What are you playing, Nintendo edition.

Started up Death's Gambit: Afterlife there last night and JFC. Maybe I played it too tired & strung out but the introduction to the game was bleedin' awful. A tonne of mechanics smothered in lore that smells suspiciously like Dark Souls nonsense, and a really dreadfully weighted gameplay section.

Nice feel to the combat so far, but I'm struggling to make sense of the whole thing. Also not helped by being one of those games not configured for handheld and so the text is nigh unreadable.

Hate giving up games cos they cost money but if I'm not enjoying them either ... ? Dropped Death's Gambit cos I just didn't gel with it at all at all

So instead, decided I needed a comfort Metroidvania and so fired up Steamworld Dig 2: not the hardest or the longest, but the digging mechanic is such fun, the controls and feel so right. I hope there's room for a Dig 3 sometimes, I know this franchise loves bopping about genres (wish more did!)

Picked up Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus, which is a game that wears it's Hollow Knight influence pretty plainly on its sleeve. Gorgeous 2D Japanese inspired art style and has a nice feeling to it; controls well and with a nice snappiness to it.

My only complaint is one of those mandatory "keep ahead of the fire/waves/dangerous-thing" sections that suddenly demand split second dexterity out of nowhere. Have been stuck at that for ages now, my fat fingers struggling to get past it.

I'm a few more hours into it since my vent & it's definitely an ebb & flow kinda game; fair enough for the most part but then has difficulty spikes that make me hover over the "invincibility mode" in the Options Menu.

As you say though, it is a ludicrously gorgeous game with its art-style; I particularly love the detail of its characters "speaking" in little musical flourishes. Such a nice tweak to the standard approach to have NPCs speak gibberish.