IKR! You do want to recommend the game and talk about it, but you can't really do so without spoiling it for other people... SkillUp's review was pretty good in that regard IMO.

Well, that's a good exercise, I've actually completed more games in the past year than I thought I did...

• Lunar: Silver Star (Story Complete) - I'm not usually fond of "typical" turn-based RPGs, but there was something about Lunar's fairly simplistic gameplay, beautiful art and sound design, the quirky translation from Working Designs, it's just a very "charming" game and it's been on my mind for a while since then, everything kinda comes together to form a really memorable experience. I'm looking forward to playing Eternal Blue sometime soon-ish.
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss - Okay, hear me out: Golden Abyss is sort of the black sheep in the Uncharted franchise and I wouldn't say I love it - it can be very frustrating at times, the story is somewhat subpar compared to mainline games and as a showcase for the PS Vita, it can also be pretty gimmicky - however, it was my first Uncharted game, back in 2012, and I had to wait until I got a PS5 (in 2020) to finally experience the other games. It was well worth the wait, I absolutely love the series and that's why I wanted to replay Golden Abyss (for that bit of nostalgia) last year.
• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - I've been on a (fairly recent) journey to try and explore my own mental health through various mediums, with video games being one of my primary passions/hobbies/time sinks, I've been trying to find games that explore this subject specifically - Hellblade is, of the ones I've played yet, the one that does it best. It's a very intimate game and it can be really sensory heavy at times (I don't think I would've been able to play it, were I in a less than ideal mental state at the time), but it's such a rewarding experience, being able to see and feel Senua's tale that way. I can't wait for the second game.
• A Plague Tale: Requiem - This is the most memorable and emotional experience I've ever had in a video game, bar none. I played Innocence and Requiem back to back and I enjoyed it so much, I can't recommend it enough. I fear my words wouldn't do the game(s) justice tbh. And that OST is wonderful.
• Nier: Automata - What does it mean to human? I would say this is one of the games which had me reflect on our own condition and society the most, haha. Beyond that, I really enjoyed the gameplay (that's usually more my kind of RPG - Action focused), with various other interesting mechanics (shmup gameplay, etc). The OST is one of the best I've ever heard. One of those games you wish you could erase from your memory and relive all over again.
• GRIS - Another game with a focus on mental health. Simple, beautiful, emotional. No spoken words, yet I felt like I went on a journey at a time when I feel I needed it most, I cried multiple times, but I'm really grateful for what I experienced. Probably the most memorable sound design I've experienced last year!

I've just finished FF XVI, and while it's certainly not a perfect game, I really had a fantastic time with it.

Now onto either of Soul Blazer, Parasite Eve or Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, I've yet to decide which to start with.

It's my only PC, so I've used it quite a bit, although not as much as I thought I would?
I got it day one and played it a fair bit last year (about as much as my PS5), but recently I've been playing on PS5 (and Series X, to a lesser extent) a lot more. It hasn't been collecting dust too much, as I'm still using it as a regular old PC, but certainly not daily.

This would depend on the search engines enabled and/or the default language/country set (if any) for that particular instance, you can find those in the settings of the instance itself (and enable/disable whichever you're most interested in, as well as a few other relevant settings).

Obvious "this is what works for me and why I do it" disclaimer, but:

• I have a growing collection of games which spans multiple consoles and physical/digital media alike, so I need a way to track what games I have and where, so as to not buy them multiple times (I don't believe this to be a typical use case, but I could be wrong?).
• Aside from that practical element, I have a few lists on HLTB where I track what I (might) want to play next, but realistically it's pretty much always a case of checking out what I have and picking one based on my mood / gut feeling / whatever.
• Lastly, it's about actually finishing games - getting started with some form of tracking helped me tremendously get past the "pick up and drop after a few hours" mentality (?). I wouldn't have gotten to experience some of the best games I've played in recent memories, were it not for my backlog, because I probably would have forgotten I had them / wouldn't have stuck with them.

Cheers for that. I've cut the cord from Google Photos without a solid replacement and it's been... pretty miserable tbh.
I'll look into setting up a Synology NAS, as it seems to be a relatively inexpensive solution moving forward (Proton is nowhere near what I'm looking for feature-wise and other self-hosted foss solutions aren't really there yet afaict).

For most games, I'm like you - It's been a gradual shift for me, as I used to play very sandboxy type games before (although I could never get into Minecraft), but have been heavily focused on story-heavy / experience-based games for the last 3+ years.
I will say that I really liked BotW though, and am looking forward to playing TotK eventually (in the next 2/3 years or so) and Starfield has got me really intrigued, so we'll see.

Then there's the "intrinsic me", I guess, I don't mind playing some games for the sake of it, with no goals in mind - Forza Horizon just going from one end of the map to the other, or the same loop of various arcade games whenever I don't feel like doing anything else - sure there's some sort of objective, but ultimately when you've seen and done it that many times, it's not far off from it not being there at all imo, and I still enjoy it just as much.

Story-heavy: Uncharted series (between 10 and 16 hours per game), Hellblade (around 8 hours) and - if you can spare another 10 hours or so and Action RPGs are your thing - Nier Automata is really worth it (around 30 hours).
Gris was impactful enough for me that I'll mention it here, since it was super short (4 hours at most).

i haven't had much of a chance to get to game pass titles yet, but i highly recommend the A Plague Tale duology (Requiem is still on game pass and is my favourite game in recent memories).

i would also recommend checking out Gamika.me, it makes filtering game pass (and ps plus) games much easier imo (although it can be a bit slow to load initially).