Fotonica definitely deserves more love. A simple adrenaline-rush timing-based running game, but extremely addictive! Good for getting really into that hyperfocus zone.
Checkout Somerville. It has its quirks, but I loved it overall. If you’re familiar with the game Out of This World (often referred to as Another World and vice versa), you’ll probably dig it.
Another one I recommend is Planet of Lana. Lovely little story and easy gameplay. This one really grabbed me and was an enjoyable, short playthrough.
I went through a similar period. Played a handful of easy-to-pick-up short adventure games.
Quest for Glory 1 (called Hero’s Quest at release) shaped my humor and gave me a lifetime love of fantasy in general, my username is the name of one of the minor characters. I recently spent a couple hundred dollars on a painting because it reminded me of Erana’s Peace, a location in the game. Its sequels are great too.
Not a single post about Prey (2017), the Arkane’s immersive sim gem set aboard the Talos I space station orbiting the Moon? I expected more of you, people!
Prey is a wonderful game. I think it wouldn’t lie make a mistake by designating it an RPG and an immersive sim, given its various skills (that are actually more than a few stat changes here and there - they affect, dictate the way you play the game), the multitude of ways you can approach so many things from puzzles to locations where you’re supposed to be to pretty much any in-game decision.
Prey’s world is rather small, but in the best way possible - it’s a space station, called Talos I, orbiting the Earth’s only moon (the Moon), doing some bleeding edge scientific research thanks to its diverse crew of the very best people Earth could send there. Talos I itself is split into different sections, each with its own purpose, making them unique locations with their own dangers and breath-taking sights; some interiors are spacious and let you navigate the level in stealthy ways, avoiding the hostiles entirely (if you have the wits!), and some are narrower, but many still offer you an alternate path to your destination if you look hard enough.
Prey lets you do stuff. You don’t like crawling in silence, trying to stay away from a fight until you hoover up every resource you can to make you “ready” to face the enemy? Go gun blazing - there’s no shortage of unique lethal tech at your disposal! You want to play a certain role, like be a mad menace to society? Feel free to murder everything you see, either with your own hands or by letting them die another brutal death! You want to be a true video game hero, saving each and every one? Roll your sleeves and get to work, because there sure is some saving to do!
Prey is the game where you think you know what’s going on, but you actually don’t. There will be surprises, and there will be moments of awe, and they’re all just done so well.
And last, but not least, is its magnificent soundtrack by Mick Gordon. The game looks gorgeous, and sometimes can give you some spooks, but the music completes the puzzle, setting its eerie atmosphere.
It’s a game you will likely play more than once to experience everything it has to offer. The game does not force you to do this or that, it does not explicitly tell you what skills to pick to be a good person, and it does not block one path if you’ve already taken another one, but you sure will experience the call of curiosity: “What if I chose only that?” Whatever you choose, you have the ability to craft yourself a unique playthrough, each equally interesting and viable.
Prey is a masterpiece of world-building, level design, and gameplay. I can’t overstate how special that game is. Without spoiling anything, its opening “level” was one of the coolest, awe-striking experiences I’ve had in gaming.
Mega Man Legends 2: both MM Legends have heartwarming light hearted stories and okay gameplay
Tail Concerto: similar to MM Legends, but gameplay is bit more basic. Features tons of cute anthropomorphized cats and dogs. Very lighthearted
Playstation Portable:
Remember11: The last game in Infinity series, co created by Kotaro Uchikoshi who went on and created Zero Escape trilogy. Out of the Infinity series, this is probably the best one, it is more sci-fi than romance/dating visual novel, there’s no longwinded slice of life section.
All of those games are either in English or have been fan-translated
Thanks for the lists! Seems like whenever someone asks for some lesser-known indie games, people start mentioning ones like Stray and Hades, which are good, but not exactly deep cuts. :)
I looked through my most played and least reviewed indie games on Steam, and found these three. They're super cheap for the summer sale right now, too.
Venineth - 178 reviews - currently $8 - released 2020
Physics-based 3D puzzle platformer. You play as a ball, with a lot of momentum, that rolls around some amazing looking, mysterious landscapes. Chill ambient music plays in the background. I haven't gotten very far yet; the reviews suggest that it gets harder as it goes on. The first couple hours are very relaxing.
2D puzzle platformer with the best soundtrack ever (and the soundtrack is 40 cents right now). You need to have very precise jump timing, so it has more difficult platforming than most puzzle platformers. Very replayable with leaderboards, community-made maps, and unlockable new skills that let you solve a level in different ways.
I stayed up way too late playing this one many years ago, and I can't even explain why it was fun. You just kind of fall downwards, aiming at things as you go down, and trying to find new routes to hit the things you want to hit and avoid the things you don't want to hit. I can't really compare it to anything else, except for maybe some platformers where there's a "falling level." Except this is all falling levels. It's weirdly good. They're working on a new one, although it's very delayed at this point.
shipped a local multiplayer naval game Overall Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive (523 reviews) : I had a lot of fun playing this game with my sist er and cousin.
seems like my previous comment didn’t get posted
Oh wow, kudos for sitting down and writing this piece out. Damn, that’s a long post.
But seriously though, all I could think of when I “skimmed” through the text was that you got too obsessed with the building blocks of a story and realised that you are critical towards that they’re all the same shape and/or made by the same material. So you stand very close to the wall and squint instead of backing up a few paces to get a good view of the actual construct in it’s entirety.
Relax and just be happy that we have the luxury in this day and age to appreciate gaming as a medium. Or don’t, whatever makes you happy :)
I really like this point. If you look closely most churches are built with bricks and wood, but still create beautiful structures. As I was reading through the list I was thinking a lot about games that did points good and badly. Tropes are tropes for a reason (check out OSP trope talks if you want break down on how specific tropes can be used well or poorly)
I could never get into Bioshock for some reason. I started playing it twice, but just never felt super engaged or intrigued. Which seems really weird to me because I love a compelling story and that game has a reputation for being a great story. Maybe I just haven’t been in the right mood and need to give it another shot.
Depending on how many hours you played, you might not have reached the point that gave it that reputation. I absolutely loved the story already, including the characters and the environment of Rapture, but there’s a certain point in the story where it gets taken to a new level.
Appreciate the perspective. Maybe it’s just not for me. But I may also give it another shot at some point since I’m not inclined to spend a lot of money on games these days and that one’s already in my Steam library.
The villain would have won, if he’d just had the good sense to NOT BE OBVIOUSLY EVIL FOR LIKE HALF AN HOUR. You could have just celebrated your victory over the first bad guy while you let the hero meander back to the surface and fuck off forever. But NO, you have to be like “HAHAHA I’M EVIL SO FUCK YOU!” and now the hero has literally no choice but to stay and kill you. It was so lazy, and so stupid. Up to that point, it was good, and I loved the twist, and then he had to go completely ruin it with a boneheaded move that made 0 sense except to show how evil he was.
Then Bioshock 2 fucking did the same thing again. Let these meddling interlopers get on the submarine and go away, and you’ve won, all your goals are complete, Rapture is yours. BUT NO, we have to show the reader how EVIL the bad guy is again.
Then Bioshock Infinite did it fuckingagain. Great, we’ve won, the revolution is a success, the good guys are triumphant, oh, shit, did we make these people too sympathetic? Better have them suddenly become bloodthirsty child-killers for no reason so you feel ok fighting them instead of fucking off back home! By that point, though, it was kind of a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat situation; I don’t know why I expected anything different after the previous two times.
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