“I have a chip on my shoulder,” she said, describing her drive to prove she can win over private equity in Silicon Valley based on merit, not inheritance or legacy ...[T]he young founder hasn’t taken money from her parents for Phia. Instead, she’s insisted on raising outside capital even as some investors remain fixated on her personal life instead of her business venture.
I appreciate the sentiment, but it would be delusional to think her ability to "win over private equity" was divorced at all from her father's legacy and last name. And actually, I'm not sure I appreciate the sentiment. In 2026, merit is way down the list, like scrawled sideways in the margins, of things that matter to private equity.
I'm also playing this for the first time after owning it for a while. Took me a while to really get into it - it's the first high-production, AAA action game that I've played in a while, and it felt strangely linear and repetitive. The puzzles are so clearly tailored to your specific abilities they feel kind of silly against the otherwise immersive world. The rewards and upgrades are kind of trivial on normal difficulty; I'm still mostly spamming normal and sidekick attacks for every battle.
Eventually though I settled into the rhythm and I noticed that stuff less. The acting and scene choreography are outstanding - it feels like theater in a way that's unique to my experience with games. And I'm enjoying it more for what it is. It's just overall not landing as satisfyingly as the first one did, and I think that's because indie games have done increasingly cool things since the 2018 game came out and I've been playing them more, and my tastes have just changed a lot.