u/HowLongWasIGone

I stole my girlfriend’s Switch while we were on vacation (still not giving it back) and I’m retracking my way back through the series. But I know I’ll want something more to follow up on this itch, or in between games so I don’t completely burn out… I want to savor this trek back to my teenage years.

So I hope this is the right place to ask? I mean, not like there’s dedicated subs for this kind of game (detective/courtroom visual novel sims?) It’s such a specific mix of absurd moments, comedy, cartooniness and detective work but also hits emotionally at the same time.

The only game in this vein I played, was Paradise Killer a few years back, and it was amazing how the base plot worked and how you could at any point make the call, regardless of how little evidence you have. I’m also kinda curious about how Guilty or Not will look like when it actually comes out, because it seems to be following that same absurdist streak, except it’s more of a sandbox game (judging by the trailer) where the unintended consequences are the point, with no linear story? I don’t really know what to expect, but it’s an interesting little curiosity of a game I found out about recently.

That’s where my trail runs cold, essentially… but I’m hoping I can find another brilliant recommendation from you fine people here? :)

PS doesn't matter if it's console or PC

It was inevitable that DE would spawn imitators, any game that distinctive and that successful is going to have developers looking at giving it a shot, some of them experimenting with the formula and some legitimately trying to make something great and taking the blueprint from DE. And on paper the formula is attractive from a production standpoint because you're building a game around prose and skill checks rather than combat systems, which means lower animation budgets, fewer complex AI behaviors to implement, and the core loop is essentially a dialogue tree engine with stat integration. I get why developers are drawn to it. Imitation being the highest form of flattery and all that.

The problem is that a lot of what's coming out (and what's been announced) seems to fundamentally misunderstand why DE worked. They're reverse engineering the surface level stuff. The isometric perspective, the internal monologue system, the skill checks popping up in dialogue, the painterly art style, and treating those as the formula. But those were delivery mechanisms, not the soul of the game itself. The soul was the writing. It was prose that could stand on its own as actual literature, and political commentary that was specific and messy and contradictory in the way real political thought actually is, not the sanitized "both sides" stuff you get in most games that try to touch politics.

Esoteric Ebb is probably the one I've spent the most time with and it's a decent example of what I mean. The skill check system is there, the internal voice stuff is there, the aesthetic is doing its thing. And it's... fine? The writing is competent. But decent prose in a game that exists because of Disco Elysium is like releasing a decent platformer after Mario 64. Yeah it’s fine, but it feels like a moot comparison.

Ebb had funny and witty dialogue at times, and kind of satirizing DND tropes was fun, but if we are talking about writing quality, it doesn’t hold a candle to DE unfortunately. I am hoping Hollow Home actually delivers on the writing. Since the story is based on true events (the war in Ukraine) I’m hoping that helps the devs craft an interesting and emotional narrative, but we shall see.

I am enjoying playing these games despite the flaws personally. But I am really hoping we get something else with DE level writing as well, since we know a real sequel isn’t coming.

Just this, I’m looking for something that can tease out a smile even in the darkest of times, so be as subjective as possible. Give me a game that leaves you a little lighter mentally after you’re done playing it.

I only ever really got this from games that I and my family played in the brighter days when I was younger, like Grim Fandango. The characters and the humor and everything about the way the world is built up with you as the Reaper selling packages to the recently deceased. It has a cozy Dia de Muertos vibe imbued with such originality, that once I played it I knew I would remember this game till I died. It’s not even my favorite game, but it provoked some of my most precious feelings and that’s why I’ll never forget it.

I need something with characters that are quirky, but not annoying quirky, just memorable and original enough that I can get invested in their stories and follow them through to the end, without being feeled weighed down. I know it’s cliche, but is “bigger than life” the word here? I want stories that seem bigger than life, than my life, but that are also relatable to my life. Cozy and wholesome is OK but isn’t a hard requirement.

A newer example of games like this that pulled me in and made me feel… something nice, for a while were Life is Strange but I didn’t finish it, something inside just didn’t let me. I also finished twice the demo for High Times because it’s done in that style of games like VA-11 Hall-A where the pop references and internal quips from the devs, mash in with the dialogue, while the gameplay is supplemented by actually serving customers stuff (donuts in the first case, drinks in the second) and the more you play, the more instinctually you do it without thinking to much of what you’re supposed to combine to please a character. They have that FLOW that gets me in, this combination of coziness and storytelling that you can just float on and forget your worries.

I have a PC and a Switch and I'm open to basically anything. I don't care about genre or length. But right now shorter might be better because my motivation for anything has been pretty low and I don't want to stall out hours in a sandbox RPG that I know I won’t finish with my mental load.

If anyone has a game that actually made them feel happier, I want to hear them. Have at me, what games brought back some semblance of joy to your (gaming or otherwise) lives?

Heaviest in the sense of themes and topics it deals with, not storage size ofc

I am expecting only the most subjective answers since what tugs at your heart always varies from person to person. I heard people being moved by games I never thought of as "heavy" simply because I did not relate to the subject matter myself.

All time, for me that would be Heavy Rain, something about a father's story is so moving and and I still think it's one of the best thriller-narratives in gaming, I even replayed the spiritual predecessor to it that was Indigo Prophecy (if anyone remembers that name) But yah, father stories... no wonder so many people resonated with The Last of Us.

Other than that, one I tried quite recently also managed to squeeze out emotions from me quite unexpectedly. It's called Hollow Home and it's kind of close to home since I live in the region the game is set, which is Ukraine (the demo starts no less than on the day of the invasions) and it's such a recent topic too unlike This War of Mine for example which was in the 90s so the impressions and feelings are all kind of nearer and more intense. It's obviously very inspired by Disco Elysium but that game made me feel more happysad, kind of melancholy and it was really funny at times. This game is something else though but it's good. Sometimes you need a game to make you feel something.

I can also think of some others, Silent Hill 2 in particular, and if we're naming indies, I can't not mention Spiritfrarer, which yes it is a cozy game but the topics it deals with, letting go of this life and guiding spirits to a more peaceful place, Idk man I played it when I lost my grandpa and it made me tear up like nothing else.

What games were heavy like this for you?

It was more than a year ago, so I’m fine writing about it now and in fact feel like I have to. He wasn’t an IRL friend, just a guy I connected with in matchmaking for Darktide, on one of his “off days” from ARPGs as he called them. Himself had just 1 IRL friend that sometimes joined us, he was the one who notified me of what happened. I still don’t know how I feel for the fact he never mentioned cancer to me, guess he never wanted to bum anyone out.

He was the one who bought me this game, besides being one who helped me discover others like Last Epoch back when it was still early access. Well, at first it was a family sharing before the present (and bless GD for letting you do this easily unlike some games) but his love for the game was so contagious I really began to think of it as the real Diablo spiritual successor, like he did. He was a vet of Diablo and super pumped up for when it came out - I didn’t mistype, I meant 4 - and was, I think he said, somewhere in the 10 people to reach and thoroughly clear Inferno and then Torment, tho he might have been just bragging. But it quickly became something so unlike the Diablo he loved, that he got kind of disgusted with it and switched to PoE. Until Grim Dawn struck light the lighting bolt of hope from a cloudy sky, which is all things considered the real successor to the Diablo 2 atmosphere, story pacing and almost everything else but somehow with even more polish on top. Well, in almost everything save the graphics but who gives a hell, the physics and effects are awesome when you take them for what they are.

Anyway, because of Fangs of Asterkarn finally getting a release date, I was reminded of him in a bitter sweet kind of way, with him not being around for it.

If Fangs truly will be the 3rd the size of base Grim Dawn, it feels almost like he’s missing out a whole 3rd of one of his favorite games ever. He was hyped for it so much too. After that big Diablo betrayal almost a decade ago, he became an ardent supporter of the smaller indies who are “doing it right” put simply, it’s why he was such a fan of Last Epoch as well when it started building up steam and got popular, but also No Rest for the Wicked when everyone else was shitting on it. 

He would have also loved to see the upcoming roster such obvious passion projects (and likewise singleplayer like Grim Dawn) such as the Dark West which got announced this year. In fact he supported all the indie games in the arpg genre, all but Darkhaven, which he despised for the Diablo-era popularity that the devs were grifting off as in “ARPG MADE BY FORMER DIABLO DEVS”, he hated it in ways I can't describe to you. It was the only ARPG he had low hopes for, while Grim Dawn was the at the very top.

Most of all, he would lose his mind that the long awaited DLC is so clos!!! Literally just around the corner, next month. I know consciously that life isn’t near fair, but it feels like such an injustice that I get to play it now in his stead - instead of being able to play WITH HIM.

It sucks so much, but all I can do is enjoy the heck out of it once it’s out and binge many and many hours with the berserker, his class of choice from Diablo 2, and enjoy it the way he would have enjoyed the game, for at least one playthrough.

It’s one of the biggest see-saws for me when turn based RPGs are in question. But let me tell you what I mean by turn based “traditional”

Baldur’s Gate 3 exemplifies this best. Party on one side, enemies on the other - all the weight is in builds, resource management, turn order, party synergy, and knowing when to burn the good spells instead of hoarding those spell uses like it’s gold. It’s what I love but also something I end up hating on so much in Pathfinder, particularly on harder settings where I have to pop 20+ pots and scrolls before engaging anything, not even mentioning the DLCs… But there’s a familiarity to it and it’s by far the easiest way to control your party. Safe to say, this is my favorite turn based “pacing”

It’s easier for me than RTwP - I only vibed with it in Dragon Age Origins and I kind of started liking it in Pillars of Eternity after I learned to play. It’s bulkier, more stuff going on and if you aren’t good, it can be unclear whose “turn” it is and if you’ve accidentally missed a good move. In general, I like RTwP but … haha, I just don’t have the skill for it to play optimally, ergo this would be my least favorite. Not the games that have it but the system

Tactical RPGs meanwhile always feel like puzzles to solve, more meticulous, less flashy usually and spacing and heigh advantage and all those micro details, terrain… all of it matters so there’s more strategy. Battle Brothers makes spacing, injuries, weapon reach, morale, and formation feel all so brutally important. Tactical Breach Wizards is the most puzzle like of all, where the fun is in finding the cleanest way to resolve a fight. I also tried some newer ones. Happy Bastards is one I’ve been watching because of the mid-fight party switching, which sounds like the kind of thing that could make party composition feel less locked-in and more reactive in battle. And indeed, the idea that you have a “roster” is pretty much something stemming from these games. Feels more like leading a whole troop instead of a classic RPG team, and that’s what makes them so interesting, straddling that line between RPG and strategy… 

So purely gameplay-wise, I think tactical RPGs have the higher ceiling for me, because movement and spae add another layer of decisions that traditional turn-based combat usually has to replace with deeper systems elsewhere. 

But!... I also think tactical games can become exhausting faster. A simple fight in a traditional RPG can be satisfying in two minutes. A simple fight in a tactical RPG sometimes still last half an hour or more. If you played Battle Brothers against the undead invasion superevent, you know what I’m talking about.

Do you prefer the cleaner party vs party style or the grid positioning and “heavy” tactical gameplay or smthing in between?

I was nostalgia baited by a random Youtube pull with the Grizzly Hills soundtrack playing over old screenshots. Now, normally I don’t even pay too much attention to it but this time something tinkled inside me and actually made me wanna step through that portal again.

I haven’t logged in for like 4-5 years by now (can’t believe it’s been almost 7 years since Classic came out) and I wasn't even planning on going in deep on a binge. I just wanted to see my characters lol, feeling I know yall are familiar with if you ever played mmos.

The first thing I noticed when I got into my warlock (stuck at lvl 80 by the way) was the utter barrenness of my friends list. Opened it out of habit and it was just rows rows of grey names with -Last online 847 days ago- next to them. Some of them I had added years back and don't even remember who they were anymore, but a few I remember really well - there was this resto druid who used to stay up way too late on weeknights because he worked odd hours and we'd run dungeons together when nobody else was on. His name is still there, greyed out, hasn't logged in since Shadowlands apparently? So passes the glory of the gamer, that’s the gut feeling that wrenched me that instant.

One would think that after raiding together for months, staying on voice chat for hours talking about everything from guild drama to actual life drama, that there'd be something more permanent there, but gaming friendships just seem to have this way of being incredibly intense while they last aaaaand… then just evaporating when the game stops being that shared thing. Nobody has a falling out, no goodbyes - just that realization that someone you used to talk to every single night hasn't been around in months.

Sorry to bum everyone out. I just had to share this poignant feeling of depresso that WoW poured all over me. I guess I was too young back when WoW was new to have these heavy feelings but being older now - damn, does this hit hard!