It just feels soulless. I think the systems it has are very good if you like ARPGs a lot, but the rest of the game is just Chrono Trigger if it was completely bland. The game feels like someone just thought of making a better PoE without having any artistic vision and that’s a big turnoff for me

Also it was MGS1, not MG

It is this game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/269770/Secrets_of_Grindea/

It was in early access since 2012 and just released, it’s pretty fun in co-op and you can play with up to 4 people

What video games have you played recently?

Secrets of Grindea with my gf, and the original Metal Gear Solid on my own.

What are your favorite video game genres?

JRPGs and 2D platformers

What game have you completed recently and what are your thoughts on it?

As I mentioned before, the original Metal Gear Solid. I found that the gameplay and game design haven’t aged well but I can see why it was revolutionary for the era. I am mainly referring to most of the combat setpieces, the stealth sections and the adventure game-like riddles were good. The aesthetics, sound design and atmosphere in general were excellent, with the voice acting being insanely good for that time. I also thought the story was good even if the character writing is a bit amateurish at times, with a plot twist that I thought was amazing and very well executed. The themes are also pretty good and interesting even if they aren’t as deep as some fans would have you believe (although all of us are guilty of this with the things we like I guess)

You aren’t wrong, after the interesting first part that anime really jumped the shark. It still being the only one I have seen that advocates for revolution vs reform is just sad.

That’s just moralizing for no reason. Meat eating has been a part of most of the world’s cuisines for a very long time, so having substitutes to help more people transition is a very good idea. This point has been repeated a ton of times, but many people are ND and can’t change their habits very easily, or have texture / taste sensitivities

Because the feelings of the characters are less subtle (in the general case), “show don’t tell” in general isn’t practiced as much as in western works. This also applies to the themes which sometimes are spelled out instead of being left for the viewer to discover (I consider that a positive because if you have important you want to convey, why not just do it clearly). But many people consider this aspect and the general earnestness of anime childish

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Code Geass never discarded its anticolonialist theming

I feel that life was so tiresome until this point (OCD, depression, undiagnosed autism, the poorly implementated lockdowns, uni etc) that I just want to relax (obviously I will still work) with my gf as long as my material conditions allow it. Im short, I am a tired coward.

Also, social interactions with most people stress me out and I can’t do them very correctly so that’s an extra hurdle as well.

Besides, I haven’t managed to read a lot of theory, so I won’t be able to apply my useful attributes (over-analyzing / attention to detail) to help somehow.

Anime characters in general. I suspect it’s because many writers are otaku and that is correlated with autism for sure (the origin of the label is due to the unusually formal speaking patterns the OG otaku had for one)

The only game released in 2023 that I played is Void Stranger, and it was very good but I didn’t like the meta-puzzle part of the game (I am too impulsive / inattentive to catch that stuff) so that soured my experience a bit. The actual sokoban puzzles I liked a lot though, as well as the music and story (the ending was meh though).

Of those that I played this year, my favorite games were:

Planescape Torment

Very good narrative and a unique setting AND the party felt like something out of a JRPG instead of something out of a western game which I really liked

FFXIV: Shadowbringers

The 5.0 MSQ is a good story about overcoming loss and despair, our near future climate change troubles and class consciousness. The dungeons and trials were really good this time. So far the post-launch patches (I have played 5.1-5.3) were a bit redundant / fanservicey but I enjoyed them.

Hollow Knight

Nothing to say that hasn’t been said a million times here.

Xanadu Next

Japanese Diablo / Zelda fusion RPG with a good story and a great world which is revealed little-by-little as you progress. This isn’t a well known game but I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Astlibra Revision

The dev is very horny and the game features many instances of problematic sexualization but I can’t help but adore the game for the batshit insane time-travel story which somehow makes sense and holds up, the unique combat system and the amazing soundtrack compiled from various royalty free tracks (I discovered Shimajiro through it, who is a great artist). Also, I admire the dev’s dedication, he worked on the game for 15 years before releasing it.

For multiplayer games, I enjoyed playing Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV with my girlfriend, and also Deep Rock Galactic and the Calamity mod for Terraria. We also tried Rabbit & Steel’s demo, which is a co-op bullet hell roguelike with MMO mechanics (similar to FFXIV) and it was pretty good, so I am looking forward to its release in 2024.

I avoided it because of the team that made it. Not the Jordan Peterson thing (seems it was just a phase and the writer isn’t a reactionary), but because I thought the writing in The Messenger was bad (even if funny at times), and that the same writer wasn’t qualified to writefor an RPG.

Seems like I dodged a bullet.

Yeah what you are saying is right, I just don’t want to pressure her considering she is in a bad state right now (without a sufficiently high anti-psychotic dose she self-harms and is suicidal). I also suspect that she is neurodivergent but she doesn’t want to self-diagnose (due to the same absolute honesty that lead to [1]), and her psychiatrist doesn’t want to diagnose her while she is depressed (which I think is gender bias bullshit because he didn’t even need to diagnose me to call me an aspie lmao)

Thanks for the answers, I guess I will make another question. Do non-binary people have those mismatches as well, or it’s pretty much neurodivergent people who can’t fit the gender roles that are asked from them and express themselves differently? I am a ND cis male and I don’t fit with most men (too aggressive for no reason, and I am not really masculine in personality) so I can kind of understand why someone wouldn’t want to conform to their gender, but I wonder if there is a biological component to it

They could also be ND my dude. I’m autistic and also struggle a lot with this

That and many people starved during the Nazi occupation (I’m Greek), which caused most people of the time to stuff their kids afterwards (and grandkids)

She’s European but that probably applies to the whole core

Yeah meat is pretty expensive where I am from, yet my mother still cooks it 5/7 days a week (probably due to my pickiness as a kid, but we have pretty bad eating habits in general)

If you are neurodivergent you might legit not be able to handle some foods, it’s not just pickiness if you puke if you eat tomatoes for example.

You can circumvent that with different copking approaches like making sauces or purees out of things but depending on your culture you might have to think a but out of the box to startdoing that (in mine veggies are mostly eaten raw which I find disgusting).