Saible. I just recently played through it. No combat whatsoever. It's mostly about exploring the desert on your hover-bike. I've heard comparisons to Gension Impact, but I haven't played that one, so I can't say for sure.
Not scifi or fantasy, but have you heard of Pentiment? It's by Josh Sawyer, lead designer of New Vegas. You're an artist in 1518 Bavaria completing your masterpiece at a monastery, when someone gets killed and you must collect evidence. There's much more to it than that, of which I can't speak without giving anything away. However, I can tell you that the game has no combat, it's just exploration and dialogue. The whole game looks like an illuminated manuscript, and you walk around engaging in some of the most captivating conversations ever to be in a video game. The character creation is extremely unique; in the beginning, you pick where you spent your year abroad, what you do in your free time, what you got your Master's degree in, and what your favorite subject was at university. All of these determine your attitude on and knowledge of pretty much every subject in the game. It has one of the most unique speech check systems in any RPG, with entire conversations counting toward convincing someone, showing you what you said right and wrong at the very end. Masterpiece.
As has been mentioned already, Disco Elysium should be right up your alley. Not exactly Sci-Fi but has very interesting alternative reality world building and suits your wishes perfectly otherwise.
Don’t be afraid to be wild and weird in dialogues and remember that failure is often just as good or better as success in this game (they pioneered a fail-forward type design). Basically, treat it like an interactive book and you won’t be disappointed.
If you’ve not yet played through the Kiseki (The Legend of Heroes: Trails) series, I highly recommend them. They are very story heavy. You’d definitely want to begin with the Trails in the Sky series since every game in the series is connected (and if you want to get the whole picture and experience the greatest impact from the events that happen throughout the series).
I have had that one in my steam wishlist for a while, starting with Trails. Never pulled the trigger. I’ve heard that it is very much a slow burn, but ends up being a favourite for a lot of RPG fans. Accurate?
I'm a big fan of the series and would consider it to be my favorite JRPG series, not just for the story but because I enjoy the gameplay it offers as well.
It's a fairly "cheap" series to try out and see if you're into it. The entire series is a singular, continuous story, so the recommended place to start is Trails in the Sky First Chapter, which can be picked up fairly cheaply on Steam, especially during Steam sales. It's not as long as future games in the series, and is fairly representative of the pacing and storytelling format that later games will follow (though it is considered one of the slowest-paced games in the series). Basically if you're not a fan of Sky FC, you're not likely to be a fan of the future games in the series either (especially given that the substantial improvements to gameplay over the series' 20 year history likely won't have much appeal to you).
There are also demos available for some of the newer games in the series (e.g. Trails of Cold Steel III), and while I would not recommend actually playing through those games out-of-order, they may serve as a quick/cheap way to see if the format of the games is right for you.
I will say that while the combat of the games is rarely very difficult, and the game provides difficulty modifiers to make it even easier if you'd like, that the combat system is still fairly fleshed out and quite good casually IMO, but if you're really not into doing it even at easy difficulties, one option (PC exclusive) may be to download completed game saves and play through the games on New Game+ and completely trivialize the combat.
I’d say that is accurate. It is a slow burn to start, and it took me several tries to actually get into it. Once I did, I ended up plowing through all of the games. :) They are all excellent. The series is really something special. Trails to Azure is actually one of my most favorite games of all time, too.
You sound a lot like me, and probably get annoyed with a lot of grindy mechanics. Especially when you have limited time to play games.
Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes will really scratch that Chronotrigger itch.
Outer Wilds is also incredible (don’t read spoilers, just go in blind). It’s mini space exploration with cartoon-arcadey newtonian physics.
Sword & Sworcery is also great, and a good point-and-click adventure with an amazing soundtrack. I’d almost argue it’s better on a tablet or largeish phone through. It’s very touch input focused, which is OK with a mouse, but I think is better with a finger (as intended)
Others I enjoy :
Kentucky Route Zero (point and click with a wild vibe)
Firewatch (walking Sim with pretty low poly art)
Dishonored 1 & 2 (gritty fps with stealth and magic)
Inside (short puzzle platformer)
Abzu (undersea exploration, relatively chill, but I never completed it)
The Invincible (more recent than the rest, a very pretty walking sim in a retro-future sci-fi setting (Stanislaw Lem) that kept me pretty engrossed and occasionally worried)
Horizon: Zero Dawn. (Absolutely adored this world and story. Story mode combat was good, but I just used cheats for a lot of the basic pickup/crafting stuff. Yes, I can take 30 minutes to run around and gather basic materials, but I don’t have that kind of time irl.)
Thanks for the recs! Already played Chained Echoes and quite liked it. Wish it was longer haha. Seen Sea of Stars reviews saying weak on story and dialogue and such, so I backburnered it, but maybe it’s worth it for the exploration elements alone?
Never played Outer Wilds. But seen it recommended before and it’s on my radar. Should it be played on console, do you think? Or is the steam version fine.
I’ll look into the rest when I have time. I appreciate all the details :)
Re: Outer Wilds, either console or Steam is fine but I would recommend a controller in either case. The flight mechanics can be a little tricky with a keyboard and mouse, but I had no issues getting it with a controller.
Abzu (undersea exploration, relatively chill, but I never completed it)
@troyunrau Abzu isn’t an RPG, but I’d still second this recommendation, as it’s very chill to play, has zero combat, and has a lovely story to it. Would also recommend Spirit of the North for the same reason. No dialogue in either, though - the story is very much in the visuals, music, and atmosphere rather than words.
Started with Rogue trader, can recommend it as a solid CRPG - Act 1 anyway. Apparently in Act 3/4 the gamebreaking bugs start to appear, and I’ve already found a few talents to be rather buggy. Probably should wait a month or two.
Otherwise, a game of Shadow of Forbidden gods is always good to relax while sending the world into shadow.
On the topic of Visual Novels: I’d like to recommend basically everything from Winter Wolves Games that is tagged as RPG. The classic is of course Loren the Amazon Princess, but, to be honest, their writing has improved since then, so you might want to check out their newer Tales of Aravorn games, like Seasons of the Wolf. Also, Loren is really long, so if you don’t have a ton of time, the newer, shorter games might be a better choice.
A word of warning though, by Winter Wolves themselves: mastodon.social/
Price doesn’t matter. Just want a low bug comfortable experience. Sometimes games are better on one or the other. I liked No Man’s Sky a lot more on the PS4pro than on the laptop, for example – just felt more like it was the right tool for the job :)
-Super Mecha Champions (It’s like Apex but with bots and the real players aren’t as good so we don’t get absolutely crushed every time we play which is nice)
does that mean a relationship between three people? that’s interesting. mind me asking if that was something everyone already knew they were open to? or was it kind of like, two were together then they decided they were open to a third?
Yeah! For us it was me (male) and my girlfriend who have been together 5ish years at the time and we met a girl who we really meshed with and became good friends with. Our friends joked around that we should just all date each other since we hung out so much. One day we got drunk and admitted we’d be open to it so we asked each other out and have been a throuple since!
Most of our friend group is very accepting. Our families, however, are not lol.
cool! good on you. i love hearing about how different everyone’s forms of happiness can be, sorry your families don’t seem to. hopefully they’ll warm up to it eventually
Dorfromantik – so relaxing! Planning to try to finish a couple other games (Guardians of the Galaxy, Far Cry 6) over the winter break too, and maybe start new ones (RDR).
I would say the game itself isn’t particularly that fun. I can’t remember the name of it, but there’s an scp game that’s much more game-y
But uh, lethal company for me, the enjoyment I get out of it has more to do with the people I’m playing with. I’m not sure I particularly like horror movies, but it very much seems to give the experience of being in one, knowing someone is either about to die or doing something that’s going to get them or you killed and sometimes not being able to do much more than silently watch. To me, these situations are kind of hilarious, and the game is kinda just filled with these horror movie moments once you sort of know what is going on.
Maybe mods could change the experience a bit, but if watching your frirnds panic in a silly game isn’t all that fun for you, then, yeah, probably not the game for you.
bin.pol.social
Najnowsze