NMS certainly evolved a lot, but I wouldn’t call it incredible. Also, despite the game universe being absurdly large, you can see everything there is to see visiting less than 20 star systems
All the daily quicksilver quests are a fucking chore, too.
I love how the 3 first music you hear are one of inner calm, with Ovelia praying, suddenly changing to tension with the arrival of enemy soldiers and finally one of the best combat music of the game
Tactics is my favorite by far, possibly because of how grounded its story feels compared to most other Final Fantasy. The tactical combat is also amazing, unlocking the jobs from playing and leveling up different combos instead of at set points of the story (FF3, FF5) was very engaging. There was a lot to discover and teen me didn’t access GameFaqs often back then.
Anyday now I’m going to spend “decades” playing just to get the child prince into his teen years. I’m 99% sure the texts of the game won’t change, but it’ll be funny nonetheless.
Teenage me was blown away by the “free, unlimited” use of Guardian Force (summons in previous games). First time summoning Shiva was magical.
The worst part, for me, was the excessive use of FMV parts, mostly because my PSX suffered a cousin-related accident and would, more often than not, fail to properly play videos. It was like 5s, freeze for 3s, 1s play, another second frozen, 10s…
He’ll be so pissed off that he can barely speak as he powers through game after game to get them done so he can go to bed.
If you want to help him get out of that, give him a burn or two every once in a while: “How are your second, third and fourth jobs coming along?” - “With all that work you do, you should ask for a raise!”
Hopefully he’ll realize he’s not playing, but working, and give up on that. Hopefully.
Not every game needs a story or campaign you can finish to be enjoyable. Playing random skirmishes in Age of Empires 2 or Supreme Commander can be loads of fun. Civilization 5 has scenarios that I suspect most players don’t even know exist (also, you can play Unciv for free). You can pick up and put down much like you’d do to boardgames.
Then there’s “infinite” games like Cities Skyline, RimWorld, Dwarf Fortress, Satisfactory. It’s ok to want once and done games, but games that you want to replay when they lack any mtx or dark patterns speaks something about your enjoyment
WoW auction house feelings right there. Dunno how it is nowadays, but I remember that back on Battle for Azeroth, that was the only way to get the 5 million gold for a super exclusive mount
Comparing P2W to cheating is spot on, especially as these are much more heavily advertised and used in PvP games. What really annoys me is when these players, or similars that never go after equivalent players, feel all superior despite showing zero skill
On WoW, I remember playing a few times on instant 255 private servers, back in 2007-2010. It felt so damn pointless to me, especially as the raids still needed you to make a raid group. I enjoyed a portion of the grind, even as a mostly solo player.
Coming from their director of monetization, all I hear is “waaah waaah booo waaah”
All this nickel and diming is super profitable and it shows. Just because it makes them fuckloads of money doesn’t mean we should applaud it, because it awful for the customers.
Albion Online has a fully player-driven economy (or at least had last time I played it, back in 2022, prolly still does)
You can play it almost entirely as a gatherer, crafter or merchant (auction houses/markets are local to the cities they’re in), avoiding combat nearly everywhere. It does put a lot of emphasis on PVP tho, but at least the areas/maps where that can happen are clearly marked. Higher level materials are only found in these pvp maps, though it can take quite a while until you can even start gathering them.
AFAIK, all gear that drops from dungeons can be crafted as well. Nothing is character bound and being on red or black maps means that you lose all your stuff being carried on death.