There are some really decent ones that have just come out, are are on sale with the current Visual Novel fest on steam. Videoverse - VN set in a Miiverse style social network that is about to be shut down Hypnospace Outlaw - Another one set in a computer, this time it’s an alt reality internet based around old Geocities pages. Very fun/weird Analogue: A hate story ( on sale)- You’re investigating what happened to a Korean generation ship found abandoned in space by talking to its AI Long Live the Queen ( on sale) - On of those VNs where you pick activities etc to raise stats, but parodied/put on its head because you’ll die various horrible deaths until you get it right.
RPGs are such a board term nowadays that anything can be an rpg if you market it as such. But that’s not the time for it.
If you like Undertale, you might enjoy its deranged post apocalyptic cousin released near the same time, Lisa the Painful. A turn base rpg with plenty of tangible choices.
If you like more narrative stuff, play Disco Elysium or Planescape Torment.
Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, I think strike a good balance regarding random encounters.
On the other end of the spectrum would be something like the Front Mission or Final Fantasy Tactics series - where the narrative is all handled through set battles.
This game is everything I wanted Divinity Original Sin 2 to be.
This is kinda exactly why I haven’t played it, haha. I’m a grumpy old fart who played the first two, and misses RTwP. I did enjoy D:OS I+II though, so I guess I’ll just shut up, play Pathfinder if I feel like RTwP, and be happy good RPGs are being made.
Baldurs Gate 3 on my linux machine runs pretty good and smooth. Already died because I failed a persuasion/deception check which led to a party wipe. It wasnt uncalled for either and didn’t came out of the blue. I really enjoy it.
I’m also playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on my Linux machine. Besides some frequent crashes, which I haven’t confirmed if they are the game or my aging hardware, it’s been running fine. I’m currently waiting for it to transfer to my Steam Deck to see how it fares there. I’d love to be able to play in bed, but I fear I may lose a lot of sleep if I do that.
I too am playing on Linux after making the switch last month. BG3, surprisingly, runs perfectly right out of the box. No settings changes, no command line parameters, nothing. Hasn’t crashed once. I’m really impressed.
Skimming through my Steam library, here are the games that I’d call memorable/left an imprint for me in the last year.
Neon White - Score attack/leaderboard chasing is NOT my genre at all, but the game felt so good to get into a flow state and solve the puzzle, chasing that last Ace medal timing. There are more things I could have gone and chased, but getting all Ace medals, gifts and finishing the story was sufficient for me. I’d be curious to figure out if playing again, almost a year later, if I could do any of the later levels!
Security Booth: Director’s Cut - A very short experience but such a fascinating and creepy one. You’re asked to man a security booth and let in or reject cars based on a list of license plates. Things get weird and that’s all I really want to say. This is also a game that feels like it was originally released on a PS1.
The Case of the Golden Idol - Both Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn are some of my favorites of all time , so when I heard that Golden Idol was like both of them together I was extremely curious. It’s more Obra Dinn than Outer Wilds, but the core mystery in each level is so interesting to uncover. Nothing ever really comes out and says “So this is what happened” in a cutscene, but you read a letter in one room, maybe a letter in another, then you’re checking between them for the dates and trying to figure out what happened when. I felt so smart when a puzzle came together and when I saw/solved one of the big mysteries before they basically tell you the answer. So so so much fun and I need to get into the DLC.
Marvel’s Spider Man and Miles Morales - I played the first Spider Man on Sony’s streaming service a couple years ago, so I knew all the story beats already. That didn’t stop the emotional impact from STILL hitting me from some of the final villain’s speech to Peter. I had also never played Miles Morales, so it was great to put them both back to back. The story can feel very routine/by the numbers but I almost didn’t care because I was having so much fun swinging through New York. Cannot wait for Spider Man 2.
I hate capped internet accounts. As the dad, I’d have to police the kids especially not to blow the monthly cap, and eventually I switched to a lower bandwidth but unlimited option and there was finally peace in the family.
I don’t remember it costing much more and the kids seemed relieved to not incur my wrath on a monthly basis. And not long after, my ISP increased the speeds on all accounts, so it more or less got us back to where we had been anyway.
Incidentally, if you’ve been with a particular ISP for years, it’s worth talking to a person when you change your account. They may have some discretionary power to give you say an introductory rate on a better plan to reward your loyalty?
Nier had some pretty amazing endings, although I don’t know the one you’re responding to specifically. The one where other people sacrifice their save files to help you at the end gets me. I doubt the game actually takes other people’s save files for that ending, but the idea that someone else would give a random person 100+ hours of effort to help another person by deleting their save is very beautiful to me. The fact that most users decide to delete their saves for that ending is such a huge statement on humanity as a whole.
I think the game is full of different emotional triggers. The one that got me was the revelation why the person in question actually wanted to the moon. All the mysteries in the game around weird behaviors and circumstances suddenly made sense and the implication of what the moon really meant to this person made me cry. That was so damn sad. It still makes me cry just thinking about it.
Played that one only 2 or so years after my mother's succumbing to cancer.
That game helped me im more ways than one - fantastic experience, still can hear some of the musical themes of it in my head as I type this out.
It's very frustrating thinking of how great this game could have been. It was barely a game at release and hardly anything has been added to it. I haven't been following for a few years but I wouldn't be surprised if Niantic removed all pokemon and just added a "give us money for no reason" button.
I hate the overwhelming number of currencies and crafting supplies. I shouldn’t need to have to gather so much of this thing and so much of this other thing (neither of which are labeled clearly, what they are and how to find them) to craft things. A small number of things makes sense, e.g. metal and powder to make ammunition, but when this potion requires 5 different plants and that potion needs 7, only some of which are common between them, it’s an unnecessary time suck.
Then, when I have an abundance of various supplies, I have to go to the blacksmith to repair my armor, run over to the jeweler to craft bigger gems, then go to the chest to stash things, go over here for various upgrades, and over there to craft the next potion I need. Why can’t all these things be in one place or at least right next to each other instead of scattered all over town?
And to add on to that, let crafting access your stash with everything in it. Don’t make me carry 10k iron to the blacksmith to craft the sword then 20 gems to the magician to enchant it or some nonsense, especially when there are inventory limits. I have it, it’s in my storage, let me use it.
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