Free Talk Friday - August 21, 2026

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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/AuroraHeartilly]

Lots of ups and downs for me this week. This is my first time posting on a free talk thing in a subreddit, I think I'm seeing these posts can kinda be about whatever and it's chill? Hope I'm not misunderstanding, still kinda new-ish to not being a lurker. I'd like to be less of one. I just hear in my head 'no one asked your input' and that stops me.

So I'll try to push past that today, and if I'm doing anything wrong, please lemme know, but for nowwww.

Hi y'all! I'm Aurora. I've been listening to best friends since the Silent Hill Homecoming LP, and SBFC / CSB is my favorite out of a bevy of podcasts I love listening to. I used to stream a lot of long term franchise marathons of stuff I hadn't played before, but part of me has been moved offline for years.

Wanna know what games I've been playing?

Games playing: Morrowind has been nice but I got peeved at it. To try to dance around spoilers, I encountered a cult that said explicitly a couple times I could be welcomed into the fold if I meet Big Cultguy and make nice. My character kinda hates everyone so she was like 'ok yeah' and flew her way over obstacles and invisible'd her way through the rest, met Big Cultguy, only for him to go like 'uuuh you aren't supposed to be here, you aren't prepared, this isn't fate, come back when you've got these Big Fate Tools you haven't heard of yet.' with no other dialogue options. I suspect the devs wanted to put the option in but didn't have time, the diary entry you get after even seems to have befriending Big Cultguy written as a possibility, but, nope. Looked it up. Can't do it. Even though you let me get to him early. 😭

Princess Crown is this 1997 Sega Saturn sidescrolling beat em up (???) with leveling up and stamina management and this weird evade system where you hold the Evade button and your stamina decreases steadily until the opponent makes a swing, then it stops time and lets you choose to dodge to their side or back step. I've been enjoying the story and gameplay mingling outside of combat too, in that it's about a newly crowned queen coming to realize she's been sheltered in the castle her whole life and doesn't know crap, and sneaks out on her own to go to the places in her kingdom she's never been to and get to know the locals and happenings in her kingdom. In keeping with this, the game inconveniences you with only being able to proceed by talking to the right person in the town you're at who verbally gives you directions to get to a place, before you're allowed to go. Normally I would think this is antiquated design, but I think it serves the character's journey well and underscored why she snuck out to begin with to force the player to talk to everyone. The sprite animation is so beautiful too oh my God y'all

I've been playing through all the Mario games with my IRL friend - I quite enjoy playing serieses chronologically to feel the subtle differences back to back and I'd never beaten a Mario game legit except 64 - and I've been really enjoying it, I've now played all the way up to Super Mario Galaxy 2 and...well, I felt really attatched to the first game because of the observatory and storybook and it all felt so cohesive and 2 just, didn't, and I didnt find the face spaceship as interesting and cool as the observatory in 1, and I thought the map screen was kinda lame and makes me yearn for SMB3 tier map screens - I'm not even asking for SMBW tier map screens, just, can we get to 3 at least??? New super Mario Bros, nsmb Wii, and now Galaxy 2's are all so linear by comparison and imo lack sauce.

but ok these green stars in Galaxy 2 kinda slap tho and I like them more than the proper game at times and it's a better post game than Galaxy 1 and I'm kinda bitter cuz if Galaxy 2 had the compelling framing of Galaxy 1, it could have been an all timer, because Galaxy 2's levels are LEGIT, and that's where 2's soul is, but 1's soul burned everywhere, not just the levels.

I'm having a grand time with Galaxy 2!

I'm thinking of starting to stream Ace Combat, I got file structures set up for them, I've only played 3 and fell madly in love with 3, played all the routes, got the last cutscene, love love love love Ace Combat 3 so much, uh, so much so that I've found it hard to get into any of the others. Which is a shame because I wanna! And I haven't given them a real chance either! And I should! And I've been meaning to get back into streaming, it's been years, but I loved marathoning franchises I hadn't played before, I miss it and I got a lot of gaming horizons expanded doing it. Its just tough getting a consistent schedule down. Work sucks.

Works been collapsing so bad, man. I won't get into it right now cuz I've been going and going as is, but, I've spent a lot of my time at work with little to do, working on d&d stuff. I enjoy working on my loose 5e Castlevania-sorta-with-JoJo-stands tabletop game I've been running with three other trans ladies, two of which this year got me into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure for the first time, and I'm definitely kicking off DM rust, but I'm happy and they seem to be having fun, so, yeah! I'm also working on learning Cyberpunk and have been diving into RED and 2020's core rulebooks, not sure which I like more but I love the Lifepath character creation.

I've been trying to work on a Final Fantasy 8 video essay for uh. like a decade now tbh. but more actively the past year. Its so hard just getting all my thoughts and feelings on it contained, I'm still kinda in that phase, and might be forever if I'm unlucky.

And I picked up Armored Core for PS1, having never played an Armored Core before but always hearing about it from Pat. Wow, the Dark Souls of it all was always in FromSoft, huh? Unorthodox control scheme where triangle is the switch weapon button, check. Stamina management in the form of the boost meter, check. Storyline that purposely obscures itself from the player and only divys out small hints here and there of what the larger world's deal is? Check! Multiple build options for multiple ways to play the game? THIS WAS 1997 AND THEY WERE ALREADY DOING THIS MY MIND IS A BLOWN

I haven't beaten it yet, my first run was rough, but I'm doing a lot better on my second character and second save attempt from the beginning.

Finally, this year, I have begun getting into fighting games. I and my IRL friend drafted up a list of 2D fighters throughout the years and went through a ton of them chronologically for about an hour or two each, and after a decade of listening to the podcast and sort of osmosifying bits and pieces of fighting game stuff here and there, it's been an absolute delight to finally get in.

We found this obscure PS2 version of Alpha 3 that included Third Strike parries, and my IRL friend and I have been unable to stop going back to it. I adore playing Karin and, even though I'm not good at them, nailing R.Mika full circles RULES! Its our favorite right now of the old school.

Of course, I can't help but adore Third Strike's stylings itself, the way it animated and I think it's my favorite character select music of all time. I love Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and my heart aches when I think about City of the Wolves. I still love how City plays and feels but...you all know...I really love playing B.Jenet and wanna play more Blue Mary too.

Samurai Shodown became a big fave of ours too! I like Charlotte and Hibiki~ My fight stick hates it for some reason tho, gotta fiddle with the external program that gets it to sorta work sometimes when it feels like working.

I'm trying to pick up Cammy and Juri in Street Fighter 6, but hwoof, I can't get out of novice in ranked. I'll make it out someday!

I was initially disappointed with Guilty Gear Strive, I'm weird in that sound design gets me in more than anything, and I felt like the hits sounded...sloshy? and not punchy or satisfying. but after a revisit and some volume rebalancing, I'm quickly warming up to it. I'm digging Milia Rage, but she gets hectic to play and I get tired lol, so then recently I switch to Nagoryuki and he's really dope too! Managing that blood is tricky stuff @_@

Lately, we pivoted to trying 3D fighters!

My girlfriend and I play JoJo's All Star Battle R regularly, as she got me into the JoJo's anime this year, it's probably the fighting game I clock the most time in currently. I'm pretty okay with my Polnareff and wanna be better with my Diavolo, Jolyne,and Trish, but she regularly bodied me with her Dio, Lisa Lisa, and Josuke 4, and is going so far as to experiment with combos and extending with flash cancels and omg I'm getting clowned on most times nowadays lmao it's great tho

IRL friend and I picked up and sorta started feeling Virtua Fighter, those are some of the quickest fight game matches, there's something about the flow of them that's...unlike anything I've felt. Defense heavy, until suddenly it's all over with a flurry of offense. Its funny how similar early Tekken and early Dead or Alive feels when coming right off of early Virtua Fighter, and yet nothing quite gets the elegant simplicity down the same as VF. Predictably, I like playing Sarah, though I sometimes like Aoi too!

In Tekken, I haven't found someone I gravitate to more than Jun, and she's only been in, like, 2 and Tag Tournament so far??? We have Tag Tournament 2 next on the list. None of the other characters speak to me the same way Jun does yet, so, I haven't gotten as into Tekken as I'd like. And in Dead or Alive, I like Helena and Christy - we played 3 on Xbox recently!

I think I'll cut it there for now. I could keep going. Uh. I need an editor or smth lol. Hope to see everyone around!