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Friday Fun Thread for September 19, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video game thread.

I played return to moria this past two weeks. It's a survival crafting game. Gameplay wise it is fairly standard for the genre. The setting of middle earth is fun. I'm not a massive LOTR nerd, so I'm sure I missed some subtleties.

There are some mechanics that definitely make the game better suited for co-op. I played it alone and felt like I was missing out. Storage sizes always felt too small, there were legendary gear items that you could only carry one of, and you could be picked up upon death by a comrade if you had one. I eventually downloaded a mod to fix the first two issues. It expanded storage and allowed carrying multiple legendary items.

Progression happens entirely through gear. And gear drops on death. Corpse runs were not as brutal as I feared. The game seemed to handle agro and grave placement in a way that helped corpse runs.

Resource collecting was generally pretty standard but sometimes I'd find myself making fun little mining platforms to get higher.

The map is procedurally generated, but it's more like pre-made rooms that are stuck together in an odd assortment rather than fully new terrain each time.

Navigation was tricky with the map not helping much except to provide general directions. I ended memorizing a lot of tunnel layouts in order to get where I needed to go.

Replayability felt low. I didn't want to totally start from scratch after getting used to all my awesome gear. The next update is supposedly adding NPCs for bases, I'll probably replay the game when that comes out.

I've started Clair Obscur. I like how you can tell it's French even without a giant mangled Eiffel Tower. I also like how it's not another generic fantasy/sci-fi/post-apoc rehash, but something completely original. I haven't seen a setting this weird since... Death Stranding, I guess.

What I can't enjoy is the combat. The controls are all weird, the QTEs are annoying (even though I didn't mind similar QTEs in The Stick of Truth). I would seriously pay for a mod that adds a generic Final Fantasy/RPG Maker menu.

Started it this weekend too. I like the weird, but I am very disappointed with how mediocre the writing is. Pacing problems, basic facts (~known by the heroes) obfuscated likely only because they had no confidence in filling it out properly.

Bodies of previous expedition members all share same uniforms (so far) and the numbers on their armbands are missing - how do you screw this up so hard? Predecessors you are expected to feel camaraderie with, reduced to very liberally sprinkled props, literally denied their place in the history of the expeditions.

Still, I will definitely finish it.

Maelle is a bae, though. She's one of these heroines that promises to marry you when she's a kid and everyone dismisses it as a childhood crush and then she turns legal and proves everyone wrong.

No no no, she's like a sister, she would never.

I was rather glad you get that outfit from the intro so early for her.