My brother lives in the lower-left corner of Vegas, kinda by the edge of the city. Every time I visit (I’m actually out here right now) I can’t help but think of New Vegas. Anytime we drive on the 215 to go somewhere I’m almost always looking around at stuff and trying to picture how it’d look in-game but in real life.
My favorites are probably the Disgaea series and related games (Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave) and Tactics Ogre. I also like Tactics Ogres more popular little brother, Final Fantasy Tactics.
Disgaea and like are intentionally non-serious and funny. If the humor doesn’t do it for you in the slightest then it’s not for you sadly. I do have to say that once you get hooked on the series, all the other games feel like their mechanics are overly simplistic though.
And no, Tactics Ogre is all serious and very very good.
I’m currently playing Betrayal At Krondor on my old Celeron PC. I played a couple of chapters a few years ago but I left it there, so I’ve started again and I’m on chapter 2. Since the game is slow and mostly text based, I think its gameplay has aged quite well. I’m playing it with MT-32 sound and music thanks to my MT32-Pi.
I’m also replaying Undertale on my PS Vita, it looks great on its OLED screen.
I don’t think Blackmist has a hot take here. The Ubisoft formula is: navigate to a tower. Tower gives you a checklist of things to do. You do the things, then look for a new tower.
Breath of the Wild is different. Yes, you start by navigating to a tower, but then… no checklist is given. You look around, you explore, you find things to do. Maybe you find everything, maybe you miss things, maybe you miss everything. You can always come back and explore more later… and when you’ve done everything, you can’t really be CERTAIN that you got it all. The lack of a checklist dramatically shifts the gameplay from doing a list of events, with little difference from selecting them from a menu, to actually having to explore the world and look around.
To call it the Ubisoft formula is to vastly misunderstand what the Ubisoft formula is. The formula is a list of things to do. BotW does not have that. Not even slightly. The towers are just something to aim for to get you started, and a place you can use your eyes to look around from, also to get you started.
And to add to that, it also gives you the tools for discovery. It’s not just “Ubisoft, but they hide the icons”.
The shrine detector (which can become an anything detector), the ability to look through binoculars or whatever it is and stamp a limited number of visible waypoints onto the map. Tears of the Kingdom gives you a slightly obscure ability to highlight all the cave entrances nearby, which you can then try to mark up and see if you’ve been there.
Other games have started trying to do some of this, but I think a lot of it is added late on in development and doesn’t really work well. Like Jedi Survivor gives you the ability to mark things with icons, but what for? You can’t see the markers when you’re walking around. There’s not really much to discover from a distance, and it’s pretty far from being a vast open world.
Is it perfect? No. The last few shrines are often a complete ball-ache to find, although a lot of them are just a generic fight and they’re pretty optional, it feels like you should do them.
Is it better than a world as a menu screen as offered by Ubisoft and those that copy them? Yes.
I think in general a lot of developers should take a long look at what they’re actually trying to make before going with the open world approach. It’s getting tired, and they’re mostly doing it badly.
Oooh, I got you OP. If you liked the dense micro-maps of Into the Breach, check out Bad North. Defend small islands from waves of invaders with limited troops. Not an overly long game, but very satisfying for what it is.
I have to recommend Ascent DX - it is free, quite short, but it condenses everything I enjoy about the metroidvania genre I to a bite sized play session.
Tunic is one of the best games ever made, nevermind just in the metroidvania genre. It is good for reasons I can’t tell you without spoiling some of the magic. Trust me!
Phoenotopia Awakening was stupendous fun and way bigger than I thought it would be. Strongly recommended. Typical side scrolling platforming gameplay, with emphasis on exploration and puzzles as well as the combat and platforming.
Death’s Door was so damn fun, and it felt quite fresh in a way I can’t describe. Its an isometric hack n slash game with some puzzle elements. Tells a cool story, and is a sequel/successor to Titan Souls, from the same devs.
AAAAXY was a lot of fun, and free and open source. Sort of like antichamber meets metroidvania. Short and sweet but also challenging!
Otherwise, as others mentioned, I can’t recommend these enough!:
Been playing Clair Obscure: Expedition 33. Finished it last week and I am blown away. Game of the year for me. There is no challenge here. I read that there is a lot more of it after the story so I am going to continue.
Als every time i am amazed by the mass and quality.
Love to read it, thank you!
Will try retroassembly, sounds interesting, but i am afraid nintendo might will come and sue them.
As you picked up god of war, thanks to remind me, i still have to play the series, right now factorio got me on the deck… Its just logical madness, love it
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Aktywne