Hello, in the recent years I find myself willing to spend much less time and energy on games, but I do still enjoy them. Oftentimes I end up quitting a new game I tried out relatively early on, because I’m encountering some block, grind, non-optional boring side quest, empty open world, uninteresting clutter or details that I have to manage, or similar. Like, I just wanna play the actual game play, see how the story continues, and visit those areas that were designed with care. Not worry where on the map I can sell the glimbrunses I collected so I can buy a 37% stronger glarpidifice that I’ll need to beat the next glutrey after which I’m allowed to continue the main story.
Sorry if this turned into some kind of a rant, but I hope it’s understandable what I’m looking for and what I meant by fluff. Some games that have fulfilled this for me during the last years:
- Stray
- Skyrim (there’s a lot of fluff you can worry about in Skyrim, but the thing is you don’t have to worry about it, you can also just walk in any direction and see what situation you wind up in, at least for the first 10-20h of a playthrough, which IMO is enough time for a game anyway)
- Life is Strange
- Some Pokémon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh
Looking forward to hear your suggestions :) Games where there is some fluff but you’re allowed to just ignore it are also fine, but not having any fluff is preferred. Bonus points for anything on the Xbox game pass.
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
I only finished it for the first time this year, after about 20 years of giving it a go, getting part way through, then forgetting about it. ADHD is evil. Still, it was fun, there were no long boring parts, nothing was grinding or luck based, and it felt really tight as an experience. Very well thought out, honestly I would consider it a masterpiece.
Have you played any other loz games? They are all amazing like that
I have played a bunch of them, Twilight Princess was an absolute no for me for some reason, but I liked Ocarina and Majora when I was younger. I plan to play a decompilation of both of those soon, native resolution and performance etc. I enjoyed Link’s Awakening as well, finished that on my original Gameboy back in the 90s, and Windwaker looks fun though I have only recently gotten onto a computer able to render it nicely, so that is on my play list.
It sounds like you’ve found some games you like but are turned off of by some difficulty bottlenecks. If that’s the case, considerWeMod. It’s a trainer for a ton of games that allow you to “cheat” in singleplayer games(god mode, speed hacks, etc.)
I still love playing games but as I get older, my tremors get worse, making it impossible for me to get through one on my own. WeMod allows me to explore all of the game world without being stopped by something as simple as clicking on something quickly.
I love WeMod, been using it since it was created
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Thank you!
Portal I and II.
Psychonauts I and II, with the caveat that there used to be a HUGE skill spike in the penultimate chapter of #1. I gather they’ve softened it, but don’t know how much.
I know Portal isn’t a shooter. But Portal made me think of them. I feel like a lot of FPSs would fit OP’s question. Half-Life 2 and most of the Halo games come to mind.
Portal I
Still suffering from the trauma of there being no cake
Titanfall 2 is a great shooter and story game. Don’t bother with Titanfall 1 if you are only in for singleplayer as it is multiplayer only.
Sable is on a giveaway this week by Epic Games. Use the free-&-open-source Heroic Games Launcher to play it without having to download their platform.
I got bored by FAR’s puzzles and didn’t finish it but I guess I should persist, huh?
I really enjoyed both Far games. I never felt like any of the puzzles were large enough to get tedious. When I finished Lone Sails I just wished there had been a longer section of driving the ship… it kind of felt like you never got to really go before there was some interruption that you had to stop and get out for.
Jazzpunk is not a game I’ve heard of in a long time, great silly surrealism
Manifold garden is great too
Jazzpunk was one of those games that left me wishing there was more of it.
Manifold Garden is just such a perfectly executed atmosphere, it’s hard to do it justice with description - like walking around inside an Escher drawing.
Factorio
Dredge is a pretty unique one that I had a lot of fun with. Firewatch is good but short
I haven’t seen the Lego games mentioned here. (Lego Indian Jones, Lego Batman, etc.)
They tend to be story driven, and have excellent amounts of play-testing, resulting in an enjoyable playthrough that I’ve always been able to finish.
(Except Lego Dimensions, which was developed separately, and not to the same play-testing standards.)
Lego games are great for just putting on and playing. So very little intro tutorials and learning. They just are fun.
I’m in the same boat where I don’t want anything that takes too long to get into. I don’t have the time to learn complex mechanics anymore.
I may have missed it, but Dave the Diver deserves a mention here.
Boss battles are very rare, and slow paced enough that I have not run into the dreaded “I understand the pattern but I lack the dexterity”. (I often have this problem with other games.)
I second this, although some of the bosses can be quite a challenge.
Super Mario Bros Wonder. Probably all the Mario platformer games. Those games are mostly just pure gameplay. Sure there is fluff in the beginning to setup the story and setting but than it gets out of your way
The Wolf Among Us, and I imagine other Telltale games (but that’s the only one I played so far). It felt a lot like Life is Strange in gameplay and storytelling, even though it’s also a lot different.
In a similar vein, point and click adventure games like The Whispered World, The Book of Unwritten Tales, or Syberia. The modern ones usually don’t have a failure state (as opposed to the infamous Sierra games), but unlike LiS you may get stuck on a puzzle.
I enjoyed the Star Wars Jedi games.
Slightly old by now, but Portal and Portal 2 remain two of the best games I’ve ever played. Gameplay is intuitive and linear, and doesn’t require grinding or building up resources. I thought the difficulty increased appropriately as well.
Fun fact: Portal was originally a university student project called Narbacular Drop that got hired by Steam. In a sense from its limited narration and story, it felt a bit more like a proof-of-concept than almost a full-fleshed game to me at times, which, for me, was hands-down Portal 2.
They’re great fun to stream and watch, too.
The third party add-on levels are awesome too.
If you liked Skyrim, check out Enderal - it’s a total conversion mod, but in Steam as it’s own game. It’s much more linear than Skyrim - the world still feels open, but it’s much more dense, and it’s scaled more like a traditional RPG, so if you wander off the intended path too far, you’ll get your ass beat by mobs that are much higher level than you.
Side quests are meh, with a notable exception of the Rhalata line, which is kind of like a combo of thieves guild and dark brotherhood. Main quest line is fucking wild.
If you skip the vast majority of side quests, you might have an issue with scaling, since you’ll be missing out on all that xp. If you run into that and don’t want to do the quests, just use the command console to cheat some in.
Fahrenheit (2005)
