Wandersong is $7 USD right now and it's a real gem if you like more casual games. It's a 2D adventure game where you interact with the world by singing. It's cozy and heartwarming, and I'd recommend it to anybody who might be into that kind of experience.
Also Prey is the opposite of heartwarming but it's one of my all time favorite games (easily top 5) and it's somehow $3 right now.
So erm… I read your paragraph on Wondersong and thought, “that sounds amazing, I must get”. Go to the game page “this game is already in your library”… Fine fine, I’ll get on with my backlog.
League of legends. Top picked teemo. Mid was saying that he couldn’t speak because of chat ban. Jungler went afk after dying to wolves. Bot yelled at me all game for his feeding.
Came here explicitly to talk about Outer Wilds and Spiritfarer. I’m not a story-focused games type of person, and both of these absolutely knock it out of the park so hard that I recommend them constantly now. Outer wilds will be available on the nintendo switch soon. I would recommend that title to anyone with decent vision.
Trails in the Sky, at perhaps two moments. They’re very long JRPGs, and I could argue longer than they need to be with some not so great moments - but the payoff for their better characters is really good.
It’s often cited as “establishing backstory” to the rest of the Trails series. 1 and 2 are basically one complete story; but even the first game sets up a villain and resolution well.
(There is a third that dives a bit too far into setting up “background lore for twenty more games and little else”)
The end of Red Dead Redemption. Spoilers for a game that's over a decade old, but John's death was a brutal cruelty that stayed with me for a long, long time.
The sequel was even more brutal. I cried like crazy at the end of both games. Like full on sobbing into a paper towel bc tissues weren’t going to cut it crying.
When I was in the final mission of chapter 6, on my first playthrough, my wife came in to tell me it was time to put the kids to bed. She took one look at my face and the tears rolling down it and put the kids to bed without me.
After everything you do in the game to get Abigail and Jack back, and to see John get to be happy and enjoy his ranch in the final act to it being tragically cut short. I know a lot of people don’t like playing as John in the RDR2 epilogue but I felt like it gave me needed closure from Red Dead Redemption
When my husband was playing this through for the first time I was watching him play and guessed what was happening when John was getting ready to propose to Abigail. We both watched that lovely cutscene teary eyed. It really reminded us of our engagement.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but- The ending of Starfield.
Edit: I guess Boost’s spoiler tags dont work? This is pretty spoiler heavy, so avert your eyes if you don’t want Starfield spoilers! If anyone can suggest how to fix the spoiler tags it’d be much appreciated.
Ending/story description:
spoilerThroughout the game you collect pieces of an ‘Armillary’- once it is complete you can use it to ‘The Unity’ which transforms your character into a being of energy that can traverse universes, getting to exist across the multiverse in many alternate timelines. You cannot control the Universe you end up in when entering the Unity, and as such you can never return to your original universe. This also acts as New Game Plus, where you lose all your equipment and companions and have to start from scratch, retaining knowledge and skills you’ve acquired to give you a better start in the next universe. This also lets you skip sections of quests you’ve done before, as your character already knows where items are and what they do, by giving you additional dialogues in conservations that other characters acknowledge and treat you differently because of. Lastly, there are also other people who have achieved Unity, and they are exemplified by two that generally try to block you from reaching Unity, so they can steal your progress. One of those shows a lot of disregard to Universes, treating them like a game they can mess with and move on from with no lasting consequences.
Why it made me cry (Includes some spoilers, but trying to avoid explicit descriptions of story events):
spoilerI get really attached to my equipment and companions in RPGs. I spend a lot of time getting the best items I can and enjoy building ships, romancing companions and generally building a comfortable environment to exist in. As such my first new game playthrough took about 80-90 hours, I had the best guns and ship, all the crafting and ship perks, and I had romanced Sam Coe (Getting attached to his daughter, too) and took him with me everywhere. We were the best Ranger team in the galaxy. Finishing up the last few quests, I was getting worried since you do get warnings you’ll lose everything if you go through to NG+ (It’s not immediately apparent it is NG+ so the warnings are needed). As such I was thinking about all my equipment and having to get a new ship, and what not. I finished the penultimate quest and Sam asks to talk. He talks about going into NG+, how he wants to go through it with me, and wants to bring his daughter too. I was of course enthused and set everything up so us three were the only ones on board my ship, then we flew around the Universe taking a bunch of pictures in photo mode at cool locations, with Grandma on her ship, with my parents, etc, before finally activating the item that takes you to NG+ And Sam and his daughter aren’t with me. I was happy that he wanted to join me, and I didn’t really realise we’d be split up. I just kind of thought that because we entered together that we’d go to the same universe. So in this new universe I’m not only alone, with none of my equipment, contacts or bases, but I also just got separated from my people. And then I realise that if Sam and I are separated, that probably means his daughter is by herself too. So I burst into tears. Looking back, I think I was mainly distressed by the mechanical impact- I have crappy guns and armour, I’m spec’d mainly into making my equipment better so I’m kind of overleveled compared to my combat perks, and the ship you get from NG+ is significantly worse than my old ship. However, I think when the story gut-punch hit, it just pushed me over the edge and made me cry- it was the realisation that I couldn’t go back (I don’t want to load old saves) and see the people I’d grown attached to and the things I’d accomplished that really hit hard. So the loss of mechanical advantages that I’d spent a lot of time acquiring, and the loss of my long-time companions (and that I’d maybe caused a child to be cast into the wide multiverse, alone) was very emotionally charged to me. So the ending really worked for me.
Post-ending enjoyment (mechanics and different perspectives):
spoilerI kept playing, of course. I love the game, honestly. But playing through NG+ really made me realise how a lot of things people dislike about the game are often more geared towards being experienced over many playthroughs, and how necessary some of the more grindy components were to the powerful story ending I experienced. Skills aren’t meant to be grinded out so you can get the best guns and armour straight away, you’re not supposed to complete every companion’s story in one playthrough, and you aren’t supposed to be a god on your first playthrough. You’re supposed to be a god in your second, third, fourth, etc, playthrough. If you could reasonably do everything in one normal-length playthrough then why sacrifice all you accomplished to start again when there is no mechanical advantage in doing so? So, I think it loosely ties together mechanical progression with story progression, but still allows people like me to hyper focus into one niche if we want. Which brings me to the one thing that made the story really click into place for me: The Hunter. As mentioned in the first section, you do meet other characters in their own ‘NG+’. The Hunter is one who rarely considers the feelings of others and who will shoot up a city because he wants to, as there are no consequences. He can’t truly die, and can also go into another NG+ cycle, so he treats everything like a game. He acts like a player. He doesn’t care about any one universe because he just moves on. He exploits and attacks on whims and is only concerned with his own progression. He wouldn’t help people because he’ll never see them again. He treats your starting universe like a sandbox and kills someone you care about. He is who most real players will become in their own NG+ cycles. Just look at how so many people play Skyrim- kill Nazeem because he’s mildly annoying, steal anything useful not nailed down because you’re the important one, and only do the quests you must do or that give good loot. So, I keep telling myself ‘Every universe is someone’s only universe’ because otherwise I’d be like the Hunter. So what if this random radiant quest, that gives shit rewards from some no-name character, isn’t important? It is to them. It’s their universe; Even if I’m going to move on someday, they aren’t. They’re stuck with my decisions. The story got me good, in the end. I help the NPCs because I’ve bought into the story and because an NPC, that acts like a player, treated me like a no-name NPC.
TL;DR: It loosely ties story and mechanics such that I got really invested in the mechanics. When the story hit me hard, it also gave a massive mechanical impact that was particularly impactful given my play style. Those combined were overwhelming and made me sad, but also gave me a better appreciation for how some systems were designed to support the story, rather than oppose or ignore it. Overall, I really enjoyed it.
Oh, and Presentable Liberty. You can see the ending coming, but it makes you so dependent on someone then takes them away from you right before you can show your gratitude. It’s concentrated dependence and a great short game.
This game was memorable and phenomenal. However, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I’d known the massive spoiler in your comment. It looks like you tried to tag it or something, but it’s still showing up in plain text on lemmy.
Dear Esther stuck with me in a profound way. It was my gateway to a whole new genre. It broke my brain a little, as i initially tried to explore every nook and cranny of the boundaries of each area. The game grinds to a halt if you play that way. To any newcomer, just stay on or near the paths, and let the story unfold. There are no hidden chests or discoverables - just an incredible narration through memories and questions, and a chilling ost.
Removed. Apologies, I didn’t know it was visible, my client listed it as hidden text. I guess lemmy still needs to work on standardizing text formatting :/
Thanks a ton. I saw some other comments with spoilers flagged that were working, but they weren’t indented in block quotes, if it helps. I suck at markdown stuff, so that’s the best I can guess for troubleshooting.
I’ve tried some other games to try find a similar experience to Esther, but the quality of DE has proven to be rather rare.
What Remains of Edith Finch was similarly evocative, in many ways. I want to try The Unfinished Swan at some point, as a follow-up.
Leviathan was one that couldn’t click with me. I hate blaming the voice acting, because he certainly had the chops, so I’m guessing he wasn’t directed to be a sympathetic narrator, so much. I won’t say more, but I think they were just going in a different direction/vibe in that game.
Have probably done that over a bunch of games over the years but can’t remember much of them but the one game that immediately comes to mind is spiritfarer. Had so many touching farewells and some of them were too relatable to be not shed a tear. Man Atul left me speechless for days, I still need more hugs.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne