I feel the same way. The demo was great and I can’t wait to play the full game.

A short Hike: It’s a pretty short relaxing game. Low stake, no stress.

Chained Echoes: I don’t know how long Octopath 2 is, I only finished the first game, but since you mentioned it you may like this one. It’s a turn based rpg, but there is basically no grind. Your party is fully heal between each fights. It’s quite respectful of a player’s time in that way.

I’ve been using Pocket Casts on Android and it works well. I think that I started using it 2 years ago and I haven’t encountered any issues. I use the free version and it hasn’t asked me to pay and hasn’t shown me ads. I’m a light user when it comes to podcasts though.

They have a web player for PC, but I haven’t tried it.

I gave Sea of Stars a try. It’s from the developers of The Messenger. I’m really liking what I played so far. After Chained Echoes, I think this will be my next big hit for retro jrpg. The pixel art is gorgeous and the music is really good so far. I’m not big on timed attack in turn-based game, but I suspect that I’ll get over that quickly.