I really, *really* liked Wo Long...I rated it a 4/5 but I enjoyed it as much as some 5/5 games, if that makes sense. I keep contemplating taking the bite on the DLC. It can be so hard to get back into the rhythm of a Soulslike after a long time away, though!

"I will finish a game at some point!" I know that feeling.

I agree, there is a certain flow to Sekiro's combat that is unlike any other Soulsborne game—it's almost more like a rhythm game at times. When I'm standing in front of a fellow swordsman and deflecting all of their attacks in turn, it almost reminds me of the samurai equivalent of Punch-Out! I think it was early 2020 that I played through nearly the entire game—I had a really, really tough time but I made it to the endgame, basically just before the final dash to Isshin. But I lost my nerve and put the game down.

Recently playing Elden Ring made me anxious to go back to Sekiro, though, because I was missing that particular rhythm of combat...deflecting attacks and landing deathblows in a dance-like flow state just really feels empowering as a player. So I started a new file and had a much easier time of things—I say "much easier" but a few bosses, like Guardian Ape and Owl Father, still felt like mini-roadblocks. Still, it was nothing like my first time through the game. I think the early mini-bosses and encounters like Chained Ogre are so difficult, in part, because you haven't leveled up your character yet.

As for Demon of Hatred...yeah, that particular challenge is going to have to wait for another playthrough, ha ha.

I don't know if Sekiro is the hardest game I've ever beaten in my gaming career, but right now it feels like it is! That last fight with Isshin took me many, many tries (I'm going to say between 30 and 50 tries). After a certain point I could pretty reliably reach Isshin's third phase, but I was mostly just trying to dodge his lightning attack and therefore I wasn't building up enough posture damage; on my first run where I really, purposefully tried to throw his lightning attacks back at him, it turned the tide and I finally beat him.

If I had to rank the hardest bosses for me: 1.) Isshin by far, 2.) Guardian Ape, 3.) Owl Father, 4.) Madame Butterfly, and 5.) Genichiro. Genichiro was probably my favorite fight, though, because it felt like a true test of your abilities up to that point. (Same goes for Isshin, but that fight takes it to another level. I can't say that fight ever really felt 'unfair,' but it is an extremely demanding test of the player's abilities. I think maybe too demanding—you have to have razor focus for the duration of the fight.) What was your experience with Isshin like?

Yeah, so, I cheated not only the game but also myself and so on, i.e. I dropped Sekiro at the final boss' final phase. I'm really not the kind of person who can grind for something until I achieve it, and I even got hands-on help by a friend who did the Gamecenter CX thing where he got me to the final phase so I could focus on just trying to beat it (of course I had reached it before by my own but that's where I got completely and utterly stuck). We did this for maybe two hours before I lost my temper and called it quits. I don't think I've ever been as frustrated with a game as I've been with Sekiro. It's a really, really good game which is why I even struggled on with it but in the end I was really fed up with getting angry over me never getting to a point where I felt I had any real intuitive understanding of the game's core mechanics.
Anyway, thanks for you offering your advice like a year ago or so.

I haven't played Fata Morgana yet, but it is on the list (or backlog). I'd also recommend Steins:Gate. It does have a long, slow start, but if you get far enough you'll see how it makes sense. There's also an anime version if that is easier.
Edit: Should have added Steins;Gate can get really depressing too. Not the first half, but the second half doesn't hold back.

Yeah, I'm gonna take the time to look around for more of the story in Trails in the Sky Chapter 3. I noticed early on that even the book series are important too (Carnelia in this case). I decided to play on easy though to make everything a little smoother

Thanks. My track record with final bosses that I get stuck on isn't too good, I've noticed I tend to abandon a game if I don't finish it in a reasonable amount of tries. After surviving Sekiro for a while I started to be able to feel how much effort a boss would need in order to be defeated, i.e. "This is doable, I'm just fucking it up" or "I have no idea how to do this and need to rearrange my entire brain". The final boss seems to me like it's in that first category, so I just need to stop being impatient and set aside an afternoon for it. If I still can't do it I'll ask for your advice!

Ooo, Yakuza 3. That game has a special place in my heart cause it was my first in the series, which has since become one of my favorites in gaming. In hindsight, I still really love the quaintness of the Okinawa setting.

On Sekiro: It took me forever to adapt to the controls and (PvE) gameplay and I was on the very brink of ragedropping it several times, but *very* slowly and with lots of advice from a friend who had actually ragedropped it for a year before going back, beating it and subsequently praising it to the skies, I unlearned my soulsborne approach to the battling and instead learned how to succesfully progress. I really liked the setting and stealth mechanics right away, but it was only somewhere halfway through I started to actually understand and appreciate the battle system.
I'm pretty sure I'm right at the end now.

Having played through all of Scholar of the First Sin, I would say I found Sekiro to be more difficult/challenging, but, yeah, Dark Souls II sticks in my mind as the most annoying, most stupid-hard FromSoft game I've played. I was watching that TV series Devs earlier this year and there's a brief scene where a character is playing the Iron Keep area of Dark Souls II and I had a mini-PTSD flashback to that part of the game (easily the hardest section for me).

You're right, it does take a little while to wrap your head around the controls in Astral Chain, but once you do the combat is a whole lot of fun. I think I was expecting a more linear, combat-heavy, stage-based design to the game akin to Bayonetta, but it's almost more of an 'open world' (or open hub) structure with tons of sidequests—which strangely reminds me of the Yakuza games. About the only thing I don't like, though, is the repetitiveness of vacuuming up all the Red Corruption; everything else is pretty darn fun.

For whatever reason, I kinda burnt out on Sekiro shortly after where you're at in the game. What's weird is that even though some of the bosses like Madame Butterfly, Genichiro, and the Owl probably took me many more tries, the boss I have the most PTSD flashbacks about is the Guardian Ape...

Hope you enjoy Yakuza Kiwami 2! The substories are the highlights of the Yakuza games, but Y2 definitely has one of the strangest...

Curious to hear what's frustrating about Divinity 2? We plan to co-op the first game together and then buy the second if we like it well enough.

It's so tough to say - I think it depends on how much you're interested in the Assassin's Creed mythology and American history. If you dig that stuff, it might be enough to carry you through the underwhelming gameplay. I frequently found myself feeling like the next combat or stealth sequences in III were something I had to suffer or get through in order to be rewarded by the next cutscene - whereas in Odyssey, I had a blast just sneaking around and engaging in combat. As a protagonist, Connor isn't particularly likable either, but I did really enjoy the way Part III wove in a lot of the key figures and moments of the Revolutionary War, while providing some historical reference in the menus for players to read through if they're so inclined (I was).

So, Part III wasn't particularly fun to play, but the backdrop of the American frontier was certainly immersive to explore and the storyline is halfway compelling. I will say, having only played Black Flag for a few hours, it is much, much more enjoyable and so far seems to be up there with Part II and Odyssey as one of my favorite installments in the series.

NieR: Automata!
That's a good game, though parts of it are better if you've played NieR before. You have to beat it a few times to see all of the story, though after ending B I'd recommend backing up your save data.

Banner Saga 2 is really great. If you were going to go for it, right after beating 1 is a good time, given that the difficulty and mechanical complexity is a linear continuation from the end of the first game.

Yeah, XIII is tough for having some really challenging bosses. FFII is the true black sheep of the series.

Nice job on beating the main series Final Fantasy games! I still need to beat XIII and XV.

Good luck with the Persona marathon! I worried about having enough time for a while, but then they kept delaying Persona 5. There's no good reason to delay it again though.