ExanimaUnique physics-based isometric dungeon crawler also featuring an arena career mode.
Moddable.
Really slow development cycle, though.
Severed SteelFuturistic 3D shooter with maybe the best movement system I’ve tried, with wall running, full 360 air movement, sliding and more.
Weapons have only one magazine, so you’re constantly sourcing them from your enemies while blasting holes into the fully destructible levels.
Very replayable.
But seriously I’m a real sucker for platformers, and so A Hat In Time is my most favorited one. It brought back this sort of charm I haven’t felt since the n64 days and I love it!
Stray and Kena: Bridge of Spirits are pretty awesome too, would be my second and third favorites
I really hope the sequel does more with dungeons than just ricochet/geometry puzzles. CrossCode’s incessant use of those in dungeon after dungeon was what made me stop playing.
Not a sequel, just their next game! Combat and UI look similar so far. They’re doing dev streams on their discord
I thought crosscode had the best puzzles haha. The way they built it out with the elemental system, the enemies that required puzzle mechanics you had learned, the tight timing where you had to send a ball flying and then race it to various objectives, the myriad of subtle environmental puzzles in the overworld. Could go on and on, but yeah the VRP is the game’s central mechanic so if you simply don’t enjoy lining up your shots then I imagine the game would be pretty rough lol
Not sure what “VRP” is unless you just mean ricochet puzzles, but mind you, I did play 95% of the game. It felt just too same-y after long enough (it was the plot and environment that had kept me going), and then I just gave up and finished through some YouTuber’s play-through and I confirmed that I had apparently quit at the start of the final dungeon, because it just felt like… more of the same timing-&-angling annoyances with no more originality. Zelda was far, far more creative and I think the game just could have done more with items or different weapons, or something, though I know much of it is based on your character being a specific class that was fixed pre-game… It just ultimately wore me down, sadly.
It’s the game’s in-game (Crossworlds) terminology for the charged shot that bounces around, yeah. They cover it in the tutorial but the main cast basically ‘nerd emoji’s’ Sergey and they simply refer to it as “balls” for the rest of the game lol
timing-&-angling annoyances
But yeah, like I said, you just don’t like the central mechanic. It’s valid. This is the main point of contention for the minority of people who don’t click with the game, as is evidenced by filtering for negative reviews on steam
But imagine if you didn’t find it to be an annoyance, and instead found it to be inherently satisfying? One of my favorite parts about Crosscode is how unafraid they are to present you with puzzles that are not only difficult to solve in the typical sense, but also difficult to perform once you know what to do. It’s a rare treat, most games instead lean hard only into one direction (purely cerebral puzzling or purely focussed on action)
It’s a game that just gives and gives, and to the contrary of your experience, I found the constant innovation of the puzzles throughout the game is what brought it from A to S tier. I finished the final dungeon wishing there was more game to play. Imagine my delight when the DLC dropped and added another 20 hours of timing & angling goodness. Replayed the game 3 times over the years.
And yeah, frankly we should compare it to Zelda, the most celebrated and beloved puzzle adventure series of all time developed and supported for 40 years by one of the largest and most influential video game companies of all time. No joke, I think this is actually exactly where Crosscode stacks up. It’s up there for me with my favorite Zelda titles
Oh. It’s been literal years so I totally forgot that initialism, but while we’re at it, the second “C” in “CrossCode” is also capital.
It’s smooth as butter, yeah, but I think I would prefer a game focused on a different character class/weapon. I remember some progression of concepts but I guess didn’t really connect the dots (even though I don’t think I looked up a guide more than once or twice briefly).
Yeah plenty of people develop these feelings about laser focussed games. Sekiro is a good example. Not gonna be your game if you don’t like parrying. Lots of comments online from such people who write the game off as “spam parry to win” as tho there’s no depth to it.
Huge parry fan on the other hand? Probably your favorite game, and you’re bewildered by those comments because you feel like you could write a novel about how interesting the system is and how rewarding it is to master all the way into your seventh charmless NG+ run.
I think at the end of the day, when the gameplay is simply not catered to our preferences we’re not really going to appreciate what makes it so great at what it is
One game I love that hasn’t been mentioned yet is Subnautica. The only survival crafting game I ever finished. The story telling and athmosphere are unmatched.
Currently it’s Bellwright, among many other titles. what particularly tickles me about it is the shitty ai voices they used for the npcs. I am not pro ai by any means, but nothing makes me happier than hearing “all in a good days of work.” delivered constantly, in the most off-kilter reading imaginable.
I’ve not seen many RPG maker games mentioned here, so i’ll do my part. These are a lot of my favourites through the years:
To the moon
Finding paradise
Oneshot
Celeste
Omori
End roll
There are also a lot of them that i’ve not played but i’ve watched full playtroughs of, like IB, Hello Charlotte, Lisa, … and most recently The coffin of Andy and Leyley
One game i would also like to add is Rain World, which is a 2d survival platformer, a bit challenging, but i would argue it’s also a “metroidbrania” if you know the genre, games that have knowledge as gates rather than keys or power-ups like metroidvanias. Some notable examples are Outer wilds or Return of obra dinn, who others have already mentioned
Finding Paradise is absolutely an amazing game. Would absolutely recommend a blind playthrough of it, or at least a no-commentary walkthrough if nothing else.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is a magical experience that can’t be described honestly. On difficult stages, it engages all your senses and you’re just 100% inside, enthralled by the visuals, music and rhythm. This is probably the most focused and most precise game ever, everything it has, works. It’s not just my favorite indie game, it’s one of my favorite games ever.
Also, Night in the Woods and Keep Driving. Both resonated with me emotionally in a lot of ways, touching the things I care about. Keep Driving also has a really fun gameplay loop and an incredible music selection (which works as a boost for that emotional factor).
Honorable mentions: What Remains of Edith Finch (it made me uncomfortable and scared at some moments) and Firewatch (nice way to tell a story, and the characters feel real).
Sayonara Wild Hearts is such a good weekend game. Really cheap, really short, really good and with a soundtrack that you’re going to listen to long after finishing the game.
Fun fact: I discovered the soundtrack first, listened to it, checked out the game on YouTube and decided it’s not worth it. Only after something like two years of listening to the soundtrack did I get the game.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne