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I wrote way too much, TL;DR at the bottom. Honorable Mentions: Baldur's Gate 3: I've played some of it, it's obviously absolutely incredible, lots of depth, you can gently caress a bear etc but honestly I found it pretty overwhelming especially in combat. I bought it to play while recovering from surgery but I ended up either being too out of it to really grasp the mechanics or healed well enough that I had other poo poo to do. I'm absolutely going to come back to it and I'm sure it will click with me more, I saw they just added a big patch with some epilogue content so that might inspire me. I played the Pokémon Violet DLC which was Okay (I caught a shiny Arbok though :3) and allegedly the second part of it will be harder, but I doubt it's making my top ten regardless. Please Game Freak, I promise you can take a little more time on your games, we have so many already. Pokémon Infinite Fusion is a fangame that saw a lot of interest this summer which got me to pick it up, I never got super far in it and mostly just giggled at the fusions I found but it's pretty fun and cute and I still pick at it every so often. Pokémon Emerald Rogue is a romhack that, as you might imagine, turns Pokémon Emerald into a roguelite. It's quite well done, you get some metaprogression as you go with being able to start with different items etc, I recommend checking it out if it sounds interesting. Pokémon Elite Redux is a challenge romhack that I actually like. I mostly find them difficult for their own sake and not actually enjoyable, but this one is hard but in a way that feels rewarding when you beat a challenge. It has a mechanic where mons have multiple abilities at once which surprisingly opens up the challenge space. Octopath Traveler II is basically a total improvement over the first game, which I played because I liked the characters but ultimately flamed out on. The second game has more interaction between characters (by which I mean any), better balance, more variety, and doesn't lose any of the charm of the first. I'll admit I didn't finish this one either, but I actually see myself going back and doing so (it's not my fault they released so many good games this year!!) Lone Fungus is a metroidvania where you play as a cute lil mushroom. It's notable for having a lot of optional Celeste-like platforming challenges. There are a lot of mobility options and upgrades, and generally it's quite high quality especially for a first release from a solo developer. There's a sequel in the works which I'm quite excited to play next year. Slay the Princess is a very neat horror visual novel with Lots of Layers. I enjoyed it a lot while playing it, and I plan to go back and unlock all the possible aspects, but I think ultimately it felt like a little less than the sum of its parts. I'd still recommend checking it out, the vibes are meticulously crafted. Groove Coaster Wai Wai Party!!!! is a rhythm game for the Switch that I absolutely adore, to the extent that this year I started occasionally making the hour+ long trek to Long Island to go to the Round1 that actually has a Groove Coaster arcade cabinet. I like rhythm games a bunch even if I'm not incredible at them, but this has about the perfect balance for me. It's stylish as hell and I recommend checking it out if you're interested (specifically the switch or phone versions, though, the steam release is...mixed.) Speaking of rhythm games, let's start the top ten with: 10: Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Final Bar Line I played the 3ds iteration of this extremely briefly but it didn't really grab me at the time. This, on the other hand, I played for at least 50 hours. The quests, challenges, unlockable characters to level up, and multi-player enhanced the urge to replay even beyond the basic fun of hitting buttons and smashing sticks to the jaunty tunes of various Final Fantasy games. I still boot it up occasionally, it's just a good time. 9: Risk of Rain Returns I loved the original game back in the day; I remember not having any disposable income to back the kickstarter but playing the demo they released over and over again. Risk of Rain 2 didn't really hit me the same way since I tend to be less into 3d games, since I'm one of those poor bastards who sometimes gets motion sickness from them. Risk of Rain Returns takes that original game and beefs it up with actually functional multiplayer, a wider variety of characters, items and loadouts, and a side challenge mode with plenty of fun unlockables. A really excellent blast from the past. 8: Super Mario Wonder I'm a little surprised to find this so low on the rankings, since I adored almost every minute of this (except some of the final final level, and by some I mean that goddamn spring jump section). The multiplayer aspect where you can leave standees to revive other players or touch their ghosts to give them a second chance at life was really charming, and I loved the hidden treasure levels where players would jump up and down highlighting hidden spots until everyone figured them out. The different wonder effects were wild and I was always excited to see what they would turn out to be in every new level I unlocked. I 100%ed the game in about 25 hours, according to the Switch timer, and it oddly felt shorter than that, though again several of those hours were on that final level. I'm not really one to rank games on a dollar per hour basis or anything like that, but ultimately I don't really see myself going back and replaying this ever, and that feels like a bit of a shame. 7: The Void Rains Upon Her Heart This is still technically in early access, despite feeling like there's enough content for a full game and a half. It's a roguelite shmup with unlockable characters, monsters, and items. You get different colored currencies as you play through the game that allow you to "radiate" monsters and items to get more information about them, use them or battle them in quick play modes. There's story modes, endless modes, quick battle modes allowing you to practice against a specific monster, and all of that in a range of difficulty options that add new attacks and shot patterns as you increase them. There's incredible depth here, in a way that kind of reminds me of Binding of Isaac (though with as different an aesthetic as you can imagine). 6: PowerWash Simulator I mentioned above that I get motion sickness from 3d games at times. PowerWash Simulator was relaxing yet engaging enough that I actively tried to find ways to power through it, and when they patched in an alternate washing mode that almost eliminated the issue for me I cheered. This is the ultimate chillout game; you have dirty things and you have to clean them, and that's all there is to it. There have been expansions covering everything from SpongeBob Squarepants to Final Fantasy to Back to the Future with more in the pipeline, because it turns out any environment is conducive to roaming around in while spraying water and cleaning chemicals. It's just a good time, I recommend checking it out if this sounds at all appealing. 5: Super Mario RPG Remake I played a little of the original SNES release on an emulator a while ago, but I didn't have any particular nostalgia for it. It turns out that's not necessary, as I thoroughly enjoyed the goofy charm of this world. It's extremely easy until the postgame, but you're not really playing for the challenge. It's got lots of random minigames like riding minecarts through mines and barrels down a river in that way you used to see in RPGs of the era, little sidequests you can find in towns, and overall a really cozy sense of place. I could definitely see myself replaying this over a long lazy weekend in like 6 months. 4: Crystal Project I got this a while ago and bounced off it a few times, but PurpleXVI's LP inspired me to give it another go. For whatever reason, this time it stuck, and I've been joyfully finding job crystals and jumping around to find new areas that I end up being far too weak for. Crystal Project is an RPG with a fairly perfunctory plot that serves as an excuse to explore the world. One of the main hooks is that the game involves a lot of platforming, and with a little care you can find ways to sequence break into areas you aren't meant to be in yet, or find secrets by jumping from a treetop to a roof and down the chimney. You also have a wide array of classes you unlock and can switch between, and unlock various abilities for. I've heard it's like Final Fantasy V's job system but I've never actually played that, though if this is any indication maybe I should. You have almost perfect information in battles regarding what enemies will do, who they'll target, how much damage will be dealt etc. so you can make the best strategic choices. You also get various mobility upgrades throughout the game, each unlocking even more areas to explore. I've spent many evenings chilling out and finding more areas to explore. 3: Siralim Ultimate My playtime in my current save file, with cross save across mobile and Steam, is 389 hours. Siralim Ultimate is an incredibly deep game. It's a monster battler, where you have teams of up to 6 monsters battling dungeon encounters also containing up to 6 monsters. Almost every monster you encounter can be summoned by you, and they each have their own innate abilities. They have five different types with a fairly basic rock-paper-scissors type advantage system, and health/attack/defense/magic/speed stats. You can create artifacts and socket them with various gems to increase given stats, spells that will cast on turn start/spellcasting/defending/attacking/provoking depending on the type of artifact, items adding more intrinsic abilities, items that have a chance to cause buffs/debuffs on an action, and powerful legendary gems that drop with random combinations of any and all of the above traits. You can fuse any two creatures to get a fused creature with the type of one and the species of the other, and the abilities and blended stats of both. You can have various classes that affect your creatures, from the Monk that turns your creatures into dodge tanks that retaliate after dodging to the Pyromancer that stacks burn debuffs on all enemies to the Witch Doctor who can confuse enemies into attacking one another, and dozens more. You can change your class at any time and build separate teams for each of them, so you don't need multiple saves. The story is fairly silly and meaningless, but beating the story campaign is basically just the tutorial. There are so many strategic layers I haven't even really gotten into, but if you're into this kind of game then this can suck you in incredibly deeply. 2: Tears of the Kingdom I'm sure anything I say here will have been echoed more eloquently by a dozen people by the time I finish this post, but I was utterly blown away by this game. I really liked Breath of the Wild and adored the open world concept, but I was also one of the people turned off by the weapon durability implementation and almost found it too unbounded, and I never finished it though I might still go back someday. Tears of the Kingdom managed to take that feeling and amplify it a hundredfold while addressing all my complaints. Fusing weapons immediately solved my issues with weapon durability, since I could slap powerful item drops onto even weak weapons and churn through them without a care in the world. I didn't build the kinds of ridiculous contraptions that I've seen posted online, but I felt like a little kid playing with a Lego set when I realized how much freedom I had to build. I've got plenty of saved videos of flying vehicles going hilariously awry or of rocket-powered carts careening across the countryside. There's something inherently joyful in having this amount of freedom to simply play, and I truly can't imagine where they can go from here—but then again, that's what I said after Breath of the Wild. 1: Dwarf Fortress This feels like cheating, because on a fundamental level Dwarf Fortress is my game of all time. It's a game I think about even when I'm not playing it. I have a Dwarf Fortress pin I wear on my vest almost everywhere, a Dwarf Fortress pint glass, a Dwarf Fortress T-shirt. I've played this game for thousands of hours over the course of my life, and there are fortresses I abandoned a decade ago that I still remember the stories of. It's gotten me through some of the lowest points in my life; I still vividly remember the night after I finally got out of a deeply unhealthy and abusive relationship to discover a new major release version, and throwing myself into it and feeling like maybe some good things could still exist in the world. Dwarf Fortress has been continuously developed for over two decades, but it received a Steam release with lovingly designed graphics and a new soundtrack (the free game is ASCII based, although there are several fan tilesets you can use if you like, and has a single song that was written by one of the creators that somehow never gets old). The Steam release primarily exists because the creators—two brothers—realized they needed to have enough money for health insurance as they age, and that the fan donations that funded full time development for all that time might not be enough. The free version is still readily available on their website along with all older versions, and they've committed to having them both up to date with one another. Even knowing that, so many people were excited to purchase the game and support them that their first month of sales, even after Steam/publisher cuts, made them both millionaires. I could describe the game—there's Fortress Mode, which is a colony builder, and Adventure Mode, an open world roguelike that will be implemented in the Steam version come April next year. I could talk about how the game is famously complex and how it simulates everything down to teeth and toenails of individual dwarves, all of their relationships, their personalities and dreams and memories, as well as various other civilizations with their own ethics that may bring friendly traders or sieging armies. I could share any number of playthroughs that document the level of emergent gameplay that Dwarf Fortress offers. Ultimately, though, I don't think I can fully describe the full depths of this game and what it means to me and its most passionate fans. I encourage you to check out the free version if anything I've said here appeals to you, maybe read or watch some let's plays, and you might find that this game fulfills a desire you didn't even know you had. TL;DR top ten list: 1. Dwarf Fortress 2. Tears of the Kingdom 3. Siralim Ultimate 4. Crystal Project 5. Super Mario RPG 6. PowerWash Simulator 7. The Void Rains Upon Her Heart 8. Super Mario Wonder 9. Risk of Rain Returns 10. Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
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Dec 4, 2023 20:11
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 13:36 |
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FireWorksWell posted:4) Monster Sanctuary Hell yeah! This would've absolutely been on my 2022 list if I'd bothered to make one, another v strategically deep monster battler that integrates with the metroidvania aspect way better than it has any right to. Very excited for their next release!
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Dec 5, 2023 02:52
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Silver Falcon posted:8) Rune Factory 5 Whoa does this actually play decently on the Deck now? Hell yeah time to redownload, what a good thread
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Dec 8, 2023 14:12
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Science_enthusiast posted:Never done one of these before but every year I read everyone elses and wish I did. I hope it brings you joy that I didn't know they put out a DF hoodie until your post, and now courtesy of my fiance I have a Christmas gift arriving in mid-January probably  bovis posted:
Hell yeah! I never really heard of Sam and Max myself but somehow got all the telltale ones in a bundle, and near the beginning of the pandemic my now-fiance and I played them together over discord similarly with him giving me hints. We should check out Hit the Road now I think of it, so thanks for the inspiration!
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Dec 25, 2023 08:14
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I read and enjoyed all the lists  I got Elsinore and wishlisted so many games omg. Also I got my partner Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and the new Robocop game partly based on these posts, he just finished bomb rush and loved it 
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Jan 2, 2024 12:57
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:yeah i have just finished reading all the lists, and i like doing it to specifically find things like "oh yeah other people randomly got sucked into arcade games too, they still exist" They actually replaced the Groove Coaster cabs with Chunithm ones last I was there  but it's true! All the real sweaty rhythm gamers would be on DDR/Pump It Up/Sound Voltex and most of the kids didn't give a poo poo about the rhythm game section, so I could usually park there for hours. One rare time someone was on the other cab while I was playing and I got a full combo and genuinely got a nod and polite clap from them, I was riding that high for a week  There's also a cool indie arcade near me that has stuff like Killer Queen Black and Nidhogg II (which I always insist on playing with whoever I went with) and also a solid rotating catalog of other more obscure games. It's interesting given how much it stresses me out playing video games online, even with people I know, but I've learned I actually really like arcade settings! bagrada posted:I wonder if the thread also inspired anyone on the fence to get TOTK or BG3. I already had BG3 and bounced off as I think I mentioned in my GOTY post, but I started the year off wonderfully by being in bed with COVID and picked it up again with the thread as inspiration and it's gotten its fangs in me in a big way. Almost certainly making my 2024 list unless it's truly a wild year in gaming.
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Jan 13, 2024 09:07
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 13:36 |
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quote:Your closest match is HopperUK based on a shared interest in: Siralim Ultimate, Dwarf Fortress Hell yeah good taste havin buddy  quote:Your top 5 recommendations are: Coromon, Pokemon Infinite Fusion, Elden Ring, Moon: Remix RPG, Animal Crossing Well I know I really like Infinite Fusion and Elden Ring, and I touch Animal Crossing about once a year these days but I poured about 800 hours into it all told. I have both Moon and Coromon so I guess I've got some good priorities going into 2024. This was neat, thanks!
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Jan 17, 2024 04:44
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