Finished Planet Laika last night. It's
quite an experience; I'm still thinking about some of the elements of the story, but I can easily say there are very few games out there like it. Can't wait to talk more about it, but I still need to do something for Phantasy Star IV and Record of Lodoss War first.
Squeezing in some time with Horizon Forbidden West as well. Still early on and doing some of the sidequests will probably spend time on the mini-games as well. It's a long-hauler on my end given its size but I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm probably going to stick with the Hunter and Medic classes for builds primarily, and do enough for the Machine class to unlock mounting.
As well, the combat's been clicking more with me; I'm not particularly great at melee in this game (I do wish there was a way to defend with weapons even if that wore down their endurance) but feels like going mid/long-range with arrows and traps, reserving melee for finishing blows works best with my playstyle.
Also finished Go Go Ackman 3 over the weekend; I like the game, it's quite funny and it's got a lot of heart. Those bosses are a bit more challenging than they'd seem tho due to some sloppy hitboxes on the characters (at least that's how it felt like), and the final boss can go kick rocks. Still though, it's fun playing through the more niche, lesser-known SFC/MegaDrive-era platformers and games in general.
Don't have a lot of time to play games anymore, so mostly on weekends.
That's my issue as well. I try to squeeze in about a couple hours of HFW every other weekday, then get more time in on the weekends but that gets shared with playing retro games. Goodness forbid I start up another JRPG too soon but it's probably gonna happen. If some of references are correct and considering my current pace, if I only focus on main content and maybe a few side events I could finish HFW within four weeks.
But it'll probably be a bit longer than that because I like to explore around for collectibles and there are some mini-games I want to play, plus a few side-quests I will do along the way. That said tho it should still fit nicely in my gaming schedule for the next month or two as there are no other massive games I'd be playing outside of maybe another JRPG (which I'm currently still deciding between, I like to do one for each major retro system at a time so it'll probably be something between Saturn or PC-Engine/CD next), and maybe some other weird retro game which could be anything big or small (no telling with them).
Probably a good thing I'm waiting until later in the year to pick up Elden Ring and GT7 (if I manage to pick up a PS5). Wouldn't mind Starfield either but that'd depend on PC. GoW Ragnarok I could probably get by with that on PS4.