Definitely a tricky one and a lot of luck is needed for the "complete your first run in less than 1 hour/day" challenges. But at least it's patched now so you wouldn't have to do it a second time like i had to (because the first one bugged out and didn't transfer for me).

Come and join the cool kids... 😉

27. Suikoden. After a couple attempts over the years, I finally knocked out the game via this year's remaster that I picked up a while back. Followed a guide to get all 108 characters and will likely do the same with Suikoden 2. Definitely of its time with some PS1-era pain points but mostly fun.

Guessing Nintendo saw a lot of buy-in with the first game so they probably paid a pretty penny for this one too. Hades 1 console exclusive was just shy of a year and exclusivity deals seem to have mostly gotten smaller since then so maybe this'll just be 6 months or so.

26. Coral Island (w/ the Platinum). Played a bit in early access; found it again when I was scrolling PlayStation Premium games a bit ago looking for something to play and got sucked back in. Loved the characters best of all. Nice stopgap farming sim until Fields of Mistria 1.0 drops.

25. Dispatch. So great to enjoy a Telltale-style game like this again! Great characters and writing and a real fun sim-management bit of gameplay. Can wait to sit down this weekend and replay the story with a bunch of different choices.

Had the same thought when I played through the 1st 4 episodes Friday night. Can't wait for the whole story to be out so I can go back and make different choices too since these episodes really clip by.

I was joking with my roommate/former podcast cohost who also played it a bit back in early access that it's one of the first game in a bit that I've actually just wanted to podcast about since we wrapped up our show a few months back.

I booted up Coral Island recently after checking it out briefly back in Early Access. Really loving the cast of characters!

Only in the context of Robot Chicken jokes.

24. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (and the Platinum). Very fun revisiting this game again with Game of Thrones and even FFXVI in the rear-view mirror. Voice acting really elevates an already great story and gameplay is still fun (apart from how you get punished for grinding levels).

I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on that CE at the moment but I'm hopeful it'll eventually go on sale in like a year or two so I can similarly add that mask next to the Jin one from the first game.

23. Ghost of Yōtei (and the Platinum). Felt great to return to this Sucker Punch gameplay. Great cast of characters and performances (huge fan of pretty much anything Erika Ishii and Noshir Dalal do these days). And these continue to be the most beautiful games from a color palette/world design.

22. Hades 2.
Still plenty more runs to complete for more of the character beats but I have rolled credits. Glad I stayed out of the Early Access train so I could just enjoy the 10/10 finished product (but also jealous of people who have been enjoying the story drip feed for the past couple years).

21. Baldur's Gate 3. Just ahead of Hades 2, I revisited the comfort food that is Baldur's Gate 3. First time playing with the new patched subclasses. Those and a handful of mods with extra encounters and gear continue to make this a great game to revisit!

Nice!

After a quiet few months of replaying various Final Fantasies and Baldur's Gate 3, I'm now suddenly juggling Hades 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, and (soon) Ghost of Yotei and the Super Mario Galaxy duology.

Yeah. Trick is how to verify it's real and not a counterfeit?