easymode

Life has been busy, so I've only been able to play in small bursts, but lately my fiancee and I picked up Monster Hunter World: Iceborne again. It has such a good gameplay loop that forces you to think that it's hard to not think about it while you're out doing other things. Things like, "How the hell do I stop this monster from running at me all the time?!" Or, "I really need a good fire weapon..."

I've been replaying Celeste over the past few weeks and

Spoiler

just got to the summit!

Platformers are my all-time favorite genre and Celeste has some of the best and most well thought-out movement mechanics, so I always find myself coming back to this game. Its story of self-acceptance and working with your shadow self really resonated with me this time around, too. Now I'm just exploring each of the levels and grabbing all the strawbs.

I've picked Baldur's Gate 3 back up. I got to Act II and was mostly finished but I didn't want to leave the area Act II takes place in so I kinda lost interest and work got REALLY busy for ~6 months.

Now I'm rolling a new character, class, and tag alongs. It looks like they've changed a few things, at least the UI from what I can recall it looking like. Gonna try to actually "complete" the game this go around.

I've been playing Demonschool! I'm not very far in it yet but it's been a lot of fun so far. Cool world, silly dialogue, and a really interesting battle system. I've heard it compared to Persona bu I've never played those, so i cant vouch for the accuracy of that comparison.

@Archmage I'm an insufferable BG3 fangirl so I gotta ask about your character and who you've got in your party!

@Archmage @Casey BG3 is next on my list. My fiancee and I have been wanting to play for a while, but we're not a big fan of crowding around a desk for story-based games. We would run into the same issue; Since we're moving out and will have our own place, I'm planning on converting my current desktop into a couch gaming PC and using a laptop for everything else. Outside of gaming, my day-to-day tasks don't require a whole lot of power.

@Casey This game looks super neat! I like the artstyle and the dialogue flows nicely. The gameplay looks really neat, sorta feels like Disgaea, which I haven't played enough to know if this is like Disgaea at all. Overall, it's got a really cool style and a lot of heart. I feel like my fiancee would really enjoy this, so I'll have them take a look!

@Casey I've been watching Demonschool for a while... it looks amazing. I wish I had time to really get into a game, but I'm suffering from self-imposed over-work right now. At least the forum is finished. I haven't played a game since spending a few hours in Ultima Underworld last week...

Anyway, let me know how Demonschool is.

@Archmage I have also just made a new character on BG3! My previous 2 attempts have all stalled in Act I because I get so worried that I've missed something that will be important that it becomes impossible for me to make any decisions that move things forward and then I just stop playing.

It's a very dumb problem to have lol

I'm really enjoying Deep Rock Galactic Season 6 and I just got my Matrix homeserver account running. The two are not related

I'm a diehard Nioh fan, and Nioh 3 came out recently, so I've been playing that. It's very fun!
Nioh is a really excellent series of games if you enjoy soulslikes but crave more intricate and interconnected mechanics and constructing weird, esoteric builds, although weird builds and playstyles mostly flourish in the late game.

@Virtua Wug

Never heard of these games until now, but they sound interesting. I'm not a huge soulslike person, but I like the idea of weird builds...which game should I start with?

@Casey

If you're not that familiar with soulslike games, then probably Nioh 1, since it eases you a lot more gradually into the franchise's mechanics. Nioh 1 is the slowest and least elaborate of the three games, and in my opinion it has the best story and atmosphere too.
Nioh 2 is my favorite game of the three, and I generally recommend it to people who already have a lot of experience with action games because the difficulty curve is way steeper. That said, Nioh 1 is still a very difficult game.
At the time of posting, Nioh 1 and 2 are discounted on Steam at 85% and 60% off, respectively. All three games can be played co-op almost all the way through.
Here's a great review of Nioh 1 you can check out if you'd like: