I’d like to add Ardor to the list. It’s a free turn based deck building game where you face off against hexagon creatures on a hexagon board. It’s pretty polished for an actual free to play game.
When playing a game, graphics are put on the back burner for me because I care more about things like mechanics, gameplay, and music.
I could be playing the absolute most beautiful looking game in existence, but if your music sounds like it came from a 1st grade music class or your mechanics and gameplay play like an edutainment game aimed at babies, I’m dropping your game quicker than my brothers friend losing his hair in highschool.
I think bulbapedia cover just about any official content as far as I’m aware, so long as it’s licensed or made by nintento directly. Anything from the games to the anime to the trading cards to things like obscure licensed Japanese arcade games based on the franchise.
Don’t know if serebii does all that or if it just focuses on the games since I don’t use it.
For just about every single pokemon fan game I play, the fandom wiki pages have pretty much been utter garbage. Either they’re out of date, contain almost no useful info, or have a slew of other problems making it as painful as falling in a bunch of cacti. Same for most other ones I used to visit.
Will admit, Pokemon Empire having their own site for their fan game is still infinitely better than the fandom pages for it.
Totally depends on the game. Some games, like Ratchet and Clank Size Matters, yes for the final boss. Games like Brok The InvestiGator, no because I found the combat easy on the hardest difficulty.
I have been trying to beat a 2nd run in Slay the Spire. I also have been failing to get past round 15 in that endless mode in Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate.
Most loading screens are just more of a nuisance than anything, but if they don’t remove them, maybe they could get creative in how they work/look?
The main series Danganronpa games did loading screens in a very creative way that made them feel special. The room and all the things inside would start popping up and build the room as it loaded in. More loading screens like that would be lovely if they aren’t able to remove them.
I don’t remember where we got it, but back in the old days when everyone was trying to replicate the success of Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 & 2, we had School Tycoon. It’s certainly no Rollercoaster Tycoon since it was specifically aimed at a younger audience, but I find it still enjoyable enough when you want to just kill time.
Definitely better than Deep Sea and Space Tycoon. That’s a definite. We had those as well and I could never figure out how the hell to actually properly play them.
Microtransactions in general are the reason I avoid the majority of games like the plague, if you have to purchase the title and it’s on PC. The only exceptions I accept is the one RPG series I play and the spin-off auto chess card game. They have it figured out, at least, that shoving the paid features down your throat is bad for the player.
If you don’t mind a group of friends playing multiplayer, there is Stumpt. Depending on the game they’re playing, you either get some commentary about the game or in the case of videos like their Game of Life 2 videos, they kinda just talk about whatever because they’ve played it so much.
I remember spending a lot of time playing browser games from Nitrome.
Mutiny, that cave runner game, Dirk Valentine, Ice Breaker, Bad Ice, etcetera.
I also played a lot of the Bloons series. Hell, when I found out about BTD5 flash, I thought it was some fake fan made game that would give me a virus.
As much of a bummer as that is, I don’t think there has ever been any major cases of someone just replacing parts for their console and not selling it. What is a company like sintendo gonna do if you replace the screen on your switch with a 3rd party screen or open it up to replace any parts but don’t end up selling it?