Seungyeon
I’m totally the opposite. I never much cared for tropical environments. I do like the Far Cry games, though. The gunplay feels good and the gameplay loop is enjoyable for a few dozen hours every couple of years. I think my biggest dislike of the series in general is the mystical hallucination bits that seem to always be present. Obviously the games aren’t realistic in general, but those moments always take me out of the game. I haven’t played 6 yet, so maybe they aren’t present.
I told myself I wasn’t going to let myself get sucked into to another Gacha game, but Honkai: Star Rail has been so much fun. I haven’t spent any money on it, thankfully, but just playing through the story has been a good time. Other than that, I will play a little bit of Final Fantasy XIV and then hopefully finish Chaos;Child.
The story can be convoluted, admittedly. Pillars of Eternity II added a dedicated turn-based mode for the combat and also added a few QoL changes, my favorite being that spell usage is reset between combat, rather than requiring you to rest. That said, I think the story is a bit weaker, but that may be because I’ve never really been interested in Caribbean settings or pirate themes.
Basically entirely digital. I have an Emby server hosted on a Synology NAS. My parent’s have a bit of an obsession with buying Blu-Rays, so I usually can just borrow whatever I want and then rip it onto my NAS. For the things they don’t buy, I will buy, rip, then resell or donate. Certain things that are unable to be purchased, are… generously donated by… peers.
Resister by ASCA from SAO:Alicization is pretty good.
I might be a bit of an outlier, but I am not at all a fan of crowds, so I strongly prefer concerts with assigned seating. I’m in a relatively small city that rarely ever gets big names, but even when we do, most of our concert venues are primarily standing-only, with very few seats available and even those are first-come-first-serve. So I try to always get there early enough to ensure a seat. I just want to see my favorite artists perform live, not get jostled around and smothered by strangers.
I use Book Tracker and StoryGraph.
Book Tracker is iOS only. But it is nearly perfect for what I want. It allows me to track what books I have in my library, what;s on my wishlist, the progress of the books I’m reading, as well as being able to organize them by tags, series, author, etc. And I think it looks quite nice. Another reason I like Book Tracker so much, is that was only a one-time payment of $10, where it seems there are several apps that are on a subscription model.
StoryGraph is on both iOS and Android. I found it highly recommended by many readers in the reading community. I don’t like the way it handles organizing and cataloging my library; it feels cumbersome and convoluted. Where StoryGraph shines, is with the interesting statistics it provides, as well as a fairly decent recommendation algorithm; something Book Tracker doesn’t have. It also has a review section where you can read reviews left by others on the app, as well as leave your own.
So, for me, the cliche answer is Lord of the Rings. But another book that I’ve always really loved, is East by Edith Pattou. It’s a very simple fantasy story, but I read it when I was much younger and it’s always just felt very comfy and cozy whenever I read it.
Perhaps not specifically a mechanic, per se, but save points. I want to be able to save whenever, wherever. I don’t always have time to make it to the next save point before I need to stop playing.