Heyyy, fellow FFXI player! Those were excellent time periods to play imo. I too took a break around the abyssea era (2010/11 I think?) but came back again around 2016.

I feel like the late 20-teens were almost a second golden age in terms of available content to play and community.

My Civ 5 experience was similar. Steam has me at 800 hours though I don’t count all of that since some was AFK. But 5 was just so addicting to me.

One of the later expansions kinda ruined it for me oddly enough but there was a time when I could just devote an entire weekend to it.

I tried 4 and 6 and neither worked for me at all.

I have a couple hundred hours in rocket league from playing with friends around ~2020. Was a ton of fun, even if I never managed to get any good at it. 🤣

Well the top contender for me is FFXI by a mile. But naming an MMO in a thread like this almost feels like cheating.

My next game after that would be Hades 1 with 421 hours.

Good for them. People expect the world from devs these days. It’s especially galling with a game like Peak that is less than 10 bucks.

Agreed, this feels like making a story out of nothing for clicks.

Our small group has had a lot of fun with REPO and Lethal Company. Both are very similar gameplay wise but REPO feels more polished imo.

There are no complex systems to learn and little or no progression at all so it’s easy to pick up and play.

I’ll echo support for the controller. People made fun of the original huge one, but the “S” variant and its successors felt quite good in my hands. I also have an Elite Series 2 that I use with my PC and it’s been great.

Really hope it’s a new game. I’m so hyped for this already don’t let me down!!

Well that makes a lot of sense then! Haha.

The humor and style definitely gives me a 2000s internet flash game vibe. I don’t necessarily mean that as a jab, it’s just kinda the vibe. Doesn’t look like my cup of tea though.

Wow, that’s pretty crazy. I at least had no idea this happened. I did not own the game personally but I know we rented it a few times and it was surprisingly fun.

Well shit. I hope the supposedly in development Control 2 manages to come out somewhat unscathed before things go fully downhill.

I thought this looked really cute. Something I could imagine playing with either my kid or spouse, whoever I can convince to try it.

E33, Hades 2, and Silksong are all very very close for me. I’d probably pick E33 as it’s the one whose story resonated the most but at the end of the day I’d be happy with any of them getting the recognition.

Hades 2 is tough cause after having played early access for so long I’m almost not that excited about it anymore which hurts it a tiny bit, but that shouldn’t take away from the things it did well.

I picked up Vampire Survivors, played one round, and was like yeah I think I’m done here.

Yesss that was so good lol.

It’s possible I’m thinking of another game entirely on the other thing. Haha

“You can change the difficulty at any time in the settings screen” during loading screens after dying always gets me.

I would have swore there was a moment in Disco Elysium where a character makes fun of you for talking like you are trying to exhaust all the options in a dialog tree. But now I can’t find it. Anyone know?

Hollow Knight Silksong.

I’ve been bouncing back and forth between Silksong and Hades II. The struggle is real.

Ahh this sounds so much better. I’ll have to make time to replay the end myself.

Aaah well, that’s too funny. Guess that shows how disconnected I am from the community haha. 🤣

Never heard of this game but it looks neat! I appreciate good construction and those player boards with the inset tiles look really slick.

If the multiplayer “KatamariBall” mode had local split-screen support this would be a no-brainer for me. What I’m reading online suggests this isn’t an option.

My kid and I played tons of local multiplayer in Katamari Reroll together, it was a blast.

People of a certain age like myself likely recall a time when games actually recognized that split screen was a thing. 😞

This was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the Tie Fighter mention. Though OP mentioned not having a joystick and I don’t have direct experience playing on controller so YYMV.

The single player campaign is short but fun and very nostalgic for enjoyers of the X-Wing/Tie Fighter era of games!

The online (if anyone even still plays) is anything but casual so I don’t necessarily recommend that unless you are super invested in it.

This is so exciting! I definitely did not expect any more content out of this game so it’s a huge surprise. Will be awesome to jump back in.

I just hope that the challenge level of the new fights feels appropriate eg level 99.

As a plot and gameplay device i love when games with party mechanics remove the Main Protagonist from the party for a bit and have you control someone else.

Same! These moments always feel special. I also really love how Wall Market is depicted in this chapter.

Well dang, that is shitty to hear. I had hoped to play this one. At least I found out now before giving them any money.

Easily my game of the year.

Ooh, will be fun to see you work through these. The remake series is polarizing to be sure, but I quite like them despite their flaws. The combat system in particular to me feels like such a fun blend of action and ATB-gauge style inputs.

Man… this looks rough. I’m not sure what to even think. I really want to be excited for Prime 4 but none of the trailers have done it for me. Now we have this weird bike that looks awful.

I’m happy to be wrong and will wait and see how things turn out but the faith is being tested.

Silksong coming out actually motivated me to do what I’d been putting off, which was getting platinum in Expedition 33. The Simon fight was tough but fun and satisfying, then picked up any lingering journals, music disks, and Monoco skills.

Amusingly my final trophy was the mime you can encounter during the prologue, which I had completely missed on my first time through. So I fired up NG+ mode, knocked that out for my plat trophy, and decided to watch the Gommage cutscene one more time. It still hit me just as emotionally the second time around. This game really was beautiful and it’s going to stick with me for a long time.

With that out of the way I’m now a few hours into Silksong and enjoying it so far. The bosses I’ve encountered have been tough but not “throw the controller and rage quit” tough. But I’m sure that is coming soon, haha.

This is my answer as well!

That sounds about right. I feel like it played more like an expansion than an outright new game. I do remember banging my head against some of those tougher levels now.

Good point about the music, it really was quite memorable!

I replayed Galaxy sometime around 2020 and had a lot of fun doing so. I remember liking this one quite a lot. It was also fun to let my kid who was around 5 at the time hold a remote to help collect stars.

I’m… reasonably sure I played Galaxy 2 as well but my memory of that iteration is almost completely blank.

It’s worth it! I am still chipping away at Expedition 33 as well. I’m in the endgame portion now but just don’t have a lot of time to game at the moment. I’d like to eventually do NG+ and 100% everything.

Stanley walked through the red. door.

Was going to comment this as well! I enjoyed the story quite a bit too. Despite nothing really “happening” per se I remember the ending feeling emotional regardless.