It sounds like you’ve found some games you like but are turned off of by some difficulty bottlenecks. If that’s the case, considerWeMod. It’s a trainer for a ton of games that allow you to “cheat” in singleplayer games(god mode, speed hacks, etc.)
I still love playing games but as I get older, my tremors get worse, making it impossible for me to get through one on my own. WeMod allows me to explore all of the game world without being stopped by something as simple as clicking on something quickly.
mass effect, cyberpunk, clair obscur, baldur’s gate 3 all super fun and have difficulty options. Doom is pretty fun too. I’ve just been ripping through game pass single-player campaigns and RPGs.
Ya I’m a big single-player story-driven player. Other recommendations are red dead 2 (never played 1, I’d like to), lies of P, sekiro, elden ring, bloodborne, uncharted series, death stranding (I love this game but completely get why people bounce off it), alan wake 2 (also not for everyone), control, and I’ll always have a soft spot for halo 1-3+reach. Theres probably a bunch more i’m forgetting but I loved all of those games. I just love a really good story.
I would describe Red Dead Redemption II as having significant fluff, not just in how much time it wastes getting from A to B a lot of times but also in that whole island chapter, Act 4, I think.
Time spent riding during missions has never felt like fluff to me. As it’s usually filled up with dialogue and stuff. Plus the nature and views and stuff are relaxing.
For the in-between missions riding you can just get one of those cheat menu mods and use the teleport feature.
It’s the in between missions riding that I was referring to. The previous game was much more lenient about giving you opportunities to fast travel. Also, when I played the game, mods weren’t an option, and OP might be looking for Xbox games.
these are my favourite games, thats why I put them in the second comment I realize they’re a little on the more difficult side. My bad I didn’t clarify.
One thing i’ll say about sekiro is that it demands you learn “the dance”. You need to play the game on its terms and learn the rhythms, essentially you just need to “git gud” but it is absolutely worth it once it clicks. Its an incredible game once you finally get a feel for it.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could be what you’re looking for. The main story areas are significantly easier than all the side content.
You’ll want to do the side quests because how can you not play that game with cool sunglasses and a baguette on your back?
But you can easily get through the game without doing any side quests. And if you are afraid of being overpowered when you do play the side stuff, they recently added some nice controls to bump up the difficulty.
I’ll be honest I was a bit hesitant because of the hype. F the hype this is amazing. Turn based but active with parry/dodge/crit. Story makes me want to cry.
Oh, and I just remembered the old Thief games. They had pretty consistent difficulty. At least for the first two. I cannot remember if that was retained with the third because it was a little more open in terms of what you acquired in the hub world and took on missions. And we don’t talk about the fourth (which was a reboot nobody wanted, not even the dev team).
I usually have a good time with isometric fantasy rpgs in the vein of Baldur’s Gate. They don’t really have grind, the world is generally well-filled with a relatively dense story and interesting quests (denser than Skyrim at least), and if the game becomes too hard you can turn down the difficulty. Though you do need to actually be interested in the combat mechanics (which are much more complicated than e.g. in Elder Scrolls games) to really enjoy these games, IMO. One downside is that these types of games are usually really long; I’ve dropped a couple of them halfway because they overstayed their welcome.
Some examples:
Baldur’s Gate 3 (don’t really need to have played 1+2 to enjoy this one, though they’re still very good)
Divinity: Original Sin 1+2
Pillars of Eternity 1+2 (2 has much better combat, but the first one is pretty important to understand the world)
Tyranny (this is a relatively short one)
Pathfinder: Kingmaker 1+2
For more Skyrim-style games, I really enjoyed the Gothic series. I think their level of grind is about the same as Skyrim (probably a little less, but it’s been a while), and if you can get past the outdated graphics of the early titles they’re quite fun. Especially the dialogues, they aren’t as serious as Skyrim’s.
Slightly old by now, but Portal and Portal 2 remain two of the best games I’ve ever played. Gameplay is intuitive and linear, and doesn’t require grinding or building up resources. I thought the difficulty increased appropriately as well.
Fun fact: Portal was originally a university student project called Narbacular Drop that got hired by Steam. In a sense from its limited narration and story, it felt a bit more like a proof-of-concept than almost a full-fleshed game to me at times, which, for me, was hands-down Portal 2.
I feel exactly the same as you. I have ADHD so fluff is painful and pointless grind is just depressing. I thought the most obvious way to recommend my favourites would be to go by hours played, so here's my top four:
My Time At Portia - 594hrs
Hardspace Shipbreaker - 498hrs
Kingdom Come Deliverance - 370hrs
Just Cause 3 - 255hrs
Special mention too for Assassin's Creed Odyssey (164hrs) because that is one well made game in almost every respect. Very little fluff, grind and you're always in control of how big a challenge you feel like facing. To my mind it makes all the other AC games look clunky and drab.
Also I hate difficulty spikes so much that whenever they happen and just seem to be there so the devs can grind a few more hours of playtime out of you for their analytics, I just reach for WeMod. Big shout out to WeMod in fact :) It's made so many games I'd abandoned fun again.
I feel like ACO has a lot of fluff & repetitive gameplay but I played it for over 400 hours so I can say I enjoyed it 😬 it feels like going outside without having to
Palworld.
Fatal flaw: endgame content (oil platforms, summoned raid bosses, haven’t checked the newest 0.6 stuff yet) are fucking bullshit playing solo or duo with 1x (default) damage
Baldur’s gate 3 would be my suggestion. It has difficulty settings from easy to insane. No quick time events. And the whole world was designed with care.
The combat system is very deep since it is based on DnD.
You can ignore side quests and still see the whole main game but even after 1500 hours in the game i was still finding new questlines and hidden caves to explore.
I loved BG3 but there are serious difficulty spikes. I couldn’t make it to the third act because the second act boss kept wiping the floor with me and I couldn’t adjust my party to make the fight winnable.
If you can get your hands on a misty step scroll, invis potion + longstride/jump spell, speed potion, or dimension door, you can free Aylin in turn 1 (provided you freed her). Granted, that doesn’t make the fight a free win, but she sure can eat a lot of hits. Also, putting sanctuary on a full healer is very useful.
I really enjoyed both Far games. I never felt like any of the puzzles were large enough to get tedious. When I finished Lone Sails I just wished there had been a longer section of driving the ship… it kind of felt like you never got to reallygo before there was some interruption that you had to stop and get out for.
Jazzpunk was one of those games that left me wishing there was more of it.
Manifold Garden is just such a perfectly executed atmosphere, it’s hard to do it justice with description - like walking around inside an Escher drawing.
Red Strings Club!!! Woah!! Been a minute since I thought about that game. Very, VERY, good. Sort of a precursor to Potion Craft in a way, that really didn’t over stay its welcome. The pacing was great, difficulty curve was great, and it had a distinctly finite story that still left you satisfied. I’ve bounced off potion craft a few times because at a point the scale, and subsequent grind, is a bit much for me. Red Strings Club nails the middle ground with good increasing complexity without becoming a chore.
I totally agree on the pacing. The Red Strings Club is a masterclass of storytelling in a video game format.
I think it’s hard to describe as a game to gamers… the actual gameplay is pretty vague, the various minigame activities are almost inconsequential, but taken as a whole it’s a perfect experience.
I haven’t powered on my switch in years, but when I used it, 99% of the time it was docked with a TV, so the battery life and screen didn’t matter to me. I would think that’s the best setup for family gaming anyway.
The cartridge/download code is a step down in ownership of your games, but that’s been a lost battle for years. Steam is widely seen as the standard for gaming, and you are only buying a conditional license when you buy a game on that platform, you don’t own those either. This change only really matters if you, personally, rip games from disks/cartridges.
I personally don’t recommend anyone get the Switch 2. The new price points are frankly ridiculous, and I’d hate to see that shit get justified by sales.
Personally, I’d recommend looking into handheld PCs. I haven’t looked into them much myself due to lack of money, but they’re generally much more worth the cost from what I’ve heard.
All that said, I missed that you were looking for something to play with your 7 year old child. Switch might be better, but any handheld would be… notably destructible, so that’s a factor to keep in mind.
I missed that you were looking for something to play with your 7 year old child. Switch might be better, but any handheld would be…
I meant mostly to play party games or multiplayer games with her, with the console docked to a TV. I know the Switch has been super popular as an handheld console, but I don’t think I would be using it a lot in that configuration (especially with 2.5 hours battery life…)
The other day I thought to myself, “huh I’ve got a few extra bucks, I think I’ll buy a switch 2.” Then I saw that zelda costs $80. So nope, no switch for me.
I’m someone who has never played a switch, never held one, and I was about to impulse buy it. So I’d be a brand new customer (my last Nintendo product was the NES), and now I won’t be. Their loss.
As much as I like my Deck, they’re not really able to fulfill the role of a Switch for party games since a number of them are exclusives and setting up controllers are a bit more tedious than joycons which are essentially plug and play.
Most PC handhelds are also fairly bulky and heavy, I find myself struggling to hold them unless I’m resting it on my lap or a table while sitting so this may not be great for a 7 year old.
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