It’s not the easiest game to get into, but you really only need to put as much time into it as you feel like. I guess it can be a nightmare for people compelled to 100% complete every game they own, as you’re looking at 200 to 300 hours to finish Xenoblade X in that case. Personally, I was quite thorough and spent…

Your friend, in my opinion, is entirely right. X has a “main story” that is told through chapters, but the true magic happens in the sidequests, which change whenever you advance a chapter. What’s interesting is that the title of the chapters seem to not necessarily relate to the main story as they relate to whats…

Same, dude. I played a good portion of it and had to stop because the game just hit too close to home.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead Seadon 1 Episode 3...Without spoiling it for anyone but what you have to do with a specific character in that episode left me broken. 

awesome article! I’m actually in the middle of Night in the Woods now, I stopped for a couple months because I’m playing like 20 games. I’m going to go back to it pretty soon, it’s incredible. I definitely connected with it in a lot of ways too, I’ve had depression and anxiety my whole life, college had huge ups and…

I also had a very strong reaction to Grave of the Fireflies. There are few movies that brought me to tears, but it is definitely one of them.

Thank you for writing this. You are clearly a talented and thoughtful writer and I’m glad you shared your thoughts. Games have always allowed me to have emotional outlets, particularly in story driven games like Night in the Woods. From my personal journey, although it seems like the other end of the nuance-spectrum,…

Thanks for the article ;) for what it’s worth, it kicked my butt into resuming my own endeavors. Cheers RTLewis.

I know your article title is rhetorical, but I’ll answer in long form anyway ;)

I think games have the capacity to do this better than any other medium, because they are inherently more intimate due to your direct input on the characters’ actions. So, if the topic of the story is extremely personal, it can feel a lot more invasive and disturbing when you start seeing parallels with your own life.…

I’m going to have to look into this Mark Brown more...

In 2015, I played a little game called The Beginner’s Guide. I had no idea what to expect when I booted it up; I hadn’t heard anything about it and I had just barely watched the trailer. All I knew was that it shared a creator with The Stanley Parable, which was an utterly unique, memorable, and important game for me…

“Personally, I don’t have an issue diving right back into a game that I left unfinished. In fact, people who restart games when they come back to them spook me. How do you get through all the stuff you’ve beaten before? Different strokes, I suppose.” 

Good for you. I don’t have the willpower to stick to something like this. Having been inspired by Stephen Totilo, I’ve been keeping track on my phone of what games I start, what games I play most of, and what games I finish in each year, and that has seemed to help me finish a larger percentage of what I buy. But I…

I have an idea: trade two for every one you buy. I’m about the get the Switch version of Crash Bandicoot, so I’m trading in my PS4 version as well as Hyrule Warriors Legends (yeah, that game didn’t really change my mind about musou games - I still think they’re boring). You can save a little money like that

... still exists. It is unchanged by something that happened (presumably) a decade or more later.

I have a couple of games that I love that are like that. Dragon Seeds is one of them. My friends are like “Why do you like this game so much? What do you do?” And I’m all “Uh, you... clone a dragon embryo and ‘rest’ in your apartment for 30 days until you see if the mutant or elder you want hatches from a cocoon?”

The only cringy thing I see is that entire paragraph.