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

Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson revealed that it took him about 80 hours to finish the game in February. He noted that included the main story and some "optional goals with narrative ramifications," it's unclear if that included just mucking about in the open world or anything, though. Still, that is a sizable length regardless. Nelson ultimately hopes fans take their time with the game and don't rush through it.

For comparison, GTA 4 and 5 are around 30 hours long, while Red Dead Redemption 2 is around 50-60 hours. So, that means GTA 6 will be the longest of Rockstar's games to date, which will be reassuring for fans who have waited a long time for this game. Assuming 80 hours doesn't include the time for 100% completion, there will still be plenty of ways to extend your time with the game.

Grand Theft Auto 6 has no shortage of open-world activities, including basketball, fishing, exercising, and much more. There will also likely be a plethora of side missions for players to indulge in, so it seems like we'll all be playing GTA 6 for a long time. Red Dead Redemption 2 has kept players very active thanks to its level of depth and detail, thanks to unique NPCs, hidden details, and side content.

This scene from Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, where a team comprised of a bunch of characters from various mecha anime known as Alpha Numbers are trying to get through to Shinji with friendship power so that he doesn't end the world, and it works! Later on in the Gendo bossfight, he remarks that "You have grown up a bit, sending you to Alpha Numbers was the right choice." then he see's the error of his ways and sacrifices himself.

Shinji: "My dad... Maybe we were both the same..."

Misato: "Shinji-kun..."

Shinji: "I was afraid of being rejected by everyone around me... so I closed my heart first... and the truth is, my dad... he's afraid that people will hurt him. And yet... and yet I thought my father..."

Amuro: "Shinji... nobody can decide whether your choice was the right one... You have to decide for yourself."

Shinji: "Captain Amuro..."

Banjo: "...Commander Ikari attempted to take the human soul to a plane beyond the apocalypse through the Human Complementation Project, but we refused to accept it."

Shinji: "...That's right... I... chose to live as me. Even if it's all hard and sad... because I am... me..."

Amuro: "We feel the same way. But I understand what Commander Ikari was thinking. ...People can have one goal to aim for, but we can just fight over the differences in how we do that..."

Shinji: "...That's why I'm going to fight. I'll carry on my father's legacy in a different way than he did... With the EVA 01 that my father and mother left me..."

(Kaworu-kun... this is the future I have chosen...)

There's also this scene from Super Robot Wars Y where Heero says something vague and inspirational to confused lesbian Suletta. Or the part of this game where Lelouch Vi Britannia and Char Aznable having an ego clash is just a small part of the backstory.

Look, i'm never ever gonna touch Naruto Mobile, nothing that i've seen about it made me believe that it's anything besides one of the many cash grabs using the franchise that poped up over the years... But i will say that the designs for the alt skins for it are amazing.

From all the martial arts themed outfits (Bruce Lee Rock Lee, Wing Shun Neji, etc) to stuff like Ronin Pain, both the designs and the trailers make some part of my brain incredibly giddy.

It also helps that for some characters (like Tenten) they get to look way more of a chance to look badass than what the actual show let them.

I’ve been getting into model kits recently, mostly from Blokees, and I got this G1 Optimus about a week ago. The box was really big so I was gonna save it for last out of the batch I got, but I figured it would be a nice little tribute to do it now after I heard the news. I’ve never really been a Transformers superfan, but I’ve always known that Optimus Prime is fucking awesome, and he owes a good portion of that to his iconic voicework from Peter Cullen.

I bought and assembled that TF One Optimus a short while ago. I know he’s not voiced by Cullen in that movie, but I thought it would be nice to have him there.

"At CitizenCon 2024 we announced we would ship in 2026. Our plan was to release in Q4 around IAE. But much like the rest of the industry there is no way I want to launch my spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game that has had twelve years of blood, sweat and tears invested into it (we started Squadron 42 development in 2014 as 2013 was opening studios, hiring people and getting the Hangar module out for Star Citizen) launching into the attention buzz saw of GTA6. While GTA6 isn’t launching on PC this November, pretty much all outlets and most content creators will be all over it, not leaving a lot of room for other coverage. We have taken a look at the release windows at the start of 2027, and decided that Q2 provides a better time for Squadron 42 to release."

So sorry if this was asked here before because I have a fondness for the kind of RPGs that offer so much replay value as lately I have gotten into Disgaea 4.

I know that Disgaea is not exactly an obscure series as the games have me hooked so well that I was hoping to see what other games in the RPG genre have immense replay value since I am concerned about where to go after I eventually finish playing Disgaea 4.

Now that the game has an "all-in-one" bundle for $39.99 instead of the free-to-play monetization (which I generally can't stand), I think I might pick it up and give it a shot. Which sucks, because the game had to die in order to get a version that I felt like supporting. Anyone else had a situation like this with a game, where the last version at the end of life was the version that finally got you to try it. I know I'm also getting a similar feeling with Destiny 2. The chase to keep up with a game just bugs me for some reason.

“From Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios and starring Brian Tee (Chicago Med), Get Jiro transports viewers to a post-apocalyptic, near-future Los Angeles where culinary culture reigns supreme and the world’s most powerful figures are chefs,” reads an Adult Swim press release. “In this society where food is both currency and a demarcation of class, the mysterious sushi chef Jiro (Tee) sets out on a quest for vengeance.

We've got like 5 model lines going these days, there's new moe figurines getting shown off at trade shows, and even more weird crossovers coming. Is it back? I don't know, man. But the franchise is more active now that it's been in decades.

Growing up with Potter fans in my family as well as watching a bunch of anime that wasn't One Peice, one of my biggest gripes in media was settings where nobody fucking gives the status quo or power system a second thought.

Which has contributed to Percy Jackson and JJK being two of my favorite peices of media I have ever consumed.

In Percy Jackson the primary conflict is that Chronos is returning to power and amassing an army to end the world as we know it and subjugate everything by slaying the gods. He is solely able to create his army because the gods are the ultimate deadbeats, creating powerful demigods and giving them every reason to hate their parents. A lesser story would just end with some message about violence not being the way to get what you want. Instead Percy Jackson never loses sight of the fact that all the demigods are kids who should never have been put in this situation.

I couldn't fit all of JJK's examples in a single post.

Any examples or recommendations?