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.

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.

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.

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.

Star Wars. I’m literally the only Gen Xer I know who didn’t grow up a huge fan of the first three movies and didn’t care for all the toys associated with them. That continued into adulthood–I never got the hype for the newer movies or the modern series.

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.

You’re a pretty cat, and a good cat.

Switched it to the bottom only to find out it didn’t matter one bit and was still just as hard to reach there as it was at the top. Moved it back to the top because that’s where my brain looks for it.

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).

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.

That Tomb Raider thing was completely asinine. It was a quality reboot of a series that had gone horribly off the rails with a lot of promise and Square tanked it with completely unreasonable expectations, apparently expecting sales in the dozens of millions. And here we are with FF apparently not meeting expectations as well–it’s easy to see where the issue is, and it’s not with the games.

Chicago has a weirdly high number of mattress chain stores. There’s a stretch near me that has 3 of them in the span of 4 blocks. They’ve all been there for awhile and there’s rarely ever anyone in them. No way these are legit businesses considering how often people buy mattresses.