In the penultimate weekly newscast from The Starlight Megaphone, and bringing to end thirteen and a half years of regular news updates, Caspius and SiliconNooB inveigh against randomness in video games: gacha mechanics, loot boxes, boss drops, and more.

Caspius and SiliconNooB discuss the first of the Caspius Commandments, Focus, instructing developers to pare away extraneous and distracting material from their games. Say goodbye to sphere grid, blitzball, tetra master, and 3D mech battle arenas!

Caspius and SiliconNooB struggle to pad out a news-light week with talk of Cricket, Cans, and Kangaroos, and some discussion about padding is in order after Caspius’ seventy-hour-long progress-free addition to his Xenoblade Chronicles 2 playthrough.

Caspius and SiliconNooB discuss Sony’s performance in Japan and the shrinking sales gap between XBox S/X and PS5, Naoki Yoshida’s comments regarding the influence of Kingdom Hearts on Final Fantasy XVI, and No Man’s Sky’s missing Switch multiplayer.

With nearly all of the Not-E3 news conferences completed, and the site-wide playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 halfway done, Caspius and SiliconNooB report on the latest from MicroBethActiBlizzKing, Capcpom, and the Final Fantasy VII 25th Anniversary.

Caspius and SiliconNooB review the first half of Not-E3, covering the Devolver Digital, Summer Games Fest, Limited Run, and Apple WWDC presentations, along with the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 playthrough, and an attempt to rank canonical Castlevania games.

Caspius and SiliconNooB review the second Final Fantasy XVI trailer, the game’s battle system, and its overall aesthetic, before reviewing the other news from the Sony State of Play presentation, and Nintendo’s Pokemon Scarlet and Violet trailer.

Caspius and SiliconNooB begin the site-wide playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 by actually playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Then, they prime the Not-E3 news pump with a rundown of all the presentations scheduled for the traditional E3 period in June.