Rundown (11/01/2026) No Games For Natalie!

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This Week’s Topics:

Rundown Preamble Ramble:
No Games For Natalie!

Time for an update that… I REALLY don’t want to give! And to help the medicine go down, I am doing it in live action!

Following a rush project that fell into my lap last week— just your standard work until 2 AM for four days in a row affair— I sat down and reassessed my schedule. While busy season is over— dead if you prefer— I still have two lingering deadlines on my plate. The one relevant to you all is the release of TSF Series #020: Chateau de Bitz, which FINALLY left the outline phase last week. While the one that I am personally dreading is the first in a series of four Certified Public Accountant exams that my boss and mother— basically the only two people in my IRL life— are demanding that I take.

This puts a bit of back-to-back pressure on me, and accordingly, another sacrifice must be lined up and thrown into the pyre of time management. And the victim for that is… playing video games. Yes, until I can complete ONE of these two blasted things, Natalie is hereby barred from playing a video game.

This is something I HATE doing, due to the fact that I LOVE video games, as if that isn’t obvious. As recently discussed in my Donkey Kong 64 thingie-ma-roo I have been fascinated by them since I was 6-years-old, and for as “cringe” as it may seem, they are a core part of me. They are my passion, something I have endless capacity to love, and are somewhere in my top three loves: Writing, TSF, and video games. I want to explore, express, and examine my love of these things on Natalie.TF. I WANT to put out things regularly. I want to write novels, short stories, showcase TSF stories I really enjoy, play games, write nitty-gritty reviews about everything I admire or take umbrage with them, and continue these weekly, more topical, less evergreen, Rundowns. I want to do everything!

I still love this dumb edit…

However, I need to choose, need to deal with the bespoke inefficiencies of being a human, of needing to wake up, eat, pee, poo, exercise, shower, and mentally wind down before sleeping. As much as I want to be, I am not a machine, and I am prone to just farting around on my usual sites while watching a video on my other monitor, because that’s FUN for me. That’s relaxing! I have a limited amount of productive time that I can use toward things, and in order to do anything, sacrifices must be made. And those sacrifices will need to be a part of me.

Natalie.TF originally began as a game review blog, and if you dig back through the archives, you can find all manner of poorly written, terribly edited, and just bad game reviews. I have been reviewing games for nearly 15 years, covered well over 400 at some point, but looking over what I want to do, recognizing that I need to establish some damn priorities, I have reached a decision.

…I should no longer review video games.

I still have two game reviews scheduled for 2026— Ecstatica and Money for Girls: Amortized— and while those reviews have been delayed, they will still be published.

However, beginning in 2027, I will no longer do typical game reviews. My previously announced reviews of Beast of Reincarnation, Danganronpa 2×2, Metroid 6: Ravenous, and Muramasa: Revenant Blades are all canceled.

TSF games I have previously said I would review, such as re:Dreamer, Coffee Buns, A Mirror’s Curse, and Thread – A Tale of Identity, Monsters, and College, will no longer be given proper reviews. Instead, they will be given TSF Showcase segments that are functionally identical to reviews, but under a different bucket. Any future coverage of a TSF game will follow the same convention. It won’t be a review, but a showcase, and the difference in the end product will be the name and header.

In addition to this, I am adopting a new personal responsibility policy. To prevent myself from producing works ineffectively, I am no longer allowed to play video games unless it is for Natalie.TF. Ipso facto, if I am not allowed to do game reviews, that functionally prohibits me from playing games for any reason other than TSF Showcase.

Or, to put it in no uncertain terms, I am largely giving up on playing video games.

I cannot properly articulate how angry, infuriated, and scornful I am of myself for doing this. I am openly denying myself one of my favorite things in the world, and will cause myself significant psychological and emotional harm in the process. Both short-term and long-term harm, the best double whammy! However, for the sake of doing the things I want to do, to cater to the demands of my career, to fulfill my own stated goals as a writer, the current structure of my life cannot continue. Loss is necessary. Pain is mandatory. And if pain is mandatory, you may as well go for what hurts the most. And what could hurt more than cutting away the very foundation that this 15 year project was founded on, and something that has captured me for nearly 26 years?

…Next, you may be asking what does this mean for Rundowns?

I began doing Rundowns in February 2013 and have an immense love for what they have become, for how I was able to turn a weekly scree into a place where I could discuss everything that occupies my mind. Unfortunately, I cannot in good consciousness continue performing these Rundowns if I am a mere spectator of a medium, barred from participating. If I were to surrender my playing of video games, I would be a mere poser, an imposter, larper, or general phony. Nobody with sense wants to read the words of some phony.

I do not think I will ever be able to free myself from the whims and calls of gaming news, analysis, or discussion. I am in too deep, and rely on it as a continuous stim throughout my days. However, I could not in good consciousness talk about it as someone who no longer plays video games. And the very idea of cutting games aside, turning Rundowns into vessels purely for cultural commentary and politics, is something I am NOT going to do.

So, fuck it! Let’s just break both of my legs!

The final game review of Natalie.TF will be released on December 16, 2026.

The final Rundown of Natalie.TF will be released on December 27, 2026.

Going into 2027, Natalie.TF will remain home to TSF Showcases, TSF Series, and my assorted novels.

If this news upsets you, I am sorry. But rest assured, there is nobody in the world who is as furious, fucking pissed, and enraged by this as me. However, after failing to meet my goals for years, and years, and being made to feel miserable in so many respects, I need to change one of the only things I can control. And, well, this is one of them.

I’m sorry, but… let’s try to enjoy our last two months together like this.

More Pre-Release Musings About the Ocarina Remake
(Because Nat Got Baited by a Podcast)

Budda-budda-budda-boo! I need a topic, so let’s keep it topical with two bugbears that have infested my brain and they, like a tardigrade, will outlive me unless I burn it up and scarf it down.

The remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) will be released a few days after this post, and discourse about it is going to thrive among Nintendorks for the next month or so. What it changed, how its changes affected the game’s design, what is or is not the definitive version, or more heady ruminations over what makes an art an art, the remake trend, and business theorycrafting. I already wrote a nearly novel length essay on remakes and remasters, so I don’t want to pry into this well too often, but I do want to discuss a perspective on this remake that burrowed into my brainspace.

The perspective is that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake (2026) is a necessary move to introduce new wave Zelda fans, whose first “real” experience was Breath of the Wild to Ocarina of Time. Which is a move that… does not make sense to me.

Now, my crotched old self, just a few days from achieving 37 years of age, needs to point out how these Zoomies and Alphars had ample opportunity to play other and older Zelda titles. Across Nintendo Switch Online and unauthorized emulation, these games have been available, at least partially, for a hot minute in a half-shell. Now, the natural counterargument is that going back to these games, stagnant, of their era, lacking the cultural allure of modernity, and being devoid of many expected now standardized features or flourishes, can be discouraging to many people. Or, alternatively, they just might not like how older games look or feel. As such, a remake that retains the core design, but that looks and plays like a modern video game, released at a point of cultural bombast, can be quite appealing.

However, I also need to ask that, if you scrubbed off the Zelda namesake of these games, and viewed them on a strict mechanical level, why would a BotW fan WANT to play Ocarina of Time? OoT is a largely linear game, a curated and designed experience that is best if you play by the game’s rules and feed yourself to its narrative. Its world is as large as it needs to be evocative, and its systems were largely an establishment of nascent conventions that had been subjected to routine experiment up to that point. BotW is one of the most open-ended open world games released in the past decade, with no required main quests beyond its tutorial, and even that can be cheesed with sufficient gouda. In BotW, you are the crafter of your story, for better or for worse.

I do not need to exert effort to imagine someone who might like one of these games, but dislike the other. The correlation of these two disparate gameplay systems is largely a product of uniform designs, marketing panache, and emotion-driven cultural legacy. There’s a shared design language across A Link to the Past to A Link Between Worlds, but that stopped when BotW decided to be a different entity.

On the note of legacy, I also need to take umbrage with the verbiage that this remake is “introducing a new generation to Ocarina of Time.” This statement presupposes that the experience between the 1998 and 2026 renditions are ultimately comparable experiences, that if you experience one, you have largely seen what makes the other so great. When… no. While the events, characters, and general geography are to be largely the same between both games, the devil is in the details, which are entirely different. The lighting, texture, movements, and general look all differ greatly between these games.

It is tempting to argue that the core is what is important about these titles, but games are ultimately interactive audiovisual experiences— entities as defined as their aesthetics as they are by their gameplay. Mild mechanical changes can result in dramatically different experiences, while tweaking the way the game looks can do wonders to affect how you perceive it after 20-odd hours with it. As such, if you tweak a game significantly enough, if you rebuild it from scratch, then can you truly call it the same game? You can love the original but hate the remake or love the remake but hate the original. It’s pretty easy given how many parts go into a game. And in VERY FEW instances would I ever say that, if you played the remake, you’ve effectively played the original.

I’ve said this before, but the games industry needs to teach people to appreciate and enjoy older games, to package them in the appropriate container and context for people to enjoy them just as much as more modern games. It works for books, music, movies, and even TV to some extent, but due to the nature of games as software with far more complexities than any other mass market media, there’s a barrier that still has not been crossed. Sure, some people have figured it out. Retro gaming is big nowadays, as they say, as they’ve been saying since the 90s. But in a truly healthy, organized, and decent industry, people should be taught to engage with something from 20 or 50 years ago without needing or demanding a remake to replace or sell the original by being something else.

…Unfortunately, the nature of sales, of hype, of catering to the culture is in such a state where it is just better to make a remake of a beloved title. …And it is better to change it just enough, introduce enough aesthetic friction, to make it its own thing. Yada-yada, the world should be better, but this is the best option in the capitalist doomsday cultist world we got.

Why Isn’t Final Fantasy Resonance Just Called Final Fantasy XVII?
(Because That Would Be Silly!)

So, this is a topic that I’ve lifted from one of my many pesky conversations with Missy Scrumptious, who knows JRPGs, but has not really played the classics beyond Chrono Trigger, and does not like medieval fantasy stuff. (It’s okay, we all have taste blind spots.)

Unprompted, last week, she asked me “Why isn’t Final Fantasy Resonance just called Final Fantasy XVII?” (Paraphrased, of course.)

Now, this is fairly obvious answer to me, and can be summarized with a blunt “it would be really weird if they did that” followed by a series of factoids and assumed rules that Square Enix operates under.

Firstly, like most game series that still use numbers, there has always been a delineation between the numbered Final Fantasy games and the non-numbered ones. Every numbered entry has some importance and history levied toward it either by corporate or enthusiast audiences. They introduce a new world, new cast of characters, and carry with them a level of high production values meant to make them feel like significant marquee titles. Final Fantasy VII (1997) was one of, if not the, most expensive video game up to that point. Final Fantasy X (2001) was a massive leap forward with full voice acting and fully 3D worlds. Final Fantasy XIII (2009) was a graphical showcase that still looks stunning nearly twenty years later. Final Fantasy XV (2016) was a great technical ambition, even if it clearly was more than the dev team could chew. And Final Fantasy XVI (2023) was largely just a AAA action game.

There are plenty of RPG series that have been more loosey gooesy with their numbering systems, switching platforms and undergoing technical and graphical peaks and valleys in their lineage. Dragon Quest is the big one, with VIII being for PS2, IX being for the DS, and X shifting over to the Wii while being an MMO, before XI was made for both the 3DS in the style of a Super Famicom game and for the PS4 as an Unreal Engine 4 game.

Final Fantasy never really did that. For example, Final Fantasy: Type-0 (2011) for the PSP has all the markings of a numbered Final Fantasy title and was originally conveyed as part of the multi-game venture that was Final Fantasy XIII. If Square Enix wanted to, they could have easily called the game Final Fantasy XV. They did not, and that’s a good thing, as Type-0 is not very good. Hell, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is Final Fantasy Zero if you want to be a bitch about it. Hellx2, from my perspective, there was nothing but corporate politics preventing them from calling Bravely Default or Octopath Traveler a numbered Final Fantasy, and if they did, that would track, as those games are Final Fantasy in all but name.

Reason two, Resonance is ultimately a crossover game, and Square Enix rightfully does not want to release a crossover game as a numbered entry. It would dilute what the series is, and could cause confusion about the series’ identity. Sure, Fire Emblem Engage (2023) pulled it off, but the Fire Emblem series doesn’t use numbers and lots of people skipped that one for reasons. But if Square Enix tried calling World of Final Fantasy (2017) or Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia (2017) a numbered entry, we would still hear people bitching about it to this day. All of which is before getting into the assorted mobile titles like Mobius Final Fantasy (2015), Final Fantasy Dimension (2010), and Final Fantasy Record Keeper (2014). If both Cloud and Terra are in the same game, then it’s not gonna get a “real” number. Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (2011) does not count, and you know it!

Three, Resonance is ultimately an extensive remake of part of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (2015), a mobile game designed with 2015 phones in mind, and comparing these games is kind of laughable. The story, characters, and world are all mostly the same, but expanded and rewritten, while just about everything else has been utterly changed. Brave Exvius was a menu-driven game with battles as instances and very light exploration, while Resonance has a full world map, random encounters, side quests, and an entirely new progression system. There is nothing about Resonance screams “I’m a 2015 mobile game” because it simply is not.

This might make it seem like fertile ground to be a new numbered entry, but a new numbered entry is a statement. And if this were Final Fantasy XVII? It would make it seem like the series was giving up. That would be saying “I’m so bereft of new ideas that it needed to harvest the remains of some mobile spin-off!” Those optics are terrible!

Four, the very idea of deeming Resonance a numbered entry would add the “scary big number” factor to the game, which has rightfully led publishers to move away from them or insist that “yes, you can start here.” Which meshes with the sentiment I have seen, and played for myself. Final Fantasy Resonance, as a game, is quite good. It works great as a throwback to the halcyon days of the SNES Final Fantasies, mechanics, tropes, and all. And as an RPG, it’s pretty basic and modern with its design, prioritizing elemental weaknesses, minimizing the need to grind, while ultimately feeling pretty good in the hands. It does not feel like a SNES or PS1 RPG, and has more direct DNA with their more modern AA RPGs, like Octopath. …And not just because it looks like an Octopath game.

As someone who grew up playing some classic Final Fantasy games but fell off of… a lot of things due to the devils of time management, creative pursuits, school, and work, I think it is pretty great. It’s definitely derivative, and probably a bit too generous on its normal difficulty, but it’s the kind of rock solid game that I could easily find myself loving. I love comfortable and efficient RPGs like this, and had a blast going through the demo a month back. Unfortunately, this will be one of hundreds of journeys I am prohibited from going on.

Oh joy, oh rapture, take me to the sweet abyss where feelings are no more~!

Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Employees
(Microsoft is an Anti-Employment Organization)

One of the many reasons why I hope my boss successfully sells his practice PRONTO is because I want an excuse and justification to ditch Windows. Everything about Windows has been getting a worse and crappier deal since Windows 10 came out a decade ago, and in that time I have lost any and all faith in the future of Windows. I want out, am currently stuck, and with every passing week, I learn to detest Microsoft more. The rampant layoffs, glazing of AI, the slow collapse of the Xbox brand and everything under it, obligatory BDS mention, and their apathetic approach to their own software. HOW are there still bugs in Excel that I have been seeing, CONSISTENTLY, since 2011?

To add more fuel to my hater’s pyre and wannabe Linux user vindication, Microsoft has offered buyouts to roughly 60,000 employees, or 27% of their staff. Essentially, they are offering extra money and bonuses to employees in exchange for quietly leaving their jobs. This is a common tactic used when you want to avoid announcing massive layoffs, plan a massive restructuring, and want to avoid bad PR or legal trouble with culling your staff. This is, obviously, better than a mass layoff, but it is still a profoundly shitty thing to do to employees who want to keep their job, not move, and remain part of a team that is, most likely, operating effectively.

So, why would Microsoft, who has been doing pretty damn well in The Market, want to buyout so many of their staff? Because they want to free up cash flow in future quarters and invest even more money into AI data centers. Which is what we really need, more power for Claude and not people with stable jobs developing technologies that make people’s lives better.

Do I even need to highlight the systemic problems here? The fewer tech jobs out there, the more people rely on AI to do their programming, the worse software will get. Accordingly, fewer people will have the experience and skills needed to make software better, on their own, without relying on something external and ever-changing.

Pokémon Unite End of Service Announced
(Pokémon MOBA is DEAD on March 23, 2027)

Next, we have the End of Service announcement for what I always saw at the most trend chasing Pokémon live service of them all, Pokémon Unite (2021). From a business perspective, the concept was incredibly savvy. MOBAs in the late 2010s were still huge, so let’s cross that genre with Pokémon. Let’s make it a competitive-casual game to attract a dedicated core while keeping the door open for people who just want to play a few online matches on occasion. And seeing as how much of the Asian market has been captured by these sorts of games, let’s have the game be developed and extensively managed by Tencent via their subsidiary TiMi Studio.

I never liked the idea, as I dislike competition as a rule, but it garnered an audience who wanted a team-based competitive Pokémon game. However, the vibes around Unite were never great as far as I cared to tell, and fans generally did not like how the game, as a live service, was being handled.

  • The game gradually de-emphasized skilled play by not penalizing players for poor performance. If you play a lot, you will get to the top tier, allowing unskilled, ignorant, players who don’t understand the game to reach the higher tiers. Naturally, this is frustrating to competitive players, as they cannot rely on teammates that don’t know how to strategize or play their role. And, needless to say, if you are more concerned about your teammates’ performance than your opponents, something is wrong in a competitive game.
  • The monetization was simply not good, making use of rental units, oodles of cosmetics, and everything got more complicated after they removed their “Aeos Coins” in December 2025. Oh, and don’t forget about the gacha-based prize machines used to acquire certain tier-based cosmetics, creating an economy of haves and have-nots.
  • The game routinely introduced overpowered characters that disrupted the balance and fun, as it encouraged homogenous play. Most of what I have heard about the game casually over the years has been how such and such Pokémon was a ripe dastard to fight, which is a bad sign.
  • Allegedly, the title had matchmaking, input latency, and team-based AI issues that all put a dampener on the experience. If it takes a few minutes to get a match started, and you are fighting against humans with inefficient robots on your side, where your moves take several frames to come out, you are in for a bad time.
  • There were perceived split priorities between the original international version of Pokémon Unite and a bespoke Chinese version released three years later. Naturally, the Chinese dev would prioritize their domestic market and understand it better over the larger international market.
  • The game has various UX issues, throwing useless information at the player while hiding vital information elsewhere, with pop-ups being a routine frustration I saw mentioned in perusing discourse about this shutdown.

After declining interest and contentious decisions, and hitting a contract renewal point, The Pokémon Company announced the end of service for Pokémon Unite. After over five years of support, the game will go offline on March 23, 2027, yet rather than getting shut down fully and completely, there will be a concession. Players will still be able to boot up the game and access a library mode to view their records, Pokémon, costumes, and achievements. Most notably, you will also be able to partake in the practice area, so you can still play the game to some extent.

Oh, but the library feature is only available if you opt-in to download the library data first. If you don’t do that, then your data is lost, and you are SOL. Not Solana, but shit out your lupus, and that’s nasty! I can EASILY see some people not understanding that and losing everything, as I made that blunder with that Animal Crossing mobile game.

To help players polish off their collection, Unite will be holding various events beginning November 12, 2026, letting them acquire more Pokémon, clothing, and so forth. Which, in my purview, should be standard EOS procedure. Give people all the toys to play with before it goes down, and give them a way to play the game afterward. Sadly, for an online multiplayer dependent game like Pokémon Unite, there is no good way to un-live service it. You can either cut the game down to a relative stump, or you could release some tech, documentation, and let people host private servers.

…But there is zero chance in Hell that Nintendo would ever allow someone to host private servers for a Pokémon game. …Unless the law required it.

On December 5, 2026, there will be a final Tokyo tournament. After that, people will be a few months to cool down, get some games in, grab some footage, and go out with one final, incomplete, battle as the servers are shut down. Because that, that right there, is how you EOS in style!

AI is Breaking EVERYTHING!
(PS5 and Switch 2 Emulation/Recomps Are Thriving!)

Goldarn it, I need to bitch about AI ruining things I love two weeks in a row? Well, I guess this is what happens when you plagiarize and automate labor, paying thousands to have a machine do what would take certain people months. You get what you want. It might not be very good, but sometimes quick and dirty is all you need, especially if your goal is to break system security.

Over the past few weeks, emulation of the PS5 has been progressing at a boggling speed. Developers and their AI “agents” have been trying to emulate the system, break past Sony’s security, and get full retail games up and running. Which is before getting into the plethora of hacks and homebrew, spurring rapid fire updates as part of a potential patch war. This happens to every console, eventually, but rarely do we ever see this with a system that has what feels like another decade of life in it, and I am of three minds about it.

Akumako: “Wuzzat? You’re saying I’m going to have to share this plate with another roommate?”

You are the roommate, missy! And no, it’s just another trademark Natalie-ism.

Akumako: “Not to be confused with natalism!”

One, this is a prime fuck you to Sony over every bullshit move they’ve pulled this past year, or entire generation if I may be a bit cheeky. This is allowing people to use the PS5 for their own purposes and letting people access PS5 exclusives on PC after Sony pulled out the game six years in. It is a retaliatory anti-corporate move by people who want to use their technology to run whatever software they want. And if you don’t like it, remember the golden rule: People will only buy your shit if it’s cheap enough and easy enough to be worth it!

Two, the pace of this emulation and viability of playing PS5 exclusives on PC is not going to sit well with Sony, who will likely do all they can to lock down the PS6. Concerns over streaming only games are one thing, fears over online activations for digital games is another, far more reasonable, thing to fear. The arguments against always online consoles in 2013 do not reflect our modern, connected, and cellular world, and I could see this pursuit leading Sony to decide they need to lock down their walled garden even further. No discs, one store, and games can only be launched with their permission. If it happened before this wave of hacks, I would have not been surprised. But now? I’m damn near expecting it.

Three, this is all just another example of people using AI to break things, not make things, and I am scared of that. With the sheer power of these tools, their ability to break past established security system through the power of force and datacenters, it is possible for a relative amateur to achieve things that could cause serious damage. Cyberattacks targeting websites have been a routine worry of the past decade. Yet, with an AI to handle the technical aspects, capable of adapting faster than a human, it’s a wonder how long it will take until it gets into… everything.

I am not saying this in terms of an AI attack getting your information, but banking, financial, archival, and government websites would be a prime target, and I think we may be seeing early signs of that already. Archive of Our Own, the major fanfic site, is down for two weeks. Polymarket, the premiere crypto gambling site whose name is synonymous with the focus tested title of prediction market, got hacked. Then, while editing this, I saw that Binance, the crypto pirate ship, suffered a major hack, on the same day! And if you think AI did not play a role in that, wake up.

The internet and interconnected information systems we all rely on can be broken with sufficient knowhow, grit, and resources. But with AI, all you really need is resources. Projects that would take months can now be done in days, and as people keep testing the limits of our systems, they are going shatter something. Something far more important than video games.

…But shifting back to games, I do think this AI piracy boom, and general economic crisis we are living through, will cause the core console/PC gaming market will contract. Because this is not JUST about the PS5, as the Switch 2 has been compromised! I figured we were still years away from serious progress being made on the Nintendo Switch 2’s hacking scene, as Nintendo learned and made the platform far more secure than its predecessor. …But then the Switch 2 was hacked through a BASIC software emulator on October 22, and before the month was over, I was seeing gameplay of emulated versions of Mario Kart World, Splatoon Raiders, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Pokémon Pokopia. Now, these versions are spotty, incomplete, and laggy as hell, but they still function, and the process has truly been rapid. Hell, the hackers skirted past emulation to a recomp of Mario Kart World for Mac.

The emulation enthusiast in me is looking at this and thinking this is wonderful progress, that these games are being freed from their constraints, made available to everyone on everything. I sincerely believe that is the endpoint for all video games. However, the cynical part of me— as if there is even a part at this point— looks at this with concern. Having seen the games industry begin a years-long collapse, seeing tens of thousands of people leave the industry forever, and knowing how these projects are made, I simply don’t want this. Hackers are gonna hack, AI makes hacking faster and easier, but the kinship and shared goals I once had with these people feel compromised. Tainted.

I get being proud of your work, but like all modern AI bros, these hackers feel this need to flex on Elon Musk’s Alt+88 about how based their skills are. When… no? You’re supposed to hunker down, don’t tell the corpos you’re robbing them, and keep it on the down low! In the pursuit of “efficiency,” they are decaying the craft and culture around DIY games preservation, porting, and emulation. You might think that those are fickle, unimportant things, but the legitimacy, the legality, of emulation is from the fact that it was made by dedicated people through their own fruition. Using AI diminishes that sense of legitimacy, makes it harder to view these things as functional earnest projects, and allows morons to ship something broken for clout and attention.

Seeing how AI has transformed this scene, I am left feeling adrift, like a sector of gaming I have long since admired is simply no more, or fragmented by a new pervasive thought. There are people who are making great and cool tools, utilities, and general gizmos. We live in a timeline with the SuperStation One and AYN Thor, cool toys that you use for your games, your way. However, so much of the oxygen in the core gaming scene is consumed by these projects made through suspicious means that… I just cannot get excited in the way I used to.

As has been the case for the past decade and plus, the world I grew up in is morphing, being replaced with something more volatile, unstable, and generally worse. By hitting so close to home, by affecting my happy place, the prospect of discarding it, to free myself of comfort and frustration, to be replaced with the texture of paper, becomes ever the more enticing.

Progress Report 2026-11-01

The last of the Playnite collection. Really wish I got familiar with all of y’all…

Also, Coffee Buns is coming out November 13th. Thanks for that, ya brilliant jerks! I’m going to be BUSY then!

2026-10-25: Had movie night with friends, watched Space Jam and Despicable Me, as that’s what happens when Cassie is in charge of the movies. :P Then I kept on working like the machine that I am!

2026-10-26: Worked through the day, finished at around 17:00. Wrote like 2,500 words for this Rundown between the Ocarina, Microsoft, Final Fantasy, and Pokémon Unite segments. About 800 words for TSF Series #020 outline before I ran out of energy after pulling some long nights.

2026-10-27: Wrote 800 word Pokémon Unite bit, doing some lite research on what people hated about the game prior to this announcement. Had to do a bunch of errands, some studying for the big test, and help Cassie with a train matter. So not a productive day in many senses. Wrote 2,500 words for the TSF Series #020 outline, finished the second boss fight, and it was 1 AM, so I decided to stop for now.

2026-10-28: Wrote 2,800 words for TSF Series #020 outline. Reached the ultimatum, writing 1,000 word preamble ramble. KILL MYSELF!

2026-10-29: Wrote the 1,100 word AI bit, had to do some schlepping for a package I had to deliver, but couldn’t, as I did not print out the right label. Edited the Rundown, made the header images where applicable. Squirted out 500 words for the TSF Series #020 outline before watching this quarter’s Scott the Woz before going to bed.

2026-10-30: Worked a bit, spent time with the Cassie, filmed the confession of failure, wrote 3,000 words of outline for TSF Series #020, FINALLY reaching an end for this blasted story. Now to actually write it! And I started it, writing 800 words of set dressing and exposition, teaching you who the protagonist is, as I don’t want there to be a lot of mystery with this dude. Despite the personal responsibility policy, I am NOT going to force myself to write after 2 AM.

2026-10-31: Took care of my chores yesterday, as Cassie and Shiba wanted to watch Jaws and Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I saw both movies when I was a child, and they both are still great, but in naturally different ways. Then I decided to do some hard studying with a simulated exam, which lasts FOUR HOURS! Doing it, getting what would be a failing grade, and redoing it with the answer key in tow was 4.5 hours in total. In between that, wrote 1,400 words about the Persona 1 remake lurking around, which involved skimming longplays so I knew what the fuck I was talking about, sorta!

Natalie.TF To Do List – Q4 2026

  • 2026-10-07: Fate Stay Night Remastered Review (Shiba & Rain Request) DONE!
  • 2026-10-21: Natalie Rambles About Donkey Kong 64 Recompiled DONE!
  • 2026-11-18: TSF Series #020: Chateau de Bitz
  • 2026-12-02: Ecstatica Review
  • 2026-12-09: Money for Girls: Amortized Review
  • 2026-12-16: TSF Showcase: Coffee Buns
  • 2026-12-23: Natalie Rambles About Delicious in Dungeon
  • 2026-12-30: Natalie Rambles About 2026
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