Ruby and Sapphire, 100% because of nostalgia as I haven’t played either in 20+ years - those were the last games my grandpa gifted me so they hold tremendous sentimental value.
Gold and Silver would be close seconds, since my sister and I played those games when growing up and I have great memories from back then.

I think web hosting shouldn’t be an issue either way, but once you’re scaling up and trying to use more of their stack, the seams start to crack.

Realistically, I don’t think there’s any good competitor, or not at a scale which would make sense. Finding local/regional cloud providers is usually not an issue.
At larger scale, it feels like we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, with US cloud providers on the one hand and CN ones on the other, and barely any serious competitor outside of that - OVH would be an option, if reliability, tech support, performance and features are not a priority…
That’s my personal takeaway anyway, from professional experience with OVH over the past 5 years.

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.

If you’re happy with OVH as it is, then I don’t think it can get much worse.
I really wish OVH would get it together and be a serious competitor to other (US) cloud providers…

Open-Meteo is Swiss (OpenMeteo GmbH) fwiw.

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!

No?

Realistically, as you mentioned with FF XIV ARR now being a classic but also being a pain to get into is true for any other older FF, many people simply have rose tinted glasses to keep them from seeing all the flaws present in those prior entries.
I also started with FF VII, but 25 years after its release, and let me tell you that it did not age well (at all) imo.

Had I not picked up FF XVI, I probably wouldn’t have given the series another chance.
I now played both FF VII remakes to date and absolutely loved them, especially Rebirth, and am going through FF VI, which I also think is a masterpiece tbh.
FF IV didn’t work out for me, but that’s fine.

All that to say, video game series evolve, ARPGs have been quite popular for a while and FF went that route - for now. That doesn’t make for bad games, and the series will keep evolving.

No way, Jolla is actually still around, that takes me back!
Doesn’t look too bad, though it probably makes more sense to use Sailfish OS on any other (used?) supported device

I started 1000xRESIST over the weekend and just can’t put it down, I should finish it in a few hours.

After that, I’ll likely pick up either Divinity: Original Sin 2 (I’m a couple of hours in) or the DLCs for Alan Wake 2 (since I finished the main game a few days ago), we’ll see.

I’ve been using AntennaPod for over a year - moved over from PocketCasts back then - and am very happy with it. I have very simple requirements though, so it might be as full-featured as other options.

In an ideal world, every game should be fully cross-buy IMO, but that tends to never be the case.
PlayStation used to have PS3/PS4/PSVita cross-buy games for a while, but they didn’t keep it going for their recent PC porting efforts (that clearly wouldn’t help their bottom line).
Xbox has Play Anywhere, and that’s likely the closest to a functional cross-buy (and cross-play) we have today - that’s the main draw for me if (when) I ever buy games digitally on Xbox.

Tekken 8 is slowly consuming me whole… and I don’t mind. I love the game so far! When I’m not playing, I’m looking up combos, pro replays, various advanced tutorials… I’m fully committed at this point, haha.

That being said, my library has let me know that a copy of Sonic X Shadow Generations is available for borrowing, so I’ll switch it up a bit this week!

Burnout, what a game! I know 3 still is regarded as one of the best arcade racers to this day, although tbh - controversial opinion, I know - Paradise is likely my favourite in the series.

If you have Decky Loader set-up on your Deck, I might also recommend using the Wine Cellar plugin.

Mouthwashing, which I should finish tonight, Selaco - this one required a bit of tweaking but can mostly hold 60 now - and Balatro.

Tough one - I don’t have a hard cutoff, but I’ve certainly started to slow down on buying retro games. I’ve spent over $200 CAD on a single game in recent memory (2022?), nowadays I wouldn’t really want to go over $100 CAD.
I’ve also been reevaluating and selling off some of my collection whenever I can buy ports / digital versions of some games (eg: Chrono Trigger, bought on Steam and sold my loose SNES cart, Xenogears bought on PS3 and sold my CIB copy, etc).
I only focus on two retro systems - SNES and PS1 - and I don’t really play on OG hardware anyways (Super Nt / Pocket for SNES, PS3 / Vita for PS1), so I don’t mind “owning” digital and ultimately downloading roms if necessary.

I’m still playing Persona 3 Reload and I believe it finally clicked for me.
I still don’t particularly like Tartarus that much, but I’ve been able to complete each section relatively quickly so far (and without grinding) so it’s certainly not too bad. The rest of the game has definitely opened up though (thankfully, I’m about 30-35 hrs in, haha).

Slowly making my way through Jeanne d’Arc on the side - gameplay wise it’s up my alley (minus grinding…), however the story is pretty subpar imo.

I guess the main question is where do you draw the line for “somewhat newer stuff”? 5th gen consoles only (and then which one) or even newer?
And what screen size are you looking for?

This is awesome. Radiant Silvergun isn’t my most played shmup to date but it’s definitely so so unique, I really enjoy it.
I certainly think romhacks/patches are a major benefit to older gen titles and I’m somewhat concerned we’ll lose that with newer gens.