I’ve been recently been thinking about Arkane Studio’s Prey which is a immersive sim, with a pretty good rogue like dlc, that probably has one of the strongest hooks of any game I’ve played. If you liked Halflife, System Shock, or Deus Ex it’s definitely worth a play.
Are there any titles that might not have been commercially successful that you feel everyone should give a shot?
Earthbound for the SNES.
It had a rough launch, rough reviews at the time, but the best RPG I’ve ever played, period.
The players guide had scratch and sniff vomit.
That game and the product teams were amazing, it was just too weird for broad commercial success at the time.
Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Earthbound are the holy trinity of SNES era RPGs
Agreed on the holy trinity. But even though you’re devout to the holy trinity, sometimes there are temptations.
Illusion of Gaia is that cool friend you haven’t seen in a long time who shows up, and you bond and reminisce like you haven’t been separated at all. Then you discover Illusion of Gaia has friends you haven’t met, and they roll together in a cool club called The Soul Blazer Trilogy.
I remember when I played IoG and Terranigma years later and was super angry that I hadn’t heard of either back in the day lol
My favorite thing about Illusion of Gaia has to be the fact that the manual contained a complete walkthrough of the game, at least in the North American release. Unless it was the same energy as “the dumb Americans ~(who invented the genre and introduced it to the East)~ don’t understand RPGs, so we’ll make Mystic Quest really simple and dumbed down for them” I don’t know why they did that.
Also, I was like 13 when I got my used copy of Soul Blazer…is there a more melancholy game on the SNES?
bruh if final fantasy isnt on the list, that list is wrong.
*cries in FF6*
Uplink - A hacking sim game that’s actually quite addictive in a playthrough. Will make you feel like you’re in the movie Hackers.
Spycraft: The Great Game - An adventure game that had as consultants CIA director William Colby and KGB Major-General Oleg Kalugin.
I don’t know a lot of people that have played these, but they definitely rank up there for me as some of the more interesting and unique games I’ve played over the decades.
Shoutout to Uplink! Not something you look to for realism, but it’s a really well designed hacker sim. Lots of fun!
Played Uplink as a kid, later learned about fragmentation for computer memory. Was cool to find out the inventory system wasn’t just a cool game mechanic but was based off how actual memory works.
Heyyy time to see if the benefit of 10 years helps me complete Uplink.
Offworld trading company was an amazing PvP game but “economics” never was gonna sell.
I was mildly a Borderlands fan, but then I played Tales from the Borderlands and fell in love. It’s such a great game with amazing writing and music that I’m always surprised to hear that most people, including fans of the main Borderlands games, have never heard of it.
That’s one I did play, the only other Borderlands I finished was the second but I think it did a good job of keeping what made Borderlands Borderlands while going to a completely different genre.
That’s exactly how I felt about it too. It felt like if your FPS character just set down their gun and started talking to people.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns. It wasn’t a huge flop, but not successful enough to get a sequel, which makes me very sad. I think it failed because it had a useless ingame shop, which made the game look like another cashgrab, when in reality those who bought the Legendary Edition have every skin included. Legendary edition has often been on sale for 50€ and that’s definitely worth it. I enjoyed the game a lot and both the base game and DLC offer great characters that are both fun to talk and to play with.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. Everybody loved the first game, but nobody played the second game, including me for a good few years. But once I decided to try it I realized how much I had been missing out. It’s really good. Making it open world really works. There is fast travel but I never once used it because just running around is so fun. If you liked the first game, please try Catalyst!
I feel this way about so many indie games.
- Praey for the Gods - Obviously inspired by the classic, Shadow of the Colossus
- The Upturned - A horror-comedy game with a great sense of humor
- Your Spider - A great indie horror game with puzzles like Silent Hill. Plus it has an adorable spider. This is one of my favorite indie horror games.
- Exanima - Looks at first like a normal dungeon crawler, but its physics-based combat controls and enemy AI make this a very unique and interesting game, even if it’s been in early access for ages.
- Withering Rooms - Great, creepy atmosphere and an interesting story.
Fly’n, it’s a brilliant platformer from like ten years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UECUVRWpFM
Wildermyth is a lovely combination of storytelling and tactical combat. My only significant gripe is that I want more of it: More tales, more character customization… just more. (Although I now see that a cosmetic pack is available; I’ll have to check it out.)
Gigantic caught my attention when I was looking for an Overwatch alternative, because of the art and the praise from fans. I wish development hadn’t shut down before I had a chance to play it. (I hear there’s an unofficial client and server out there somewhere, though, so maybe I’ll get to at least try the work-in-progress that was never finished.)
Wildermyth is just so endearing I loved my time with it.
Taking the same character through each campaign was pretty fun like I was making a serialised demi-god: Doofus and the mountain horde, Doofus and the ancient threat etc. Because characters age though the campaign, it has interesting implications in the world lore. Like we’re an archivist document the various legends of Doofus, acknowledging where they contradict and maybe speculating on how the differences in each culture’s legend of Doofus reflects back.
Downside is I optimised the fun out of the combat in always having Doofus at the center of the strategy, each encounter then played out the same.
Now I’m wishing I’d gotten the chance to play Gigantic! If you discover a playable client and server, lemme know, because I’m loving how that looks
I have good news for you:
https://www.polygon.com/24074441/gigantic-game-relaunch-rampage-edition-steam-release-date
Woohoo!!! Well I’ll be looking forward to this, thank you!
My big one, because I am playing the successor right now would be the Commandos-reinvention line of games by Mimimi Software:
- Shadow Tactics (feudal Japan)
- Desperados III (Wild West)
- Shadow Gambit (undead pirates)
They’re very faithful reproductions of the old Commandos-formula, real time tactics about sneaking and stabbing through a dense map full of guards covering each other, finding spots where to get in with specific abilities of your varying characters. In the newest one in particular, your pirates are recruited in any order you like, and being supernatural in nature they have some wild abilities. Your starting character can briefly freeze time for a target. Your Quartermaster can possess people. A skeleton has a golden head he can toss to make guards come over to try pick it up and then make their corpse disappear by using his fishing pole to drag it into the endless chest he has on his back.
Everhood is really unique and id recommend it to anyone who enjoys Undertale.
I also want to shout out just shapes and beats which is a good time and I pray it’ll see a sequel
Fuga: Melodies of Steel. A pretty interesting JRPG+resource management game about animal kids in a giant tank from a lost civilization, fighting in a war to save their families.
CyberConnect2 has been making games for this setting since the PS1, though the previous games were more of 3D puzzle actiion games. But these games never sell as much as they deserve, Their commitment is amazing to keep trying anyway.
For me right now, Shadows of Doubt. It is an early access game and it’s got a fair bit of jank, but it’s crazy how unique it is. It had a week or so of popularity and then it fell off. The devs just released an update for it too!
If you like the immersive sim genre, might I also recommend Cruelty Squad and Gloomwood. Those two have very unique aesthetics and really cool mechanics.
I doubt that. (Get it? Shadows of doubt? I’ll see myself out.)
It’s so great. One time, I threw a bin at a bar’s window and the next time I came around, it had been covered in plywood.
The game feels responsive, it just needs a bit more variety in cases, mod support would be great, too.
Just started on SoD today. Pretty wild how free form it is. Fantastic.
The Talos Principle It’s not just a puzzle game.
It’s also 90 percent off on steam right now. Just grabbed it for $4.40 Canadian after tax.
Needed more crates.
Good timing, too, Talos Principle 2 was just announced
No it wasn’t… It was announced two years ago, they did announce the release date three days ago though.
Ah, details…What M137 said
Nice, that’s one I have in my library not yet installed. Bought it when there was a cheap bundle with others by that company, but was mainly looking at The Place which kinda turned me off of those style games. I’ll have to be sure to give it a shot now.
