Pokémon. You get to choose from Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle for your starter. And everyone you know will judge you for which starter you picked.
Pyre. The long-term goal is to get you and your boys out of fantasy australia, but there are complications along the way. Namely, who gets their freedom, and who doesn’t? Are you really going to let your goofy dog buddy go when he’s your best party member? Will you throw the match and let one of your favorite rivals win their freedom instead? Wouldnt it be really funny to let the little goblin loose back in civilization instead of someone who actually wants to go back home to their families? These are the tough questions Pyre asks of you, and they go places.
I know Pyre is probably Supergiant’s worst game, but it was still damn good and very overlooked. Everyone should check it out, the story was really good. Also Epic gave it away for free once or twice, so check your library.
Life is strange is very close to what you’re asking, in the game you can rewind time to a limited degree to try different thing, but sometimes your actions only have consequences much further into the game. Even the things that you can rewind and try different things there’s rarely a clear better choice, since all of them are morally ambiguous, do you take a picture of the security guard harassing a student or do you intervene? One is obviously better, but the other gives you proof which you might need later on.
I know exactly the part you mean and same. Amazing moment. I also LOVED the sequel. Criminal that it didn’t do as well as they wanted because I want them to make an even bigger version next. True Colours was pretty good though
A lot of puzzle games, especially ones by Zachtronics. Eventually I get to a point where my brain just can’t keep up and at that point I consider it done.
Zachtronics games are hard. Every once in a while I try going back to beat Spacechem but I’ll just hit a wall, noodle with it for a few days and just sort of run out of motivation.
Yes! For most genres of games, I’ve noped out of some games but completed others. It wasn’t until you mentioned it that I realized I’ve never completed a Zachtronic game. I absolutely adore what Witness was doing, but I haven’t finished it. I should go back to it.
I’ve heard that for smaller studios it is incredibly important to get those early sales. Their margins are often very small (if they exist at all) so getting early and continued support is often vital.
I mehhed out on Outer Wilds because of Brittle Hollow and Hourglass Twins. Great game certainly, magnificent atmosphere, clever-in-a-good-way plot and premise, just not quite for me. Watching my daughter play through it was more fun than playing it myself.
I thought about playing the good and bad endings of Undertale, but it started to feel like work so did not. Plus I estimated that the Sans fight would’ve made be break something.
I adore the Outer Wilds vibe, but had the same experience and it still doesn’t sit well with me! Years later and the game still comes to mind, but the periodic resets were so unpleasant for me that I didn’t see it all the way through. Maybe this will be the year….
I’m glad I’m not the only one who found the world resets frustrating. I agree that the world is interesting and atmospheric, but as someone who enjoys thoroughly exploring, the resets just kept ruining my immersion into the world. Maybe one day I’ll go back to the game.
“True Pacifist” route is worth doing if you enjoy Undertale, it’s not terribly difficult and fleshes out the characters a bit more. If you’re thinking about going the other way, I would say play up through Undyne and see how that feels. Edit: also play Deltarune if you havent
I really want to like Outer Wilds, but it just hasn’t quite clicked with me either. I’ve probably played about 10 hours but just keep bouncing off of it.
The obvious answer is Pathologic. You play as one of three possible characters in a black plague-infested town in the russian steppe, trying to help people and survive.
As days go by, the situation worsens and, in order to survive, you are forced to make very hard decisions. Can you spare the food for the others? Will you rob someone of their medicines? Will you risk going to the most dangerous parts of the city, where the stench of infection permeates the air?
Making it to the end of a day is a genuine accomplishment in this game, considering all the work you have to do to stay alive, and that the game really doesn’t care if you live or die. It won’t hold your hand to make sure you get through to the end; it’s entirely possible to make it through 10 days and then back yourself into a corner where you have absolutely no hope of survival, short of loading a save from a few (in-game) days ago. Or perhaps to save yourself the agony of replaying several hours of the game, you end up in terrifying, desperate scenarios where you have to sell your only weapon for a few scraps of bread, or murder a child for the medicine he’s carrying while you’re about to die from infection. That’s true horror right there.
It’s not an easy game and it’s not a good game, even. It’s old and dated and janky, but it’s also full of charm and personality. I wouldn’t say it’s a game meant to be played, as much as it is an experience worth going through. You won’t have fun playing the game. Even if you can overlook its pain points, it’s an objectively oppressive game that will make you feel miserable from beginning to end, and increasingly so. I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone, and I don’t mean that in an elitist way. Some people simply won’t stand this much bleakness during the time they are supposedly spending to find entertainment.
From what I heard, Pathologic 2 is basically a 2019 remake of the original, so it should be prettier, less janky but still basically the same game, right?
I have heard very good things about it, but I can’t talk for myself, as I haven’t played it. My only recommendation is to stay away from the console versions of the game, as I tried it on Xbox One and it was unplayable (heard the same about the PS4 port, too). Maybe it’s better on next gen, but I wouldn’t risk it.
Two things worth mentioning:
The remake only has one character, the Haruspex. If you want to play as the Bachelor or the Changeling, you’ll need to grab the original game.
There are difficulty settings in the remake. I would leave them as default, as I think the difficulty of the game, and the conflicting decisions you’ll need to undertake because of it, is an integral part of the experience. That being said, if you really like the game and want to see it through, you can tweak the difficulty a bit, and accessibility is always a plus in my book.
Again, this is just hearsay as I haven’t played it, but from what I’ve gathered, Pathologic 2 is more a retelling than a faithful remake. Same setting and same ending, but a different road, so to speak. You could play either one and then move on to the other if you like it.
Interesting are all the points you share. I’ve never been so convinced to try a game even after being explicitly told it’ll not be fun. Give me that sweet pain.
Yeah, tanking a district makes that area harder and doesnt feel great; however, if you don’t kill any of them, the combat is really hard because you’re under levelled. So you have to make moral judgements and choose who is “best” to kill.
I mainly remember totally fucking up helping that nurse save that homeless guy, and I tried to go back so I could do it right and the game specifically tells you to live with your choices.
If you want more cinematic games, the Quantic Dream portfolio has a couple. Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human are both notable examples. I remember having some serious anxiety playing Heavy Rain, in the best way.
I actually liked Beyond 2 Souls, too. Didn’t age well at all especially with the naked model allegations and all, but playing it at the time there were some intense moments in there.
I can’t speak for the other games mentioned in this thread, but in the case of Heavy Rain it was very enjoyable that often you had to make quick decisions or the game would choose for you
Hahahahaha, you’re right. My choice of words is very debatable, but it’s true that the moment you had to make a choice was implemented well and I was very concentrated in the heat of the moment
No it’s definitely enjoyable, I’m just kidding around. It’s that it’s the complex kind of enjoyable that is fueled by adrenaline and harmless anxiety. I’m a big horror fan, so it feels familiar to that fandom.
Fallout New Vegas - You can literally help a gang take over the starting town like 5 minutes into the game.
Souls games - The games constantly autosave in the background and (sometimes out of nowhere) present you with some very unclear choices. In Sekiro you have a choice around two thirds into the game which causes the game to end immediately (with a very bad ending); since the game autosaves all the time, once you make that choice you have to start the entire game over and get to that point again to make a different choice.
Most CRPGs I played had meaningful choices (sometimes having extreme effects on the game world):
Planescape: Torment - Best CRPG ever IMO.
Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity - Modern CRPGs by Obsidian, both amazing. I haven’t played Pillars of Eternity 2 yet.
In Sekiro you have a choice around two thirds into the game which causes the game to end immediately (with a very bad ending); since the game autosaves all the time, once you make that choice you have to start the entire game over and get to that point again to make a different choice.
Yeah, that's bad game design IMO unless the game is an hour or two long. The player should be able to roll back when they fuck up that much. In fact, only one save file and no way to roll back if it gets corrupted or you realize how badly you have fucked up is always a bad design.
The random premature endings were already annoying in nier automata, and that did have save files. I almost never replay things, I get extremely bored. Took me forever to get through the second playthrough of nier automata as well, since that is so similar to the first.
If a game pulled that on me I just wouldn’t play it ever again and watch a cut scene compilation or something.
In Sekiro, while it is not made clear that the decision will end the game (after a boss fight), it is obviously a very important decision, so I don’t think making the stakes actually high is bad design - the stakes being high is one of the reasons I like souls games.
I didn’t like Nier Automata and didn’t play it much, so I don’t know about its abrupt endings, and how they are presented and handled.
Edit: I didn’t mean to be rude in my last comment, I was being genuine - souls games are known for this stuff (not specifically abrupt endings, but rather abrupt meaningful choices).
Your reply made me realize however that it might just be Nier’s implementation of the idea which you dislike, not the idea in general.
Yea, from how you made it sound it seems similar to how it ended up being in nier - make a choice that does seem like it’ll end the game, but really it’s probably not very serious - credit roll, hope you saved recently. It would’ve very much benefited from simply autosaving at the correct time.
Imo it kinda depends on what kind of ending it is, if it’s still conclusive but maybe a bad end, that seems alright. Just if it clearly leaves me unsatisfied I’d be annoyed. I’d still really prefer just having a reload option, but I’d also rather game devs stick to their vision, just like fromsoft ganes really don’t need an explicit easy mode, it makes sense they’d also stick to this if they want to do it. It’ll be great for some people, and others will hate it, and that’s fine.
Spec Ops: The Line is a pretty decent pick when it comes to having “morally ambiguous choices”. the game itself states that there are no “real good choices” and thus, you must pick between the two evils.
The right choice is to just stop, but this is a phenomenal game that should be experienced by more people. Just don’t let kids play it, it’s very much an adult game.
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