I’m so happy you’re finding your way out of a pit! I don’t know why you think it would be an unpopular thing to share, you’re on Beehaw here! People tend to be(e) a bit nicer
I have to recommend Ascent DX - it is free, quite short, but it condenses everything I enjoy about the metroidvania genre I to a bite sized play session.
Tunic is one of the best games ever made, nevermind just in the metroidvania genre. It is good for reasons I can’t tell you without spoiling some of the magic. Trust me!
Phoenotopia Awakening was stupendous fun and way bigger than I thought it would be. Strongly recommended. Typical side scrolling platforming gameplay, with emphasis on exploration and puzzles as well as the combat and platforming.
Death’s Door was so damn fun, and it felt quite fresh in a way I can’t describe. Its an isometric hack n slash game with some puzzle elements. Tells a cool story, and is a sequel/successor to Titan Souls, from the same devs.
AAAAXY was a lot of fun, and free and open source. Sort of like antichamber meets metroidvania. Short and sweet but also challenging!
Otherwise, as others mentioned, I can’t recommend these enough!:
“I guess it wasn’t a safe space for autistic people” is an insane takeaway from being temp banned for talking about people fucking their mothers and how people downvoting you arouses you (on a thread about not using a right wing hate symbol).
As an autistic person I’m baffled you’d try to hide behind your neurodivergence here.
I love an open world game that is done well - Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But so often it is just done because thats what they think is the hot thing, and it does not work
I wanted to love La-Mulana a lot. And I do love it for building some of the foundation that some huge greats like Fez and Tunic and Outer Wilds stand upon. But holy shit, the game doesn’t want you to love it. The combat and movement are so punishing in an entirely unfun way. I stopped playing after getting what I understand to be like 70-80% of the way through the content the game has to offer and by the last ~20% of that I was dreading playing.
It is a game I have to thank for making way for the existence of some of my favourite games, but I hate it nonetheless.
I’ve been digging fucking deep with disco elysium this long weekend, started fresh after having dipped my toes in a tiny bit some years ago. 20 hours logged this weekend with more to come today.
The writing, worldbuilding, and atmosphere are actually just obnoxiously good.