This is exactly why I don't play single-player games anymore, not even JRPGs which are supposed to be more story-focused but which just end up going the safe an

This is exactly why I don't play single-player games anymore, not even JRPGs which are supposed to be more story-focused but which just end up going the safe and mainstream route anyways, especially if they're a big-budget production similar to AAA games in the west. Grinding against AI enemies is totally pointless (well at least until real "AI" akin to Alphago becomes popularized I guess). If I want to be challenged on skills and mental traits via gameplay, I play against other human players in multiplayer games (I don't do that either since this year, as it can ultimately be perceived as a repetitive timesink from which you get nothing new, once you reach a certain level in terms of ranking and of course can't go further by making it your full-time job). Nowadays I pretty much just read visual novels https://vndb.org/ https://vndb.org/, when not reading actual traditional books. I believe it's still a relatively niche genre in the west, though its popularity outside of Japan has been steadily growing in the last decade. There's truly no limit to the authors' creativity in the world of VN, and you get all sorts of thought-provoking and sometimes even life-changing experience (not an exaggeration, see reviews for the highest-rated VN of all time https://vndb.org/v92 https://vndb.org/v92), which when delivered well cannot be replicated in any other medium. PS: people say "nobody reads books anymore these days" all the time just like the author does, the validity of which I have always doubted. 100 years ago the literacy rate was much lower than it is nowadays. And even 30 or 40 years ago, it was unlikely that the vast majority of the populace were into serious reading instead of more straightforward pasttime such as TV or just a day out on the beach. Reading has always been a relatively minority hobby and has probably already managed to become more popular (especially with the proliferation of audiobooks and other technologies), instead of declining.