What do you mean? My kids have been playing my library using the new Family Sharing rules for a couple months on my LCD deck by opting into the beta.

And yes, the new Family Sharing is amazing. It’s made me want to buy exclusively into Steam ecosystem.

Ooo I love these summaries. Thanks for posting! It helps a lot to keep up with the new series releases and how they’re all doing.

I’ve only really been keeping up with Mushoku Tensei this season and it has been excellent.

Seriously. I’m never upset about a game delay these days because there are already so many games to play that I literally will not be able to get to in my lifetime. I’m still mostly catching up on games from the last few years and can’t imagine when I’ll even get to most 2023 games!

I can definitely see the brain tiredness! I blasted through in a couple days and probably would have enjoyed it even more if I’d slowed down haha. It’s such a gem of a game. I wish there was more like it, but the only game that gave me the same feeling is Return of the Obra Dinn.

Tried Atomic Heart for an hour or two and I think I’m done with it. I found the loot collecting tedious, the upgrades felt excessive and padded, the characters overbearing, and combat was just okay. I think this could’ve been massively improved by cutting 30-50% of the play length by streamlining loot and progression and cutting weaker content. But I’m almost always the one saying games are too long and could be dramatically improved by cutting.

Finished another storyline in Octopath Traveler (1). I’ve finished 4 of the 8 main stories now. I still enjoy it, but just a little bit at a time.

Put a bit of time into Jedi Fallen Order. I’ve enjoyed it a lot more after dropping difficulty to baby mode and just blasting through story. Something about the movement or progression or exploration feels tiring to me. Especially backtracking through worlds I’ve already visited once or twice. I’m maybe halfway through and debating just watching a YouTube video for the remainder of the story…

Still making progress in Tears of the Kingdom. Maybe 25-30 hours in. I’ve started using the official guide’s “companion” for sections I’ve personally completed already. I really like how they wrote it as spoiler free as possible, with suggestions of landmarks or quests to get to that make sense for each section you’ve done. I had completely missed a couple armor sets that will be very handy!

I agree.

After S1, I read quite far ahead in the LN. This is the first anime that I have prior knowledge for, and it’s kinda strange. I like what they did with S2E0, which skimmed down and simplified things in a way I thought was reasonable. And I really like the relatively minor changes they made with S2E1. It really focused on the important things and didn’t get too lost in detail.

But with this episode, there was quite a lot of detail and pacing that was lost because they went through events so quickly. The snow drakes section was a lot simpler, but I think got to the important moments well. But the rescue scene, there was quite a lot more detail that was skipped, especially after discovering Sara and trying to rescue her. It felt much more dramatic. Instead, they basically showed it mostly as an easy cakewalk for Rudeus, which I guess works okay for how strong he is, but it wasn’t that simple in the LN. I think I preferred the higher excitement and drama of drawing it out a bit. But then it wouldn’t have fit into one episode, so that’s probably why it was cut.

Still loved the episode and really loving the animation this season. Glad it’s not dropping quality much from S1.

Obviously most have heard of the big games here.

But I want to highlight one that many will scoff at: My Little Pony: Adventure in Maretime Bay. This game was great for my little kiddos. We’ve been very into ponies lately (for those who know, it’s following the cast from “the new generation”), and they loved the very basic story and gameplay it provided, with at least a modest budget for animation. Surprisingly decent for a very young game.

From what I understand, it’s filling in parts of the story that were skipped in S1. So not really a S2, and not really a spin-off. I’m not sure exactly, but I think the first couple episodes of Pieces were set roughly 1/3 of the way through S1?

I’m enjoying seeing the characters again, and there have been some nice moments.

Current season definitely watching:

• Mushoku Tensei S2
• Horimiya - Pieces

Current season trying out:

• Vending Machine
• Helck

Trying to catch up to possibly watch this season:

• Jujutsu Kaisen

Finishing up from last season:

• The Dangers in my Heart
• Loving Yamada at Level 999
• Skip & Loafer