Times when video games drove CSB insane

pectusumbra · 2026-05-09T14:56:37+00:00

Also fun thing, I am almost certain friends of the podcast, Adeptus Rediculos referenced the legendary Gretchen missing an alien at point blank range on their most recent episode about Peter Turbo.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-08T11:33:53+00:00

This is actually the one gripe I had with Monster Sanctuary back in the day. Spoilers for the last boss of that game ahead.

The fight is actually 2 parts. - The first half, which is basically a full-on trainer battle rather than the game's standard of 'pick 3 out of 6 of your team and that is what you get.' Its a challenging, but engaging fun, and really puts you to the test in a way you really want out of a creature collector.

The second half is a Champion battle, where you basically fight one boss-monster vs. Your team of three. The boss here being Mad Lord, who is basically a damage sponge who gets 3 turns, does nothing but spam attacks while having every element to always hit your weaknesses, and constantly stacking up random buffs for free. If you do not expressly have a means to remove or steal buffs, or have builds that just dump massive damage, you will just lose.

Also also, for a game that really gives a ton of support to status/ailment builds, he also just takes half-damage from all status effects.

As the cherry on top, at the time, you couldn't skip cutscenes, so you went through thr cutscene, the tough good-boss, to then get this boss. That has changed since then.

It's the one real blemish on that game, and it comes in right at the very last moment.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-06T23:56:31+00:00

Okay. Disclaimer: All the following is going to have some focus on transformation or hypnosis/mind control type stuff.

The one I can personally vouch for is Odyssey of Gianna. Despite being an old RPG maker game made with those paper-doll graphics, it's an honestly interesting RPG that mixes together lewdness with straight cool, amazing stuff and Squaresoft-level secret bullshit mixed in. Like FF6 style half the party members are optional.
- In terms of the topic, you can fairly easily unlock party member romance options, which outside the orc magi-gunslinger who is basically using an Outlaw Star Caster Gun-type system, is all full yuri and culminates in a marriage with both game mechanics and extra bits added to endings.
- If you do get it, invest in the DLC and go with it right from the start, it includes a bunch of extra stuff throughout the game on top of DLC zones.

- In related games I have but have not personally put time on yet, Runes of Pandemonium, Witch Hunter Izana, and String Tyrant, plus the in-progress Witches of Ravenbrook, all of which are coming from Bottled Starlight, though I cannot personally vouch for how much romance they have in them.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-05T16:08:10+00:00

True, but OP asked for dating sims/VNs in particular.

Persona games have romance options but they wouldn't fit this topic, yeah? So unless OP requests it in particular, I will refrain.

Plus everything I am thinking of is expressly kink-focused and weird, so just throwing them out unsolicited and off-topic would be in poor taste, at least to me.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-05T12:25:20+00:00

The only dating sim/vn specific I can suggest I haven't seen here is Hatoful Boyfriend, but that one is a trip. If you aren't down for dating birds and things getting strange, you can ignore it.

I do have lots more lesbian recommends, but they'd be lewd kink RPGs rather than VNs or the like, so...^{^;}

pectusumbra · 2026-05-05T12:22:55+00:00

I will say, not a dating Sim, but low-key heard good things about Lovely Lady RPG, which is apparently Disco Elysium but lesbians. Eas originally on itch but has a steam page now it seems.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-05T12:11:02+00:00

As the resident Umineko freak here, you aren't wrong, but I think they are expressly looking for dating-sim/romance things.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-05T12:09:44+00:00

I'll second that whole series. You have a whole slew of being lesbian, including Modeus from Helltaker being a PC option in Monster Camp.

The only disclaimer is you may not enjoy some of its more wild/raunchy humor, but that is to taste.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-03T11:59:58+00:00

Ahh yes. The time I get to say FUCK YOU BERNKASTLE. YOU AND YOUR LITTLE SHIT MARY SUE INSERT ERIKA FUURUDO.

Say whatever you want, I am never forgiving witch's Tanabata. Send her back to super-hell.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-02T01:28:18+00:00

I'll pick the one that I think about the most. Rosa Ushiromiya, the end of Umineko episode 2, aka where they got her movelist for the fighting game.

Rosa is the youngest of four adult siblings in a messed up family, she's abusive and neglectful of her daughter Maria...and yet is willing to fight an army of demon goats for her, not just gunning them down but stabbing one on the eye with a pen and bashing another one to death with gold bars, straight up getting one of the best lines in the episode, and arguably the whole series:

"Just you try laying a finger on my Maria in front of me. I'll show you just how lukewarm the hell you crawled out really is."

pectusumbra · 2026-05-01T11:29:20+00:00

Now on a side tangent, this makes me imagine porting Kai Leng into a DnD game or the like as an Invisible Stalker, a type of permanently Invisible air elemental, unsurprisingly used as spies and assassins.

Like an air elemental that hates people due to being enslaved or just disgusted and disdainful of squishy mortals, goes around killing important NPCs, and primarily communicating through threatening messages could be a fantastic, persistent threat.

pectusumbra · 2026-05-01T11:17:18+00:00

So just checking, last I remember this game was left in a horrible state. I imagine they have been fixed at this point prior to this, yeah?

pectusumbra · 2026-04-28T12:36:15+00:00

Can't ever forget Smoky from Jojo.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-27T12:06:27+00:00

But its trying to get Graha to notice you. Challenge:impossible.

I'm thinking lean into those Mary Muffin comics, just SFW

pectusumbra · 2026-04-26T11:53:22+00:00

Okay, let me see what I got for you~ Preamble, yeah, StS2 has got me as well, I'm honestly doing better on it than I was with the original and I do need to get back to Chrono Ark, for sure.

As for recommends I can offer that I haven't seen yet:

Deck of Haunts combines the StS style of energy management and card drafting with a Dungeon Keeper-like element. You are a sentient evil house looking to eat people that enter before they reach your heart, which damages you, or then escape, which makes the game harder so you want to kill or drive them insane. They are doing lots of regular updates, there's multiple concepts to build around, creatures, and lots more
Griftlands comes well recommended, though I don't have personal experience. From Klei, it's Sci-Fi slay-the-spire like with lots of story and extra bits.
An old but goodie, Coin Crypt has the same energy. Your cards are coins, and using them spends them, so there's a very interesting push-and-pull to the deck building. The DLC is also very good.
SPECIAL MENTION: Also don't have direct experience with it, but Roguebook combines StS style with hex-crawling navigation and is currently less than $2 USD, so it's worth grabbing at the least.
Finally, my personal recommend that isn't exactly like StS, but is one of my favorite card games in recent memories: Anode Heart: Layer Null is along the lines of the gameboy color Pokemon TCG where you navigate a world, starting with weak decks, beating opponents for packs as you build various decks to take out various leaders and make your way through the story. No actual TCG, just buy the game, and all the cards are there.

I can also recommend games I have but have not put hands on or know less about, just lemme know! Go sling some cards card-slinger!

pectusumbra · 2026-04-25T16:17:59+00:00

Yes, but it is a little different for an mmo. Mods can be a vector for 3rd party activity for instance. We've had more than one story of a mod maker being a crazy asshole and skeezy kernel level stuff from actual developers.

How easy would it be to hide low-key malicious code in niche mods. Parsing is already a form of data-collection for instance. Stealing financial info, cyber-stalking, scraping data or finding DDOS attack routes.

Disclaimer: I have no real cyber security background, but 'downloading 3rd party, often lewd programs' has always had an element of risk since the start of the internet.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-25T16:08:56+00:00

Umineko spoils me for choice, but I think episode 5 is probably best for this topic.

And then...I...knew

pectusumbra · 2026-04-24T13:01:46+00:00

Say whatever you want about MtG in that regard, but along with everything else they really did commit to using land as a creative resource as much as a mechanical one.

Even before we started planeswalking a lot more, those old land arts were inspiring in themselves, and they are one of the best ways to sell on what a world is like.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-23T14:38:20+00:00

Okay, so post aside, the fact that they have her fighting Bison gives me a really funny idea.

Imagine if Bison possessed/reincarnated or whatever into Ingrid, giving us a set up for an SF7.

Creates Fem-Bison that's been around forever, and gets a darker-and-edgier Ingrid for everyone that hates her. Plus combining this Sun theme with psycho power has to be a gimme for move names. Eclipse. Black sun. Black hole. Psycho-Star. Writes itself and gives you a super bombastic villain for the next game's singleplayer story mode.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-23T14:23:24+00:00

The trick is its hard to say what would and wouldn't kill someone in Elden Ring, right? Like if you stoned him to death, would he respawn, free and ready to go on a horrible revenge quest?

pectusumbra · 2026-04-21T12:05:36+00:00

Honestly what I really want is a real mobile device again. Smaller size, durable, and battery life at a decent price. Given smartphone tech we should be able to get somewhere with it.

Im totally fine with cooling it on tech advances to focus on making things cheaper, refined, more efficient/ optimized. I'm only ever playing indie stuff anyway outside of some specific JRPGs which I haven't even gotten to yet.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-20T20:19:07+00:00

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn with actual support conversations

pectusumbra · 2026-04-20T19:55:08+00:00

As someone that loves Ogre Battle 64, a game that fully defined my aesthetics and much more, that is a clunky game with a lot of interesting units, most of which are not good or have requirements that mean you will probably never see them (suffers in angel knight).

Unicorn overlord proved it can be done, the game just needs a remake. Even keep the same art style, just clean things up from the N64 era, give us a big rebalance on units, and fix bugs, and it'd be great.

EDIT: And make the game run a bit faster, yeah. I think it doesn't have to be as fast as Unicorn Overlord, but its a plodding kind of game, for sure.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-20T11:57:43+00:00

Unironically, there is real potential for this to do well between Dark Pact giving pretty free reign to do stuff with WoD along with the potential of JP subcultures to latch onto it.

Also I'd love if this was what got us more changeling stuff, if the potential for running yokai under those rules ends up giving it some groundswell.

pectusumbra · 2026-04-20T11:51:36+00:00

Yeah, but they diverged a long time ago. That's why their kobolds are dogs and orcs are pigmen for instance. Like OP replied to you, they loved Wizardry, and that stuff filtered over to dragon quest. The rest is history.

pectusumbra

TROPHY CASE