Skullgirls - Still the best damn fighting game ever made. I've been grinding for a full decade now, and I'll be entering Combo Breaker 2025 once again this year.
Slay the Spire - The game that ruined all other roguelikes for me. What I love about StS is that it never lets you get complacent, never lets you lean on just one good synergy that will carry you the entire run. You always have to keep adapting, and you have to have a well-rounded deck to deal with enemies that are designed to counter players who try to rely on only one thing. And when I eventually got to the point where I'd had my fill of vanilla, there's so much fun stuff from the modding community to play around with. Packmaster is incredible.
CrossCode - It's been years since I finished this RPG and its colorful cast still lives rent-free in my head. This is a game that is perfect in every way and adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Fantastic combat, tons of side content, endearing characters, emotionally powerful story, beautiful visuals, amazing soundtrack.
CrossCode is all about how it plays! That’s why there is a free Steam demo! Go give it a try! Take the best out of two popular genres, find a good balance between them and make a great game. That’s what CrossCode does. You get the puzzles of Zelda-esque dungeons and are rewarded with the great variety of equipment you know and love from RPGs. During the fast-paced battles you will use the tools you find on your journey to reveal and exploit the enemies’ weaknesses and at the same time will be able to choose equipment and skills for a more in-depth approach in fighting your enemies.
Yeah, I took a look because of your comment. Sounds like something I should try. The art is certainly appealing to me. Appreciative that more games are putting out demos lately.
I’m so glad someone’s mentioned CrossCode! Such a wonderful experience from beginning to end. The world really feels alive with every inch of a mal being used to either enhance the story or hide a puzzle! I loved seeing chests and figuring out how to get to them across several maps.
I’m really looking forward to their next project, Alabaster Dawn. I hope it’s just as good!
Not just my favorite indie game, Skullgirls is my favorite game. That game is 13 years old, and there are still killer strategies that no one has even found yet, due to how flexible defense and team synergies are.
Vagante is probably my favorite roguelike, trailed closely by Streets of Rogue. As a bonus, both are playable in online and local co-op.
Sadly, the team behind Cannon Brawl never got to make another game together after making one of the best RTS games I’ve ever played, but to be fair, it wasn’t exactly super similar to the likes of C&C and StarCraft. Tooth and Tail is another great indie RTS game that I felt could be a future for the genre, but it didn’t really take off either.
There are also a handful of indie games that I’ve played that very few have. The Masterplan is just shy of being the perfect heist game, including a bunch of mechanics built around holding people at gunpoint. Magnetic By Nature is a clever magnetic platformer that deserved more attention. And most recently, I finally gave up hope that Cloak and Dasher, a fast paced platformer like Super Meat Boy or N++, will ever get another update and leave early access, but what’s there, while kind of thin, is pretty great.
EDIT: I mistakenly listed Mind Over Magnet, Game Maker’s Toolkit’s game, instead of Magnetic By Nature. They’re very different games. Magnetic By Nature is the one that I liked that so few people played that it may as well have been a secret.
I would say it’s a game that requires you to play tactically rather than rushing through it. Especially early game, the traps are very reminiscent of Spelunky, and it’s clear where a lot of their inspiration came from, but Vagante gives you even more mechanics to deal with traps, like magic rings that let you go through walls and floors, for instance, but you won’t necessarily find them every run. Noita has caught my attention here and there, but I just never made time to try it.
Hmm… May I watch you stream Vagante sometime? I’ve been iffy over it for a year or more now because of those reviews. Let me see how you die LOL jk. This is also coming from a SoR fan, too!
I’m not really a streaming kind of guy. Early on in the game, you’re mostly looking out for floor switches and spikes. You can hold the walk modifier to make sure you always climb down a ledge, which helps to make sure you don’t accidentally land in a spike pit, and you can throw just about anything on floor switches to trigger them before you get there so that they’re no longer a threat. You could check out a YouTube let’s play and see how they deal with them, or you could just accept that the game is pretty cheap, so worst case, you’re not out much money if you don’t like it.
If you want to see someone play Vagante, check out Pakratt13 on the tubes. He did a daily show of roguelikes for a bit and vagante was in the rotation. That’s how I heard about it.
Hollow Knight isn’t exactly over when you finish the story. There are more fights, especially Godhome. If you can beat all that you’re an incredible player.
You probably know this but just wanted to make sure you’re not unintentionally missing out.
I’ve been playing it on and off for over 20 years now with some definite highs and lows but I have nothing but respect for the devs (3 people) and community. It’s not on any store fronts and they just do their own thing.
Most of what I play is indie and choosing a favorite is too hard, so instead I’ll go with biggest playtime. Antimatter Dimensions, also on Steam, has quickly shot to having the highest playtime of my Steam library. It is an idle/incremental game. Bonus points: free! Most of the idle/!incremental_games I have played have been free in the browser without IAPs, and seem to have been made by one or a few people.
Not counting that, I’d probably have to go with Stardew Valley.
Advent Incremental, I had more fun doing this around Christmas time but it is also playable off-season
The Idle Class, game was probably intended as cynical political commentary on problems with capitalism, but my oversensitive “dammit yes I agree with you but I want to enjoy a game without dooming about the world” self was able to play just fine without getting sad or angry or hopeless
I was going to try and do some hunting for potential RPG Maker gems, but then I searched the tag on Itch 😅 I’ll probably stick to the Multiverse mod for FTL…
My brother got my wife and me some miyoo minis, and I’m almost through TLoZ: Minish Cap. He loaded the tiny best set so I have too many choices and haven’t picked what I’m playing next
After La Mulana I wanted to try more Metroidvanias, so I tried Castlevania: Symphony of the Night but found it incredibly dull and dropped it after a couple of hours.
I understand the historical significance of its level design, but the combat was so easy that traversal became boring, as enemies respawn every time you change rooms. Also, the sprites are beautiful and detailed, and the game looks great, but Alucard’s movement feels off due to the animation.
I then switched to Touhou Luna Nights, which was really short but fun. The time stop gimmick was fun to use and I liked the bosses. The metroidvania aspect was a bit shallow, probably due to the length of the game, as it’s mainly used for optional powerups.
I started playing Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. It seems like a fun game, the writing seems really cheesy (but enjoyable) and the combat is fun. A big problem tho is a bug that keeps triggering a slowdown at random times, which is really annoying and got me killed in a bunch of encounters.
Finally, I wanted to play Infinity Nikki, but I kinda lost interest with how the developer has been behaving lately. Can never trust gacha games.
I’ve been playing the Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition.
I played the original back on Wii U, and I was so sad when they shut the servers down.
They added another chapter in 3 parts that really points to a sequel in the works. They also added 3 new playable characters that were just NPCs in the original game, and the Hreisvelg series of skells that only appeared in 1 mission in the original version.
If you are a fan of Mobile Suit Gundam, this game is for you. The skells were made by the creator of Gunadam.
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