Agreed with everything you said but ... Stranger of Paradise, pfft, the game was so weak, like objectively it is a poor game on its own but comparing to something like Nioh 2, it's absolutely a joke. 

SoP is a great game. It's not like Nioh or any of that. Combat is wonderful and a legit ARPG, unlike FF16. The writing is indeed goofy and meme-worthy but the gameplay is fantastic. It's just not a technical showpiece.

They patched Turbo Overkill so I replayed everything and just past where I lost my save data last time.

Beat Black Myth Wu Kong, might keep going for the plat but for now I'm still in need of something effortless but with a strong hook, back to Astrobot, Cyberpunk or I'm gonna try and get into Novody wants to die.

Suikoden II HD and popped DQIII HD back in. I keep starting and stopping. Game is great just my RPG mood keeps dropping. Right now really in the HD 2D RPG mood so playing both at once. Suikoden II on PS5 and DQIII on Xbox Series X

Just finished god of war Ragnarok, would highly recommend it. Definitely the best Sony game

Now playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth! So far, it's great!

I hope to one day see the game from this point of view, I've tried 3 times now to play the game and it has failed at stickiness each time. 

It's taken me three months but I'm more than half way through Astrobot now so I think I can comment on it, I do a galaxy for a blind run and then I to 100% it along with doing the vhallenge levels. I was using the detector bird at first but since it costs so muvh money and I wanna Platinum this game I just use a guide and the second run with the guide to find where those two or three bots are, is more fun than the first go around. After every galaxy though I'd not feel up to the next one so I'd drop the game for a few weeks and then come bavk. Noe it has mildly grabbed me and keeps me coming back but I don't really find the initial runs all that fun, I prefer when I'm speed running the levels with the knowledge of the goal I need to get done. Without the platinum as a goal in my mind I don't think I would like this game very much but with the platinum in mind and thr excellent challenge levels waiting at the end of a galaxy I think it's pretty great.

Can't knock the games quality but it certainly does not feel premium especially with the way the challenge levels are designed with no intention of having a world that makes since and the playstation bots feel tacky but a few have put a smile on my face, the Nathan Drake level was great. It just doesn't feel like a 70 euro game despite what reviewers say and I wish it were priced at 50 or I had gotten a sale. If this game takes your fancy, I'd saty temper expectations from how the game reviewed and make sure you have the goal of the platinum ot have a completionist mindset cause that's where the real fun is, it's mild fun otherwise. Probably end up rating it around an 8 of 10 unless it somehow hooks me more than it is. Really great attention to detail in the main levels, variety and interresting ideas, the haptics are so cool and a rarity to see such great image quality at a smooth 60 these days but just not a game that is digestible in large chunks. 

Other than that, I'm trying to get a big game to stick so playing bits of Cyberpunk and KCD2 and trying a few others like Control to see what sticks but nothing is grabbing me since Wu Kong. I'll probably just push through Cyberpunk if nothing else gets me hooked. Got so many great games installed like Baldurs Gate 3 and The Witcher 3 so it's a pity nothing is getting me on the dopamine treadmill. 

PoE2 has come back to regular play sessions. We're currently in Act 2 Cruel again with Ranger+Witch combo. That is indeed a lot easier than Monk+Warrior was, so progression is a lot faster this time. We do still die plenty from mostly unknown sources which can be attributed to having 9 to 27 minions on screen plus all the AoE effects of my poison + lightning ranger. It's just hard to see what's going on most of the time, but pretty light show guaranteed.

Still fun to play together although my wife lets me do all the 'preparation', she's not interested in the min-max build side of the game. So we play a few levels together, then I spend an hour or two looking for and upgrading gear, skills, support gems for 2 characters. So much down time in this game! The UI is so far from stream lined on PS5 which is also a reason why my wife has me do all that stuff. They made it very hard to see what's actually better when trying to compare things, maximum number of clicks required. As well as the actual gameplay works on a controller, the UI side is one of the worst. (And only one person can do most of that at a time. I have to log in as her separately since inscribing skill and support gems is currently broken for P2 in couch co-op, but P2 can finally salvage items. 1 step forward, 2 steps back)

Anyway current 'strategy' is me dropping plague pustules around that consecrete ground and add mana regenration for us, then spam with gas arrows that interact with the pustules and gets ignited by arsonist minions for big explosions. Alternating with scattershot conduit spikes for lightning attacks and voltaic volley for huge electric explosions. And ice volley plus ice shot to freeze the boss to revive my wife when needed. (She still plays like a tank...)

My wife has 8 warrior minions (2 from sceptre, 6 burning ones from skills that live on beyond death to close the revive gap. Thus they continually burn themselves then fall and revive instantly every 10 seconds), 2 snipers and an arsonist. She mostly uses essence drain and unearth (makes more temporary minions), bonestorm for bosses. She has Despair and Hexblast as well but mostly sticks to single button fighting.

The gameplay is too fast anyway to set up more complex interactions with debuffs, ailments and curses. Shit simply dies too fast. And since ailments only last 4 to 8 seconds, it's not all that useful for bosses either ugh. Kinda sucks since there are plenty ways to combine ailments and get bonuses for doing so, yet layering ailments within 4 seconds, good luck with that lol. For example Withered increases chaos damage you deal on enemies. Goes in 5% increments up to 50%, but even with a decent wand, can't get it past 30% since each hit only lasts a few seconds. (And you pay for that by 25% less damage, so you're mostly dealing less damage as a result) I guess it's only good for a multi shot fast bow, you need over 2.5 hits per second to reach 50% within the 4 second duration and don't stop.

So many mechanics push you towards using/boosting a single mechanic rather than strategic interactions. Bit of a shame really.

Next to that I'm playing Exocars in VR. Fun distraction, reminds me of Motorstorm. (I wish that would come to VR) It's a rather simple game (looks like a high res ps2 racer with added shadows. Textures are modern yet detail is far less than Motorstorm, no terrain deformation, simple short track layouts) It's fun in short bursts, handling is very twitchy on controller (I set the sensitivity under half below the 'low' setting and it's still hard not to fish tail) yet that satisfying feeling to nail corners is fully there.

Plus you can roll (with) the buggy, view point not locked to the horizon like in GT7.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/1j6i4hh/exocars_yes_you_can_roll_the_buggy/

Most games are shackled by Quest's mobile graphics, but beggars can't be choosers. Sony won't make VR games :( Hitman WoA and Aces of Thunder might have some modern detail, but always hard to judge from promotional videos. I'll keep my expectations low. Nothing has come anywhere near RE8/RE4r/GT7/CotM yet. All first year games.