Shore Leave is the non-Trek culture arm of the Deep Space Spines website, posted every other Tuesday and made possible by donations to the site’s Patreon.
PRECIOUS
Way back in the very first Shore Leave, I talked about borrowing my brother’s Switch. Well, since then, things have conspired in my favor, and as of a little over a week ago, I finally have one of my own. Of course, times being what they are, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was a mandatory pickup. Since I bought Golf Story through my Nintendo account, I was able to re-download it to my own Switch without paying for it again. And I also picked up Octopath Traveler more or less totally blind, simply out of sheer curiosity and the fact that it looks like it culls from a lot of classic Square RPGs. Just at a first glance, I notice elements of Chrono Trigger, Live a Live, and Seiken Densetsu 3, so I think (hope) I’m in for a good time.
The video game train doesn’t quite end there either. I’ve also started watching Hi Score Girl on Netflix. I’d been anticipating it, but only realized it had actually dropped after my best friend texted me gushing about this love letter to video games (specifically, early 90s arcade games—Street Fighter II and Final Fight figure heavily into the first episode). I’m not totally sold on the relationship between Haruo and Akira yet, but then, I’ve only watched the first episode so far. Mostly, I’m curious to see what other direction the series’ love for video games expands in; the synopsis for episode two promises some PC-Engine action, so I’m excited to see how deep they dig.
Shore Leave was made possible by donations to the Deep Space Spines Patreon. If you like the site and you’d like to see a wider range of features on it, please consider pledging a dollar a month. Even that small amount is super-helpful and will go toward buying the books, keeping the site going, and fulfilling Patreon goals that have been met. Thanks for reading (and also pledging, if you do that)!
An away team’s survey becomes a one-man test of will when the planet’s “gods” decide to fire up the PS3 and stick Data in a game of 
