At this point of my gaming life, I hate spending time in the menus for any reason.

A simple solution:

Give players two options at the beginning of the game (Crafting VS Discovery)

Crafting
- components are easily found across the world and scale appropriately as you progress
- rewards players who want to customize their experience to their exact playstyle
- dopamine hit for constant small discoveries

Discovery
- items/gear/talismans/etc. found in their completed states sparingly in world
- rewards players who want to find/use items, but without the need to spend time in menus
- rarity of finding items really puts an emphasis on exploration

You mean you didn't like the part of Fallout 4 where you had to find glue to make your power armor work?

This sounds pretty amazing actually

Started Inscryption with very little idea of what it is.

Enjoy. That game was a fun experience.

About 5 hours into Death Stranding Director's Cut. I'm into it!

Tried it a few years ago and bounced pretty quickly. Glad I gave it another shot.

Huh, I bounced quickly as well a few years back. Wondering if I should revisit (as a big fan of 3rd person action/adventures). Big MGS fan, but Kojima is just too out there/incoherent for me most of the time

The story is way too on the nose and grandiose, but the gameplay loop is oddly satisfying. It's scaling in an intriguing way where I just want to keep going.

Okay Hi-Fi Rush rules, and I have no rhythm.

Death Stranding is essentially a long series of fetch quests and an inventory management simulator, and yet, it remains compelling and rewarding. Great game for podcasts or background music.

I'm jumping into Mass Effect (the legendary edition). Even with the new polish, some of the gameplay (and especially the menus and such) feel dated, but I am still having fun so far.

Cowabunga collection.. The last stage on nes tmnt is mf ridiculous

With 1000 uses of rewinds n save spots I made it to shredder with Donnie at full energy n every other turtle with 1 block only

Took him out wo even getting hit w raph n ninja stars lol

Someday, I look forward to beating TMNT 1 with the help of save states and rewind. I was never able to do it otherwise.

I dont know how it's humanly possible to do otherwise

Picked up Ragnarok yesterday and got to play it several hours. It's definitely beautiful and oh so smoothe on the PS5. However, I do have some issues with the gameplay/combat and upgrading systems, but I'll get used to it. Just not my cup of tea, as I predicted before. The story is fast-paced, engaging and somewhat interesting, but it doesn't feel mature or nuanced enough for me. In the end it's a beautiful AAA next-gen experience in which I'm happy enough to immerse myself, but I want something different. Not sure what PS5 game(s) is/are coming out in the future that will hit that special sweet spot, but I eagerly await.

Welcome to "everything feels underwhelming after falling in love with FromSoft games."

Yeah, I guess that's part of it. I don't like how it's always telling me exactly what to do and if I don't figure it out right away it just tells me what I'm doing wrong. I feel like it's a cop-out; a way for them to make up for poor design. It feels like the game is just playing itself and I'm along for the ride most of the time. The game is made for people with ADHD, and I'd prefer something that treats me like a mature human person with a brain. But I don't exactly need another FromSoft game right now.

It's a narrative based game. There are going to be natural guardrails and forward momentum at times throughout the story. However, there are also several areas that really open up to let you explore, solve puzzles, and experiment.