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haveblue posted:If a post has 1-10 just reverse all the ratings I really like this idea! Obviously, if someone is listing their games that way, they mean that 1-10 is how many points they should get!
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Dec 6, 2023 20:26
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An Actual Princess posted:
This is really neat! This is why I love this thread. I'm glad you brought up SO2R as well. I've always felt kinda bad about bouncing off of the series, like I'd just started in the wrong place and never gave them a proper chance. I've sorta been waiting for someone to give one a glowing appraisal that wasn't mostly caveats. And, yeah, myhouse.wad is pretty dope.
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Dec 6, 2023 20:46
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ToTK and BG3 are really weird things to compare to each other. Like comparing Elden Ring to Disco Elysium weird. BG3 plays well on a controller, btw.
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Dec 8, 2023 22:01
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Anno posted:5. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader - It's almost exactly what I'd expect out of a Owlcat cRPG set in the 40K universe for better and worse. If that sounds good to you you'll probably really like it! WOW, it was only released a few days ago and already made a list! Agreed, it's pretty darn good, but whoa buddy it needs a patch. And Owlcat badly needs to stop trying to add puzzles into their games. Like, Rogue Trader and Wrath of the Righteous have gaming's worst puzzles this side of Alex Kidd: High Tech World.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:46
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Kazzah posted:Kaz's GotYs This is the correct way to order your list.
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Dec 13, 2023 00:52
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Just checked out The Roottrees Are Dead. Y'all were right, it's pretty cool! I haven't had a proper deduction fix for a while.
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Dec 13, 2023 04:08
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Mordiceius posted:"Over here, there's always someone stuck in a bathroom in need of pocket tissues." "My filth! It clings to me like wet clay!"
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Dec 13, 2023 20:48
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YoshiOfYellow posted:Love seeing Paradise Killer come back around on some lists this year. It made my list 2 years ago and now I'm a little tempted to boot it up again. Agreed. It'll be on my list this year, too.
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Dec 14, 2023 00:47
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DalaranJ posted:Metis of the Chat Thread ^^^
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Dec 21, 2023 06:06
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bewilderment posted:Weirdly stressful but I think I'm imagining time pressure where it doesn't exist. That's odd, I don't remember typing this...
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Dec 23, 2023 10:07
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Ibblebibble posted:I started playing Case of the Golden Idol after I wrote up my list and it's going a lot faster than I expected so I might have an addition to make in a couple of days once I finish these DLC cases. HOLY poo poo I'm in the exact same situation!
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Dec 25, 2023 18:44
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Heavy Metal posted:You might've heard, Street Fighter 6 adds an awesome modern control mode. Doing quarter circles is an optional extra in modern, you can access special moves with a special move button and holding a direction on the d-pad. It's really well done. Yeah, SF6 is SUPER beginner-friendly. It has World Tour mode, which is basically the game saying, "Oh, you're new? No worries, mate! (takes you by the hand) Let's go on a fighting adventure that you can take at your own pace until you're comfortable and find a style that's right for you!". e: I suck cold poo poo at fighting games ( I still haven't successfully beaten Guilty Gear Strive's tutorial ) but I can handle this. xoFcitcrA fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 26, 2023 14:30
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:1. Elsinore Not heard of this, I don't suppose I could get you to elaborate a bit?
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Dec 27, 2023 02:53
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fez_machine posted:Time loop Hamlet where you play Ophelia, Hamlet's girlfriend who kills herself in the original play. Lots of reactivity and metroidbrainia stuff. Okay, that sounds dope.
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Dec 27, 2023 03:31
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Elsinore Well, hey. It's on sale for $4 on Steam right now. Purchased. I love this thread.
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Dec 27, 2023 03:45
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:been feeling very anxious, soon feeling very empty do you have to pee?
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Dec 29, 2023 05:58
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:yeah i need to pee out this post Right with ya. Difficulty: a new game got added 10 minutes ago (thanks to this thread) and I still need to marathon some Rogue Trader to figure out if it goes on this list or next year's. THEN I'll be ready to ejaculate a post onto the thread.
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Dec 29, 2023 07:08
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fridge corn posted:Fucken hell BP I'm literally crying. What a post right? i only played some videogames, this motherfucker went on a fuckin journey. i'm just like, yeah, this game was really fun
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Dec 29, 2023 08:57
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A Sometimes Food posted:5. Hifi Rush lol
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Dec 29, 2023 19:19
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A Sometimes Food posted:Oops. I had AC6 as #1 til I was actually writing the Sandrock review and realised how glowing I was with it. I figured as much. I wishlisted Sandrock anyway, just to be safe
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Dec 29, 2023 19:34
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I love this thread. I legit look forward to it all year. I picked up probably 16-18 of these just because of these threads. WARNING: expect to see the phrases "cool and chill" and "short and sweet" overused here. I am creatively bankrupt. First off are some games worth mentioning that, for one reason or another, don't quite have a place on the list:  corru.observer - Really neat mystery webgame! Sort of like a VN for aliens. Very cool, but I liked it better with the gameplay / JRPG elements switched off. Also, it is not finished yet.  Unnamed Space Idle - Free idle game. Playing it right now.  Vampire Survivors w/DLC - WOW there's a lot more to this now. That's a good thing. No complaints. It is almost inexcusable how much of this I've played now. Almost.  Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous AGAIN - I keep playing the opening part of the Inevitable Excess DLC because it is pure D&D 3.5 grognardiness. It isn't about roleplay, it's about who can out-bullshit the DM. I've logged over 200 hours just replaying the opening segment finding new ways to use the rules to my advantage.  Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader - Isometric RPG with turn-based land and space combat and management elements in the WH40K universe. This isn't going on the list yet because I'm just not far enough into it. Jank aside, it's pretty great so far! I mention it here because it's the game that stole me away from BG3. I guess I lean more toward Owlcat jank than Larian bloat (though they're both great). The list (they were all good enough to play through, but it will start out a bit gripey):  The House in Fata Morgana - Tragedy / horror VN. HOO BOY, this writing style. I've never seen anything quite like it in any VN or novel. The author has the most weirdly SLOW and redundant writing style I've ever seen. Everything takes 3-4 times longer than it should to read and so much of the dialogue is "......" it feels like it was written in Morse code by a snake. There's also a lot of stammering. At first I thought it was a translation issue, but a reviewer who played it in Japanese confirmed that the author's writing style is just like this. I played it on console, and even when speedreading and just mashing X to get through the slower, more redundant parts of the story it still takes forever. I spent most of my time with this pressing X and wishing I was doing something else. Like reading a visual novel. Which is a shame, because I honestly liked a lot of the story and characters. There were some genuine heartfelt moments. Usually when a number of core mysteries in a narrative have been solved, the story starts to get stale. Not so here, it does a good job of using the solved mysteries to recontextualize the story leading up to that point. The art was between good and iffy (why did so many characters look like they had no teeth?). The music was good enough, though some of the loops could get a bit tiring with how long some of the segments go on. There was also a neat one-off gimmick involving the text log that I don't think I've seen before. THAT WRITING STYLE, THOUGH. It really feels like you're trudging through deep mud as you read. On the weakness of that alone I don't think I'd give it a recommend. Or I'd give it a really rough recommend. The redundancies, the stammering, and the ellipses are just too drat much. I don't even mind a tragedy-horror VN being written like some cheap high-school harem manga, it's just (press X) ...... (press X) S-SO (press X) ...... (press X) F-loving (press X) ...... (press X) S-SLOW (press X) ...... (press X) T-TO (press X) ...... (press X) R-READ.  Dear Esther - The walking-est of sims. I feel like Red Bull was the wrong choice of beverage for this experience. It was slow and atmospheric and looked and sounded nice enough, but I wasn't sure what they were going for. It turns out that there's an in-game director's commentary track and the vibe they were going for was "dreamlike". A number of in-game events are randomized so each player has a unique experience and the "point" is to be subjective. What they were going for was kind of interesting, but I found it to be ho-hum as hell in execution. I can't in good faith recommend this one. The small dev team seemed very passionate about it, though. Good for them!  Blue Reflection: Second Light - Semi-freeroam dialogue-heavy JRPG with lots of unrelated mechanics. It's... fine. I've seen it hyped up a lot in these threads and I'm not sure I understand why. Everything about it is fine, but nothing more. Graphically, it looks and runs like a Japanese porno game from 2014. It's fine. The music doesn't get in the way and is appropriate for the scenes and setting. It's fine. The story is a mishmash of elements we've seen plenty of times before. It's fine. The combat system is simple enough to pick up easily and it works well. It's fine. The dialogue is the most clichéd anime / JRPG stuff in the world. It's fine. It has THE most forgettable cast of characters I've ever seen in a game, though. It succeeds magnificently at the Bechdel Test, but falls face-first onto a turd at the RLM Star Wars Test (describe a character without describing their appearance or what they do). It feels like a game that doesn't really lean into any of its strengths. It's slightly intriguing, it's somewhat fun, it's slightly heartfelt, it's slightly horny, and it's slightly gay. The sound, music, visuals, animations, and gameplay are fine. It's a fine game, but everything it does has been done many times before and much better. It's like if you thought 13 Sentinels was TOO mysterious and intriguing or Persona 4 was TOO interesting and heartfelt, then this game is for you. It was good enough that I didn't feel like I was slogging through it, but by the end I was looking forward to playing something else with more personality. It's fine.  Frog Detective (series) - Charming, humorous, whimsical adventure games. VERY simple, relaxed gameplay. Very short, but weirdly slow too. There were a few jokes that got a genuine laugh out of me.  Saints Row 2022 - 3rd-person freeroam crime action-adventure that was better than I was expecting. A lot of very consistent and annoying bugs that were present at launch were still present 6 months later. There's a design philosophy that they're trying to funnel you through an "experience" instead of letting you play out missions by solving problems with the game mechanics. This means that there is no reward to the player for intelligent or skillful play, you're just going to get the same "experience" either way. It has some very fun scenes but is overall lacking in the storytelling department because none of the story beats felt like they carried weight. The game plays well enough, and the classic hip-hop station was pretty good. Also, if you are not playing as Big Girl Country Boss, you are playing the game incorrectly. I can only imagine that anyone who didn't would score it less favorably than I did.  S Garfield - 1st-person freeroam sci-fi RPG. Jon Arbuckle (pictured above) said I should buy this, so I did. A lot of people were disappointed by this. I'm not sure why. Bethesda stopped trying to do ambitious, interesting things after 2002. They peddle in Comfortable Mediocrity© now. It's Skyrim in space. It has its ups and downs, it's jank as poo poo, filled with poor design decisions (especially for a high-budget full-price title in 2023!), and they'll never fix it. It does a good job painting the future as a blasted hellscape where the only literature is Charles Dickens. I mostly enjoyed my time with it, but I couldn't find Garfield anywhere.  Vampire the Masquerade: Coteries of New York - Visual novel in the World of Darkness setting with a really nice hand-painted art style. It does the thing that good lore-heavy games do where you can quickly reference the definition of unfamiliar terms when they are spoken. You can tell that the devs had originally intended for it to be a LOT more ambitious in terms of reactivity and game mechanics. It felt like they'd only made about 2/5ths of the game they'd wanted to. Still, it was a nice little ride while it lasted.  Vampire the Masquerade: Shadows of New York - Sort of a "companion piece" to Coteries, and the art, writing, and style are of the same quality. It's shorter and less ambitious than the other one, and I liked the main character a lot. All in all, a good bite-sized read.  AI the Somnium Files - Kotaro Uchikoshi mystery VN. It looks, sounds, and plays nicely enough. Everything is Uchikoshi as poo poo, for better or worse. It was pretty long but it kept me wanting to find out what happens next. That's exactly what I want out of a good mystery and this delivers. There is an option for the skip / fast forward function that allows you to skip previously unseen content. I'd never even think about turning it on in any other VN, but it's a godsend when you're up to your knees in Uchikoshi Bullshit™.  Lacuna - Cool sci-fi noir mystery adventure with a side-scrolling pixel art style. I really like how mysteries are handled in this. You gather clues and testimonies and then try to piece them all together diagetically. This is how puzzles should be in non-puzzle games. The game was short and sweet, I liked it. This is an excellent example of diagetic puzzles that EVERY OTHER GAME DEV should take inspiration from.  Hexcells (series) - Short and sweet puzzle games. I accidentally bought this for 3 bucks and played it to completion. It's like a hand-crafted Minesweeper with a few new mechanics and everything can be solved logically. If you pick this up, do yourself a favor and get the whole set. They sort of work best that way. They are a pleasant distraction with a chill vibe.  The Roottrees Are Dead - Free online deduction puzzle with a late 90s vibe. You feel very clever when you figure things out. It scratches that Obra Dinn itch.  What Remains of Edith Finch - An actual GOOD walking sim! Well-written, heartfelt, and from time to time... BUCK WILD. I got it on sale for $5 and it was worth it.  Superliminal - 1st-person puzzle game. Neat puzzles, and just the kind I like. Rock solid game, very chill, clever puzzles. Short and sweet, doesn't overstay its welcome.  House Flipper - 1st-person home design / maintenance game. (Pictured above: Your mom. Your mom is a tarantula named Scrojacublaster.) Kinda like Powerwash Simulator with building and design mechanics. As far as dadgames go, this one ain't bad. It's jank but it gets the job done. Barely, but it DOES get there. (I'm just kidding around, the tarantula's name is actually Ruby.)  The Case of the Golden Idol - Very cool deduction / mystery game. It's exactly what I was hoping for. Short and sweet. There is DLC, and it does some neat stuff, but I feel like it pales in comparison to the main game.  Sable - 3rd-person exploration game. Very cool and chill. It's sort of like a cross between A Short Hike and Journey. The game's surprisingly buggy, enough to warrant mentioning here but not enough to detract from the fun. Buggy, but a very good game!  The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante - A very interesting CYOA with a distinct style. It's wild how tense a mostly text-based CYOA can be. It does the OG Fallout-style ending well and is worth a few playthroughs. It's well-written, engaging, and generally just a good time.  10. Grow: Song of the Evertree - Very chill, cute 3rd-person exploration / farm / townbuilding sim. You fly around on a monster helping plants and animals and fighting off THE CORRUPTION® until you've built some villages that people want to move into. It was cool and chill and good.  9. Citizen Sleeper - Story-based sci-fi time management game. Great little game! It's just a solid combination of elements that works well. While it's not a "chill-out" game, I like how not stressful it is.  8. Spiritfarer - Sidescrolling seafaring friendly death adventure with some base management elements. Fantastic animation and character design. It's a very chill, thoughtful, and heartfelt game with excellent characters. It's not often that a creative work gets my eyes to tear up, but this one got a tear out of me. You can hug the cat.  7. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries - 1st or 3rd person mech combat sim with management elements. This is basically what I'd wished Mechwarrior 2 was back in '96 or '97 or so. A bit on the buggy side, but not quite enough to get on my nerves. There are a host of customizable difficulty options to make things more lore-friendly, put on training wheels while you git gud, make it more of a power fantasy, or just adjust the balance until it feels right. Environments are almost fully destructible and the mechs feel appropriately big and stompy. It's a very nice-looking game and it plays pretty well.  6. PowerWash Simulator - 1st-person powerwashing simulator. It's exactly what I thought it was and hoped it would be. This helped me get through being really, really sick. Cute and relaxing. It has free Tomb Raider and FF7 DLC.  5. Snowrunner - Like QWOP Farcry for trucks. It's nothing like I was expecting because, on paper, there's nothing about this game I should like. I don't care about driving, hauling, or trucks. There were some humorous Youtube videos with people getting stuck in the mud, but it didn't look like fun to actually play. I am very glad I gave it a try anyway! It's very much an "at your own pace" kind of game with no penalties for experimenting with different approaches or equipment for problem-solving. You're given sets of tasks and challenges but it's entierely up to you how to approach them. It's my new chill-out game and is sort of filling the place in my heart previously occupied by Elite Dangerous.  4. Paradise Killer - First-person open world murder mystery. Great setting and style. The first-person platforming is really bad until you discover THE FOOTBATHS. (It took me 15 hours to figure that out.) I like that the game never says "this is right" or "this is wrong" and leaves you to figure it out for yourself. Refreshing. A rock-solid murder mystery!  3. Marvel's Midnight Suns - CCG / Tactical battler with base management elements. The game's kind of like Slay the Spire meets XCOM: Chimera Squad but with Spider-Man in it. For as many characters as there are in the game, Firaxis did a really good job of balancing them. If you look up discussions on the "best" team compositions, almost every single person has a different one. I feel like that speaks well to the game's balance. The story and characters are well-written and it's neat to interact with Marvel characters in a personal way, though the whole cloying "You're so cool, (Customizable Main Character), you're the best!" schtick gets a bit tiresome. (Deadpool, of course, calls you out on this) The voice cast is top-tier, and Michael Jai White as Blade was an inspired casting choice. I played way too much of this game. It's pretty cozy in a weird way. You are rewarded for petting the dog.  2. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist - Character and story-driven sci-fi isometric RPG with a card game mechanic. Good music and neat visual style right out of the gate. Buck-wild pronoun customization, never seen anything like that before. I CAN FINALLY HAVE MY PREFERRED PRONOUN OF "ARACHNOTRON"!!! My gender is ARACHNOTRON. Please, "Mr." was my father, you can call me ARACHNOTRON. My first playthrough was in one 19-hour sitting, but it didn't feel like that long. I thought I was being completionist, but I'd really only scratched the game's surface in terms of discovering the story and character beats! There are about 30 endings, each with their own OG Fallout-style variations. It really is a game intended to be played several times. It's a well-written game with more reactivity than you might think. The devs did a great job of remembering the player's prior actions, even if only for flavor text. Months later, I was still thinking about this game. It really stuck with me.  1. Yakuza: Like A Dragon - Semi-freeroam dialogue-heavy JRPG with lots of unrelated mechanics. Where the Ryu Ga Gotoku series openly wears its Shenmue influences on its sleeve, this wears Dragon Quest on its sleeve. This may be my favorite Yakuza game. It's great. It has all of the fun, intrigue, and drama you'd want from a RGG game. The character writing is very good. Hokey as all hell but heartfelt and I actually cared about the characters. Despite both being semi-freeroam dialogue-heavy JRPGs with lots of unrelated mechanics, this couldn't feel any more different from Blue Reflection: Second Light. I befriended a crawdad. Her name is Nancy. Fantastic game, everything I'd hoped it would be and more! VG version: 10. Grow: Song of the Evertree 9. Citizen Sleeper 8. Spiritfarer 7. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries 6. PowerWash Simulator 5. Snowrunner 4. Paradise Killer 3. Marvel's Midnight Suns 2. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist 1. Yakuza: Like A Dragon
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Dec 30, 2023 21:12
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So I just completely stopped playing all of the games I was in the middle of last year and have spent the last 8 days exclusively playing games recommended from this thread. Slay the Princess, Jedi: Survivor, My Time at Sandrock, and The Making of Karateka were all strong recommends. Cocoon is looking at me. e: Point being, thread delivers again. e2: Karateka was a game I remember playing on the Apple IIc back around '85 or so and I hated it. It was pretty wild to play it again with the full context of everything and everyone that worked on it, as well as the hows and whys of it all, and the impact it had on the industry and people's lives. I still hate it, but in a meaningful way now. e3: Dark Souls is a Karateka-like. xoFcitcrA fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jan 8, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 17:47
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whoa
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Jan 10, 2024 06:20
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Microcline posted:
Holy poo poo, bud
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Jan 17, 2024 07:44
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roomtwofifteen posted:Lol played and loved all of these *except* FFXIV, which friends have been trying to get me to play for ages. I'm sure I'd love the story and world, I just can't get over MMO gameplay and monthly fees. I feel old because of it. Just a word of warning about FF14: I know it gets gushed about a lot here but it is, in my experience, very much an "it only starts getting good after 50 hours" kind of game. I played for 50 hours, it started getting good, and then I put it down with no intention to ever play it again. Obviously this wasn't everyone's experience but I feel like all of the positivity in this thread unmitigated by criticism could mislead a few people. I think if you had some friends to play it with, that would change things tremendously. Though if you're going solo, it's true that the FF14 community really is nice and helpful. a lot of people posted:far too much effort I think it's impressive that y'all are using scripts and spreadsheets and such, but I've been using just a regular Notepad doc to keep track of things and it works great!
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Jan 17, 2024 20:51
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Nice.
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Jan 18, 2024 01:10
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