PurpleShyGuy

Recently Techland boasted that it would take 500 hours to complete everything in their upcoming game Dying Light 2, a statement that made the light in my body known as my soul die a little inside. I've only ever completed two games that took over a hundred hours to finish, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and Persona 5. By the end of both of these games, I was battling my boredom as I faced the same enemies and employed the same tactics over and over again. There simply wasn't enough variety to the gameplay to warrant such a long time to complete. In fact, I'm of the opinion that no game should take a 100 hours to complete.

I understand that people want value for money, but bogging down a game with recycled content isn't the way to do it. A shorter game that is paced better and thus offers a better incentive to replay it is more attractive to me. But at 500 hours to 100% Dying Light 2, is anyone actually going to replay it again, or will they just be sick of looking at it?

Despite its flaws, I still think the game deals with depression in a very true-to-life way, at least in my experience. You can't just magic away someone's depression by saying "I love you" which can actually cause guilt as they wonder why people are wasting their love on them. As mentioned in this article, depression isn't about being sad all the time, it's more like an absence of happiness. This is something that the bedroom scene with Sayori really nails.

@sanity: A beginners tip that helped me is to use the charm that brings Geo towards you, it's amazing how much you lose because of Geo falling into pits or onto spikes. Also don't be afraid to explore all your options when stuck on a boss, certain abilities and charms really help on certain bosses.

With video games being filled to the brim with all sorts of mystical creatures, developers sometimes include bestiaries to give their creations an extra layer of authenticity. One bestiary that has always stood out for me is Hollow Knight's, mainly because it is closely tied to a character called the Hunter. When you first kill a beastie in Hollow Knight you receive a short description of it, but kill a certain amount of that creature and you are treated to a more personalised message about it from the Hunter.

From these tidbits you learn about the Hunter's contempt for cowardice, as well as his more playful side, and even get some contemplative moments that show that he is no simple-minded monster. This bestiary accomplishes the two goals of fleshing out the fauna of Hollow Knight and teaching you how the Hunter views the world. And as an added bonus, when you complete the bestiary you get perhaps one of the best fake outs in gaming history.

Other honourable mentions include Metroid Prime (naturally) and Okami.

@noboners: I get what you mean, ever since the Splitgate beta ended it seems everyone has gotten a lot better at the game. Though I'm still eager to get back into it for now.

@sombre: I kind of had the same experience with For Honor, in which I noticed that I had clocked in over 14 days of playtime and wondered what on earth possessed me to play this game for that long.

@brendan: When you mentioned Helldivers I thought to myself "ah yes, I remember playing that game recently." Then I realised that it came out more than half a decade ago and was like "oh...wow, it's been a while."

Roughly every weekend I play with a group of friends, and it's always nice to have a chat with people who otherwise live hours of driving away. The list of games we play includes Apex Legends and recently Dead by Daylight, and I'm not having much fun with these games. To make matters worse, they show little interest in playing games I like such as Guilty Gear Strive and Titanfall 2 (when you could still get online that is), and it's beginning to get me down. I could still talk to them while playing another game, but I would miss out on shared experiences by doing that, and I still do get some enjoyment when we accomplish something as a team. But overall I find myself playing Apex Legends and Dead by Daylight as an obligation to my friends rather than something I want to.

Anyone else found themselves in this situation?

If you are unfamiliar with the term "point of no return" in video games, it simply means a point where the game asks you to finish any side quests or other tasks before starting the next (and usually final) main story section, since you will be locked out of completing them otherwise. And while its main purpose is to act as a warning to the player, having the game ask you such as question creates an undeniably strong sense of finality.

The first time I really felt this was in Okami, where before boarding the ark to battle whatever lied within, the game stopped me to ask "Do you have the resolve?" The line really had some weight to it, because after all of the hours of adventuring it dawned on me that this time it really was the end of game.

@franzlska: Outside the side stories there really isn’t that much. The main story is pretty much identical other than a few visual changes.