I don’t know how anyone has time for two live service games at once. Even in my peak college slacker days, just World of Warcraft alone was a lot. I started playing Honkai: Star Rail this summer and a friend wanted me to start The War Within expansion with her. I’ve been doing the tourist thing in WoW for a few years now, and even still with that casual pace of play, the combination was far too much for me these days.

My gaming tastes can get mercurial, so I prefer the irregular stuff now. I love that I can just log into Guild Wars 2 any time without even thinking about money, and I’ve spent a whole $10 on HSR in the six months I’ve been playing it. Makes it much easier when I suddenly get a few days of light work here and there.

This one’s just me passing along the news, I never did get around to this game.

Would be foolish not to go patient on it after Reforged. After D2R, I’m not completely writing it off, though.

Developed by Vicarious Visions, a recent Activision Blizzard acquisition.

And I thought it was an excellent product (although I stopped playing before they started making larger changes in patches).

I had an absolute blast with it for about 15-20 hours earlier this year and then it started getting super repetitive. Ended up dropping it for a new release.

Great villain, though. I’ll probably go back to it just to see how the story plays out.

You made it farther than I did, lol. Got worked by Ymir.

IGN’s reviewer really didn’t like it, scoring 5 out of 10. Probably an outlier, but the overall consensus does seem on the low side for a Mario game.

My top four haven’t changed in a while:

• Chrono Cross
• Nier Gestalt/Replicant (original version)
• Persona 5
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I love EDM, so any game that uses it or is inspired by it holds a special place in my heart, like Streets of Rage, Rez, Dance Dance Revolution, or the Trails of Cold Steel games (especially the second one).

I love that one can still web search for that and still find the song 😂

Ya, a player has to be okay with the calendar system. I hope it feels better for players; I think at the very least it certainly feels a lot better not to have a rank up require multiple hangouts now.

I kinda devoured Metaphor: ReFantazio. Partly because I got sick and had nothing better to do, but I also really enjoyed the game. I love the Persona formula, and the new blending of SMT and Etrian Odyssey elements were good, too. Great experience, though I think I liked P4 and P5 a little bit more because the overall character writing/interactions was stronger (but loved, loved Gallica. my favorite character in a while). Metaphor’s social link stories were strong, along with the main story. Different direction with the storytelling, for sure. I hope P-Team picks up a few of these developments–especially how much more streamlined the gameplay is with the calendar–for Persona 6.

Picked up Atelier Escha & Logy to continue my journey there, only played a little bit so far. Love the music already. I don’t have any releases in the genre coming up for a bit (until Daybreak 2 next year), and I think I’ve played what I’ve wanted to among the 2024 releases. So, no real plans other than that for the month in the genre.

You’re starting with the best one as far as I’m concerned!

This is actually why I didn’t get very far in Diabolical Box. I had a decent time with Curious Village, but I needed a little more, and it was clear the second game wasn’t going to get there.

I really liked Clive Barker’s Undying and replayed it a couple times. Great atmosphere, though I’m not sure how well it would hold up today. Early 3D stuff.

SOMA might be the only game I’ve played that I almost regret going through. I can’t get it out of my head, and it always creeps me out at least a little when I think about it.

This year, we had the most kids we’ve had in years. I think the weather helped; a couple years ago we even had a few inches of snow on the ground while it’s been unseasonably warm this year.

By the way, I would have been over the moon to get jerky sticks for Halloween as a kid. Love that shit. Maybe I’m weird, but I didn’t even really like chocolate much until I got older.

It’s an amazing fit for Takarazuka. I’d absolutely be going if I were still in the area.

If you’ve played the 2010-ish version of it, there’s not much here.

If you haven’t, it’s still my gold standard for remakes; I haven’t touched the original Ys III since this dropped. The arranged soundtrack is unquestionably better than many of the original versions of the game, the dungeon pace is excellent, and it’s challenging. It still retains a lot of that classic Ys feel, and it’s one of the best representatives of the venerable series.

I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong on this. Part of the problem is new IPs are risky, and I’m sure market research is telling the big publishers that you’d better not suddenly downgrade your graphics on an established property. Nintendo’s very comfortable in this space because they haven’t really gone this route with first party. They’ve even managed to thread the needle on Mario, Metroid, and Zelda by having both 2D and 3D offerings.