Seriously, I can't believe how bad ACNH fumbled the bag with progression and upgrades. Unlocking the various stores in New Leaf was so fun to experience over a long period of time. Then in New Horizons I got the singular Nook shop upgrade and... that's it? One update added the Roost but... that's it? Such a letdown to feel like I was playing a stripped down version of New Leaf.
Hope you enjoy the mod! There's also a City Folk Deluxe mod that removes Grass Degredation & adds a lot more stuff if that's more your jam
Favorite villager is Cousteau, a frog with a curly mustache who says "Oui Oui" and is a night owl like me.
Villager I most avoid is Candi, a mouse with a screeching greeting noise. Trying to get her to move out ASAP.
Mayor Tortimer is on Vacation at the moment, so I've been turning on the lighthouse for him at night, so fun to hear the mechanism spin up.
Mailing Fossils to identify them threw me for a loop, but with only 25 fossils in the game it's not that big of a deal. The mod allows Blathers to identify once you have 15 fossils donated too.
I use a GBS Control upscaler! Super happy with it, there are a couple pre-builts you can find online if you don't want to mess with the hardware yourself.
Been playing Shredders! I love a game that can get me in the mood for snowboarding season, and Shredders has some of the best simulation of the sport I've ever played. Throw on the SSX 3 soundtrack in the background and I'm having a blast
Yes absolutely! Inspired Dark Souls, future zelda games, & basically every indie game to come out afterwards.
I started The Last Guardian, still need to go back & finish it. I liked a lot of what it was bringing to the table, but the pacing dragged a bit in the middle imo.
That fight is so incredible, I could gush about it all day. The ambience, the visuals, the environmental storytelling, just amazing.
The only colossus to feel so direct in its attacks towards you, you can feel its anger at watching its fellow colossi die. Especially since when you reach the top you realize the 16th faces out from the bottom of the map, so it saw every colossus be slain one after another.
Also holy shit having to snipe its hands/shoulders then jump onto it was so exciting, even if it was a bit jank.
I love the ps2 era of games! Here are some suggestions:
ICO: Minimalist game about a cursed boy & a girl with mysterious powers trying to escape a castle together. An absolute classic.
Shadow of the Colossus: Another Team ICO game, this one you've probably heard of. You play as a young man who sets out for the Forbidden Lands, finding and slaying 16 colossi to resurrect his deceased love.
Silent Hill 2: One of the greatest survival horror games ever made. Introspective, tackles mature themes, and deeply chilling. A game I truly feel is haunted.
Persona 4: High schoolers solving a murder mystery in a rural Japanese town. I prefer the vanilla ps2 version to the revised Golden edition, it graphically preserves the fog & spookier ambience - with better pacing from less bloat.
For some more obscure games:
The Adventures of Cookie & Cream: A brutal co-op/singleplayer puzzle game developed by Fromsoft. Has a fun art style & interesting levels.
Tak 3 - the Great Juju Challenge: Works best in co-op but still a blast in single-player. 3D platformer with varied levels & a fantastic voice cast (Patrick Warburton as Lok is the highlight).
Btw if you're playing mgs3 on the ps2 make sure it's the Subsistence edition! It has a 3D camera that works way better than the top-down the og game shipped with.
I think part of that silliness is intentional, at least in my interpretation of the game. The internal thesis of the game seems to be examining how far they can push the player-to-protagonist relationship until it breaks. Similar to the first game, where it was intended for players to have complicated feelings about having to control Joel in the hospital at the end doing something they may not have wanted to do but was 100% in character for Joel.
Part 2 feels like that idea stretched across the entire game, especially for Ellie. There's a pretty powerful metaphor for addiction in the form of addiction to violence/revenge, and I feel like going to Santa Barbara shows Ellie reaching her rock bottom. The player doesn't want this (especially after playing as Abby), Dina doesn't want this, hell part of Ellie doesn't even want this. It's just the main thing she knows how to solve her problems - through violence
The sad answer is it's usually the option that leads to the least amount of harassment or chance of assault.