Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE
This was a game made by some of the main Danganronpa people, and involved a similar structure where every chapter there's at least one murder, you walk around investigating it for a bit, then you go into a mode where there are some minigames involving pointing out contradictions or answering questions to find the culprit. It does that pretty well. But ultimately I didn't find it nearly as engaging as any of the Danganronpas, mostly because the characters just weren't as memorable. It doesn't feel like you spend as much time with them, either -- unlike Danganronpa's class trials, where all the surviving characters got together to argue over who the murderer was, in Rain Code the labyrinths (the equivalent section) mostly involve you wandering around with just your sidekick Shinigami and one other character, and occasionally running into a phantom of one of the characters involved in the case (who generally appear and disappear within the same chapter). The cases are very self-contained and there are only a few possible culprits; you never really get that feeling of being betrayed by a character you were invested in. I had an enjoyable enough time playing it, but I don't imagine I'll think about it much in the future.
Metroid Dread
For some reason, a few days ago I had an urge to give this game another shot, after giving up on it shortly after it came out because I was finding it too frustrating. They've since patched in an easier difficulty mode, so I decided to give that a try. Unfortunately, it didn't help. I had even less patience for it now than I did the first time. The easier difficulty just makes it so you take less damage and get more health/ammo pickups, neither of which makes any difference for the most irritating parts of the game, the EMMI sections, where you just die instantly if you get caught. It's nice not to die as easily in the boss fights, I guess, but they're still very repetitive and take way too long to finish. I only made it to the second area before giving up on this again.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life
This is a remake of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, a Gamecube game that is near and dear to my heart. The remake is pretty good, although it definitely feels like a port of a 20-year-old game. It's been a long time since I played the original, but it seems like the thing that has benefited most from the remake is the text, which could be pretty stilted but now feels a lot more natural. The art style is different too, in a way that I'm not as fond of; the textures and lighting look more flat and cartoony compared to the original's somewhat naturalistic (by Gamecube standards) look. It looks a bit bland to me. They've also changed some of the characters in ways I'm not a big fan of.
Overall, this game is kind of hard to go back to now. Compared to modern farming games like Stardew Valley, there just isn't much to do in this one. I find myself finishing my daily chores pretty early in the day and then having most of the day to just walk around and talk to people (who rarely have anything new to say), catch fish, or dig stuff up at the archaeological dig site... that's pretty much it. A unique feature of this game is that as the years pass, you can have a kid and influence their personality as they grow up. I haven't gotten to that point yet -- I'm still on the first year and am engaged. But the prospect of playing through the kid's whole development seems daunting -- I didn't even do that in the original. Maybe this will end up being something I just check in on from time to time.