I heard about it before release… albeit I heard from a friend that I play XIV with, so that’s certainly a selection bias.

That was a fun watch, thanks! Now what about TotK… 🤔

In FFXIV, I’m in the post-Shadowbringers DLC content. I’ve taken a bit of a break from the MSQ to get the Nier-themed alliance raids

Are you me? I’m just a bit into the post-ShB patches, and I just finished unlocking all three Nier raids. They’re really fun (although I agree: challenging). If you happen to be on Crystal DC and want to party up for some raids or something, lmk!

Think I might try a healer class next, just not sure which one

As someone who is very much a non-healer main, I quite like Sage. My first healer to 90 was actually Scholar, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was really into Summoner for a while: when I’m going to heal I usually hop on Sage.

I’ve put a few hours in and I agree, it’s just a fun little game that slowly pushes you bit by bit into slightly more challenging stuff. I really like how well the game meshes the diving and sushi restaurant aspects, too. (Plus, I’m a scuba diver – still pretty new to it – and I’m a bit on the larger side, so it’s a nice bit of representation.)

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood! It’s a really good visual-novel-style game, but with the added element that you craft your own tarot-style divination deck and then draw cards from it during some conversations, and which cards you draw influence what kinds of readings you can give for people. It is established early on that since you were a kid your readings have never been wrong, and fittingly the game warns you early and repeatedly that your answers will affect your fate, dramatically. Well, no kidding! When I was playing yesterday I had a choice that I’d made hours earlier come back and bite me in the ass, hard. Almost made me want to quit and start over, but I’ve decided to see this play-through through and if by the end I still feel like I need to fix my mistakes I’ll maybe play it a second time.

tl;dr if you like beautiful pixel art, enigmatic beings from outside of space and time, witches, tarot, and/or choices that actually matter in your games, do give this one a go! I’m not done with it yet but I’d already love to chat with someone else who’s played it!

I’m personally not so much worried about it being buggy or broken, that stuff gets patched. I’m more worried that it’ll be fundamentally disappointing in some way, which is something that I probably wouldn’t discover until long past the refund window. To be clear, I’m cautiously optimistic, but that caution leads me to wait until a week or so after release to hear what folks are saying about it.

Exciting stuff. I’ve long since vowed never to pre-order anything from Bethesda ever again though, so I’ll be waiting to hear what the vibe is once other folks start playing it. Right now it very much seems like it could either be great or disappointing. We’ll see in a couple weeks’ time I s’pose

I wonder how many hundreds of hours I have in that game now… I’ll /playtime next time I log in. I’m still in the patches after Shadowbringers, but I’ve also been known to focus more on roulettes and such than actually making progress in the main story

I don’t have hundreds of hours

Don’t start with XIV then!

So what is the most recent game in the series that I can start with that is worth it to play and wouldn’t confuse a newcomer?

All of the FF games – baring the ones that are explicitly sequels, like X2 – are totally separate from each other, you can jump in anywhere. At most you might miss some references or easter eggs.

If you want the most recent then, that’d be XVI, although I’d personally recommend looking up what the gameplay is like in the different games and starting wherever you feel you’ll have the most fun! There are some weirder ones out there, like crystal chronicles (my own first final fantasy game) and tactics, so you have a lot of options!

Flash games will work again? Moving away from NFTs? Well dang, I might just make a new neopets account! Lots of nostalgia there, it’d be cool to mess around with again after all these years.

Yeah that certainly took a little getting used to! I think can pretty much read the heights of everything now, but there was definitely a little while when I was accidentally jumping into the sides of ledges that were actually higher up than me!

I’ve been working my way through Cross Code in the evenings after I get back home, and it’s as excellent as everyone says it is! I keep trying to decide what other games it reminds me of the most, and surprisingly I think I’m starting to settle on Legend of Zelda (the older ones, not BotW/TotK).

The way it gates progress, the level & dungeon design, etc just really seems to be a part of that tradition. The moment to moment gameplay is pretty different though, and pretty unique at that!

Really though it’s just been a nice escape in the evenings. It’s challenging enough that sometimes I decide to leave a tough fight or puzzle to pick up the next night, but it’s not punishingly hard and I feel like it respects my time.

#notallgames

Seriously though, I know you said “for the most part,” but I just want to emphasize that there are absolutely story-focused games out there. Games I’d even describe as downright literary, where the entire point is to tell a compelling story and explore some heady themes. One recent one I played like this was Pentiment, which explores some really interesting history and has a lot to say about religion, community, fallibility, family, etc…

And, I mean, lots of other people have already mentioned Disco Elysium and I could write an essay about it but anyone who hasn’t played it should just watch this Jacob Geller video instead.

lmao me too actually, since posting this I decided to give it a go this past weekend. Not very far in yet, but I’m really enjoying it so far!

There are a lot of really good actual plays in a lot of different genres and systems! I feel like the most straightforward answer would be Dimension 20 – professional quality and Brennan Lee Mulligan is a frankly incredible GM. He’s also involved in a new show, Worlds Beyond Number. I haven’t checked it out yet but I’m expecting it to be really very good.

But if you have a preferred genre or system I might have more specific recommendations!

Objective numbers: Steam tells me my most player game is Tabletop Simulator, but that one doesn’t really count since it’s lots of different games. My second most played game is still Destiny 2 at 285 hours, despite the fact that I stopped playing years ago. My most played non-steam game – also my most played game by quite a large margin – is Final Fantasy XIV, at 990 hours.

My favorite game I’ve played so far this year has been Citizen Sleeper, and that took me around 13¼ hours. Pentiment is probably my second favorite of the year, and that one took like 16¾ hours. I’ve done one playthrough of Disco Elysium and at 33¾ hours that one was starting to feel a bit long. Webbed was a really fun experience that felt nice and bite sized, and that one got 7½ hours. The most memorable game I played last year was probably Before Your Eyes, and that game is about two hours long!

Subjective thoughts and feelings: These days I much prefer games that keep themselves contained. I’ve got one big game I’m investing a lot of time in (FFXIV), but that’s over the course of years and also a game played with friends, which I feel changes the dynamic. For solo games I look for things that tell a compelling story or offer a compelling gameplay experience, and don’t feel the need to pad out gameplay to 200 hours (so most AAAs are kinda out for me these days).

I’m just busier these days than I used to be. Most nights when I get home from the lab I’ve got 4, maybe 5 hours free if I have leftovers and don’t need to cook, there are no chores, I don’t need to go grocery shopping, etc. Some nights I’ll want to use those hours playing FFXIV with my friends. Some nights I’ll want to work on other hobbies. Some nights I’ll just be tired and want to lay down to read or watch someone else play some games on YouTube.

So even though a game like Disco Elysium only took a bit under 34 hours to finish, that was spread over like a week of evenings dedicated only to playing that game. I will admit to having lost sleep for Citizen Sleeper (ironically); I beat that one in about 2 days despite the length, because it was compelling enough to really not want to put it down. And Webbed I beat in its entirety in one long weekend day (plus coming back the next day to 100% it, something I almost never do anymore).

I’ve also heard great things about Crosscode. I haven’t started it yet (mainly because I’m worried about what it will do to my already flagging productivity), but from what I’ve heard about it, it sounds like it’d fit the bill quite well!

I really enjoyed Death’s Door, which is frequently compared with Tunic. That might be one to check out!

You might also be interested in Supergiant’s older games: Bastion and Transistor. They’re the team behind Hades, but those older games don’t have the same rogue-like elements that Hades does. (They also both have absolutely phenomenal soundtracks by Daren Korb!)

You might also like Divine Divinity (the 21 year old predecessor to the popular Divinity: Original Sin).