Lurker > banananor

That's great. I think in ff14 in particular there's no reasonable argument against it

ZaziGuado posted...

I always used Lune for traversal not because of the footsteps but because I didn't want to hear the panting.

The panting was absolutely part of it, and so was the slight jerkiness when the character models ran into certain changes in elevation

Also, I couldn't agree more about button mapping

The growing pains with Fallout were many, as I died quite often trying to learn the systems, and more still just due to the natures of the game itself.

I really do not enjoy the experience of starting as a turbo weakling in Bethesda games, but I'll be damned if it doesn't make getting crazy overpowered later on that much sweeter

As overly negative/harsh as I just was about post apocalyptic settings, I've been wanting to get into fallout forever! It somehow hasn't quite happened yet. I was ready to jump in with new Vegas on steam at one point. Unfortunately, my version of Windows decided to be a big baby about it, and then I moved and forgot to follow up. I just put the series on the backlog

I know 1 & 2 are very different from the rest, and for every person that claims the series was ruined by fallout <x>, I know someone else that loves fallout <x>, so there's gotta be something there. Strong art is loved and hated, while weak art is accepted by everyone, or however the quote goes

Isquen posted...

My guess is Balatro

Balatro would totally make sense. I went from "this looks stupid" to "this is ridiculously fun" to "I need to uninstall now or I'm going to get hopelessly addicted" over the course of a few days after being gifted it. The sheer volume of balatro clones currently in the works seems telling

I don't have a better guess. I'll throw in... Minecraft?

Mobilezoid posted...

I pick Lune because when you run with her as your main character while exploring, she floats and it's cool

she was always the main one i was controlling for sure. just feels better/smoother to float than sprint everywhere like a crazy person

My cousin, a coworker friend, and an old roommate all separately loved the crap out of that series. It all came together when I realized they would blaze right before booting it up, ha

I know *it* isn't a roguelike but the weapons feel like they are.

I get what you mean. To quibble, the weapons felt more diabloesque than roguelike to me, not that there's a significant difference

The specific venn diagram of people I co-op with also bounced off, so I didn't get far. My favorite borderlands is the telltale game, ha

I don't like squinting at item stat blocks, I don't like numbers popping out of enemies when I shoot them, I don't like flippant cruelty, I don't like bad plots or MMO style quests in non mmos even when lampshaded, I'm not a huge fan of drab post apocalyptic settings, I like when enemies react or stagger when shot... Add it all up, and while most of these are endemic to the genre, there were other titles that hooked me more

thanks to whoever sent me the thing on my wishlist, the username flew out of my brain immediately

SM64 was such an awesome intro to 3d gaming. I also remember blockbuster console rentals- our family specifically rented the n64 & GoldenEye once or twice. Renting is a crazy idea financially, but our parents didn't want to be console owners. Was fun to see what kind of save files other people left on the cartridges

LA is significantly improved with QoL stuff in the remake (and "hd" fan version, if you prefer the og art style)

I tried going back to the og, and having only two buttons for items was pain, and the slow multi box text every time you accidentally touched a pot was pain, as two examples. Funny how we were able to look past that stuff back in the day

I had only ever seen the "cream of the crop" one, this is great. How many of these were there?

Maniac64 posted...

This plus a lack of interaction with people different from them are the biggest drivers in my experience. Cities are full of bad/scary people who aren't like you.

hundred percent, i didn't want to get into that but that's what i was alluding to with 'cultural and experiential homogeneity'. certainly not unique to rural areas, but everything they know about cities seems to come from the TV, not real life. Mostly... sensationalist propaganda news, CSI: Special Victims Unit, and robocop.

This is a bit unrealistically patronizing, but they don't have the experience to know what's accurate and what's exaggerated for entertainment. Kinda like how I perceived sex comedies when I was in middle school!

foolm0r0n posted...

Farmers in the US are largely rural, which means they are religious. Republicans have fully captured the religious in the US. It has nothing to do with economics for them.

That's an oversimplification, and it depends on the region, but yeah rural farmers and rural people in general have been on average culturally captured by the Republican party for a long time.

In some cases it's not even directly related to traditional religion at this point, at least among the right-wing-farmer-origin family/friends I have. It's the demonization of urban areas, the "you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps because you're a good person, everyone else is bad people" pandering, and the cultural & experiential homogeneity making democratic priorities seem bad. Not to mention the media full court press of the past 30 years, but that's not unique to rural.

All this in my limited experience/humble opinion, of course. I could go into more detail/nuance, but I feel like you all already get it

Holy crap some of the new qol improvements were sorely needed. Been wishing for card counts on wonder pick forever, same with collapsible sets on card search

Also, this is the first update in a while that hasn't screwed up my game's cache and forced a clear

If you like 90s/2000s action/on the run movies at all (ironically or unironically) you'd probably enjoy it. Can't say for sure, though. Tone is different. Solid 7.9/10, elevated for being co-op. It's just not Pixar or DreamWorks, you know? Standout moment was for sure the final playable segment

Hey, someone else who tried rift! I was fully independent for the first time in 2011, and I wanted to use part of that freedom to get in on the ground floor of a good MMO experience. Rift was one I tried. Couldn't get any friends into it and was sucked back into wow pretty quickly

The class/subclass system was super neat. I at least tried every class and tried to focus on the more unusual subclasses. Iirc every class's primary mechanic was combo points. The rift events were cool, although in my early experience they were massive lagfests. Aside from the above, it felt like a carbon copy of wow (including the pointless faction divide) with fewer interesting race options. Iirc they were dwarf, elf, blue elf, human, human, and blue human.

Sooo many wow clones in those years. Took a long time for the big studios to branch out their MMO offerings

azuarc posted...

Up next: I work very hard to make sure my recorded playtime matches my actual time in the seat by logging out when I'm done, but that couldn't be helped in this case.

... cookie clicker? ha

I do have that completionist itch, but I can't justify spending the hourglasses when B1 (aka a presumably keystone set of actual new cards) is coming up. I'm calling this set a wash- not gonna bother going for the dex achievements. I bought the oricorio badge, sorry Greninja.

Utility

i can't speak authoritatively to the actual gameplay (i am turbo casual aka suck), but the animations look solid

Verso is always entertaining!

Same, I did warm up to verso as I was allowed to learn more about him
kevwaffles posted...

Tbf at that point I think there's nothing Clea could have done anyway.

That did seem possible. Painter magic is left so open ended that it's hard to say for sure
andylt posted...

This isn't a criticism, I like that they have her be such a blatant bastard.

Same, strongly defined characters are so great

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

I don't think there's a new one. We're still using the old one.

Fair, it'd be an uphill battle regardless. Another community I'm privy to has mostly migrated, but Google refuses to index the new one

dire

Yep, endless space is a 4x whereas Stellaris is more of a 4x/grand strategy hybrid

the endless games are an okay way to dip into "actual"- aka beyond polytopia- 4x in my experience. I like how clean/clear they are about how the "FIDS" (food, industry, dust, science) system works and how easy it is to look at the data

I have a love/hate thing with the genre, and can understand how they could all look the same. Tbh I had to go check and make sure I had the ones we're talking about correct. I used to think/say that 4x isn't fun, it just constantly gives you the feeling that it's gonna be fun in ten turns after you get this one thing done

But Stellaris is... I guess the nice way to put it is that it's super complex, designed for people that are already obsessed with the genre. The first X hours are 1) pretty overwhelming and 2) not fun, even if you do know what you're doing

azuarc posted...

I think this is very true of any game with mechanics similar to D&D. The more complex the systems there are, and the more arcane and varied the stats and attributes are, the harder it becomes to grasp. DA:O's not too bad about this.

I'm sure that was part of it. In my head it was more flavor reasons. Generally, as long as it isn't a chore to manage my inventory and I don't have to make 500 important statistical choices before the tutorial, I'm good!

OTOH, if you're overwhelmed by the setting being too intricate, that's also a fair point. I've certainly played games where I went "I don't know what anyone is talking about. Bye."

Haha. I get what you mean. I think ff13's refusal to define proper nouns or character motivations was what turned me off the most about the game! But that's more an issue with direction than worldbuilding

In my case, when it came to dragon age... I read lotr as a kid, random 20th century fantasy and sci fi books owned by relatives, and played a bazillion hours of d&d and warcraft. Loved so much of it, but I've been there, done that. If I can instantly recognize a setting as tolkienesque or compatible with kitchen sink d&d in particular my eyes start to glaze over.

But it can be overcome! The forgotten realms are the biggest offender and I made my way through bg3

I think science fantasy in the forms of Akira, ff7, book of the new sun, dune, blade runner, evangelion, etc etc spoiled me and now raw fantasy feels like fiction in a straightjacket. I'm aware that the dragon age setting is actually quite unique, I just didn't get far enough to have it carry me the rest of the way. Iirc I finished the intro for my character, then spent a while fighting goblins in a forest/swamp and that's all I remember. For some reason "kill ten goblins" offends my sensibilities more then "kill ten rats", haha

azuarc posted...

Path of Exile (89 hrs)

Jesus fuck I could not agree harder about the currency system. Tbh I love the idea of the sphere grid more than the reality. It's absolute catnip for tons of people that wanna play Diablo for thousands of hours, like my cousin or this one coworker friend, or people who want to think about the game when they're not playing. So I get why it's good! Complexity can be a form of depth

I loved Diablo 1 for the ambiance, sense of mystery, and tight story. But I only beat it once. I beat PoE with a lazy necromancer build, so I probably didn't get the "true" experience. But my understanding of most diabloesques are hours of tedium punctuated by moments of death when you're not paying attention or don't have the correct stats. Some of my friends realized they were just waiting for vampire survivors all along.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (54 hours)

Also with you on parry systems. Feels like a weird inconvenience to put in a turn based game in particular, but thankfully in this one you could mostly ignore it. Any time I felt dependent on them I realized I was under leveled. Save it to show off when dunking on the same enemy type for the twentieth time.

Sorry for being so cynical today! But I guess these were the games that didn't make the cut

I've played very little dragon age. I've heard it's good and have picked some titles up through bundles or something, and adore some other bioware RPGs. My theory is that it's hard to overcome the initial hurdle and get invested in d&d adjacent fantasy settings.

However! Some of my relatives definitely bonded over DA:O, 2, etc, by making all the guys make out with each other whenever possible.

I've completed and enjoyed the trilogy. ITT and SF are odd in that the tone doesn't quite match the difficulty. They both scream "get your non-gamer partner to play a 3d plaformer with you", but some of the boss segments seem way too hard for that! I'm glad it worked out in your case. We couldn't get our resident casual gamer to engage in either for too long, but weren't too surprised. as a result, we mostly steamrolled through and just had to imagine the struggle

I'm glad you picked it takes two to represent the series. A way out is probably the funniest and was the first i tried, but doesn't have the requisite polish. Split fiction has the polish but doesn't quite have "it". I don't want to step on any toes if someone really connected with it, but the constant sci-fi/fantasy argument was flat and while some life topics were mentioned they weren't explored to any depth, and were (almost completely?) dropped after their relevant chapter

re: relationship discussion, humans are in a weird spot. sometimes i feel like we're inherently wired for serial monogamy. the only consistent pattern i've seen/experienced in long-term partnerships is an unwillingness to break up. which feels tautological, but on the plus side i guess it's just a manual choice. free will!

Uglyface2 posted...

I always wondered what the song the monsters were singing in Chrono Trigger where they're worshipping a statue of Magus was supposed to sound like. The rhythm obviously doesn't match the music that's playing over it.

if i had to bet money on it, I'd guess the rhythm matched the japanese version

kevwaffles posted...

Because from her perspective it's probably only like a couple of weeks.

Right, sociopathic. If a sibling was about to undergo a traumatic subjective lifetime with a corresponding memory wipe I think I'd be a bit more concerned!

yeah, who wouldn't know the word magus? didn't your parents use it all the time when you were growing up?

Brayze_II posted...

It's 'may gus', assuming it's just the word

shit, i had no idea it was a real word. well, that settles it

Can a mod please Locke this topic already?

100%. the player's experience matches lune's completely, but they play off her desire for answers as weird, quirky, or irrelevant. Verso intentionally allowing gustav to die was foreshadowed and important narratively, it's just that the party dynamics in act 2 weren't super believable.

pretty much all of the game's problems are symptoms of excessive "architect" writing as opposed to "gardener"- there are interesting story beats which are cool in a vacuum, but the connective tissue doesn't quite work

andylt posted...

When Lune's mother gave birth, was Lune painted by Verso's soul or is life entirely separate from the painters at that point? I prefer to think it's organic life growing by itself, but I dunno. Again I know this isn't what the game wants us to think about lol.

Right? It's stated and accepted as fact that the world can't exist without ghost-verso's toil, but I would have enjoyed that clarified a bit more before the ending choice.

Seems like either ghost-verso has to paint to keep time moving or maintain the rules of physics, or ghost-verso has to paint the behavior of everybody. And the distinction matters to me, ha.

MacArrowny posted...

Am I misremembering? I was under the impression she went in to prevent Renoir from destroying the painting, and with it, the last trace of Verso's soul. Saving their parents (and Alicia) was painted Verso's objective, not hers.

Unclear. We witness that Clea originally sent Alicia in to save their parents, then Alicia somehow lost control and got 'reborn' by Aline. As we saw, Clea for some sociopathic reason is only mildly annoyed by this and leaves to go to the office or whatever. We aren't explicitly told Alicia's motivation to go in and my memory is a little hazy, but I think we got the impression Alicia was already over life outside the painting at that point. But she was also concerned for her parents. Regardless of what she wanted at the time, add in 16 years of formative life experience inside the painting and you can see where that ends up

foolm0r0n posted...

I don't think what they focused on was bad, it turned out pretty nice overall. But it is true that the game introduced a lot of characters and setting that it did not develop. Maelle and Verso were really it, and Renoir to a lesser extent. They overpromised in a lot of ways.

totally. honestly, i was pissed from the moment they made Verso the main character without revealing his motives. imagine in ff7 if, when you recruited Cait Sith, they immediately (or later, but before explaining his backstory) made him the main character for the rest of the game. My stance is they should've promoted Lune instead. Again, everything makes more sense through the lens of the final act being the first thing locked in

But you're right that the story is structured like a movie more than anything. It's 25 hours not 80. So maybe it should be judged like a movie, not like an epic JRPG or anime series, despite how directly inspires it is from those.

Aecioo posted...

anyway, the biggest thing that I hope they explore is the outside battle of writers vs painters. There is clearly some power struggle between factions and it's implied that all "artists" are able to warp reality and create worlds (musicians as well given that Verso is ostracized for choosing music over painting). I hope that's the direction they take these games as the few throwaway lines about how the family came to ruin by the "writers" faction attacking them is super interesting to me. I enjoyed that the story is very self contained but the breadcrumbing of this larger universe has so much potential

it was telegraphed it was more of an easter egg/4th wall thing imho. i.e. just as the painted world and its pains were created by the Dessendres (painters), the painter's world was literally written by sandfall interactive (writers) who were dickheads for creating the fire, verso's death, alicia's disfigurement, the painting needing to be powered by a sad fragment of a child's soul, etc etc. Imagine how much better off the Dessendres would be if they had been written by ConcernedApe

Not sure I agree that in order to be good jrpgs must gump everything, but I absolutely understand being disappointed we didn't get to explore the easter egg more- go to France and fight Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, etc.

Rango posted...

I prefer Verso's ending. Yes it's sad and it makes the Expedition a failure.
But the overarching story is to get Alicia back and save her.
Verso should not have to be the martyr for Alicia's happiness.

Are you saying this from the perspective that Gustav, Lune, Sciel, et al. aren't sentient? Or that they are? If verso's feelings matter, surely everyone else's must, too?

Correct. The second syllable sounds the same, though.

In my head it's "mage us" (mes) but I feel like that's probably incorrect, at least as far as made up fantasy words can be. Made sense to me because he's a mage.

If my trivia life were on the line I'd guess "may gus" (mes) or "may goose" (meus), the latter being correct fake Latin I think.

Although, maybe it's mgs or mgus. I'd accept all of the above

Rereading the poll, I guess we only care about the final vowel. Tbh in my accent Vegas and haggis both pretty much just use the schwa

But I agree they misstepped in terms of getting us invested in the painter family.

It felt like they decided the end of the game (painter family conflict) first, then went back and made a sub plot for the rest of the game that became narratively more important than the original plot in terms of player investment

But they couldn't/wouldn't get rid of their original ending. So there's this unnatural jump to what feels to us players like a secondary meta plot where they drop almost all the themes and characters we were invested in

I see what you mean. At the same time, I don't mind it when a story doesn't tour the player/reader/viewer through every single thing going on in the setting like Forrest Gump. Nice to leave something to the imagination

They had a story to tell about grief, and the stuff going on in the broader setting wasn't important.

It's like complaining The Sound of Music didn't explain ww2

foolm0r0n posted...

You're forgetting that the game was made by artists and writers. What they are saying is that stories and art is the most powerful thing, equal or even stronger than reality. Nolan movies do this too for example. They show the negative effects of obsessing over art through Alicia and Verso, and treat them as antagonists, but ultimately they are claiming that their story is so real that it's dangerous.

on top of that, don't forget the studio is french! there's a looong french legacy (in film, at least) of endings that don't make perfect sense, mostly in an effort to be a downer/existential. so yeah, the endings wanted to make us feel bad and/or thonk hard.

honestly, i was frustrated at first, and it's not perfect, but i'm fine with maelle's ending. we get to live our lives the way we choose, Maelle made a choice. the direction of the cutscene felt super judgy but i'm over it. Annoying that they had to go and character assassinate her with madness, and her tormenting Verso|playable specifically. But... even if i'm overall a proponent of negative utilitarianism, it pains a little to say but i think verso's depression is probably an acceptable sacrifice for the literal rest of the world

i don't think the game implied that Gustav/Lune/etc weren't alive, just that most of the painters didn't give a fuck about them. They're gods, and they'll compartmentalize. Imagine... poor metaphor, but I dunno, someone in the real life USA sacrificing everything to move to and do volunteer work in Syria. Their family's probably gonna plead for them to come back and live a normal life regardless.

That's fair!

Good to hear about 2.0. I don't think I ran into any major glitches, maybe just poor performance in general. Tbh I'm the kind of player that enjoys (loves, really) the kind of ridiculous glitches that people were complaining about

I think I usually jump through a few early hurdles in most RPGs, especially WRPGs, and I didn't clear them this time- Extended beginnings/tutorial segments, big menus/inventory management, sluggish low level character gameplay, that sort of stuff.

In all fairness, it's in good company- I originally bounced off of Morrowind, mass effect, and Witcher 3 on my first attempts and then was able to come back to them later in a better frame of mind. Painful early games can make the lategame more satisfying

Damn, that's a good sell. If I read this a month ago when it was on sale I'd have probably bought it on the spot.

I didn't like the screenshots, but watching the trailer helped it click. It's got a little bit of a persona vibe, mixed with a manhwa/web novel series that was a guilty pleasure of mine

How many hours do you think you've poured into that one?

voltch posted...

Turns out, they do sell cards in the UK, so I want to buy a booster box of each set, they're not particularly cheap, but whatever I get I'll probably be happy with.
From what I can see it's 12 packs of 8 cards and there's a bunch of starter decks available as well at pretty reasonable prices, at least I think I don't know much about the going rate for TCG prices.

My advice is to figure out your goals- or what about this process makes you happy- and how much space you're willing to sacrifice before buying anything. It's easy to buy too much and then be annoyed with trying to store all the extra cardboard. Whether you buy singles, a pre-built deck, packs, cases, or just find the same dopamine rush in a video game for free will depend on those goals.

Official constructed --> singles. Favorite pretty cards to look at --> singles. Casual constructed --> pre-built deck. bond with specific cards you pull --> one to three packs. repeatable dopamine rush --> video game for free. packs for draft/sealed play --> a case, or singles to make a cube. repeatable dopamine rush but i don't wanna do a video game, plus i hate money --> a case

I presume if I'm going to start collecting, I need to buy sleeves and binders?

If you're collecting rather than playing, I recommend binders and penny sleeves. Penny sleeves are the clear, thinner ones that fit more snugly. Put the card into the sleeve "upside down", then put the card + sleeve in the binder with the card facing "right side up". This does a good job of preventing dust from floating in.

If you collect cards worth a LOT and plan on selling them later (or just get big satisfaction out of keeping things super pristine) you could go farther by double sleeving or triple sleeving pre-binder, and/or top loading.

If you are gonna play with the cards, I'd recommend normal sleeves. If you're gonna play with them and plan on reselling them for moderate value later, I recommend double sleeving (card in penny upside-down, penny in normal). If you wanna play with $100+ cards and sell them later, I'd just use proxies and carry the originals in a binder as proof instead of shuffling them.

Are there any particular brands that are known to be of good quality or to avoid?

I can attest to dragon shield matte sleeves (black, specifically). They feel better than ultra pro and don't have the weird watermark covering a corner of the card. Although, tbh I bought them in batches pre-covid, don't know how quality has changed. I know it's tempting to buy different colors of sleeves for different decks or sorting purposes, but it's SO convenient to buy all the same color when you want to swap out a card or a sleeve gets nicked & becomes unusable. Ultimate Guard is great for accessories.

But once I got my cards, what's kinda the best way to go about maintaining a collection?

It's a hobby you do for fun, there's no best. I have a few binders for my expensive/nostalgic cards and cardboard storage boxes for my oodles of worthless cards of regret, deck boxes for my decks, and a playmat and playmat case for when I actually play

anyway, thanks for allowing me to procrastinate for twenty minutes

mnk posted...

Oh that reminds me I never got an Inkay from Secluded Springs. Does anyone have a spare they could toss me? I'm sure I could give just about anything back.

Just realized I am similarly somehow missing a secluded springs eelektrik, if someone has the time/spare

azuarc posted...

I thought surely someone would have something to say about that HK write-up, but okay, here we go...

Not much to say, hollow knight is a good game. It's greater than the sum of its parts, which could explain why others in the genre haven't felt as good to you. Great artstyle as well. I've never been a fan of souls type storytelling (I detest playing a character I'm not allowed to understand or at least think I understand the basic history & motivations of) but I forgive this one.

I'm trying to remember my second favorite mvania, but drawing a blank right now.

azuarc posted...

Cyberpunk is a game I enjoyed and put time into, but I don't have any singular specific memories that really stand out in spite of solid writing.

This is kinda what everyone I know says about the game. Makes me question what's going on. How did it affect your life?

I've enjoyed cyberpunk since reading snow crash and watching blade runner, so this game should've been up my alley, yet it somehow wasn't. Then the company offered to fix it if I paid them another $30+. I was offended and did not do so. If it's fixed even without the dlc I could envision giving it another shot

NBIceman posted...

9. Kung Fu Chaos

My family picked this up from the $2 used games bin at gamestop and got a lot of value out of it. My siblings and I still quote it from time to time. The specific earworm we remember was "Invincible hopping vampires! Run! Run away!" The multiplayer was very very good. Helps that I have a soft spot for movies/companies like https://www.ifdfilms.com/

NBIceman posted...

8. Pyre

This was a weird chapter for me. I'm glad I experienced it, but I'm not sure if I took anything away, if that makes sense. Don't even remember which of the major endings I got!
I'm on the opposite end as you- I normally detest the 'it was purgatory/all a dream/all a fictional piece of media' rug-pull endings (a close friend loves them, so I've spent time thinking about it.) But I thought Pyre was neat/fine as it wasn't a rug-pull

NBIceman posted...

5. Terranigma

Always wanted to play this one- it's super intriguing. But when I was going through various SNES games in the 2000s I lost steam on terranigma pretty quickly

Forceful_Dragon posted...

It feels really shitty after growing up being told "two wrongs don't make a right".

I don't know if you've been present for the constant complaints about the "when they go low, we go high" strategy

I might have missed a memo- is there a new/alternative board 8 wiki we've migrated to or have we lost interest?

Celeste is a very well made game. Excellently made, even. My favorite challenging platformer I can think of off the top of my head. It's not exactly my skillset, but I did make it through.

Reeeally tough games sometimes feel less like I'm playing a game and more like a game is barking commands at me, ha. In Celeste specifically, I beat a handful of post-endgame levels and said "yep, that's enough of that! A normal-ass cherry pie is good enough."

I enjoyed the game's plot/art/etc. The tumblr noses were a bit distracting because I had a bone to pick with the style at the time, but it was ok

NBIceman posted...

What matters is why shes climbing the mountain. And heres the really fun part - YOU get to decide that. Because ultimately, its the same reason YOURE climbing the mountain, whatever that may be.

"Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain..."

Tag! Glad this topic exists, hope more in the same family pop up. Getting into the core of what people enjoy about this hobby and how it ties into their lives is super great. Maybe I'll do one of my own eventually.

azuarc posted...

Shareware as a marketing prospect was starting to die down by the time Warcraft hit the scene, but I was blown away by the game, being nothing like I'd ever seen. I played the free version of the game repeatedly before eventually convincing my parents to get the full retail edition.

I played warcraft 2 at a friend's house as a kid and become obsessed, so I get it. Similarly either saved my money or begged my parents to buy it at sam's club

Today, I can barely stomach it. I've gone back a few times, and each time I just kinda reflex-gagged. There's just too much micro and too much leveling needed. I have about 34 hours in Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, which is an indie FFT, but better in just about every conceivable way, and I couldn't bring myself to finish that one, either.

It's not just you. I think the genre felt better before games in general gained more QoL features. clicking and moving/microing every team member is so tedious, and the round to round tactics aren't engaging most of the time. I've been surfing around trying to find games that scratch the itch I'm looking for, but I'm not sure it exists.

However! Based on what you've said here, I'm confident you'd enjoy Tactical Breach Wizards. Also, obligatory Into the Breach rec if you're into story-light roguelikes/puzzles

Oh, and the two-minute long unskippable GF summons.

Yeah, FFVIII's summon animations were absolutely ludicrous. Luckily, summoning in general was also kind of a trap- on my playthrough I summoned over and over to my own boredom (no mp cost!!!) until it stopped working. Equipping 99 whatever to strength and pressing attack was so much better for many reasons

the FF game I finally beat is XIII.

Ha, I think that's the first playstation-era FF title I didn't beat. Some others took years and years, but I eventually got there. Specifically, my copy of FFIX's disc was scratched and would crash on the final dungeon's intro cinematic every time

I've started dozens upon dozens of Stardew runs, but I think I've only gotten to summer in like 3 or 4 of them, and only progressed into year 2 once. That game didn't last much longer.

No shame, you probably got further than I did. According to people I know, nothing super interesting is waiting at the end of that journey. It's a game you're supposed to play until you get bored and then move on. It's either gaming catnip or gaming meditation, not sure which

this felt like the first video game that was truly mine. Me. I owned this.

Had a similar experience with my first gameboy game, and sank a similar number of hours into it. It's challenging to imagine the psychology of being a tween (or younger?) in 2025 and owning a smartphone

yeah.

honestly, it's not for germs, it's an extra ritual to help make sure i don't end up touching somebody else's pee. having an autopilot to wipe and maybe cover the seat with tp just became a thing i did

Yeah, I can empathize with both, but the fa was objectively behaving more correctly

The mom was either more frazzled, or inappropriate for another reason. Smiling and saying "we're working on it" or "sounds good" would have gotten the point across just as well if she had her wits about her

It took me a little introspection to get over frustration with the (sometimes imagined) criticism inherent with being told/asked to do something, but I did. Feeling defensive doesn't grant any benefits in 99% of cases