DreamyMeadow

Yup, thinking back on it I think you nailed it. Especially that part about being more "free to just enjoy things". I mean it usually almost goes without saying but I wish I could at least somehow do it - enjoy things I want to enjoy (not just games) without having any thoughts in the back of the back of my mind which are bogging me down. I am quite sure you are correct on this part. And the first part is quite true as well, I have x amount of games on my two PlayStations, y amount of games on GOG and z amount of games on Steam. Similar to your experience, back when I was playing FF9 I remember I only had 3-4 games in total, too. FF9, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo and Crash 2. So you are also quite right on this point. Right now even when I am playing a game, I am not fully concentrated on it because of that "mental tax of life" + I am always thinking about my catalogue of games I wanna play and even of games I should get and try, etc. So yes, perhaps I need to learn to relax :) Three games are coming this year which I am extra excited about - Baldur's Gate 3, Hollow Knight 2 (hopefully!) and Hades 2. I will do my best to tackle just one at the time without any of these pressures and we'll see how it goes. And even if I cannot really devote as much time to playing as I could back then, I will just take longer. Who says I need to finish a game in any amount of time? Thanks for "tiny therapy", Crotaro! :) Maybe I'll update you here later this year about this. Hopefully, my mind won't be as weak as it was when I played Sekiro and Hollow Knight - after first trouble of getting something, I've tried once or twice to get it and then - immediately ran to internet. I will try to avoid this with these 3 games (and hopefully others).

P.S. I am now replaying FF9 on emulator and I remembered so many things even after 20 years :) so "technically" it's not this "gameplay challenge" it was back then but still having an amazing time with it because now I am picking up things in story and dialogue that went over my 12 year old head.

Some of these were already mentioned but nevertheless, amazing music is present in many great games!

Final Fantasy IX, Hollow Knight, Final Fantasy XIV, Witcher 3, Outer Wilds, The Talos Principle, Disco Elysium..

But my absolute favourite soundtrack from a game is one that I love even more than the game itself (which is absolutely fantastic, too!).

NieR: Automata - the music is just otherworldly. It fits the game but even when I am just listening to the soundtrack by itself it just makes me feel things. An absolute masterpiece.

IGOR by Tyler, the Creator.

You said you like good storytelling and nice lyrics. Well, this album has that in spades and also sounds amazingly! It's about a love triangle mainly but touches on other things as well. Not exactly my favourite album but one of my favourites and if you like storytelling and hip hop at least a bit, you may really like this album!

I am now in a process of trying to "re-group" some of my friends to play together again. I don't have any specific games yet that I am gonna propose to for us to try out but definitely there is one general thing I'd recommend.

You mentioned you were never "the ultra competitive types" but I'd suggest to not go into even a mild competitiveness territory (no Dota, LoL, Apex or any competitive games of this sort). We even tried stuff like mythic + dungeons in WoW in past or ultimate raids in FFXIV as casually as possible but over time it was obvious it's basically "impossible" to get everyone on the same page. Various expectations and goals evolved for everyone and we eventually couldn't agree on anything and splintered and eventually fully disbanded all of our tries into even "very mildly competitive gaming". Usually these games are IMHO not very good at rewarding "failure". And I think this will sooner or later lead to some issues (sure did for us).

Obviously, YMMV but I'd strongly recommend (based on my experience) only absolutely non-competitive, fully chill gaming that is basically aimless and the only aim is to have fun together. Not beat a certain boss or get a certain rating or anything of this sort.

Here is a list of games I am thinking about: Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Portal 2, Divinity: Original Sin 2 (also Baldur's Gate 3 coming soon), Deep Rock Galactic, Risk of Rain 2, Monster Hunter Rise, Grounded for example.

You are quite right that there are indeed two variants of difficulty. I agree that one evolved with what is technically possible as you describe and yea, then there is that mental difficulty you mentioned about Morrowind.

I more or less basically gave up on these extremely complex games (mechanics and systems wise) because they (IMHO obviously) push you into spending too much time to do meta-research and studying. And I just don't wanna spend more time outside of the game than I do in game + this also starts to feel like "a job" to some degree. Or obviously you can be intelligent and very into it and perhaps realize how these mechanics work yourself but as you mention - some games are just extremely complex IMHO (usually these are strategic games but also others like competitive games, etc.) and the collective knowledge of the internet is in my opinion taken into account while designing these systems.

But yea, then there is that mental difficulty. I'd say Tunic falls into this category. And there are many games like these even among modern AAA titles sometimes (not in that "full scope" like say the mentioned Morrowind). But I wonder if there are people who came to these conclusion by themselves. I mean obviously these things got solved but how? Was it a person by themself or was it a collaborative effort on a site/chat channel or w/e?

Because I am thinking about this a lot and unless I am lying to myself, when I was a kid, I almost 100% FF9 (the only thing I didn't find/do looking back now is that I never did a speedrun (this concept was absolutely unimaginable to me until relatively recently even) so I didn't get Excalibur II and I haven't beaten Ozma - but I found it). And I wonder if that was just me spending a lot of time on the game, enjoying it and thinking about it and piecing stuff together eventually and now I am perhaps "unable" because my brain starts to react with "OMG this is impossible to do alone" quite fast. Or did also these mental difficulties ramp up over time? I am not sure to what end it'd serve but yea.

I mainly wonder if these "super secrets" were always meant to be solved collectively somehow or is it more of a modern take because internet/meta gaming or am I just intellectually lazy/dumb these days? For example let's consider that Excalibur II in FF9. The only hint a "normal player" has is that a card of it exists in Tetra Master but then you had to speed run the game (12 hours to the very last dungeon) and there you had to look around for it. Was it found accidentally? Or did someone data mine then? Or did some devs talk about it with friends and it spread? And same goes for basically any and all of these "super secrets".

My main point I guess is that I'd love to spend time with a game I love and try to find these things myself but I am quite unsure whether it's even possible for some of this stuff.

Yea, what Tunic did was something that was not quite standard in the "days of yore" IMHO, but at least it was being done here and there. Now you open a case and you have one crappy list of plastic paper with either the basic controls or some "coupon" for extra credits valid only in some crap store. And we don't even have to start about the part how you don't even have the game on the disc most of the time.

But yes, I recommend Tunic to anyone who wants to catch this (and generally that "good ol' times" vibe of gaming) feeling. It's a lovely game and it has that positively tougher difficulty and the need to think about some stuff if you wanna solve all the secrets. Something which not many games do these days (obviously you have FromSoft games and indies but yea).

But this also has a "downside" IMHO. I will be frank, I feel stupid as heck when I think about, say, some of the endings for Sekiro or even stuff in Tunic. I am quite sure I'd be unable to solve most of the stuff by myself. Maybe my brain also got mushed, I dunno. I wonder if I am stupid or if these puzzles are now being made with internet/meta gaming in mind? But I'd rather prefer to not meta game but sometimes I feel almost "forced" (not really as usually this stuff only concerns optional content). I dunno. Anyway, rant over. If anyone wants this kinda vibe gaming used to provide, definitely try Tunic!

Speaking about the back of the case. Remember Metal Gear Solid? Yea, I 'memba.