I feel the same! I’m wrapping up world 6 and wondering when there’s going to be any challenge or clever secrets! There’s only been a handful of stages with double exits, every wonder flower is damn near unmissable, and there’s been maybe a couple times that I grunted “oh that’s clever” when seeing a hidden something. I like the creativity of each wonder flower being different, but I was definitely expecting a lot more based on the extremely positive reviews! I haven’t finished the challenge world (I think I’ve discovered 4 so far?) and only one of them took me more then 2-3 tries. Almost every level I’ve 100% cleared on my first try. I’m not a platforming savant, I swear!

Sea of Stars is the highlight for me. Very excited about that.

The remainder is kinda weak for me. Firewatch is excellent, but has been on game pass before. I’ve been meaning to play Gris someday, so might finally get to it. I have no interest in horror so skipping Texas Chainsaw.

Not a great look that more is leaving than adding.

Leaving August 31:

• Black Desert (Cloud and Console)
• Commandos 3 – HD Remaster (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Immortality (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Nuclear Throne (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Surgeon Simulator 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Tinykin (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Need to find time for Immortality and Tinykin before the end of the month!

It’ll be nice for FF14 to come to Xbox finally. I’m curious what they mean by “whenever possible”. Probably previous exclusivity agreements prevent all games coming to Xbox, but I’m sure there will be some that don’t come to Xbox for other reasons too.

Great biweek drop for me.

Celeste is a modern classic and everybody should at least try it. It’s been on game pass before, so not as exciting, but still great.

Maquette is a very interesting puzzler that’s worth a try.

Venba is a new release indie that’s gathering a lot of buzz. Looks awesome and is the one I’m most excited about.

I’ve also been wanting to try Toem, The Wandering Village and Figment 2.

It’s about time to let Games with Gold die. The initial list of included games with Core is better than anything that’s been on Gold in many years.

I’m slightly surprised they’re going to let anybody who has games from Gold stay in their account as long as they stay on Core. I figured they’d just let them have permanent keys to them, so it’d be less hassle to track that forever. It’s basically just a rebranding of Gold anyway.

Still think it’s crazy to charge a monthly membership for online multiplayer at all.