I’ve been using RetroArch to replay Pokémon games on my phone recently too. I’m currently on SoulSilver. I actually haven’t run into any of the usual visual bugs with HGSS emulation (black spots, full black screen, etc) which has been great. Every other emulator I’ve used has had those bugs. Maybe I’ve just been lucky this time around but it is a known issue with all ROMs for HGSS for some reason.

I’m currently on what I think is my 15-20th playthrough of Elden Ring. I cheated this community a bit and did start Silksong and I’m also going through AC Origins too but Elden Ring has taken most of my time (like usual).

I played a little bit of it at launch but never bought it, I’ve been tempted to though every time it goes on sale. Soulslike is my favourite genre so I know I’d love it, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I think it’s free on PlayStation right now so I might play it there instead of pc.

KCD has been on my backlog for a while now. It’s definitely my type of game but I’ve just never bothered to download it. Not sure why. I really should give it a shot.

Good luck in your journey! I’m very jealous. They’re all fantastic initial experiences. They’re great on replays too but nothing beats the first time.

If you’re binging all the games in a row, maybe save Sekiro for the end. Or play some other stuff before going to it. It’s hard enough as is, but it’s especially difficult if you’re coming fresh off a Souls game. Your impulse reactions you’ve learned will only hurt you. Likewise if you play Sekiro and then go back to another Souls game you’ll struggle again. Not to scare you off, just to keep you informed. If you play different games between though you should be fine with any order. But it’s a commonly accepted fact by most of the community that the most surefire way to make Sekiro harder for yourself is to play Dark Souls first.

In case you’re curious why, Dark Souls (and the rest) mostly play by you dodging attacks and attacking back when it’s safe. Most bosses punish being greedy and reward being patient. Sekiro on the other hand doesn’t really have dodging, it’s more of a repositioning (very few invincibility frames compared to the other games), and instead you’ll be parrying basically everything (don’t worry, parrying is a lot easier in Sekiro than Dark Souls). You also need to give constant pressure to your enemies, and it’s basically suicide tackling more than one at a time. The reason is, while Sekiro does have health bars on enemies and bosses, their stance meter is way more important. Most bosses you’ll kill while they’ve still got a majority of their health remaining, because once their stance breaks you can deal a deathblow. Parrying and attacking both increase the meter which breaks stance, but if you’re idle for more than a second it goes down. Once it clicks it’s very satisfying and a ton of fun but if you’re used to Dark Souls it’ll be a struggle to unlearn dodging everything and taking your time. Again, not trying to scare you away, it’s probably my second favourite game of all time, but if you aren’t aware and go in blind you could get scared off pretty easily.

Enjoy. It’s one of the greatest games and one of the greatest franchises of all time.

If you continue with the series and play Dark Souls II next, keep in mind it’s the black sheep of the series. Not to say it’s bad or anything but it’s very different from the rest. You may prefer it, you may hate it, just don’t judge the whole series on it. Dark Souls III and Elden Ring are much more fast paced and a fair bit more challenging once you get into them. Sekiro is basically a different genre and plays much different from the rest but is imo the best first playthrough of the lot. It’s way harder though. Demon’s Souls is slower paced like Dark Souls but has a different world mechanic (hub world where you choose which level to enter, complete it, then go back to the hub and go elsewhere). Bloodborne is the only one you can’t play well on pc (Demon’s Souls isn’t native on pc but you can emulate it quite smoothly), but if you have a PS4/5 it’s a lot of people’s favourite game.

Good luck! That sounds like a marathon. It sounds like something I would’ve been into as a teenager but as a soon-to-be father I don’t see myself with the time for super long games anymore. Shorter games seem a lot more attractive these days.

My wife, who’s a nurse at our local hospital, loves Two Point Hospital. It’s obviously horribly inaccurate but that’s the fun of it for her. I enjoyed it too but not as much as her.

A lot of people have been talking about that game recently. I messed around with it a few years back but never more than half a dozen hours or so. Maybe I’ll check it out again.

Portal 2 is awesome.

I make these posts every week, I hope to see you comment on a future post too!

Typically this community is for games that are more than a year old (i.e. you were patient to buy it) but I think Silksong is an exception and I’ll allow it in this community. I’m also playing it so I can’t judge too hard.

Enjoy! It’s a great game. I’ve been cheating on this community and playing Silksong, it’s a great sequel. It’s one of the rare times I’d recommend buying a game when it’s still new. But definitely play Hollow Knight first, it’s such a great game.

Yeah I’ve been playing Silksong too. Bouncing between that at a replay of Assassin’s Creed Origins whenever I fail on a platforming section too many times.

Fair enough. Modded Skyrim is a very deep rabbit hole. I hope you enjoy it.

I’d recommend finishing a playthrough unmodded first just to get the vanilla experience, but definitely replay it modded. Alternate Start, A Quality World Map, SkyUI, Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch, and many graphics and texture mods. Plus mods that add new quests, new areas, new weapons and armour, perks, followers, anything you can think of. Plus tons of goofy mods. It’s a modder’s dream.

Skyrim is my most played game ever, but honestly a vast majority of that playtime was not spent on the main storyline at all. The game is best when you’re doing side quests and just exploring the world (and modding of course, it has a massive modding community, literally half of all mods on nexus are for Skyrim). The main quest is fine, but it’s nothing special. It’s your run-of-the-mill “you’re the savour of the world” type thing. But the thieves guild and dark brotherhood are both a lot of fun, the civil war is really fun too, and there’s just so much care put into the environment. Go check out random caves and camps and pay close attention to your surroundings, and you’ll see so many stories there that never get explicitly told. Environmental story telling is Skyrim’s strong suit for sure.

I enjoyed FO4 way more than the community, I know it’s lacking a bit in some areas but behind Skyrim it’s my favourite game to mod. The common criticisms just didn’t bother me I guess. I put nearly a thousand hours into it (mostly modding) and had a blast the whole time. I hope you enjoy it like I did and not like the general community did.

I’m getting the same scores/results for Safari + uBOL and Orion + uBO but I’ll stick with safari for a bit just for a change in pace.

That was my reminder to update my system. Thanks!

I’ll test out Safari + uBO for a bit and see if I prefer it. Do you have any sites you can check for how good your adblocker is? I used to use one but that was ages ago, I don’t remember the name anymore.

Elden Ring is third person and Skyrim allows for both. I’m not picky on it though, I like both.

That’s a good point about GamePass though. I also learned that BG3 had a two hour demo on PS5 which I also own. So I might look into that too.