Palia

I really wanted to like this game. I enjoyed the storylines, lore, and the variety of quests that help build relationships with the characters. And it's free to play! The idea of blending a cozy game with an MMO is genuinely interesting, though the multiplayer can feel a bit shallow. The other players often seem more like they’re just passing by than truly interacting or playing with you. I’m not a fan of precision jumping, and Palia leans into that more than I expected. I managed to push through most of it until one particular quest, where I kept failing. After dying, the game didn’t reset me in a way that made retrying easy. It placed me back in my house, where I would have to travel back to the start of the quest and play through what I've already accomplished. I’m not sure if that’s been updated since I stopped playing, but at the time, it felt pretty frustrating and discouraging.