This is a really common line that is patently false, the nukes had very little to do with triggering the Japanese surrender. The meeting to discuss surrender occured days after the first bombing, and started prior to the second bomb. I wasn’t privy to the Council discussions, obviously, but it is exceedingly unlikely they would sit around for days after the first bombing before meeting to discuss surrender. What did happen immediately prior to the surrender meeting was the Soviet invasion.

The nuking, of primarily non-military targets by the way, was largely a show of force demonstration to the soviets. It was not a “necessary evil” to save lives, and it was sure as hell not a mercy.

Totally fair. Particularly in survival horror where saves are explicitly limited to highten tension, that makes sense.

I am not the expert on the genre by any means, but would limiting invasions to “only other people on the same difficulty” just segregate the player base too much?

I have definitely heard that argument, and I understand it, but at the same time there are a good number of us who would just simply not play the game then.

I realise it is up to the devs who they want to make their game for, and I am probably not their target audience, but banging my head against a wall until I get through something doesn’t give me any kind of feeling of triumph when I manage it. I just feel frustrated. Whereas the soulslike games I have played where I could turn the difficulty down, I enjoyed way more.

I probably would group those into the Manamement/Tycoon genre. More economic than colony builders, but smaller scale than city builders.

The Two Point games are pretty good versions of those, if you light the more light-hearted atmosphere.

Krastorio is probably still my favourite Factorio mod. It hits that sweet spot of complexity and new stuff for me. It’s the only mod I have finished to date. I loved the concept of Nullius, but the byproducts made my brain hurt.

K2 really does feel like Vanilla+, which is a good thing.

I would consider them a few different genres, but they are easily my favourite types of games these days. I cateogrize them in my steam list as below.

-Colony Builders: Games about building well, a colony, often from little to nothing. Often lots of You vs Environment friction, with the natural world. Tends to have a bit more focus on the individuals that comprise the colony. Examples: Rimworld (my favourite game of all time), Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, Stranded Alien Dawn, Space Haven.

-City Builders: A bit broader in scope than a colony builder, working more on the macro level. Friction is often economic, sometimes adjusted with the natural world. Cities Skylines is kind of the prime exampe of this, but also games like Timberborn or Anno.

-Automation: Games about building a factory that…builds things automatically. Challenge tends to be logistical complexity but some games do feature combat as well. Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program (my personal favourite), Satisfactory, and Captain of Industry are the Four Horsemen of this genre to me. Techtonica is very early still but seems to have some promise as well.

For many of these games, there is a whole world of content to explore if you are interested in mods. Rimworld players regularly run hundreds of mods, my current game has about 350. Factorio has extensive overhaul mods that can take literally thousands of hours to finish in some cases (Py’s). Satisfactory has a surprisingly robust mod scene for an early access game too.

Finished what is available in Techtonica, so went back to Dyson Sphere Program for a bit to work on missing achievements. DSP is definitely my favourite of the Factory-Automation games at this point.

I still have a Factorio (Industrial Revolution 3) game going too, but am feeling DSP more at the moment right now.

I am kind of used to sometimes poking the bear on this one in particular. It’s what I personally dislike though, I don’t necessarily think they are badly designed. I totally get some people absolutely love that kind of thing in games, and I am glad they have games that scratch that itch. It’s just an instant turn-off for me though.

That said, I have never quite understood the people vehemently opposed to having a difficulty slider though; just keep it on hard and it’s literally no different.

Not a game I hear mentioned much, but man Secret World had so many great things going for it. The best quest design in a MMO* I have ever seen, and a really unique setting too. Shame it was managed so badly, in an alternate world where TSW took off and was still getting content updates, I would be thrilled.

*MMO-ish in Legends.

I feel save points themselves are becoming an increasingly archaic design choice. Just let us save anywhere, especially in a single player game. I think most people are just suspending games without expressly saving most of the time.

Hate:

-Real Time Timers: Think FF13 Lightning Returns. It doesn’t matter how many mechanics there are to alleviate the pressure, they make me so stressed out that I don’t enjoy playing the actual game.

-Unrepairable Durability Mechanics: I mean things like Breath of the Wild where you can use a weapon X times before it breaks with no way to repair it. I end up never wanting to use “my good weapon” and tryto beat entire games with a 2x4. If I can go to a vendor and repair my gear, I don’t mind as much.

-Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.

Love:

-Meaningful Choices: Not two dialogue options with the same end result, but things that shape either story or gameplay. This could be a major branching story choice OR something like a talent tree.

-Base Building: I like build base. It doesn’t have to be a city builder or strategy game (Though I absolutely love those), but I am a sucker for games including any degree of base building. It’s my favourite part of the XCom games as an example. Bonus if I have to make choices about my base, see previous point.

Some prefectures offer free childcare services, but it depends a lot on where you live. Historically they aren’t services that have been used a lot, there is something of a cultural expectation that you or your family watch kids. As an example, babysitters/nannies are basically unheard of unless it is a relative. My girlfriend’s sister has a child and either the sister is home all day with the kid or her parents watch it; she even leaves in an prefecture with free daycare services.

There is a fairly decent maternity leave that most new mothers do end up using. There’s an initial lump sum payment plus you get about 2/3 your salary for up to a year (I think those times are right). Paternity leave technically exists as well but I have never met anyone who has used it.

Obviously you run into a lot of other issues with a sudden change but we are frankly pretty overpopulated and could use a decrease. It turns out that a system predicated on infinite population growth with finite resources can’t be sustained forever. Especially with how finite they are in our case.

I think even worse than our population issues is the overcentralization though. SO much is based around Tokyo, the vast majority of jobs are located there, especially if you want any upwards mobility. It’s even worse if you include areas like Chiba and Saitama as part of the greater Tokyo area. Even the other cities pale in comparison to opportunities in Tokyo. If people could spread out a bit more, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is now.

I was lucky enough to be able to move out of Tokyo last year thanks to my work. I am not in a super rural area but I definitely never want to go back to Tokyo if I can help it. I am in the mountains around Mt. Fuji, and get to work overlooking a spectacular view of the mountain. Don’t have to deal with packing into crowded trains in the summer when everyone is dripping with sweat.

It’s kind of a long standing quality of the series, since they are always trying new stuff that will resonate with different people. Outside of like actual FF2 (I assume you are talking about IV since you mention the SNES) I think I have heard people make a case for every FF being their favourite. Which is great, I am glad they try to shake it up every time.

Both of the projects Yoshida has been involved with I have been pretty lukewarm on though, so I am just a bit concerned if he is going to be the proverbial face of the series moving forward.

I love FF, played them all and generally liked every one to varying degrees. I am about there with you overall on XVI. I liked my time with FFXVI well enough, but in my overall series hierarchy it is basically smack dab in the middle. I thought it was good but it didn’t blow me away like a lot of people are raving about. I certainly don’t regret playing it, but I also wouldn’t want to see this be the direction they take the series from now on.

I liked the characters a lot more than I expected. Story had pacing issues but overall it was good. Music was more atmospheric but generally quite well done, though thinking back to it now I can’t really recall any of the music.

Gameplay-wise though, it felt like it was lacking a lot of RPG elements. I don’t mind action combat at all, I am not a turn-based purist and I loved FF7R, but the combat in FFXVI seemed like a big step back. There really wasn’t any itemization, levels didn’t feel that impactful, and even unlocking nodes on the skilltree felt very low impact. About halfway through the game I had unlocked everything I would use until the end of the game, so skill points really ceased to matter. There were no resistances or elements, so even though the game makes a big deal about learning different magic-types (which are all 100% the same as each other), you can approach every single fight exactly the same. The big bombastic kaiju fights people loved were actually my least favourite part though. You were basically given a simplified version of the character you normally play, and they were all about 30% too long. They were a spectacle but weren’t actually all that fun or interesting to play.

I can only speak to the portions of the game I have played so far ( I just finished Main Mission 13, maybe 5-6 hours in total) but it’s very linear so far. Each area is basically a straight path you follow, I honestly haven’t even found many places where you can diverge from the path just for extra treasure or the like.

It could very well open up more later on like XIII did, but it’s not open at all so far. There is a side quest system that could definitely lend itself to more of an open-world exploration feeling. I only have seen two sidequests that are given to you when that system is first introduced, so I can’t speak as to how common they are yet.

I would need to go back to remember exactly, but were those Triune cultists or Lilith’s cultists? Triune cultists originally worship the Three Prime Evils. Actually, the original form of the Triune cult worshipped the Primes without knowing they were evil.

I believe at some point Lilith co-opted the remaining Triune cultists into her order, they would probably still hold reverence to the original Primes in addition to her. I don’t think the average cultist would have been aware of the rivalry between her and her father. If anything, they’d probably see her as being the Daughter of Hatred a kind of blessing.

I have definitely met people who said they didn’t like JRPGs and weren’t interested in trying X new JRPG coming out.

But that is because they didn’t like the genre, not because they had any negative feelings towards Japan or Japanese game devs. Nobody likes every genre, and that is exactly why having genre labels is a good short-hand.

I don’t like FPS games, that doesn’t mean I have any particular ill-will towards people or companies who make them. It doesn’t matter how good a new FPS is, I probably won’t like it.

I definitely have some concerns after the demo, but it isn’t going to stop me from playing a new FF. No expectations for where it will rank for me in the series as a whole, but it is pretty likely I will at least enjoy it. I think there has only been two FF games I have ever not enjoyed.