Oh fuck, Square has announced that Noctis and Bros are getting new content in 2019. The content just keeps coming and it seems as though Final Fantasy XV ain’t ever going away, folks! And, why should it? Despite it being approximately 50% of a game, people seem go go apeshit for it! Well, at least a good portion of people, and I even enjoyed that first 50%.

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I’m a sucker for the Fourth of July. Or at the very least, the notion of it. As someone who is both a recluse *and* has to fucking work on the 3rd and the 5th, I imagine I won’t be doing much literal celebrating. But, the holiday gets to me.

Maybe it’s the programming from growing up a KidBot during the end of the Cold War and into the Myth of a New Golden age, but I have to admit — there’s a twinge of excitement at the idea of Seared Flesh and American Flags.

It’s the sort of deep-seated, inextricable programming that pops up from time to time, attempt to defy it as I may. The same programming that has me unconsciously doing the Sign of the Cross during a Catholic wedding or some shit. Which, has happened, and as it happened I looked appalled at my own gestures like I had a fucking Ghost Hand.

So here I sit, melancholic for the old days when I Believe In Things, and Celebrated Stuff. So here I sit, melancholic for the days when folks used to come around these parts, and spend the Weekend Open Bar with me.

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Hello, friends! Denizens of the Space-Ship Omega! This is Monday Morning Commute, by way of Tuesday Evening. Why the tardiness? Why the general silence on the blog?

I’m glad you (didn’t) ask! I just blitz’d a weekend in Maui for a best friend’s wedding, and well. Coming back to reality after two days in paradise requires efforting on several levels. Readjusting to timezones, readjusting to the perils and praxis of regular life, yadda, yadda.

But I can’t complain.

I’ve discovered the answer to a question I’ve been asking myself since last year, when I knew I would be going to Maui. Is thirty hours of travel in the span of four days, and thousands of dollars for said travel, and missing teaching two incredibly intensive summer classes, worth forty-eight hours in paradise, for a best friend’s wedding?

Unequivocally, yes. 

But this, right here! It’s the weekly column where we share what we’re up to, on a given week! I’ll share my own findings, as I rattle around in the befuddled muck of my consciousness, trying to figure out not just what I’m up to, but what day it is, what time it is, this and that, this and that.

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So, Final Fantasy XV is getting a beefy, beefy update in March, alongside its first Episode DLC. Most notably? A “fix” to that pesky Chapter 13.

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We now know when we will be getting our first batch of serious Final Fantasy 15 DLC, folks. March! And, even better! It is going to star Gladiolus. My personal fave.

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The March of the Monsters.

It will reach its first crescendo, as they slither into the symbolic house of power this week. Here they come! Ancient ones! With gnarled fangs protruding from ruptured sockets. Here they come! With blasphemous sores upon oozing phalanges! Gnashing and beying for the life-force of the wounded, the wearied. Here they come! Tentacles and ill-intent! Here they come! Smashing and ripping and devouring. Here they come! Blood in their eyes, death in their mouths! Here they come!

What can you do? Shelter-in-place! Here! At the Space-Ship Omega! In this here post! Monday Morning Commute! By way of Tuesday Afternoon. Where we share what we’re doing this week, what we’re looking forward to this week. You know, when we’re not preparing the survival kits, building the house-sized umbrellas to shield our domiciles from the shrapnel borne out of shorn blood-meat from conquered deities.

The March of the Monsters.

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Last Friday evening my family and I gathered for a bit of delicious ass (and if you’re confused, ass is delicious) Mexican food to celebrate my birthday. As my brother left, he told us all to “enjoy the last two weekends in America” — a resonant, if not hyperbolic statement. That leaves us, friends, on the precipice of the Last Weekend In America — a resonant, if not hyperbolic statement.

In a country that seems to be unspooling (on both sides of the political spectrum, mind you, I choose no side in this fusillade of suck), what is there to do?

Why, spend some time with you folks at the Weekend Open Bar.

Gather round, folks. The Vampires at the Throat at here, have been here. But as they drink from us, let us drink together. There is Nowhere to go, so let’s go to Nowhere together.

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The web’s littered with reviews of Final Fantasy XV already, Square’s beleaguered fifteenth entry in its flagship franchise. I’ll try and share information and judgements you hopefully haven’t read a dozen times already. I’m coming from the perspective of a longtime fan of Final Fantasy, as a franchise. I’ve played almost all the mainline games, having started with the entirely iconic and brilliant VI back in 1994, and culminating with XIII, which did its best to break me with its amateur, fragmented storytelling and disappointing design decisions.

My playstyle with FF XV was to tackle the main storyline first, with an odd bit of optional content here or there, and see if the game grabbed me enough to keep going after that. As it turned out, this may not be the optimal way to enjoy this title, which just annoyed me a bit further. This game is definitely more of a road trip. You’ll probably walk away from it with better memories if you don’t blitz through the main campaign as I did, taking the time instead to essentially hang out with your boy band and wander.

If you’d rather skip my rambling and get to my list of pros and cons, hit Page Down like…twice or something.

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The Good: Final Fantasy XV is going to feature some sort of online co-op. The Bad: Apparently some of the fucking DLC packs are going to be selling you playable characters. C’mon, man.

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Well, at least Final Fantasy XV is still, uh, coming out this year, right?

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