So somehow I ended up in the middle of a bunch of stuff.
The Outer Worlds - Expansion #2 - God, this is still shit. I seriously wonder if The Outer Worlds is not, buggy rpgs aside, the worst wrpg ever made. I can't think of a single wrpg I've ever played that was more boring than this. Expansion #2 is more of the same dull dialogue, dull characters, dull shallow combat, zzz loot, crappy gfx. Why am I still playing it? Idk, it's short and I am a big Obsidian fan and just speed running it is like a 2-3 session thing. Anyhow, this game went incredibly wrong for them. All the crap people give Avengers/Anthem whatever for being souless boring titles, The Outer Worlds is that in wrpg form. I feel like the only people that like this game are people so starved for another Fallout 3/NV/4 that they'll take anything that is remotely similar.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla - I dropped it for a bit to finish up some DQ7 arcs and been finding it hard to get back into ~60 hours. Was in the middle of a story arc so playing a little here and there to try to at least finish up the arc (sciroshipire or something, I can't spell these shire names) so I have a clean stopping point if I want to take a break and come back later and do some more arcs. I like the game a lot, just not feeling the current arc/geography area of the map I'm on (too big and desolate). I did do the Ostara Festival, was pretty whatever but got some tattoos and gained a couple levels so eh, was ok. Definitely will skip future festival quests.
Final Fantasy XIV - So for the first time in years I found out that I missed a patch that came out last month adding a new Matsuno story relic questline with a new 24man raid dungeon and 48man savage difficulty version. Need to do this before the content is dead/empty. Next patch is April 13th, so need to jump into this soon.
Hitman III - The post-launch monthly content drops are fun. Did the elusive they're re-running on S'gail now. I'd done this one before so I knew where he was and I almost had it SOSA and then he turned right as I hit the choke button and I punched him instead and all the guards heard and I had to high tail to the exit while being shot at to complete the mission.
Still made it. The featured contracts are pretty fun. Looking forward to the deluxe escalation and easter egg at the end of the month. Still GoTY 2021.
Dragon Quest XI - Still going slowly through the JP only audio dramas from the premium Switch version. Some are good and add nice character background development, some are goofy fanservice and skippable. I liked the cast enough that I'm sticking with this.
Dragon Quest VIIr - Finished the desert past arc. Man, jobs make the game so much better. Now instead of doing crap 20-30 damage, I can fire off larger spells that do 90 damage. This really speeds up boss fights and helps. Same with dealing with all the mimics (and this game even has pot and book mimics!). The desert arc with the captured queen and the archeologist you take back in time was enjoyable. Mastered my first set of jobs, so starting on the next one and then can go into intermediate level jobs. The shepherd job at the start is pretty good with tingle to wake sleep (and sleep is major in this game because damage doesn't wake sleep up), counting sheep to sleep all enemies, wooly blanket to buff def on ice breath attacks and sheep rampage to hit all enemies. Anyhow, like 30 hours in now, game rocks.
Avengers - Got about 2 hours in the night the PS5 version launched. It looks nice enough and the cutscenes/writing/VA is good enough that I want to go through the campaign and the 2 DLC mini-campaigns. Combat seems way worse than Yakuza. No interest in the post-game GAAS stuff or the multiplayer. Just gonna do the SP campaigns and bounce.
With Monster Hunter Rise coming out on Friday, dunno if I'll pick it up. Playing enough stuff to last a couple months and MonHun is super time intensive 50-60 hour romp usually for the campaign. Might hold off and jump in later. I feel like in the last few MH games jumping in late doesn't really put you behind or anything since there's always people playing at different rank levels and hey having higher rank people in your MP maps just speeds up the kills and grind process. Honestly I'd be fine waiting for the 60fps 4k PC version if everyone I knew wasn't getting the Switch one.