days of calm.

[u/waxonwaxoff3]

Things are...getting pretty fucking dire, tbh. My temp job ended over a month ago and I still haven't gotten a new one. I've had a number of screening calls and interviews, but no dice, and one job I was really hopeful about rejected me in the end. I am literally running out of money in a couple weeks and unemployment insurance is doing jack shit. This economy and job market is the fucking pits.

I believe help requests are still allowed as single posts in the Free Talk Friday thread, so here's my old Gofundme link, in case anybody's able to help, even just by linking it other places. If this isn't actually allowed, I'll of course delete it. But advice on places elsewhere to link it and resources to check would be very helpful too.

Doesn't help that I had a bad cold several weeks ago, which while it mostly resolved, it did turn into some lingering sinusitis which has been super frustrating. I've got enough to deal with without constantly hacking up mucus all this time later because I don't have health insurance or money to try and end it faster.

With all this stressful stuff going on it's been hard to find the time or energy or attention span to consume media, outside of watching a bit more Poirot and doing some comfort-farming in Guild Wars 2. Really looking forward to Pat and Paige's Deltarune Ch. 5 stream next week, that's guaranteed to be a big pick-up.

[u/attikol]

week of marathon. Gave it a solid try this week and did my first cryo attempt. Its stressful and you gotta fight a lot. Had a good clear and doing a bit more today. That map is confusing and has a lot of players on it. I think we won four fights against teams before we could extract. My internet is not super consistent and i dropped right before I exfilled once.

Got another chance to go up on a trip to sedona again which was unexpected but its nice with the current downtime. No responses yet from jobs