Dragon Age: Origins is pretty gory (for an RPG from that era.) Their whole marketing campaign was basically “look how bloody this game is—even our logo is made out of blood.”
Edit: I would recommend Wildermyth as a whimsical, party-based RPG that doesn’t include stuff like this.
Turned based on pausable stuff can reduce stress by allowing for thoughtfulness, and even single player games can be done together through strategizing, while also not requiring the 2nd person if they aren’t available. To that end, I’m going to recommend Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons or Broken Age. Then probably some kind of tactical game, Darkest Dungeon, Loop Hero or Shadowrun. After that, maybe some kind of management game, Cities: Skylines, SimCity, Stardew Valley, Humankind or Against the Storm. If you want to go deeper, Crusader Kings, Dyson Sphere Program or Wartales.
Real-time games that require using multiple sticks/buttons/aiming+moving at once are inherently more difficult to start without the muscle memory, so I’d look to build that up with games that have simpler controls starting with Vampire Survivors or Brotato. Then I’d probably do some kind of non-shooter first or third person game, thinking of Escape Academy, Firewatch or Superliminal, Amnesia (maybe). Then a combat first/third person game Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield (Campaign), Mass Effect. Then maybe something that’s got combat plus extra stuff, Atomic Heart, Deep Rock Galactic, Dead Space (maybe), Doom, Prey, Wo Long, Remnant. After that is really PvP stuff.
If you just want more readably accessible stuff, A Short Hike, Disneyland Adventures, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, Bejeweled, The Walking Dead from Telltale (maybe).
I also pulled every game on this list off of Xbox Game Pass, so that might be a good way to try a bunch of different games for cheaper.
I’m really surprised I haven’t seen them mentioned here (and apologies if someone did suggest it and I missed it!).
The Monkey Island games. Super simple controls, as most of it is point and click. Not expensive to get into, so no big loss if it ends up not being her thing. They are silly and clever, and reward the player for being silly and clever. They are puzzle games that require some attention to detail and curiosity to solve, but there isn’t any “fail” condition. You just don’t progress if you can’t solve the puzzle. It doesn’t assume any prior game knowledge or habits; a lot of games will expect the player to be familiar with certain controls or tropes commonly used in games, but Monkey Island is more similar to a “choose your own adventure” style story.
My SO doesn't like gaming as well, but we play Bejuweled 3 together. It is not multiplayer but we take turns everytime it's game over. It's very relaxing and addictive and kills time pretty quick.
Maybe Timberborn once she’s slightly more familiar with keyboard controls? It’s a cute city builder type game with beavers and the big thing with that is building dams and redirecting water, but it’s still in early release and I don’t think it does an amazing job of explaining its mechanics, but at the moment it still has a fairly straightforward resource management and supply chain mechanic.
Was just thinking about My Time at Portia. Pretty new gamer friendly and when things start feeling tedious, a new mechanic is introduced to make everything you were doing easier. Haven’t played My Time at Sandrock, so can’t speak for the sequel.
Portia is way better on PC than Switch. I have it on Switch and got to late game but haven’t beaten it yet - the lag got too annoying but for me it wasn’t quite good enough to justify buying twice. It was pretty good though and if they ever put it on deep discount I’d consider spending $5 or so to buy it again.
PS3 is a strong, strong contender for reliability and repairability reasons. You could replace the CMOS battery and hard drive today. You have to jump through hoops to add funds to your wallet, but once you do the store still works for the moment. The last time I looked there were even some decent deals from a couple of publishers.
No memory cards to worry about. The physical discs were expensive enough that people took care of them and are more inclined to sellt hem than toss them: it’s still really easy to find discs on eBay, and they’re new enough and most games have been remastered so they’re usually less than $20. It’s impossible to find Sixaxis or Dualshock 3’s, but fake ones from AliExpress are super cheap and almost identical except for the almost-never-used motion controls. You can also use a lot of USB controllers, or use something like a MayFlash adapter to use just about any controller you want. I think you can pair Dualsense too, though I haven’t tried. If you have original OEM’s, I don’t remember them ever having drift problems. The only real problem with the original controllers would be battery life (you can replace them if you’re handy), USB Mini-B, and how they needed a handshake and could only charge plugged into certain devices or special power supplies (another reason to just use counterfeits).
With a fat model you have full backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2. With the online store you can get a lot of PS1, PS2, and PSP games. Not sure if this counts, but you can do remote play with a PSP too. Some of the online multiplayer probably still works, depending on the game. It has an HDMI out and the old AV out, so you can hook it up to almost any TV with cheap and a sailable cables. You can also load up video and audio files for playback, saving wear on the disc drive. I remember briefly experimenting with using mine as a media server back in the day.
The drawbacks are few. I’m assuming no hacking or modding, so no Nintendo games. No Xbox either, though I don’t think that’s anywhere near as important. A disc drive is always just a matter of time before it fails. The fat model has PS2 compatibility, but also was less reliable, so that’s a trade-off. The digital store is not long for this world. I used to use mine for Netflix, YouTube, HBO, etc and I’m guessing those apps have probably been shut down at this point. You lose out on modern games too. The PS2 and PS5 are both good options too, but I think the PS3 has the edge. If they ever add a PS3 emulator to the PS5, or if the PS5 library grows in general, it could still overtake the PS3 in the future.
If you lean more Nintendo I think the WiiU was better than the switch until they shut the e-shop down, and might still be better if we open this up to modding and hacking. It’s just easier to work with a WiiU because Nintendo stopped caring about protecting it. It’s also better for playing DS and Wii games for example. A ton of Switch games were also released on WiiU, and the Switch’s legacy content is mostly locked behind the online subscription - how long will that be available for? Still has the disc drive issue and can’t play Sony exclusives, but a strong option.
I’m not usually an Xbox guy, but they’re usually the easiest to mod, the emulate things well, and even without modding the Series X is probably the best option for pure backwards-compatibility with a good chunk of the libraries of every Xbox generation ever. The problem is you get neither the Sony nor Nintendo exclusives. And Xbox exclusives really aren’t all that enticing to me. Maybe if you’re into HALO or Gears or Forza Xbox is a more appealing option. The best IP’s Xbox owns are often released on other consoles, like MineCraft. Which is great for the industry, but hurts Xbox’s ranking here.
You can also use a lot of USB controllers, or use something like a MayFlash adapter to use just about any controller you want.
You can do this in software too if you wanted to use something like a generic Logitech PC controller or an Xbox 360 controller. Very plug and play.
If they ever add a PS3 emulator to the PS5, or if the PS5 library grows in general, it could still overtake the PS3 in the future.
That’s something I was kind of disappointed with when it came to the PS4. I thought it might have PS3 backwards compatibility and be pretty much the perfect system for me. A lot of the games I have been playing the past couple years (on PC) were released for the PS4 like Control, Death Stranding, Dying Light, and Far Cry 4 to name few.
All that said I did phrase the question in a way that omits backwards compatibility, game costs (with the price of retro games these days it would be enough to keep me from picking anything sixth generation or below), emulation, and online play because I was more curious what generation of games people think they could play in a kind of stuck on a dessert island scenario. Ignoring all of that I feel like going with the most recent generation of Playstation would be the way I’d go. It’s moddable, online is still available, backwards compatible with a lot of PS2 games, and you don’t really need to worry about a lot of the typical wear if everything is digital.
I’m in a similar situation with my partner; she does game, but only shitty repetitive predatory mobile puzzle games. I got her Stardew to try and she absolutely hated it. I have, however, had some limited success with puzzle RPGs like Ticket to Earth.
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