You should be able to play Flushes, Straights, or Full Houses and win in the first Ante without any buffs. Does the -1 hand size from Gold Stake really hurt that much?
Abzu fell kinda flat for me after Journey, but The Pathless more than makes up for it. It seems to be set in the same world as both prior games and has several references to each, so playing the first two does make it more rewarding to play.
I definitely recommend it since you liked Journey. The movement and combat feels great. It’s refreshingly short and focused for an open world exploration game, so it respects your time, and it also has some excellent storytelling with plenty of nice emotional highs and lows. It’s a worthy successor.
Agreed. The art looks straight out of an anime, and Dust’s combat animations are really smooth and satisfying. I think the cutscenes looked really good, too, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember.
You say that, but I never made a spreadsheet to optimize my Slay the Spire runs. Balatro is way harder and more random.
Still fun though. I’m 50 hours into Balatro and loving every minute of it. Just made a hand calc spreadsheet last night as I’m pushing into blue stakes and need to optimize every move to keep the numbers going up.
Outer Wilds certainly was. It was started as a college project and the devs stayed together to finish it after they graduated.
Journey I’m not so sure. I don’t think it’s indie? If it is indie, then I’d put The Pathless up for consideration. That game finished what Journey and Abzu started, and it has some of the best feeling overworld movement of any open world exploration game I’ve ever played. Flawless.
The art is phenomenal, but the writing is cringeworthy. I loved it as a teenager but I have a hard time taking it seriously now. I wish I never replayed it so I could have kept my nostalgia.
The combat mechanics are fun and feel amazing when played as intended, but they’re massively unbalanced. IIRC with two exceptions (enemies that require a parry to enter a vulnerable state) every single fight can be won flawlessly by spamming Dust Storm even on the highest difficulty.
It’s a remarkable game, all the more so since it was only one dev. I 100%'ed it, and it sits in a place of honor in my collection, but it’s not one I’ll ever return to.
Outer Wilds and Hollow Knight share the spotlight for greatest games of all time. Both are as close to perfect as it gets.
Bastion gets an honorable mention. Not sure if SuperGiant Games is considered indie anymore, especially now that Hades hit big, but I love their early work.
I find Subnautica has less replayability than other survival games since the map and questline is static. Once you know where everything is and you’ve seen all the plot beats there’s not much reason to play the game again unless you want to challenge yourself with a speedrun or, as you said, one of the harder difficulties.
I wouldn’t consider creative mode or sandbox mode to be a core part of the game. They’re great for fucking around or as an extended tutorial, but I see them more as external tools than as part of the game experience proper.
Bastion’s story doesn’t necessitate multiple plays. Sure, it’s fun to play through again and try different builds. I’ve also 100%'ed the game.
The important thing, I think, for OP’s question is that it can be finished in one play. It has a satisfying ending from which the player can set down the game and move on.
Tunic is a solid 10-15 hour adventure game, and I highly recommend playing without spoilers as several experiences are information-locked like Outer Wilds. It’s an isometric adventure game heavily inspired by Zelda with some Souls influence bleeding into the lore, mechanics, and boss fights. Replayability is limited to speedrunning and challenge runs.
Bastion is a wonderful adventure game with a heavy focus on combat. It’s a precursor to Hades from the same developer, and shares the same mechanical DNA minus the rogue-lite elements that Hades introduced. The followup game, Transistor, is also worth checking out, though it didn’t quite hit the same highs for me as Bastion. Both are 10-20 hour adventures with limited replayability if you want to achievement hunt.
Been alternating between replaying Elden Ring on my PC and the original Ratchet and Clank on my new (to me) PS2. Making good progress in both.
Currently working through the last level in R&C and I forgot how brutally unforgiving that game is with the limited health and scarce checkpoints.
I’m almost through the academy in ER. Fixing to fight whatshername with the giant baby and the kamehameha attack. Already beat that god-damn OP knight guarding the entrance to her boss room.
Uchigatana is available, but it’s easy to miss if you’re playing without spoilers. Great sword. I use it almost exclusively for a hybrid DEX/STR bleed build.
Mild SpoilerIt’s tucked away in an early dungeon behind a hard to see passage. It’s not a boss reward so even if you’re finding all the dungeons it won’t be obvious that you missed it. Good luck!
Playing a friend’s copy of Pokémon Red. Many a late night was spent getting as far as I could without being allowed to save.
First games I remember owning:
Sega Genesis 6-PAK with Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi, Columns, and Super Hang-on. Mostly played Sonic. Mom forbade us from playing the “violent” games, so we’d get in trouble if we were caught playing GA, SoR, or RoS.
First game I have fond memories of:
Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage. This was one of the first games we got when we upgraded from the Genesis to a PS2, and I played it many times over from the start before we invested in a memory card. The first game I actually beat start to finish without saving. I fondly remember 100%ing it over a weekend, leaving the PS2 on overnight while I slept.