Yes. I know the “not real communism” is a bit of a meme, but tankies are actually just fascists.

I liked Metroid Dread a lot. I feel like it’s a good starting point for Metroidvanias too because the game does a good job nudging you in the right direction e.g. by closing off certain areas but still letting you explore and figure out where to go. I especially enjoyed the movement, it feels very fluid and satisfying.

The only major issue I had with the game was that performance is really bad in a few encounters. Most of the time it runs fine though. It’s also not super long. I prefer a game that doesn’t overstay its welcome, but if you’re looking for something that is good value for money in terms of playtime there might be better options.

One of my favourite games! I’ve got over 400 hours on Steam and some more on mobile. Did all achievements but I’m still struggling with A20 Heart kills so I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. My favourite class is probably the Silent. I also like the Watcher a lot, but she’s a bit too easy and her decks can feel a bit too similar. The Ironclad has grown on me since I’ve realised that the exhaust cards are good actually. And that he’s not really focused on attacks. Defect is my least favourite but I do play all four. My favourite way to win is with Snecko Eye! Getting an early Snecko Eye and then picking all the expensive cards is a lot of fun.

I’ve been meaning to play a few similar games like Monster Train or Wildfrost but so far I’ve always felt like I need to get back to StS to improve a bit more instead.

For people looking to improve I’d recommend jorbs and Baalorlord on Twitch and YouTube, they’re chill and very good at the game.

Yeah, it may not be as popular as Mario or Zelda, but I wouldn’t say it’s “unfairly forgotten”. People who have played the game tend to be pretty vocal about it. And justifiably so, I’ve never had a comparable experience in another game. I wish I could forget about it and play it again.

MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 are a great way to play together. With 5 players you can exactly fill a party in both games.

RTS games like Starcraft 2 (which is free now) or Age of Empires could also be fun, but 5 players is a bit awkward because it’s too many for a single team and uneven so you can’t play like a 3v3. But at least in SC2 there’s a 2v2 and a 3v3 ladder so you could always split into two teams or play a free for all. There are also a bunch of cool custom games in the arcade like Ice Baneling Escape or Zealot Hockey you could try.

Very different, but Trackmania is also fun with friends. Not the right choice if you enjoy ramming your friends off the road, but there are probably other games for that too. To set up and play in a club/server you’d need club access which costs like $20 a year, but you can try the game for free first to see if you like it. You can compete for records on a map, play an RPG together (a map style where the focus is on finding the right way instead of just racing) or build tracks for each other.

You could try an ARPG, unfortunately most of them (Diablo, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch) seem to limit parties to 4 players, but Path of Exile allows up to six. And if you’re not serious about the end game you’ll never need to spend any money (if you are it’s like $40 for stash tabs one time and you’re set forever).

That’s a good point, but I feel like there are reasonable solutions for that like a disclaimer when buying the game digitally. For the physical version they could either put a sticker on it or just delay the physical version only. I also think that people who are informed enough to know about specific features like that are more likely to hear about this discourse.

What I don’t understand is why they don’t just release both Xbox versions without split screen and then try to patch it in later. That way they’d satisfy the feature parity requirement (as I understand it) and people could at least play the game. I love that they’re still doing split screen despite it seemingly having fallen out of favour these days, but it’s hardly an essential feature.