Gaming

I got Final Fantasy XVI less than a week ago, and have been playing **quite **a bit of it since then. The combat's felt really fun and fluid (especially with the quick and easy element swaps), and I've found the story and characters really engaging so far.

I also picked up Tunic in the Steam Summer Sale. As a lover of the Zelda games and Soulsborne-style games, it's been on my radar for a while, but it was nice to catch it on 30% off. I haven't been disappointed so far; it can be a little sparse on information, but it's been really fun exploring the world (and just what your character is capable of), and the artstyle is just adorable.

I picked up Diablo 4, and also had to sign up for Playstation Plus since it's always online... Ended up spending more time playing the games from the Plus catalog. The story is surprisingly good - I always though D3's story was kind of dumb, but the atmosphere in this one is great, to the point where I'm often not listening to a podcast when I play (at least until I finish the campaign)

I played through Stray in a few days - incredibly charming game. In a way it almost reminded me of Chibi Robo, since you're a little guy exploring a human-sized environment. Definitely recommend it.

I also did a run of Until Dawn, which I played years ago. I always intended to replay it but it's hard to motivate myself to redo a story-heavy game like this where it's going to be a few hours before things really start branching off in interesting ways. I really like how they play with different flavors of horror, from slasher to paranormal, to play with your expectations if you're a genre-savvy horror fan. Going to check out The Quarry sometime.

And I'm playing Alan Wake, for another TV-show-esque horror experience. The Stephen King and Twin Peaks inspiration is pretty obvious but I like both of those things. Combat is a little frustrating, though, it's easy to lose track of enemies if you're fighting a group, and the cinematic slow-mo sometimes gets annoying.

Been making my way through totk. I think I enjoyed playing the first one more but it's still pretty good. I'm stuck at the lost woods though, have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I might have done a main quest early so maybe I just have to progress to that point?