It’s a lighthearted detective series, more of a walking sim with humorous characters than anything. The magnifying glass doesn’t even do anything! The dev did a fun talk about comedy in games if you’re into that
Like everyone else Journey was the first thing that popped into my mind.
Id give a shout-out to Death Stranding, too. The game is far from perfect but it’s basically a hiking simulator which I find soothing. You also carry things so you could say it’s uplifting in the literal sense haha!
Journey - This game brought me to a sort of Zen, it is calm and peaceful and was just a wonderful experience that didn’t out stay its welcome. By the end of it I just felt like I had had a nice uplifting experience.
Fallout games - Yeh this may not seem like an uplifting game experience for most people and I would generally agree but on a personal level I do find them uplifting by the end of them for the following reason. I have always picked up the modern fallout games when I have been quitting one substance or another in the past. There is something about the desolation of the people and the environment within those games with mirrors the desolation I felt withing myself at these times in my life. Working through the stories draws me in and helps me forget about whatever it is my body is telling me I “need” even if it is only for a few hours at a time. Multiple times though these games have helped me get through those feelings and so therefore for me they have a certain uplifting quality, like a weird unexpected safe space.
Gris - A beautiful platform puzzle game. A very emotional game, but one that makes you feel like you’re rebuilding something in yourself. Gorgeous art, amazing dynamic soundtrack.
Meadow - I don’t know how to describe this game. You log onto a server, pick a woodland animal as an avatar, and then you explore the world and meet other players. Your only means of communication is noises and emojis. It’s so simple, yet so fantastic.
Bokida - Heartfelt Reunion - A minimalist art puzzle game. I haven’t played it in a while, but I remember it being super immersive. I just had to finish it, to see how all of the pieces of the story fit together.
Something about the Blitzball players all being characters you could find in the world, some of whom would otherwise be unremarkable NPCs really burrowed into my brain with FFX. Something about the fact that you’d have relationships with characters in two different contexts where they would often play a wildly different role in each really made the world feel a little bit more alive than normal.
I’m the weirdo that thinks FF8 was the best one. Squall actually grew as a character, matured from an angsty emo teen into an adult who assassinates authoritarian leaders (or at least tries to)… And don’t forget that Rinoa launches her dog like a wrist-mounted crossbow, as an attack. Best FF game.
Teenage me was blown away by the “free, unlimited” use of Guardian Force (summons in previous games). First time summoning Shiva was magical.
The worst part, for me, was the excessive use of FMV parts, mostly because my PSX suffered a cousin-related accident and would, more often than not, fail to properly play videos. It was like 5s, freeze for 3s, 1s play, another second frozen, 10s…
I loved 8! I got so into the characters and their stories. I was always excited to see more Laguna & Co. I remember downloading the Eyes On You song, probably off one of those sketchy P2P music sharing services.
I like it but found the fear of using items you might later need too be exacerbated to an uncomfortable degree by the magic system. I suspect I’d enjoy it more today than when it came out.
It would be rad af if you could not only run Doom off of one of these (because they already run on Windows so it’s probably easy as hell to run Doom on it), but also somehow get the scanner part to use its laser to make one of those holographic keyboards to actually play Doom on it without any external devices.
Have you tried that fun fact? I know there was a meme claiming it, but I have never found any evidence of it actually being true, nor did I manage to replicate it on Amazon.
I did actually, and it worked, though they may have changed it by now.
Think I have a screenshot somewhere…
Edit: they’ve definitely altered the way it works. I’m sure there’s a way to get around whatever guardrails they added with enough creativity, unless they’ve completely rebuilt the model and removed any programming training data. https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/d5a506f2-ad22-4792-9859-1f3193e27c31.webp
What I love about the series is that there are so many varied entries that everyone can find their own favourite, consensus be dammed.
I’ll always consider VI the absolute peak Final Fantasy - beautiful pixel art, Active Time Battles, SNES Mode 7, brilliant score, a fantastic story with a memorable villain and a large and varied ensemble cast of great characters… It has it all for me.
I also have to somewhat ashamedly admit that for whatever reason I actually have some fondness for XV. I’ve posted about it before but I have such a hard time succinctly putting my feelings about it into words, because it is by no means a good game. It’s probably the biggest discrepancy I’ve experienced between the objective quality of a game and how much I enjoyed playing it. Whether it’s the stellar fishing mini game or the random wholesome interactions between the gang and the overall bro trip vibe I don’t know but there is something there. And the score is no Uematsu perhaps but I really enjoyed it and thought they did some wonderful leitmotif work.
Yeah it’s funny now that you mention it but I don’t really remember the battle music if XV all that well. But I have stuff like Valse di Fantastica/Sunset Walz/Dewdrops at Dawn and Ardyn’s themes seared into my brain.
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Aktywne