most realistic sounding fakenews tbh

I will go even further and state that all video games are fun

I am a Souls fan and I agree with most of everything you say. I am also the type who plays games on the hard difficulty settings and installs mods to make it even harder. I like being challenged and forced to learn and adapt and find new ways to use the mechanics provided by the game in order to succeed. When I was younger and had more spare time I did SL1 challenge runs in the Souls games, in DS3 I got some 3/4 through all the bosses before I got a job and just didn't have the time and energy to perfect boss patterns anymore. It was very fun, my favorite bit was fighting the dope pope and changing gear during his phase switch. I found short rolls more favorable in his 1st phase as they landed me in perfect position for a punish after baiting his jumping lunge combo and long rolls more reliable during the 2nd to not get caught by the double.

However, my take on this particular subject is that I am a radical difficulty anarchist and people should be allowed to enjoy single player games in whatever ways they deem personally fun, even if it goes against the intended experience and core ideas of the game. If there was an option that allowed you to just iddqd your way through Fromsoft games or any other game where difficulty is part of the core game design, then I uncritically support their freedom to pick it and find fun in the game in their own way, even if it's just vibing and taking in the scenery without engaging with the intended process. The only truly wrong way to play a single player game is if you are not having fun.

I have played other games where hardship is an intended part of the experience yet they provide difficulty settings that let you fuck all that noise and just brute-force your way through the game if you so desire. They have a description that explains you will not get the intended experience the game was meant to convey, but they empower you to disregard it and engage the game on your own terms. I don't think the soulslike niche is in any way different or above such features and I fully support a god mode toggle that says "Hey, we worked hard to create a finely balanced gameplay loop that encourages learning from your mistakes and mastering the mechanics. We strongly believe you will get the most out of our game by giving it a chance and persevering, but if you truly do not care about that turn this on to enable chill vibes mode".

Never been into jrpgs but I wish you all a very pleasant death to america

Missed all the fun being out for the evening. I just want to inform you that I am not even exaggerating for comedic purposes that much, here is a random video found by typing "mongol influence on russian culture" on google and clicking the video tab. It features bangers such as "It has been several hundred years in their genetic inheritance that authoritarianism is the only solution".

https://youtu.be/5F45i0v_u6s?t=234

Damn. I haven't heard this one in uni but I had a professor who was casually peddling Spengler and some other sus figures.

They literally think the Russian brainpan is incapable of comprehending democracy due to them assimilating Mongolo-Asiatic authoritarianism genes in the time they were under Mongol rule so probably, yeah.

coming soon to /r/landlords: As a Catholic landowner, how can I legally check that my tenants are not engaging in homosexual activities on my property?

it's not just americans, I live outside the anglosphere and I have been informed by the feline skull measurers that my bicolor cat is genetically destined to be temperamental

This absolutely has to be a bit, I refuse to believe such a caricature of a person actually exists

Gonna keep it to things not already mentioned.

Big standalone fangame/total conversion:

• Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos, built off of Gothic 2. Was my GOTY when it came out, and I consider it better than anything the actual developers released since Gothic 2. I really dig the way it expands the original game's systems, like apprenticeship. I have some complaints about it but it's nothing major, and I overall greatly enjoyed my time with it, planning a new run when the big 2.0 update drops.

Mod packs:

• Morrowind Sharp, it's like Viva New Vegas for Morrowind, I always use it as a base for my own setups, but it's great as is for new players to get a patched, QoL enhanced and face-lifted vanilla-like experience.

Individual mods:

• Global Escalation for Squad - just a huge expansion-sized load of content
• Beautiful Cities of Morrowind, for bringing the game's settlements closer to their concept art, implementing a lot of the new fan-made resources to make places more distinct and detailed while having a clear scope and keeping within vanilla-like territory
• Kenshi Kaizo, touches up and expands the existing content without bloating itself by filling the map with all sorts of new factions of varying quality and lore-adherence
• The Stardew Valley mod that adds a whole bunch of cat skins so I can have my irl cat in the game. And on the topic, SDV Expanded and Ridgeside Village when I just want more Stardew Valley stuff.