Its true… i think the fundamental formula is that it makes you an explorer first- turns you loose with a very vague objective and lets you discover… map, traversal, sequence skips, w/e and gives you “clues” while letting you feel empowered to do things in your own order/way/time… thus making you feel clever.

Zeldas, you could say, are more linear, more “adventure” in progression than exploration… but its not black n white and each title has varying degrees of freedom

Sorry late reply… yeah i realized a lot of my frustration was trying to play spoiler free… but this game seems to beg for guides/walkthroughs, and i agree w you i really dont like games that feel super dependent on constantly checking a guide not to mention just breaking your immersion n taking you out of the gameplay… but some of the stuff is like “no way im just figuring that out!” Like egregious level of “hidden area behind a hidden area to fight a hidden boss that unlocks a hidden upgrade” level shit. Its one more in a long list of really bummer decisions from this team.

Its my no.1 genre… i have played A LOT of them. People have already hit on the “big three” - hollow knight, super metroid and castlevania SOTN… heres lesser mentioned gems… sure, they’re not as incredible as those 3 genre topping master pieces, but theyre super super good and worth a play.

• alwas awakening
• tunic*
• hyper light drifter*
• hob*
• Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R)
• Metroid Dread
• castlevania dawn of sorrows/aria of sorrow
• axiom verge
• metroid prime
• castlevania 3
• metroid zero mission
• SM: ancient chozo**
• SM: Ascent**
• 9 Sols

*yes, there could be called “zelda-likes” instead of metroid vanias, but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousins… if you like one you might like the other.

** these are romhacks…,very very good ones. You need a rom of super metroid and emulator to play em.

Hot take alert
Hollow knight silksong.

Its such a huge letdown for me as a massive fan of Hk… but they did so many things that are just… mean. They disrespect the player constantly… tc actually TROLLS YOU with trick benches n shit. But mainly waste so much of your time with shitty padded content. Fucking fetch quests, timed ‘flower’ quests by the dozen. Most of the primary content ends up being “just like hollow knight, but worse, and now do 10x more of the worse version.” So its unoriginal AND inferior to the source.

I tried so hard to love it and its nothing but frustration in the end.

Glad you got it working. Like i said, i have gotten it working as well, but never ‘for good’ My hunch is that its also related to distro… as they work fine on my fedora-based laptop, but this issue always pops up on debian based ones. Anyway, since they have become sort of dedicated desk phones, i will just leave em plugged in. Some things just arent worth the effort

Man, this one is rage inducing. I run up against issues all the time. I am such a sucker for sony’ excellent hardware that i always end up fighting their absolute shit software/implementation.

To this day i still plug my wh-mx10004 … (Or whatever their stupid number is cause sony thinks a ten digit alphanumeric code is the catchiest name for their products…) b/c every time they connect by bt they will ONLY do ‘handsfree’ codec, yknow, the one that sounds like shit for phone calls. I have done everything… pavucontrol, pipewire, wireplumber, blueman, cli system level shit and yes i can force it to proper high def audio after some really annoying steps… but then ill start up a game or something and it suddenly goes “nope! This calls cor handset audio!” And switches itself back.

Honestly, blue tooth as a protocol is shit, and has never really worked that great but sony always seems to bring out the worst of it.

Yes, the problem is sony. Im sorry for your frustration. For me, in the end, i went w the 3.5 mm jack because i am just so sick of wasting effort on this bs