Which is a bummer imo, since I don’t think people already considering a lower midrange PC today are the target demographic, but I would love to be proven wrong.

May I suggest buying it on GOG instead if you care about DRM-free?

Some Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon every now and then. It’s a very vanilla FE, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.

Otherwise I’m having a lot of fun with Dragon’s Dogma 2. I never played the first, so I likely overlook many of the issues people have with the game.

I could be slightly misremembering the exact context during which I watched Grave of the Fireflies but I’m 95% sure it was a school outing and either in primary school or junior high 20 or so years ago.
Needless to say it was absolutely gut wrenching, but also extremely memorable.

Sure, and that makes financial sense, but that’s only one specific subset of games.
Smaller productions/games still have ways to turn a profit with smaller intended audiences and can in turn offer more complex storylines.

That’s a good point and, for lack of studies about it, it’s impossible to tell which is the most pervasive.

As a counterpoint, and this might be an “unpopular opinion”™: not all games are (should be) made for as broad an audience as possible and different attention (investment) levels should be expected depending on the game. That obviously won’t resonate with the business side of the gaming industry, but I think everyone needs to be aware of how much time they can dedicate to their hobbies and pick them accordingly.
I’m thankfully not in a position where I have to work 60hrs a week and I’m childless as well, but some weeks might leave me with less free time than others and I pick entertainment/media accordingly. That might not be what others do and I know my experience is likely purely anecdotal, but if I feel I don’t have enough time to properly enjoy a game or remember its premises as I play, I’ll simply do something else, even if gaming is my favourite hobby.

And to be clear, I fully agree that society needs to change dramatically either way. Everyone would benefit from better work-life balance.

Glad you were able to get it working!
I need to get around to creating a bug report, I’m guessing the issue is with gamescope and not Heroic itself, but I’m not sure.

Ah, good catch. In that case, I’ve hit this bug before, although usually when trying to select a different version of Proton afterwards, and I managed to get the drop-down working in Desktop mode.
If OP is already in Desktop mode, then I’m not sure tbh.

What happens when you click on the drop-down menu to select the version? I’ve had issues in the past with Heroic where the drop-down menus would only work in desktop mode on the Steam Deck, FWIW.

Right, I can see that. I tend to have less patience for (what I consider) annoying gameplay despite good stories, therefore I wouldn’t try lower difficulties if it’s a hassle to me.

I tend to move on / abandon games quicker than I would have done when I was younger, and I know what genres I tend to favour.
Artificially padded games are usually a pass for me too.

GL! I certainly have to give Crimzon Clover a fair try, I liked the few runs I did so far.

Favourite would be DoDonPachi Resurrection / DFK, but I have to practice more for the 2nd loop / TLB as well haha.

Interesting, thanks! That’s not quite how I approach fun, or difficulty, in a game.

I’m happy playing on higher difficulties so long as the gameplay loop is interesting (to me), and that’s how I go about shmups for instance, gradually increasing difficulty as I start to “master” the game (as if), however if the “default” gameplay isn’t fun to me, lowering the difficulty is not going to help.

Conversely, why should you bother with lower difficulties at all if you’re not having fun to begin with?

The only way I get to roundabout $200 now is if they are talking about 1983/84, but the NES hadn’t even released in NA back then, so that’s somewhat unlikely?

I might have a very odd bug, but VLC only plays one song normally and then any song after that is complete silence. No updates or reinstalls could fix it.
YMMV perhaps?

Sorry, I won’t be able to help since I don’t have Blue Dragon, but when you mention making changes to config files, is that in reference to info in this thread / google sheets?

I finished a couple of games last week, SotN and Sayonara: Wild Hearts.

I’m currently back on DOS2 and I quite enjoy the slow pace of the game.
I might also attempt another playthrough of Bloodborne.

I finished Pentiment yesterday, what an absolute masterpiece. It’s certainly not for everyone - and I initially hesitantly added it to my backlog for this year as a very different game from what I’m used to - but it resonated so much with me.

I also started Castlevania: SOTN, which I quite enjoy so far - metroidvanias are usually hit or miss for me so I’m going in with tempered expectations.
And I’m attempting a fresh playthrough of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, which I shelved a couple years ago.

What mods did you end up with?
I shelved RDR2 a while ago (year and a half ago?) but would like to get back to it at some point, likely with some QoL enhancements

I started Pentiment last week and am now wearing my detective hat - I can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen next.

I’m also playing Eigengrau, a shmup with elements of a twin-stick shooter - it’s not bad!