Vidya Games Thread

[thequ1eteye]

Oh man I'm not really picky really. I enjoy RPGs, Horror, roguelikes/lite, Zombies, mechs, fps, etc. However, I don't play really any sport games or racing too much.

I've been scouring as of late for a game similar to Rune Factory and Stardew Valley lately. One where you can like farm or do combat in a game. My Time at Sandrock is a cute game that does that but kind of waiting for it to cook longer on the stove before I dive deep into it.

Might want to check out Sakuna of rice and ruin, if you are interested in games like rune factory and stardew.

 

[agility_]

Seconding Sakuna of Rice, I played that on ps4 and it easily became goty to me.

 

[That Chuuba Enjoyer]

If you like classic Resident Evil games, get Signalis. It is basically a PS1 RE game with options for more modern controls or classic ones and with a space-SciFi theme.

I've heard and seen little about the game. Looks very interesting with its look and gameplay. Might bite the bullet and get if rrp to support the creator.

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Might want to check out Sakuna of rice and ruin, if you are interested in games like rune factory and stardew.

Seconding Sakuna of Rice, I played that on ps4 and it easily became goty to me.

I remember seeing about it a year ago or something. The side scrolling gameplay looks interesting and I do like the edo period japan style it has. Might pick it up if it goes on sale.

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One game I recemmond to you all is Barotrauma

(Game does go on sale for around 10 bucks)
A submarine 2d side scrolling horror game where you play a role in keeping the submarine afloat or sabaotge, against alien monsters, hull breaches, traitors, and all sorts of fun with ragdoll physics.

Just picture Space Station 13 but in a submarine against lovecraft space aliens. Much more easier to get into and has so many funny and batshit scary moments in it.

 

[AyoTempus]

Oh man I'm not really picky really. I enjoy RPGs, Horror, roguelikes/lite, Zombies, mechs, fps, etc. However, I don't play really any sport games or racing too much.

I've been scouring as of late for a game similar to Rune Factory and Stardew Valley lately. One where you can like farm or do combat in a game. My Time at Sandrock is a cute game that does that but kind of waiting for it to cook longer on the stove before I dive deep into it.

For farm sim stuff, one game I've seen show up recently that i'm looking into is called Kynseed which just left early access. It is a life simulator to an extreme, the idea is you have a magical family tree lineage where every time you die your offspring continue the game. You can farm and it does have a fairly decent combat system (for this genre anyway), but you can also be an actual blacksmith with your own shop. The game from what I've observed is very slow paced, almost to a fault, and it isn't very hand holdy. It appears to be like a perfect autists life simulator dream. I'm still looking into it before I take the plunge myself as I prefer to do my homework before buying games, but I can see this as a type of extreme niche game that someone who's into the stuff like Stardew and Rune Factory will love. I'd 100% watch out for it if you like stuff like Stardew, especially if you have enough autism to try and learn what's going on as this is not as "casual friendly" as Stardew from what I've seen. It is also made by people involved with the first two Fables if that helps you out (without Peter Molyneux).

One game on sale now is The Last Spell, it is a SRPG Hero defense (think tower defense, but you use units instead of towers) rogue-like who a pretty extreme difficulty for some people (there is an easy mode though) and A LOT of meta progression (almost too much for some and is probably its biggest criticisms). It has a lite base building element to it where you want to manage equipping your guys and building your town's economy, and it is also a "classless" system. I use "classless" in quotes because technically you only have weapons and you can mix and match two easily, but their is an obvious pull being a physical/ranged/mage has and some weapons synergize with very specific play styles. I've had some pretty funny characters, some of which can literally just stand in the middle of 10 guys and just life leech forever, and I've had some who chain reaction fire spread across entire hordes to nuke 10 enemies at once, and I've had poison builds where I throw knives one moment and then bind stuff with spells the next action. Very fun game when it comes together, will slaughter zombies again with a rapier again.

If you want a fairly hard SRPG game within a rogue-like framework, I'd look into it. It also has a pretty intense rock soundtrack that really fits the game's style. It is also a zombie-esque fantasy setting. It is 14 USD atm, and you can easily get the typical $1 = 1 hour value within about three or four runs IME. I got about 30 into it and I'm still playing it off and on since july of this year.

For normal RPGs, I'd 100% look into the Trials series if you're into very old school style JRPGs, Sky first chapter when it goes on sale is like 10 bucks and second chapter is usually about 18ish I think when it goes on sale and the games are heavily connected and first chapter ends on a cliff hanger into second chapter on purpose. EXTREMELY narrative driven (and has world building that isn't ass like many JRPGs), and solid enough turn based gameplay without too many bells and whistles while not being too plain either. It is very anime, but its good anime. It has a fairly interesting setting where it is like of like if medieval lands suddenly launched into the industrial revolution using magic so you got people with swords and they have trains and tanks and shit (and mechs do exist). I adore this series and I recommend everyone play it if they're into late NES- early PS2 era JRPGs.

Cold Steel 1 is another reasonable starting point if the 2D sprites bother you, but Sky (and Trails of Azure which just came out recently) is hugely important for the overall narrative once Cold Steel 3 starts so YMMV on skipping it. Cold Steel 2 also lets you pilot a mech for reasons I won't spoil so you will get to be a mecha pilot at some point in this series.

 

[That Chuuba Enjoyer]

For farm sim stuff, one game I've seen show up recently that i'm looking into is called Kynseed which just left early access. It is a life simulator to an extreme, the idea is you have a magical family tree lineage where every time you die your offspring continue the game. You can farm and it does have a fairly decent combat system (for this genre anyway), but you can also be an actual blacksmith with your own shop. The game from what I've observed is very slow paced, almost to a fault, and it isn't very hand holdy. It appears to be like a perfect autists life simulator dream. I'm still looking into it before I take the plunge myself as I prefer to do my homework before buying games, but I can see this as a type of extreme niche game that someone who's into the stuff like Stardew and Rune Factory will love. I'd 100% watch out for it if you like stuff like Stardew, especially if you have enough autism to try and learn what's going on as this is not as "casual friendly" as Stardew from what I've seen. It is also made by people involved with the first two Fables if that helps you out (without Peter Molyneux).

One game on sale now is The Last Spell, it is a SRPG Hero defense (think tower defense, but you use units instead of towers) rogue-like who a pretty extreme difficulty for some people (there is an easy mode though) and A LOT of meta progression (almost too much for some and is probably its biggest criticisms). It has a lite base building element to it where you want to manage equipping your guys and building your town's economy, and it is also a "classless" system. I use "classless" in quotes because technically you only have weapons and you can mix and match two easily, but their is an obvious pull being a physical/ranged/mage has and some weapons synergize with very specific play styles. I've had some pretty funny characters, some of which can literally just stand in the middle of 10 guys and just life leech forever, and I've had some who chain reaction fire spread across entire hordes to nuke 10 enemies at once, and I've had poison builds where I throw knives one moment and then bind stuff with spells the next action. Very fun game when it comes together, will slaughter zombies again with a rapier again.

If you want a fairly hard SRPG game within a rogue-like framework, I'd look into it. It also has a pretty intense rock soundtrack that really fits the game's style. It is also a zombie-esque fantasy setting. It is 14 USD atm, and you can easily get the typical $1 = 1 hour value within about three or four runs IME. I got about 30 into it and I'm still playing it off and on since july of this year.

For normal RPGs, I'd 100% look into the Trials series if you're into very old school style JRPGs, Sky first chapter when it goes on sale is like 10 bucks and second chapter is usually about 18ish I think when it goes on sale and the games are heavily connected and first chapter ends on a cliff hanger into second chapter on purpose. EXTREMELY narrative driven (and has world building that isn't ass like many JRPGs), and solid enough turn based gameplay without too many bells and whistles while not being too plain either. It is very anime, but its good anime. It has a fairly interesting setting where it is like of like if medieval lands suddenly launched into the industrial revolution using magic so you got people with swords and they have trains and tanks and shit (and mechs do exist). I adore this series and I recommend everyone play it if they're into late NES- early PS2 era JRPGs.

Cold Steel 1 is another reasonable starting point if the 2D sprites bother you, but Sky (and Trails of Azure which just came out recently) is hugely important for the overall narrative once Cold Steel 3 starts so YMMV on skipping it. Cold Steel 2 also lets you pilot a mech for reasons I won't spoil so you will get to be a mecha pilot at some point in this series.

I'll take a look at KynSNEED cause it does look somewhat promising. Combat looks interesting can't tell if it's turn-based or auto-battle. Also that running a store reminds me of that one game called Recettear, where you played as a girl that runs a shop and barter prices with people while also dungeon crawling for new wares to sell.

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I saw The Last Spell on my steam homepage the other day. I really couldn't make out what it is. It gives me mobile game vibes with the pov a little. Though it having turn based kind of interests me. Also like how the enemies look. It's a weird looking game but got me intrigued a little. Probably watch more gameplay videos to get a feel.

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I kind of dab a little into the Trails series with the Cold steel 1 on PSVita years ago. I liked what I played from it with what I recall. I really like how it isn't old school turnbased perse but like this system where you can move around in a ring and use abilities/attacks on enemies weakpoints. Story is kind of cliché but I oddly liked the characters a little. A buddy of mine telling me I need to play the original trials series or something. the one with the redhead and dude in blue shirt or something. Says that one has good story and gameplay. I'll see if it's on sale during the winter sale!

 

[AyoTempus]

I'll take a look at KynSNEED cause it does look somewhat promising. Combat looks interesting can't tell if it's turn-based or auto-battle. Also that running a store reminds me of that one game called Recettear, where you played as a girl that runs a shop and barter prices with people while also dungeon crawling for new wares to sell.

The combat is not really either. The closest comparison I've managed to find is the Megaman battle network games. From what I've managed to piece together it is like ATB FF, except you can actually react to shit and you can move somewhat. So you are more engaged without it just being a KH-esque feeling button masher.

I've played Recettear, and I get what you mean. Kynseed feels kind of like if you put every chill sim type idea into one game where you got the farming, the smithing, the people talking, the general store managing (both for smithing and general goods, you can run both stores), and the combat all melded into one game and you can do literally all of it in one singular game if you have the tism to do it all.

This is definitely a game I watch let's play footage of every now and again to gauge how much I'll like it. It feels like a proper evolution of stuff like stardew without just ripping it off and I have just enough tism to deal with stuff like this if the pay off is worth it.

I saw The Last Spell on my steam homepage the other day. I really couldn't make out what it is. It gives me mobile game vibes with the pov a little. Though it having turn based kind of interests me. Also like how the enemies look. It's a weird looking game but got me intrigued a little. Probably watch more gameplay videos to get a feel.

It is more like the FFtactics camera, it is very much not a mobile game at all. I'd say purely combat wise, it is like Disgaea with its weird attack hit boxes for spell attacks and how you can build your characters to do very broken things with the right items, just it doesn't have the Disgaea grinding to get to that point. It almost condenses Disgaea's grind in about maybe a handful of hours.

It is a classical grid turn based strategy RPG, just with a tower defense and base building-esque mechanics on top of the rogue-like shell. The most arguable problem is the difficulty is sort of inverse, unless you play on the harder difficulties beyond the normal one, because the meta progression makes the game steadily easier as you unlock stuff but I know people have managed to beat every single map in one try in a row so with enough skill and knowledge you can beat the "base" difficulty fine.

Game's fun, worth 14 bucks for sure and I don't regret playing it and I'll probably play it some more once I'm tapped out of my current roguelike deck builder binge.

I kind of dab a little into the Trails series with the Cold steel 1 on PSVita years ago. I liked what I played from it with what I recall. I really like how it isn't old school turnbased perse but like this system where you can move around in a ring and use abilities/attacks on enemies weakpoints. Story is kind of cliché but I oddly liked the characters a little. A buddy of mine telling me I need to play the original trials series or something. the one with the redhead and dude in blue shirt or something. Says that one has good story and gameplay. I'll see if it's on sale during the winter sale!

I believe your buddy is talking about Ys as the redhead guy with the main character, Ys is made by the same company but they are not even close to the same game. Ys was practically Dark Souls before Demon Souls even existed, Ys is like SNES era and is still kicking it to this day. My friend plays Ys and I play Trails and we both love our respective Falcom games, but they're very different. Ys I'd say is the more difficult game series based on how my friend has explained them to me, though the newer ones are likely easier to get into.

As for Trails. Trails' first games in every arc are pure set up, and you can sort of feel it in all of them (Though Azure is a little bit snappier, but Azure somewhat relies on context from Sky to feel complete). Cold Steel was actually my first game before I played backwards to Sky, and I kind of just fell in love with the setting actually being a setting and not just a place for actions to happen like many JRPGs. The whole "field trip" gimmick they use actually was a very nice way to introduce new locations across such a huge continent and give you a very solid feel of escalation as you learn about problems in the nation. It also helps segment the large cast so you don't have too many people trying to talk over each other considering Cold Steel 1 has a whooping 12 total playable characters and 9 of them are part of the main group for the entire game. It creates very focused arcs for all the inter party conflicts and developments to occur, like with the noble boy and the ultra aggro nerd with the shotgun.

It has it's cliches (tbh every story does imo), but I think it does them well and I find the Industrial Revolution parallels they try to invoke are interesting for this kind of series of games as most JRPG settings are just anime sword and sorcery shit and tech is just slapped on most the time without really blinking. Most the time high-tech shit in JRPGs is kind of just a thing that happens, but this actually uses it actually be impactful in the world and the story. Entire major arcs and character motivations occur because the rapid expansion and change of the times as industrialization occurred practically overnight, which is a marginally more interesting story then "So we need to defeat God and..." or "We need to stop the tyrant king/overlord/whatever" kind of stuff. It also does a classism story that isn't just purely "noble bad" either, which is quite nice.

If you ever can find time, I'd 100% recommend trying to complete Trails of Cold Steel at some point. For all its anime cliche shit, their is a very real amount of passion put into this project despite it looking like the most standard JRPG ever. I bought the sequel almost immediately after completing the first game due to just wanting to know what happens next.

 

[Thomas Talus]

I believe your buddy is talking about Ys as the redhead guy with the main character

He's talking about Trails in the Sky, which has a redhead girl and a guy in a blue shirt as the deuteragonists.

 

[AyoTempus]

He's talking about Trails in the Sky, which has a redhead girl and a guy in a blue shirt as the deuteragonists.

I must be blind because that is not a redhead at all to me. The same company has a main character who looks like this and Ys is older then Trails, so I figured we just got titles mixed up because both series are made by Falcom.




Still Sky is a great game and is worth playing and the duology for Sky is fantastic (Sky 3 is sort of its own thing with a different MC and focus), the only major problem for some is that you can easily miss side quests (which are somewhat relevant for gameplay reasons) without a guide as the game just assumes you'll talk to every NPC to get side quests that are easily missable. I had no issue just carefully using a gamefaqs guide which was very mindful about spoilers in its formatting, so that wasn't a huge problem for me. Still the main plot is worth it by itself.

 

[BlueSharkTV]

I am pretty sure a lot of you here may know about it, but for anyone that may not know, you can play online matches for a good amount of old games that closed their online servers using gameranger

 

[DanchousLoyalHamu]

I’ve been playing a lot of Library of Ruina as of late. Its actually pretty fun, and I plan on getting all the achievements (something I don’t normally do for games unless I really REALLY enjoy them….or if its a Neptunia game [which I promised myself I’d get all the achievements for every mainline nep game]).

 

[Fucking YTs]

Well, it looks like my dream of a UT99 chubba is dead:

Epic Games are killing off a bunch of classics like Unreal Tournament

Epic Games announced today they're killing off a bunch of classic games removing them from stores and turning off their online services for retro delights like Unreal Tournament.

www.gamingonlinux.com

It's delisted from Steam and only available on GOG for now. I fucking hate Epic Games.

 

[That Chuuba Enjoyer]

I’ve been playing a lot of Library of Ruina as of late. Its actually pretty fun, and I plan on getting all the achievements (something I don’t normally do for games unless I really REALLY enjoy them….or if its a Neptunia game [which I promised myself I’d get all the achievements for every mainline nep game]).

I played a little bit of it on game pass when it was early access like what I played. However, I really loved their SCP inspired game they did previously.

Such a fun game management game with unique look to it. It's hard but discovering a new monster and finding out their quirks is really fun to me. Kind of something I like be done with the SCP IP.

 

[Banana Hammock]

What are some Steam games y'all recommend people should get for the winter sale? Also which ones did you find good with Deck if you happen to have one you liked.

If you're a fan of the first two Paper Mario games, check out Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. I got really sucked into that game. Persona 4 and 5 are both good, and Persona 3 is being added in January. Dot Hack G.U. Last Recode is a really good game, though part of that might just be nostalgia talking, since it was my favorite game trilogy back when I was in high school. A Hat in Time is a good platforming collectathon.

There are probably others, but these are the ones that pop out from a quick glance at my library.

Edit: Oh, and if you're looking for a game like Stardew Valley and Rune Factory, Square Enix put out a game called Harvestella recently. Not sure how good it is, but it's got good reviews.


Edit: Jedi: Fallen Order is on sale for $5 for the next 21 hours, on Steam and Epic.

 

[DanchousLoyalHamu]

What are some Steam games y'all recommend people should get for the winter sale? Also which ones did you find good with Deck if you happen to have one you liked.

Besides Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina which I will forever shill because I fucking love those games.

I’d recommend picking up Deep Rock Galactic if you haven’t already, its pretty fun.


I’d also highly recommend checking out the Mount & Blade games, they are incredible and absolutely worth your time and money. I’d suggest picking up the latest entry Bannerlord.

Spoiler: Mount & Blade autism containment spoiler

If your new to the game I’d suggest watching this, its a pretty damn good guide to the game.


And just remember everyone. Its almost h a r v e s t i n g s e a s o n

 

[Punished Anime Discusser]

I have crippling autism, therefore I must shill for classic Monster Hunter.
It's free. Portable 3rd, 4 Ultimate and Generations Ultimate run on any shitbox computer made in the last fifteen years. Setting up the emulators is dead simple. You can play online with your friends, and if you don't have friends you can hire 27 cats to help you. Each game has a metric assload of content while not being bloated. The graphics are capital C comfy, the music is great, there's like 11 weapons for you to use, and three ranged weapons for your girlfriend to suck at using.

Also you can body Ethan Ralph.


And for games that came out this year uhhhhhhh
uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
There's Sifu I guess, I really liked Sifu. Predecessor if you like MOBAs or Kirsche. World War 3 if you want a pretty alright and free Slavjank Battlefield clone.

Put like 60 hours into Elden Ring and hated it, put 50-ish hours into Dying Light 2 and the game is so fucking bloated with shit content and obnoxious dialog that I quit before beating it. Put 10 into Darktide and that game runs like shit, and is both the best and worst Fatshart game at the same time. And I didn't play any other 2022 games.

edit: It came to me in a dream, but I remembered another, technically 2022 game I can recommend.

Fallen Earth was a 2008 post-apocalyptic MMO, it got shut down in 2019, and re-released earlier this year or at the very end of 2021, completely free with all of the p2w and premium shit cut out, apparently the devs figured out a way to run some servers for pretty much free. It's one of those weird transitional era MMOs, stuck halfway between oldschool sandbox and post-WoW themepark MMOs. No classes, but a skill and attribute system that lets you build your character however you want. Action combat that works in first and third person, you can use all kinds of guns, melee weapons and mutie magic. Super in-depth but, not overly obtuse crafting system. Very atmospheric and comfy, although it definitely looks dated and wasn't exactly high budget in the first place. Pretty small community, but nice people who are willing to help, and the game is mostly doable solo until the endgame.

If you have any love or nostalgia for old-ish MMOs, I'd absolutely recommend. It's jank, it's old, it's ugly at times, but the fact that it's even back like this tells you enough about how much the developers give a fuck and love the game.

 

[Jealous]

14 years in hell, a solo dev made a 2d side-scroller game. A game which jabs a lot of anime tropes out there into a blender and somehow works.

 

[Todd's Strongest Howard]

One game I recemmond to you all is Barotrauma

(Game does go on sale for around 10 bucks)
A submarine 2d side scrolling horror game where you play a role in keeping the submarine afloat or sabaotge, against alien monsters, hull breaches, traitors, and all sorts of fun with ragdoll physics.

Just picture Space Station 13 but in a submarine against lovecraft space aliens. Much more easier to get into and has so many funny and batshit scary moments in it.

On one hand it sounds like a fun timesink that I could enjoy.

On the other hand, intense thalassophobia is not assisted by actual monsters in the ocean.

 

[Banana Hammock]

Fuck. Saw that the Kingdom Hearts collection was on sale on the Nintendo store yesterday and bought it. Didn't notice until I tried playing it on break at work that it was a cloud game. Well, I can still play it at home.

 

[Fucking YTs]

Steam Deck shit:

I'm a huge arcade racing fan, so I'm always on the look out for something like Burnout 3. I've been paying Wreckfest on the SD and this game runs at a pretty much locked 60fps with crazy crash physics and everything on high. Here is some dude playing on the SD showing it off. It's just fun stuff. I really like the tires flying off the course and then after another lap you see that the other cars have spread the carnage across the map, making more obstacles for you.

A platformer that's been in my library for forever A Hat in Time was pretty much unplayable (20-30fps) until the latest Proton Experimental and now I'm getting 55-60fps on the highest quality setting. Seems fun.

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A new plugin for Decky called SteamGridDB allows you to add new artwork to your games without going into Desktop mode or doing any heavy lifting for that matter. It did run a little wonky for me.

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Steam Winter sale starts today, I believe.

 

[El Rrata]

Fuck. Saw that the Kingdom Hearts collection was on sale on the Nintendo store yesterday and bought it. Didn't notice until I tried playing it on break at work that it was a cloud game. Well, I can still play it at home.

Yep. They could not be assed to make PS2 games run on Switch, so they did the laziest thing possible.

Sidenote: them announcing the KH cloud versions for Switch is where Ina's "TOMORROW?!" meme came from.