With gaming often bringing me into a really depressive headspace sometimes with how the markets are developing, whats a game you can always go to and just be lost in, or just be happy with?
Personally i would go for advance wars 1 and 2 on the gba (there is no remake and never will be)
the artstyle, the music, the game-play is just simple, yet effective, a sublime experience of very fun times.
Whats yours?
I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this gem:
Vampire Survivors
A lot of the derived games are pretty fun for a while, too!
Minecraft. It’s just a nice game to get lost in.
OpenTTD is my happy space. It’s relaxing to just hop in and start building some railroads.
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It is still Guild Wars 2 for me.
It is very chill to play and only explore and it also has more challenging content if i feel like it. Best MMO out there. At least for me personally.
If anyone can show me the way to a guild wars 2 community here i would be grateful btw.
I have the base game. I played for a couple hours but haven’t got the “hook”. It feels very… unfulfilling… “objective marker on map, done, next”. Maybe not for me or I’m playing it wrong?
Honestly I still come back to old school RuneScape every now and then for that comfy nostalgia. Even as I type I get that pang to go questing.
Yeah we do not quest like other mmos, except in the campaign maybe. Which i always found refreshing and way better. I dont like to run from one questgiver to the next and back and do fetch quests, just to access the rest of the game. Cannot play those games anymore.
It is a theme park where you decide where to go. You could go to pvp from the start since stats are the same for everyone, or boost to 80 and start the expansions or wvw right away.
Funny thing about the markers on the map is , that most of them got added after launch because people did not know where to go and many complained it felt to empty.
They wanted to make it feel more real, so you have to get used to dynamic events and meta trains.
No other game that i know of has those grand fights with hundred of people against giant bosses like guild wars. Or mounts that feel different to play and not just means to travel. Check youtube for griffon and rollerbeetle races. Amazing stuff.
The combat seems to be simple sometimes but that is mostly in the open world and beginner zones.
Depending on the class, endgame in group content can be quite difficult. But the nice thing is that almost everything is optional.
Gotta set your own goals.
The achievement panel is sometimes confusing but once you learn to navigate and stick them to your HUD they become your questlog and there are a lot of them.
It also has no subscription so you can take all the time you need, which also helps socializing.
The fee to get the whole game can maybe be steep and the starter story is a bit old fashioned, but at least you own everything and it is cheaper and has more things to do than most other games these days.
It is understandable if you are not into it tho. We all play games for different reasons and like or dislike certain mechanics.
Just wanted to give you a rundown why i like it so sorry for the wall of text. :)
I appreciate it! It helps me understand what turned me off. I’ll look into giving it another shot when I want a break from Deep Rock Galactic.
To me, the best approach for base game, has always been to tackle it similar to Zelda BOTW/TOTK - you should just wander around until you find something interesting and then hang around and see what events might pop up. It’s not a very quest-driven experience similar to other MMOs and requires a bit of a different mindset.
i just might get back into it for it
I haven’t thought about guild wars 2 for years, but I remember buying it a long time ago because it was available on Mac, but it seems like that’s not the case anymore? And now it’s free to play now, I guess? It definitely feels like I wasted my money. Good game though lol
Stardew Valley is my go-to. I found Firewatch really easy to get lost in too.
Bloons TD 6. Just so incredibly addicting, and there’s depth to the different monkeys and how they interact, especially when you think about all the upgrades.
Try not to have an overly rosy retrospection about this. There were plenty of crappy, cash-grabby games in decades past. We just don’t remember them because they were crappy, cash-grabby, and not worth remembering. They hadn’t invented microtransactions yet, but that’s just one more flavor of crappiness.
Stardew Valley is amazing for this. Minecraft was it for years and years, but Stardew is just like a nice hug. I adore it.
Hogwarts Legacy has also fallen into this category for me now.
Anyone of my simulation/management games. Whether it’s running a hospital, creating an auto manufacturing assembly line or helping some brave adventurers find oxygen I’m always more at peace with a single player goal driven experience.
Cities: Skylines.
Have you ever tried Dwarf Fortress?
I have not. I looked at it when all the hype was going around towards its new release on Steam. I should probably pick it up at some point. I’ve been holding off on getting many new games since my kiddo was born. Not much time to play them anymore! Haha.
Star Wars: Racer - I know every track by heart at this point, have it on my Switch and still play quite a bit. Amazing flow state game.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - absolute classic and the nostalgia I get from playing is unmatched
Age of Empires 2 - the music is just muah
KotoR - Best Star Wars game ever made next to Dark Forces 2 and Jedi Outcast
No Man’s Sky is a good mix of nice scenery, low stress, and engaging without requiring a lot of mental capacity that can be comforting.
Im gonna be “that guy” and say dark souls 1. Subsequent playthroughs of the game are surprisingly relaxing, when you know where everything is and you’re just putting together a build and steamrolling bosses.
Was going to say the exact same thing! First playthrough is super stressful, but each time after it pretty much becomes casual.
I think that the bonfires are actually not that far apart when you really know where they are, with the exception of a few areas.
There is something about how casual the subsequent playthroughs are that is really cathartic. Like you’re just walking over challenges that seemed insurmountable the first time through.
Yep, knowing where things are is a relief from stress. This is also why the Fog Gate Randomizer mods are so fun.
Ah I haven’t heard of that one. Mods in ds1 are an avenue I haven’t explored yet, but the item and boss randomizers look really fun.
Oh man, [https://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/1305](Item Randomizer) and [https://www.nexusmods.com/darksoulsremastered/mods/165](Fog Gate Randomizer) together (they’re compatible!) is my jam. I was so mad the one time a key item was placed where the Blue Slab is in Crystal Caverns.
Thanks! Any builds that work better in randomizers than others, or is it just about being flexible on what you find early on?
That’s kind of the thing, you won’t know what’ you’ll get until you play, so you can’t really plan. One time I had to jump between spear and pike until I got something good. Another run I got the Giant’s Blacksmith Hammer (not from him) during my first few areas.
For me that’ll be Stardew Valley. I can just zone out to the really nice music. Also a few years ago I used to have Planetside 2 in that rotation. I was kinda bad but with the MMO aspect, I could always run somewhere for the objectives and have fun. Finally, I like Trackmania to discover new tracks and just chill.
Portal. I’ve played through it enough times that I can complete it in a little under 20 minutes. I’m not very good at games but there are a lot of fun and easy tricks to run through it quickly. Playing it a bunch of times is relaxing and fun for me.
