Anyone who says Sea of Stars is in the same echelon as “classic” JRPGs clearly didn’t play all the way through SoS or has not played many classic JRPGs. SoS was an okay game for what it was but I honestly don’t remember much about it a couple of months after finishing it, whereas games like Lunar and Persona will always be cherished gaming memories for me.

WTF I thought my one order every one to one and a half weeks due to my sheer laziness was getting excessive.

As for Prime getting commercials, it’s a good thing Prime somehow manages to have barely any content worth watching where they could possibly insert commercials for me. I’m assuming this will not apply to movies you pay to rent.

You’re not doing anything wrong.

I had the Pixel 7. The physical size wasn’t the issue, but rather that the phone is top heavy because of the camera enclosure. Unlike other phones of its size or even larger ones like my friend’s Note Ultra, the Pixel 7 always felt like it was going to fall out of my hand due to the top heaviness. I never got used to it and wound up using my old Pixel 5 for a bit before trading in the Pixel 7 for a Z Flip 5 which is much easier to handle despite being taller when open.

My primary gaming is on Xbox and I still can’t tell the hamburger and copy button icons apart without looking at them when a game refers to them in a tutorial or menu.

I can safely say that unless their design philosophy changes significantly I will never 100% an Ubisoft cookie cutter open world game because nothing they’ve produced is worth a hundred hours of boring repetitive gameplay.

I downloaded that movie on a whim for a long flight to Australia and it was surprisingly solid. I didn’t know the source material and assumed it was a original concept. Annapurna’s games are usually top tier so hopefully their movies will be as well.

Good to see some player opinions on Triangle Strategy. I’ve had the game on my Switch wishlist forever, hoping to snag it if it ever went on sale or I cleared some of my backlog. Now I’m not even sure I want it if it doesn’t come close to the greatness of FF Tactics.

I never understood the praise for Octopath. Even though they were technically intertwined, it almost never felt like the characters were interacting with one another; it felt like they were just monologuing and not actually conversing. It didn’t help I hit a huge difficulty spike at the end because I didn’t level up my characters the way the game wanted me to and couldn’t continue.

Same here re: Ubisoft cookie cutter open worlds. I LOVED the first ~40 hours of Immortals and thought I was approaching the end until I realized I was less than halfway at the rate I was progressing. I have no idea how length estimates like the ones on How Long to Beat are accurate for this game; usually they’re pretty spot on for my “complete what I find fun and interesting and not much else” play style. I gave up on the game after briefly skimming FAQs to see what I had left.

Final Fantasy 15. I’ve never been a fan of the modern (post FF7) games but fell for the hype around 15, purchased it, played it, actually finished it constantly wondering when the game would suck me in, and was left wondering what all that hype was about. The game had literally nothing I wanted in a JRPG as I found the story bog standard and the combat and traversal piss poor. That game officially made me give up on Final Fantasy since the only recent-ish game I’ve liked is FF Tactics. Make a sequel to that and I’ll reconsider.

I won’t mess with plumbing again after trying to replace my kitchen faucet only to discover that the shutoff was old and busted the moment I turned the knob, leading to water spraying out everywhere. Called in a plumber to fix it and it took him several hours to resolve–no chance I had the knowledge, skills, and tools to fix that.

I’m going to be the voice of dissension. I absolutely adored Limbo and bought Inside day one solely because of it. But Inside just didn’t hook me like Limbo did. Inside was perfectly fine but I never gave it a second thought once I finished it, unlike Limbo.

That’s amazing. This has big “as a thanks for working your nuts off, we’ll reward you with a pizza party” energy going on.

I’m an old dude who actually had the original Atari 2600 and 7800 as a kid and loved playing games on them. I finished Pitfall 2 FFS. Those games have exactly zero appeal to me today.

I’m not entirely sure who this new hardware is supposed to appeal to. Would Atari 2600 purists go for this given the price tag and emulated games?

This tool is great! Thanks for creating it and making it public.

Also, is this the first Lemmy Hug of Death? If so, congrats, I think?

Sleep with one eye open, gripping her pillow tight…

I see AI still can’t render hands well. Apparently pixelated feet give it problems too, judging from Mario’s nightmare fuel feet.

Great point about making sure places are actually open when you want to go. I think I’ve taken it for granted that a large majority of the places and things I typically want to see have regular-ish business hours or are open 24/7 (e.g., something in a park or other public space).

This is AWESOME advice. I have no problem hitting up tourist spots but they can be a bit much (and sometimes hugely overrated). I try to balance those out with just living in the city eating and drinking away from all the popular spots too.

If the place you’re visiting has good public transit, I’ve also found that I strangely enjoy riding trains and buses to random places. It’s a good way to immerse yourself and get off the beaten path.

I’ve traveled to many corners of the planet and have a different take than most. Many people try to min/max their trip, filling up every minute of every day which doesn’t appeal to me at all. I prefer a laid back, impromptu schedule to give myself time to see and do stuff I didn’t plan and time to breathe and enjoy being in a new place. To me, the worst thing you can do is overplan and overschedule so you’re stressed out if something happens to screw up your tight schedule.

As for selecting what to do, I usually do tons of internet and book research finding things that sound interesting. I add everything to a list and to Google Maps as saved points and then try to cluster them into days, making sure I’m not packing in too much as noted above. I’m not especially concerned if I don’t get to everything–if I really enjoyed a place, odds are I’ll return and put focus on different experiences.