Some Pokemon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh
There are definitely some good pokemon fangames on PC that aren’t super difficult from what I remember.
Pokemon Hidden Place ( Spanish fan game with English translation IIRC )
Pokemon Bizarre ( another Spanish/maybe Portuguese ( I don’t fully remember ) one with English translation ). Has some memes here and there but it’s manageable.
Most other fan games I could think of are either too long, have a good amount of difficulty, or have some sort of QOL thing preventing me from recommending it.
They’re gonna be in my backlog for a while, but earlier I got Kerbal Space Program 1 ( with DLC ) all for less than $15USD before tax and the Steins;Gate visual novel for something like $3.99 before tax. Would have gotten S;G Zero as well, but I am low on funds as of now.
GG! Easy match! If the players are anything like the actual software, they’re slow, extremely unresponsive when you need anything critical done, and will crash out of the lobby before the game ends.
In my opinion ( haven’t played or really seen the DLCs, so I’m just talking about base game ), Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
Definitely had ups and downs when I did my only playthrough. Absolutely middle of the road compared to the official games ( completed gen 3, part way through gens 4-7 ) I have played and still even middle of the road compared to some of the fan games I’ve played over the years.
Technically I don’t think there’s a tutorial level per say as much as there is a tutorial set of levels, but Baba Is You.
The game starts off with only the controls on how to move and teaches you about how you can change the rules of the level to beat it if it isn’t possible normally, without explaining anything. Just from you exploring and testing different things. The only other time you’ll ever see any other form of level hint is maybe in the level names or if you end up in a position where you have to undo or restart the level from breaking the " [ object ] is you " rule in some way.
A lot of the game before you escape the testing track, minus maybe the point you are told about momentum jumps, feel like one big tutorial without even realizing you’re in one. It’s done very well.
I personally make a guess depending on certain games as to how long I’ve played them. I’ve definitely lost track of how long I’ve played certain games ( especially on console ) like Borderlands or Sonic Unleashed on xbox360. Especially since I never wrote any of that kinda stuff down in middle/high school because I didn’t care how long I had been playing in total.
Though, I will say that I like and dislike how Steam tracks your progress in playing games. I was roughly 4-6 minutes off of playing for 2 hours in order to buy some game related account themes but now I’m 2.7 hours in accoring to them because I ended up leaving it on in the background. In the future, I’m not gonna remember I did that, so I’ll assume I actually played all that time. There’s no nuance in their monitoring. If the game runs, so does their meter of how long it’s been on, regardless of you playing or not.
Though, I assume a good solution would be using any form of note taking program and jotting down your play times and dates and any other notes you want. Or using a spreadsheet with that same information. As long as you don’t lose that/those file(s), depending on what solution(s) you choose to take, it should be fine as long as you actually remember to do it and aren’t lazy about that, like I would be.
I absolutely suck at it, but I started a save on SimCity 3000. I have a lot of learning to do because my city is 100% dying, so I should probably run through the tutorial…
I have also been doing very minor chip damage on completing Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows. I’m far enough along it takes a long time for me to beat any levels. And probably even longer when I finally am able to beat the 200+ wave level.
I also discovered that Portal is now 7.63GB in size currently, after buying The Orange Box for $3.99 and wanting to check out a mod I found for Portal that I didn’t realize wasn’t released yet. Don’t know how big the game originally was on launch, but now it’s nearing the 11.88 GB size of Portal 2, which I find insane.
I also kept failing at Zuma Deluxe due to bad luck and skill issues on my end.
All I gotta say on the Spyro remaster trilogy is that I 100% support the 3rd game ( the only one my family had ) having been remastered. I don’t like how the bugs in certain levels look/looked in either version because bugs can fuck off, but I was dreading a certain level where you’d find a giant gateway to that shark ( submarine? ) shooting mini game and I didn’t even realize I breezed through that section. Little kid me was scared of that giant gateway because the music would stop and then I’d be face to face with a giant black void, but them deciding music should be played by those portals made it 300% less terrifying.
I have no clue how the original Crash or Rayman games compare since I only played Wrath of Cortex, Twinsanity, and Tagteam Racing for Crash ( before getting the remasters of the original trilogy ( still on game 1 ) ), and Rayman on DS and Origins on xbox360 ( before getting Legends ).
As for Ratchet & Clank, I have played all the PS2 titles ( still in the beginning of Deadlocked ), so I have a frame of reference for how it compares to the latest R&C game. So far ( only have made it past the first Rivet section because getting my controller to work while playing it on Steam Deck, is for some reason, the biggest pain in the ass no matter what I try ) it has been very fun for me. Absolutely love Rivet because 2 words: Giant Hammer! The story, so far, is also pretty good, too.
With Jak and Daxter, I 100% played through the first game but haven’t touched the 2nd game since I was less than 25% done before losing my copy alongside the memory card with my save. But can say with certainly the first game is worth it and would love to see a remaster of.
Just the other day I figured out the Plants vs Zombie fangame has not only a community server ( discord, sadly ), but they also have a demo out! I had an old build using an old engine that has more levels, but I downloaded and played the new demo and it’s amazing so far. Officially called 植物大的僵尸: Universe ( Plants vs Zombies: Universe in English ).
Totally looking forward to the games completion ( assuming neither EA or Talkweb don’t destroy it ) because it’s a very ambitious project trying to take content from, if I remember correctly, pvz1 international, China’s exclusive pvz1 journey to the west edition, 2 international, pvz2 Chinese edition, Online, and the card game ( not 100% sure if I’m right on that one being added ) and rolling it into a single game.
Demo currently gives you Emperor’s Mausoleum from Online and Ancient Egypt (the pvz Online version), with just base levels for now. Minigame side levels, which are present in the old build I have, aren’t currently available in the latest demo they have linked in their discord. As a big enough fan of the non spin-off titles, this makes me very gitty.
Otherwise, more dungeon clawler and that’s about all for non-mobile games. I did try modding Sonic Lost Worlds on PC, but I can’t with my setup.
One of my personal favorites has been Plants vs Zombies 2: Reflourished. It’s a modded version of the original game that removes all ads and microtransactions and is a challenging enough game.
Also, Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Simple enough to figure out, simple controls, and no 2 runs are the same until you unlock seeded runs by beating a run ( which I can somehow never do ).
Way too much Dungeon Clawler on my Steam Deck. I think that and a little bit of Baba Is You are mostly the only non-mobile games I’ve really been playing over the past week.