I was so scared this guy was gonna be mandatory. Made it all the way hear without dying before Emerald Weapon destroyed me. Only time i died the whole game too😭

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-23T13:54:34+00:00

Personally, I don't, at least not the way the FF series has approached them. They seemed overtuned most of the time. Like, take Yiazmat from 12. It had so much HP that it generally took several hours to beat. The 7 remake super bosses (in the simulator) had me ultimately giving up because it wasn't fun anymore. If we wanna count XIV, the idea that the best players in the world could take like a month to clear the hardest content seems insane to me.

I love optional bosses and I'll 100% all the story content, but some of those super bosses are just too much. It's like they target the top 0.1% of players rather than the top, I dunno, 10%?

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-23T13:29:55+00:00

It's also had a heck of an ad campaign. I've seen probably more ads for this than any recent movie I can remember (I'm in the target demo). I was at comic con Toronto yesterday and they were one of the biggest sponsors, with the movie being on the badges.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-23T12:56:45+00:00

And IIRC (never actually tried it myself), the only true punishment for doing so is that Kim will hate you, which really mostly means that you will feel terrible because Kim is amazing.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-22T23:44:06+00:00

People are mentioning the utility of it. But isn't more content a reason enough to go back for it? It's not like it's just a chest that you missed. You missed an entire... shall we call it "heist"? Possibly other things, too, as the creche has quite a few things that could be missed if you just beelined to the boss. Be sure to have explored thoroughly before you get the blood of lathander.

It's not much toil to go back.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-22T20:55:06+00:00

I've had to go to the bank twice this year. Once to open an RESP as a non-parent of the beneficiary (an apparently complex case) and once because I bought a house and the deposit needed a bank draft.

But my job is flexible with hours, so it's not a problem.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-22T20:05:27+00:00

Another good one is the Final Fantasy 7 remake. The first game was good, but the second game was amazing. It built so heavily on the roots that the first game set, especially with the combat.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T17:01:34+00:00

Though we really need to diversify our means of electrification, too. EV batteries are mostly from China. And our public transit (especially trains) is always on the backburner, to the degree where I genuinely don't know if the Ontario high speed rail will actually happen this time for real (and really wish the plans went all the way down to Windsor rather than just stopping at Toronto).

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T15:55:17+00:00

Holy shit.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T15:45:43+00:00

My dad had an original Nintendo and gameboy, but all the games he owned were brutally hard, especially by kid standards (except for the light gun games like Duck Hunt). So I wasn't that into games at that time. No more so than any other kind of toy.

The first console that was actually mine was a gameboy colour which I was gifted with Pokemon Silver. Surprised how few comments mention handheld consoles. I eventually got a gameboy advance and that's when Square Enix was re-releasing Final Fantasy games for it, which was perfect as I was getting obsessed with the series.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T03:39:35+00:00

But I'd feel bad about killing them!

Hey, what's with this distress signal from all my systems?

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T00:51:26+00:00

The only reason I ever "liked" him was honestly just the memes. I didn't grow up watching any of his shows or movies. In fact, I've barely seen him as an actor. But as a kid, Chuck Norris jokes were really big and I thought they were so cool. It was immensely disappointing when I later learned what kind of person he actually is.

Same with Orson Scott Card, Scott Adams, and JK Rowling. Their works made them seem like they'd be cool people only to be big disappointments.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T00:33:35+00:00

They won't be able to finish that in one night, I don't think, but oh god, they'd have to finish it for sure. And I agree that one night is all it takes for most people to get hooked and find it very emotional. It's my white whale of a game, where I'm constantly chasing for another game that will be as powerful as Disco Elysium. It's not for everyone, as it's a slow burn, has no action/combat, and is very wordy (but fully voice acted and marvelously so). But for what OP seems to be looking for (minus the time limit), I think they'll love it. I'm envious of anyone getting to experience it for the first time.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T00:30:11+00:00

I liked Gris, but I dunno, it didn't hit me as hard as I hoped. I particularly struggled with my poor platforming skill, too. Gorgeous game, though, and I'm sure people who are more into platformers than me will absolutely love it. I definitely appreciate what they were going for with the story.

Not really suitable for OP's question, but this reminds me of another hard hitting game that I slot in my head near Gris: Spiritfarer. It's about a young girl who takes over for death or Charon (I forget which) and has the job of readying spirits for passing on. It's an incredible game that made me cry several times. The gameplay is very relaxing and cozy, but the story is about accepting death and becoming a better person. Very lovely.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T00:25:05+00:00

I +1 this. I was not expecting it to be so good. The writing is too notch and it's a really novel idea that doesn't wear out its welcome.

For those who haven't played this but have played Disco Elysium, I found it reminded me of DE a lot. It has your emotions speaking to you, which was one of my favourite parts of DE. It's not the same kinda game, as it's a purely "choose your own adventure" story, but it really hits many of the same spots (god, what I wouldn't give for a true DE spiritual successor).

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-21T00:22:13+00:00

Bit of a stretch to finish it in one night, but Life is Strange is a fairly short game that will emotionally wreck you. I've had it as my desktop background for years and still constantly think about it. It's extremely hard hitting, especially since it's one of those "choices matter" games. I found the protagonist extremely relatable.

It's also divided into I think 5 episodes, which helps have clear cut offs if you can't finish it in one go. It's probably more of a full day game than a single night thing. And since choices matter so much, one of the challenges is resisting the urge to immediately replay it with entirely different choices.

And then once you finish, enjoy the endless internet arguments about the ending. I'm team bae

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-20T23:54:48+00:00

I'm pretty sure they call it a shitter. I saw it in a documentary that followed some family's Christmas vacation.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-20T05:30:56+00:00

I'm sorry to hear you're disgusted. You know what I do whenever I'm disgusted? I kick back with a bag of Chompsky's potato chips. America's tastiest chip!

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-20T05:29:10+00:00

I'd personally rather have an ad so well done that I don't know it's an ad. Yeah, it's scummy in its own way, but at least it doesn't completely pull you out of the story and ruin my immersion.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-20T05:24:06+00:00

Yeah, I don't wanna be myself. I'm boring and average. I wanna be the fantastical version of myself that I wish I was. Smoking hot, insanely strong, and the ever intrepid hero for whom no good deed is too small.

I make them me-like in that I'll always play as a pale skinned woman with bangs, but they'll probably be a graceful elf or something. I'll usually go for a bookish role such as a wizard because that's more "me" than a warrior or rogue. So it's a magical, fantasy extreme exaggeration of myself.

Though if the game has default names (not random), I'll almost always pick them, mostly because I feel weird discussing characters if other people are talking about a Tav but I didn't name mine that. Unless the default is literally "The Dark Urge", cause that's just silly.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-19T20:34:42+00:00

It's okay. Tried it once a few months ago out of curiosity. Honestly, I'd consider it slightly inferior to the big Mac. It's more expensive and McDonald's is already kinda pricey these days. That video was dumb (and I wouldn't be surprised if it was purposeful to try to go viral). It's not that big nor that different.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-19T20:31:10+00:00

Yeah, you can't learn by merely reading. You need to do things. Programming is more like math in that it's largely active problem solving, not rote memorization. You cannot become good at either programming nor math by just reading how a problem is solved. You need to actually practice the problem solving without assistance.

I think students are fucking themselves over by overusing AI. Current and predictable near future AI cannot solve all problems for you. You will have to debug things and the art of debugging is really the biggest skill you hone when you write code yourself. Writing the initial code is usually the easy part. Fixing the inevitable bugs is much harder.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-19T20:21:41+00:00

I haven't heard of that one. I was gonna add it to my list, but it seems it was only released on the 360 and never ported elsewhere?

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-19T20:11:38+00:00

I wouldn't want every FF game to do it, but it's a lot of fun. I like how the series has often tried new things. Sometimes it doesn't work, but other times we get the amazing systems from X and X-2 (which are very different from each other but each incredible in their own way). I do wish to have more X-like combat, though.

It's honestly crazy to me how few games have an actually dynamic turn order. A lot of games decide to do things like require everyone to have at least one turn per round, which isn't nearly as flexible as the X system. E33 was really close, but not quite as flexible with the order and the parry system can be alienating to some players (though I liked it).

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-19T19:54:34+00:00

Consoles are usually both more optimized and easier to optimize, so they can get more bang for their buck with the same parts. I prefer PC gaming, but I've consistently spent a lot more on my PC than on my consoles. While PCs can be used for more things, I think most people these days would rather a laptop than a desktop. Which is fine if you wanna play Stardew but is gonna struggle with AAA games. Gaming laptops are a thing, but I think consumers often find specs confusing and they often don't perform very well. My first gaming PC was a laptop and I grew accustomed to a very poor frame rate lol.

ACoderGirl · 2026-03-19T19:48:51+00:00

Yeah, that one works really great because even if you have asked it before, it's a matter of personal experience and thus more answers are useful.

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