It kept getting delayed so the release really caught me by surprise!

It’s on Steam, and it’s very short compared to a lot of games so long as you’re not too rusty with the controls.

I waffle between preferring Jet Set Radio cell shading and hand-drawn pixels on any given day.

I feel that sometimes realistic graphics are what a game needs- like some simulators or horror titles going for that form in immersion. We’re not quite over the uncanny valley in AAA titles, and pushing the boundaries of real-time rendering technology can lead to improvements in efficiency of existing processes.

Other times, pushing the boundaries of realism can lead to new game mechanics. Take Counter-Strike 2 and their smoke grenades: they look more realistic and shooting through them disturbs only a portion of the cloud.

I do miss working mirrors in games, though.

This reminds me of the internet discussions around Avatar: The Last Airbender years back and whether it counted as anime or not.

To piggyback on this, I used to play Counter-Strike 1.5 (and later 1.6) a lot. There were servers that ran scripts to automatically chuck people into the air and deal them damage (often called a slap) if they didn’t change coordinates on the map for too long. Some would just auto-kick players for doing so. The anti-camper hate was common.

The server I frequented was far more lenient, but camping that prolonged the round(since dead players could only watch, and the rounds were 5 minutes long to make walking and crouching more viable) was generally frowned upon if they weren’t outnumbered or defending an objective.

I think Achievements are useful if they’re tracked separately by each save game. Minecraft does this, and I find it helpful when I return to a world save after a long time because I can use the achievements I unlocked to help remind me what I was doing and resume from there instead of looking at what clues may have been left behind.

I love New Game + mechanics. I think it’s a travesty more games don’t have them.

I hate excessive collectathons or overly repetitious cutscenes or dialogue. I love TotK, but the end-of-shrine bit got old real fast; I found myself missing pre-BotW heart container hunts where they could just be in a chest somewhere. I also feel exhausted just thinking about all the Koroks; I like trying to 100% save games, and the Koroks start to feel like work after a couple hundred in total.

I like when fps weapon recoil moves the player view with the recoil, particularly if the view resets back to where the player was aiming as the recoil cooldown ends. It’s satisfying and also gives the player an odd feeling of agency because the recoil mechanic lets them play “can I control the hose?”