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flamebyrd recced the Playframe Let's Play of Final Fantasy 14, and I've been really enjoying it, and so been checking out their other videos. Playframe is run by Dan and Carrie Floyd, the ones I've watched have mostly been Dan talking and Carrie editing with the odd bit of added text commentary. Their Patreon describes them as "chill and positive" and that's definitely the vibe. It's mostly upbeat, gentle, and cheerfully chatty, with lots of squee. Dan has a background in animation and media studies, so there's some nice moments of analysis too.
These are the two series I've liked the most:
Final Fantasy 14: I was enjoying this fantasy MMO except for the unavoidable group dungeons, so it's nice to have a chance to see the rest. Here's the review I wrote at the time. He's going through the main storyline, and is currently at the level 38 quest. I gave up on the game at the level 44 quest so it's not anything new to me yet but still enjoyable, and it's fun seeing how a competent person plays haha, especially since he explains what he's doing. And it's a fun story, even if I'm being reminded how unfortunate the 'Beast Tribes' of Angry Indigenous Monsters That Are Mostly Brown And Black thing is (I hear it gets better but...ehh...) As he keeps reminding the viewer when things get bogged down in boring fetch quests, the story doesn't really get good until after level 50, so I'm looking forward to that!
Hollow Knight: this is a side-scroller full of fighting-while-platforming, so I am absolutely never playing it, but I kept hearing the story is great. Which it is! (the fighting-while-platforming is great too, from all accounts, if you're into that) And the cheery commentary helped lighten the scary bits and fill in what would otherwise have been boring watching-someone-else-jump-platforms-and-fight parts.
It's a cute, bittersweet tale of a tiny ungendered bug knight exploring and ultimately saving a ruined bug kingdom that fell to a mysterious Affliction. It's a perfect mix of cute, horrifying, and beautiful, with glorious art and good writing. The fact it's all little cartoon bugs stopped it getting too horrifying for me, and it's ultimately a compassionate and hopeful game. But there's still a lot of maggots, spiders, lumbering corpses, tragedy, violence, and death. And while the Affliction is more like a corruption than a real disease there's still a lot of Bulbous Infections As Creepy Threat. Also when I described one of my favourite parts to Cam he just stared at me for a moment then said "You know, you can be pretty dark", so, YMMV >.>
