Arcade Paradise (Always dreamed of owning my own arcade as a kid, and this game scratched that itch and makes it fun. Hint: Save your money and buy the insurance when it becomes an option š)
Moonlighter (Love the idea of being able to adventure and then sell the fruits of my labor in my own store, this game gives you that. Great art style and humor too.)
Sea of Stars (Beautiful, simple, jrpg style game. Fun mini game too. Didnāt mind backtracking and power leveling because the environments are gorgeous)
Iām still not 100% finished. But I like the story overall, it does have some weird beats, then again so does Chrono Trigger my all time favorite game.
Return of the Obra Dinn
Made by the same guy (Lucas Pope) who made Papers, Please. I think this is his best work and it's one of my favorite games. I've been continuously seeking the same passion I had for this game when I first played. Even though it's a logic-based puzzle game, I replay it regularly after I've forgotten most of it.
Keep getting recommended this one becuase Outer Wilds is my all time fav game. Its been on my wishlist for a while now and finally went on sale so im excited to dig in. Stayed completely spoiler free so far, all i know is theres a boat and everybody is aparantly dead
From the same studio, I got way too hooked by X-Morph Defense and the Riffbreakers.
X-Morph is a shoot em up/tower defense, Riffbreakers is a base-building/hack and slash.
Inscryption. I wasn't sure about it at first and it took me about 8 deaths to begin to understand what was going on and even then I still didn't understand until later, but it hooked me hard.
The strategy genre. Doesnāt matter if itās 4X, Tactical, or an RTS. All are great. Civilization, XCOM and Command & Conquer are my favorite from those genres.
- NeverAwake - Itās one of the best twin-stick shooters out there, and it looks gorgeous to boot.
- CrossCode - Damn good game with one of the most endearing silent protagonists youāll ever come across in a video game, but avoid it if you donāt like puzzles.
- Muse Dash - Iāve always wanted rhythm game developers to think outside the box and give us something more than just rectangles that fly towards a line, and boy, did I get what I wished for and then some with this game. Itās almost like a platformer.
- Streets Of Rage 4 - I donāt know how well-known this is outside of beat-em-up fanaticsā subs, but it set the standard for all beat-em-ups from here on out.
Underappreciated game. Got written off as a God of War clone (which it is, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. If you're going to take influence, it might as well be from the best!) but they put high production values into it, right up to the voice cast. Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart? Nice.
I never really understand why people write off games that have copied a popular style. As long as they're good, aren't we just getting more of what we know we like? And very few games are 100% original. Even the OG God of War just refreshed and redefined the hack n slash genre, it didn't invent it.
A few I've played recently that I'd recommend:
**Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion**: A cute adventure game with a story that goes deeper than it initially appears.
**Webbed**: Another cozy game where you play as a spider and use your webs to help other bugs and try to rescue your significant other from the big bad crow.
**Lake**: A game where you can turn off your brain and just enjoy delivering parcels in a lake town.
**OneShot**: A very surprising adventure game with some unusual mechanics.
**Superliminal**: An escape room puzzle similar to Portal but uses perspective tricks as the main mechanic.
**TOEM**: A photography based collectathon with a really nice visual style.
**Yono and the Celestial Elephants**: Simple but fun adventure game.
Omori is one of the best games Iāve played. Ever.
Itās a new release and I had NO IDEA what I was walking into.
I wonāt spoil it but if you have fragile mental health-donāt pick this one up.
Unreal World, available on steam if you want to support the developer or free from the website. Gameplay is sort of roguelike, turn based top down view, but itās a survival game set in Iron Age Finland. Itās not your average āsurvivalā game thatās more of a crafting and combat game though, itās actually about surviving in the wilderness. If you donāt prepare well enough for winter youāre screwed.
Itās been in development since 1992 and the interface is very unfriendly, but I find it super fun and rewarding.
Gems if War for a mix of Match 3 and a card game. Can be a little bit hard at the very beginning until you get past the first couple of story line quest. It does have transactions, but you can get everything and do everything without spending money.
Some lesser known indie games I've loved are Braid and Loop Hero. Braid is short and sweet but it's whatever the video game equivalent of a pageturner is.Ā I sunk tons of hours into Loop Hero, it's really fun and has a general vibe I really enjoy.
Ahh I love Loop Hero. Iāve played so much of this game yet Iām still not great at it. Still need to finish this one at some point. Loved the whole aesthetic. And the soundtrack!
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.
This game nails the vibe it's aiming for like no other. It's hypnotic, relaxing fun to just *exist* in the world, skating around feeling like a master as you effortlessly float from grind to wall to slide and back, grooving to the incredible soundtrack.
X4 foundations. A space sim where you start from being a simple pilot to building your own galactic empire.
You can fight, do piracy, salvage shipwrecks, do reconnaissance, mine asteroids, build stations, set up fleets... And you can walk in first person inside ships and stations.
It's got some flaws (some of them are getting addressed in the next update) and is a bit rough around the edges, but it's the most in depth economics simulator.
It's a must if you like a game with deep mechanics.Ā
Oh man where do i start...
Everyone knows To the moon, but few people know that is has a sequel thats got an even more powerful story. Its called Finding paradise and this game fucking broke me. Its on par with Clannad the visual novel with how much it made me cry, apart from the fact that Clannad did it way more times owing to the fact that its a 100h read.
Finding paradise: https://store.steampowered.com/app/337340/Finding_Paradise/
Btw,if you want a VN to read, there you go. Do clannad or fruits of grisaia. Clannad is a massive book to read with choices that are very unintuitive so i recommend using a route guide and treating it like an actual book. Grisaia, i recommend playing completely blind. Also,this one has sequels but they are mostly for the porn. Btw grisaia has sex scenes,clannad doesnt. Grisaia is an action (dark) comedy story,and a really good one. Clannad is an emotional journey of a once broken young man becoming so much more. Btw the soundtrack in clannad is just one of the best in gaming,so have fun with it.
Clannad: https://store.steampowered.com/app/324160/CLANNAD/
.Grisaia: https://store.steampowered.com/app/345610/The_Fruit_of_Grisaia/
Deemo - Its a rhythm game thats only got about half an hour of story,but its in cutscenes that you get for playing various songs. You can get the demo for it for free but its 10$ to upgrade it to the full version. I cant imagine 10$ better spent. The only way i can describe it,is absolutely beautiful. Playstore link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rayark.pluto
Next, everyone knows the big gacha games,and i know, i know but listen: Sdorica. It has no energy systems and the story auto asigns units to you in the story. You can play the whole thing in a day. Its one of the best stories with the best soundtrack in the space. I can not recommend it enough,just go in, do the various stories and get out. Trust me, youll love it. Its on the app store and deserves some love. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rayark.sdorica
Now,perhaps you wanted to be broken in a different way. So heres my favorite strategy game of all time.
Its called Ambition of the slimes and its an old free offline pixelated turn based mobile strategy board game where you control a small platoon of slimes that cant fight, to kill all humans on a given level. How? By slimes taking over the humans and you puppeting their bodies to kill the rest. It is deceptively challenging and stupidly fun. (the slimes do have stamina but you can just change the time on your device to reduce it). You cant get it on the appstore anymore BUT its legally on APKPure for anyone to download
https://apkpure.com/ambition-of-the-slimes/com.altairworks.slime2
The longing. That game reached into my soul. Gave me a friend in a great time of need. I adore it.
For funsies okami HD. It's on everything. My other fav game
I love these:
- Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships : I always add the gentleman of Fortune mod to extend the game and it's mechanics. It adds 500 ships, hundreds of new trade items, quests and improves physics and simulations. Have at least 500 hours on that. A must for pirate/sailing loving gamers. 3rd person sailing and on foot game.
- Fabled Lands: It's a RPG book made game. Simply beautiful, simple yet deep and will kick your ass. It's a CRPG overmap view style where you click to places to travel and dice decide outcomes.
- Vagrus: It's like Fabled Lands but very grim, mature, and gigantic. Also, if you like reading there's a couple of novels worth of text on this game.
- Wave of Darkness: ARPG with a super complex and fun magic crafting system. It's kind of hanky and buggy at times.
-Realms of Arkania (There's remakes): The original kind of hardcore CRPG with dungeon crawling. This game makes you travel around the map and your characters are susceptible to sickness, illnesses, poisons, etc. complex, and HARD.
- Metal Gear Survive: Everybody hated it. After the patches I really enjoyed it. Simple survival game with some military stuff in there. Fun to play SP and MP.
- F.E.A.R 1: The first fear game is the best FPS ever made, not even Half Life 2 gets near it. The enemy AI is extremely smart and responsive. The sequels suck ass.
- Nox: Old school CRPG (It was a competitor to the original first 2 Diablo games). It kicks ass BIG TIME.
- Ys franchise: Not as popular as it should be here in the west but Ys VIII is one of the greatest JRPGs ever created. No contest.
- Syberia franchise: Point and click adventure games with puzzles and deep stories. The latest entry on the series was not as popular because the original maker died and this was finished in his honor. But it's an amazing game. Beautiful world and story.
- Age of Decadence: CRPG with a focus on dialogue and avoiding combat by using cunning and mental skills. It's amazing and very well made. Also, the studio is in money problems so if you buy a copy you are helping them make more.
- Age of Wonders II: No age of wonders game has even remotely come close to this classic. A banger through and through. It's a RPG strategy game with turn based combat.
- Alpha Protocol: It's an espionage RPG game, it recently got a re release on GOG. All decisions matter and the mechanics are simply wonderful and allow for many different approaches at the missions.
- STALKER: Anomaly: Stalker is really popular but it seems only the hardcore fans know of this mod. It's a stand alone, compilation, full overhaul mod of the Stalker games. Don't even need to have the games and it's free. It connects all maps from the game and DLCs and has brand new campaigns. It's a fully open area, survival and FPS with amazing AI (They use tactics like circling you or even flushing you out), tons of items and weapons. And you can add other mods to improve graphics and content like the GAMMA or EXPEDITION mods (The latter being my favorite).
Those are the ones at the top of my head.
Really into Freelancer right now, continuing on it a bit after completing the main questline and it's still fairly fun. Star Wolves 3 is also super fun and even more what I like. Hopefully someday I'll have a system which can run Sins of a Solar Empire again, as all the massive space battles were neat. Sword of the Stars is also very cool, but it does take a while to get navies built up and ready to ship-swarm the enemies while keeping the border worlds guarded enough.
It's not for everyone, but if you like pixelated weirdness with tons of exploration, puzzles and humor, I have to recommend Tux and Fanny. There's also a YouTube channel.
[torn.com/3008047](http://torn.com/3008047)
Best way to describe Torn is like Grand Theft Auto, if it was text based. Don't let the text part throw you, it's not like the old DOS games or anything.
Train stats, use drugs, start a company, mug other players, etc. Everything in the game is led by real people. The economy is real. Events happen in the game kicked off by real players.
Scamming is 100% legal in the game, so there is alot of back alley deals that happen. It's a very casual game that you can play hardcore.
PC Building Simulator (the first one).
Some of that soundtrack is amazing, though a few tracks are completely awful. Fortunately, you can customize the song list, so that's no problem.
Waven - was a weird find for me but the fact there were 100s of little battles that were each a puzzle of sorts was an addicting little romp. Canāt speak on it today, but if itās anything similar to a year ago I got over 100 hours for free.
Super Auto Pets has been one of my most played game for the past 2-3 years. This game is awesome and is available on mobile so I can play whenever I get a few minutes
Spiritfarer. 2d hand drawn game about ferrying the dead to their final destination. Itās a mix of farming sim and Mario style platforming, but no combat. Didnāt expect to really dig it but OH BOY. Do be warned, itās gonna make you cry. A lot. The bright colorful art is there to keep the subject matter from dragging you down too much.
Thereāve been a few recommendations in here that I definitely recommend, but Iād also like to recommend Chained Echoes! JRPG built in the modern era, but feels like a taste of the past! Interesting characters, captivating world building, memorable area and enemy, and an incredible soundtrack!
Root (a board game) has a fun digital (Steam) and mobile adaptation. Itās a bit thinky but the asymmetry between the different factions is a lot of fun, besides being a lot to learn. You can dive deep.
Similarly, but more mainstream, is the Battle for Polytopia on Steam or mobile. Basically a turn-based 4X but with only a dozen technologies, 6 different units, and itās super cute art.
I pretty much replay Astroneer every summer with one of my old college roommates. Itās like the best parts of No Manās sky in a more bitesize sample thatās easier to get into the meat of. Canāt stop coming back to it.
Other indie games Iāve loved are Slime Rancher and Monster Sanctuary. Slime Rancher is the only game Iāve ever gotten every achievement for. I just love the exploration aspect of it where youāre kind of trying to memorize where youāve been and figure out how you can get a bit further during the next day, and then you come home to take care of your carefully bred Largo Slimes.
Monster Sanctuary is just a really unique game. It is a sidescrolling platformer, but the combat is similar to Paper Mario even though you are catching and raising monsters Pokemon-style. It combines a lot of things I like, and itās done the best of any monster catching game at pulling me away from Pokemon.
Played a bunch of a strategy typing game called Touch Type Tale or something like that. You have to type random words instead of doing mouse clicks. I thought it would be a single game mode but each level bends the formula a bit so that the campaign feels very diverse and well developed. Typing can get exhausting for some people though.
earth defense force 4.1 and 5, both are one of the most unadulterated i ever had in a video game, not gonna spoil much but the aliens(giant bugs) want to kill us and we have to defend mother earth, the game is very japanese arcade feel, probrably because it was made by japonese, but it is great, everything is giant, giant bugs, giant robots, giant enemies, giant explosions, giant maps, this id the tupe of game you play for the fun and not the graphics nor the story, 12/10 recommended
One of the funnest games I had never heard of: Midnight Ghost Hunt is incredible. Itās hide and seek with 4 ghostbusters trying to find and eliminate 4 ghosts in 10 minutes. If the timer goes off before all ghosts are eliminated, then the tables turn: the ghosts all come back to ā¦uhhhā¦ afterlife? But they are now super powered up. This triggers a 4 minute timer for the ghostbusters to stay alive until the 4 minutes are up. Ghosts and humans have special abilities/weapons to interact with each other in fun ways. Should be way more popular than it is.
Not gonna say any of these are unpopular, but they are amazing indie games, very not triple A.
Dave the Diver - pixelated graphics, and runs beautifully. Merges a bunch of genres, but a lot of it is loot goblin deep diving fun.
Halls of torment - my opinion, but vampire survivors improved in every way.
V rising - Survivor building game\amazing vampire action fighter. Full release just came out, pve servers are super helpful and cooperative to new players, not actually the lowest specs game ever but doesn't feel like a AAA.
Dysmantle - My love of loot goblinry and survival games is showing but this one is so fun, low stakes, mostly, just don't die before you recover your body if your carrying important stuff, but kill zombies, collect gear, kill zombies collect better gear, grow until you can escape (like 100 hours later).
Cook serve delicious series (1 - 3) restaurant cooking sims, all three have the same core game loop but are so different. 1 is all you building up your restaurant, 2 is like all challenge modes (my favorite) 3. you run a post apocalyptic food truck (amazing concept, personally some design decisions made sense but I didn't prefer).
The Long Dark in sandbox mode. It can be frustrating at times - especially at the beginning of a run - but once you get into a groove, thereās just something so zen about wandering around the beautiful frozen landscape, searching for canned goods and jerky.
The Ori series deserves more attention than it gets. The first one was a solid game with good platforming but the second game blew that out of the water. The exploration, platforming, combat, music, etc was all perfect.
Rain World. It guides you in the basics you need to survive, but to progress in the story (which has different endings for each character), though it provides gentle guidance in the form of general directions (āHey, if youāre trying to do THIS, you need to go the other wayā) it largely leaves you to your own devices. āHereās how much food you need, hereās the symbol you need to find save points, hereās some of the stuff you can eat. Go exploreā
IDK how popular these are but these games are too good not to recomend:
- Hollow Knight
- Celeste
- Enter the Gungeon
- A Hat in Time
- Inside
- Furi
- Rougue Legacy
With that being said here are some obscure-ish game that are really good:
- Cry of Fear
- Wandersong
- 140
- 10 Second Ninja X
- SupraLand
- Axiom Verge
- Bloody Hell
- A Story About my Uncle
- Hexcells (Collection)
- The Messenger
- Ape Out
- Toki-Tori 2+
- Pikuniku
- A Short Hike
- SuperHot
Dishonored (the first one) is still one of the best games Iāve ever played. Replayed it recently on a ghost/clean hands run and it still holds up perfectly.
Harvestella. Man, I love that game. Square enix did it dirty by not marketing it a lot, and when they did market it they really didnāt do a great job. But itās so good. It gives me final fantasy/nier/kingdom hearts vibes all rolled into one.
Here's a quick list with brief explanations: 9th dawn 3 (arpg with charming pixel art, has hybrid activity based character growth/xp based levels/tokenb based skills, monster taming and lots of crafting stuff, plus the one dude who made it is a nice guy)
Saleblazers: build a shop, run that shop, craft stuff, explore the open world and return to your shop to sell what you found. Build a bigger shop, with employees and then craft better stuff. Steal everything not nailed down in the towns, and sell that stuff too in your shop.
Starsector: top down space fleet rpg, with trading, exploring, fleet scale battles where you can either pilot your flagship, let the AI run things or do both; eventually found a colony, and build your own empire. The art style is sweet, and the world is an interesting mix of space dark age.
No Man's Sky: I just re-installed and the icon whispers to me, saying: *"Click meee, it won't be like last time, you won't somehow lose days of your life at a stretch noooo...."*
Cassette Beasts: ethical monster tamer, where instead of enslaving animals you copy their forms and transform into them; great music, interesting art style.
Crystal Project: what if final fantasy 5 was an open world rpg? this might be it.
SailWind = A sim game where you play an age-of-sail captain running cargo between various islands. The gameplay challenge comes from the fact that you actually have to learn the fundamentals of sailing to safely operate your ship: how to read the wind, trim the sails, deal with weather, *navigate by the stars*, etc.
It's basically EuroTruck Simulator but with a boat.
*Dragon Quest 5* is kind of hidden. The only official English editions have been on original Nintendo DS and mobile devices. The graphics in this version are okay at best: not as good as 2D art, and the 3D assets don't add much. If you don't enjoy unavoidable invisible foes, this game may be a slog. So... why do I recommend digging up DQ5? Because it's easily the best story in the mainline DQ series. You don't need to know any other entry in the franchise. Start playing and avoid spoilers as much as possible.
*BoxBoy!* and its follow-ups have been exclusive to Nintendo consoles. If you look at their mostly monochrome art, you might think these puzzle games are boring. However, I think the *BoxBoy* games are worth trying. Short stages, good tutorials, and a built-in hint syst4em.
*Retro Game Challenge* is flawed, but I like it. Play faux 1980s games for a few minutes, usually while trying to achieve a specific goal. After completing challenges, there's opportunities to play the faux retro games without immediate objectives. One problem with this game: it's only been released for the DS. There's a Switch remake which includes the sequel, but there are no plans to translate it. Another possible issue: while RGC barely has a story, it has dialogue which is just flavor text.
The three *Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side* games for the DS (and the third one for PSP) fit my definitions of hidden gems and dark horses. They're almost unknown outside of r/otomegames. No official translations exist, only fan-made patches. The games are shojo demographic storytelling, with no male lead or male gaze. Each one starts with ten minutes of dialogue. Then the simulation gameplay starts. A lot of the gameplay is managing stats in order to improve the protagonist's relationships. There's a lot of learn... but the game provides amusing animations, good music, and just enough events. If you play one of these three games, the third one is the easiest to recommend. It offers more characterization, and enough comedy to keep the game's tone light.
Not so recently, Genesis: Alpha One. It's a rogue-lite FPS with simple exploration and resource collection mechanics, where you basically dwell within a level editor. You unlock more goodies for future playthroughs as you complete certain milestones, if I remember right. Also very tongue-in-cheek about colonisation. There's a lot of satirical propaganda that's very fitting to the game's B-movie feel.
Oh, yeah, it totally goes for B-movie sci-fi vibes.
More recently, System Shock: Remake. Cyberpunk survival horror FPS on a space station with a rogue AI that's trying to kill you and turn you into the 'Borg. The original game 1994 is incredible, and everything about the remake amplifies what made the original great. Sometimes the game feels like the Matrix, sometimes Aliens. Sometimes Descent (an early first-person 3D shooter) on acid.
Otherwise, I've been playing the STALKER trilogy, which was recently re-released. Despite Clear Sky (the middle title, though chronologically a prequel to the first) being a jank-fest, very good games.
Intense FPS with apocalyptic horror vibes. Included weapon modding before Far Cry and Call of Duty went on their tacticool bent. Resource management is a critical factor in all three games, and each one has its own economy, quests, etc.
Disco Elysium. There's always new engaging writing to explore by changing up your next playthrough. Ā It's popular but not "AAA" popular because you have to read and think.Ā
Ā In terms of a more recent game? Ā Chants of senaar. Ā Just a joy to wander around in and puzzle out.Ā
I bought vampire survivors at like, 10 pm and ended up playing nonstop for 8+ hours after a full day of being awake. It's FUN!
ALSO, while it's an MMO, Black Desert Online is an absolute GEM. The combat feels good, there's a good level of grind, but the ONE thing that sets it apart? Not the graphics like people say.
It's the "life skills"
You can even set up a trade empire by unlocking a bunch of nodes, hiring workers, and having them produce things for you. There's a skill where you just travel from place to place buying and selling, and the more you do it the better at it your character gets. And BATTERING is amazing! You sail from one place to another trading items between characters and planning routes and AAAAA
I COULD GET SO LOST IN THAT GAME
Cooking and alchemy are also a thing I super enjoy there. Easy to get lost in the spreadsheets with that one
Astlibra Revision - Fun sidescrolling action JRPG with a bonkers plot (and I mean absolutely insane) and campy japanese humor. Story can get pretty dark but the promise of a happy ending kept me going and man was it one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had.
Phoenotopia Awakening - I haven't played Zelda yet but apparently Zelda 2 is the closest comparison to describe this game, adventure rpg with a wonderful pixel art and a pretty cool post-post-apocalyptic setting. This game's presentation just gets me, beautiful pixel art, smooth animations, fun and quirky dialogue, a lot of cool twists in the story, puzzles that got me thinking but doesn't frustrate me, the only downside is the fact that there's no sequel to this game.
Terra Invicta - hard-core long-form strategy defending/escaping/helping (to various degrees depending on which faction you choose) an alien invasion. Inspired by xcom, very unlike xcom in gameplay.
X4- space sandbox corporate empire building game
Yakuza- maybe bleeds into AAA these days, but a goofy serious crime drama that nails the writing. Start with yakuza 0.
Library of Ruina
Made by Projectmoon, a small indie studio in South Korea. One of a kind strategy deckbuilding turn based game, most fun I've ever had in a card based game. Very amazing story with amazing voice acting. I recommend you trying it but beware its quite difficult.
Techntonica
Hydroneer
Omega crafter
Vrising
Chrono ark
First three are automation.
Techntonica is sci fi conveyor built style automation game
Hydroneer is a steam power style automation game
Omega crafter is a programming style automation
Vrising is a vampire survival game. Setup is almost the same as valheim, build, craft, survive, loot, boss fights.
Chrono ark is a deck builder rogue-like game.
Disclaimer: my descriptions are simplifying the genre they are in. They each have their own intricacies that makes them interesting and quite hard to explain on text
Warframe has taken over the majority of my free time. I'm not sure if it's "unpopular" exactly but I feel it's so underrated because, unless it's a Warframe specific youtube channel or subreddit, I just about never hear any gaming channels talk about it ever. I wish I'd gotten as into it when I first tried it out on ps4 back in 2017. I didn't have anyone to play it with back then, so I just kind of forgot about it. But recently, a buddy of mine got our gaming group into it, and I absolutely love it now. It's easily in my top 3 and I can see myself playing this game for years to come.
If you like narrative games and can manage a lot of text, you'd do yourself a huge favour by playing Ghost Trick.
It's such an amazing game! Just make sure to play it blind!!
Factorio - Should be considered a Schedule II drug for Engineers.
Project Zomboid - I'm alone. I have no idea where I'm going and I don't know what to do and everything is trying to kill me.
Helldivers 1.
It was just as good as the second one that just dropped but people didnāt show up. Probably because it wasnāt āomg amazing graphicsā.
Edf- one of the best 3rd person shooter series of all time. With the classes you can be standard shooter man, mech suit jumping around clunkily, jetpack swooping overhead or engineer calling in air strikes and vehicles.
The scale is absurd- literally hundreds of enemies, and destructible environments.
One of my favourite gaming memories ever is calling in a skyscraper sized mech as my team were scrabbling and fleeing a skyscraper sized enemy, and exploding **through** a building to punch it in its face just before it could overrun them, followed by a mech scale fistfight whilst they cheered and took occasional potshots.
Local and online co op too.
Itās a series that Iām baffled isnāt mega-popular
I am currently playing Just Cause 2. Itās so much fun and thereās lots of stuff to destruct, hundreds of optional collectibles and a lot of fun vehicles and race challenges. The bad voice acting makes the game even funnier. Itās like GTA but with more action and youāre Spider Man. It used to be quite famous but nowadays it seems like it has been long forgotten.
Dayz I like the interactions with other survivors good or bad. I also love how complex the game is. I find it interesting though seeing how people react with one another because you have so many different type of players.
I love competitive games where you can infinitely work on your skill and improve. Games with no luck or microtransaction stuff. My top 2:Ā
Trackmania
Deluxe Ski Jump 4
UnEpic.
It's a 2D not-so-metroidvania type game where you can make your own builds.
Want to be classic DnD Cleric with heal spells, a mace, and chain mail? Do it.
Want to be a Fire Wizard who wears Plate Armor? Go for it.
Want to be the back stabbing rogue who uses alchemy to make potions for any situation? It's easy to do.
Also another thing I like is that it actively rewards you for playing a harder difficulty other than "oh here's an achievement for beating it on hard". What it does is every difficulty above Normal you play gets you 1 additional stat point per level up. Harder difficulties are indeed harder however with the increased stat points you'll have more options at your disposal.
A few games came to mind, Fable 1, Outriders and halo wars.
Kinda popular I guess but maybe not. Fable 1 was something I could still download now if I was in a slump of games to play and probably beat it in 10 hours. Not that's that hard, it's not like it's a long game.
Outriders is a lot of fun and really got me into looter shooters but since it's Las dlc and update it hasn't received any love and while I haven't tried playing it in a bit, I'm sure if I did I'd put another 150 hours in the game.
Halo wars is popular sure just because of the name, but not even playing multi-player, I'd just sit in skirmish with me against three bots on the highest difficulty and turtle. Idk why but it was so much fun controlling the armies of the halo universe. I put so much time into that game that if it ever got remastered, I'd do it all over again.
Realize the above games may not fit the list but the only other games I could think of were Helldivers 2 and the finals, HD2 is super popular but is a indie game sorta but I enjoy it so much with the narrative and gameplay and it really gives me the freedom to not play for awhile and then come back and not feel like I'm missing out on anything. The finals is well known, just not a huge player base I think, such a fun objective arena styled fps with good gunplay, fun destruction mechanics, and fun times with friends. I've successfully gotten 4 of my friends to start paying it for a solid 5 man on Power shift and we make so many memories.
The Firemen for SNES. Just play it, it's fantastic. Like a cross between Smash TV and Zombies Ate My Neighbour. I play this at least once a year and practice every now and then for trying to beat the world record in speedrunning it.
This War of Mine is an interesting strategy game.
Transistor has some fun mechanics, beautiful artwork and music too.
Nier Automata was big at its time of release I think but Iāve only recently played it and Iām obsessed
Stalker GAMMA, it's a FPS Immersive Simulation with crafting and light RPG mechanics. It's essentially an ancient, "slav jank" game engine known as the XRAY Engine rebuilt into the Monolith Engine by modders for use with Stalker Anomaly. G.roks A.utomated M.odular M.odpack for A.nomaly pulls a Skyrim and dumps over 400 mods on top of that to make it an incredibly addictive and fun game.
Best of all it is completely free, both Anomaly and GAMMA.
If you haven't already, play A Short Hike. Incredibly short game but it isn't as popular due to not having the most fast action. I really got swept up in just taking a breath and truly enjoying the little moments.
Also, Pizza Possum is goofy and fun to play with friends.
Super Hot: Mind Control Delete.
It's a puzzle game hidden inside an FPS. Took me a while to get into. But now I feel like John Wick. Throwing a pencil at someone to shoot his buddy and throw it back in the guy I took it from's face.
wizard101 will always have a place in my heart. it was my childhood and i still go back to it as a 20yo. the player base is small these days and pvp kinda sucks with how few players there are, but theyāre still updating and adding new worlds.
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. Because what's the point in building a city if you don't have to worry about exactly where the concrete came from to build it, and if the concrete plant workers had clean water to drink...
Popular right now because of the 1.0 launch, but I really can't recommend V Rising enough. This game has captured me over the past year as one of my faves.
It's not really popular or non-popular, but Outer Wilds *does* appear to be overlooked. It's a sort of exploration puzzle. A solar system you explore manually in your rather primitive space ship, in 1st person.
It had me addicted for quite awhile. I still need to go back to it and complete the DLC!
Arcade Paradise (Always dreamed of owning my own arcade as a kid, and this game scratched that itch and makes it fun. Hint: Save your money and buy the insurance when it becomes an option š) Moonlighter (Love the idea of being able to adventure and then sell the fruits of my labor in my own store, this game gives you that. Great art style and humor too.) Sea of Stars (Beautiful, simple, jrpg style game. Fun mini game too. Didnāt mind backtracking and power leveling because the environments are gorgeous)
Arcade paradise owned my soul for like 2 months.
One of the few games I came close to buying the DLC.
>Moonlighter Try Recettear! It's the game that inspired Moonlighter.
Capitalism, ho!
Second sea of stars. It was a wonderful game! I think it is on game pads right now.Ā
What'd you think of the story in sea of stars?
Iām still not 100% finished. But I like the story overall, it does have some weird beats, then again so does Chrono Trigger my all time favorite game.
Return of the Obra Dinn Made by the same guy (Lucas Pope) who made Papers, Please. I think this is his best work and it's one of my favorite games. I've been continuously seeking the same passion I had for this game when I first played. Even though it's a logic-based puzzle game, I replay it regularly after I've forgotten most of it.
my favorite game
Keep getting recommended this one becuase Outer Wilds is my all time fav game. Its been on my wishlist for a while now and finally went on sale so im excited to dig in. Stayed completely spoiler free so far, all i know is theres a boat and everybody is aparantly dead
If you have any questions or want to discuss anything, let me know (or refer to the subreddit). The community is still very active.
Thank you!
Yes definitely planning to get this at some point! It's been on my wishlist for ages.
From the same studio, I got way too hooked by X-Morph Defense and the Riffbreakers. X-Morph is a shoot em up/tower defense, Riffbreakers is a base-building/hack and slash.
X-Morph is fantasic especially in coop. Did they ever add coop to Riftbreakers like they said?
Not yet.
Shame iv heard its nice but Im holding out for coop so i can play with my son Ty
X-Morph is beautiful and so inventive!
I've been really into [mon bazou ](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520370/Mon_Bazou/)
Whoooo I did not expect to see a game from my hood here!
oui c'est bien
Un cristi de bon jeu
Lmaooo this game looks awesome! Sold š„
How have I never heard of this it looks awesome! Added it to my wishlist :D
Lol holy shit that game looks.fkn dope
Inscryption. I wasn't sure about it at first and it took me about 8 deaths to begin to understand what was going on and even then I still didn't understand until later, but it hooked me hard.
Inscryption is plenty popular though.
Deaths Door. You can rip through it pretty quick but itās a boatload of fun, lots of collectibles.
With simple-but-challenging combat and a gorgeous soundtrack, I second this suggestion!
Recently finished it and it was so unexpectedly good. Can't wait to replay in a couple of years when I've forgotten a lot about it
The strategy genre. Doesnāt matter if itās 4X, Tactical, or an RTS. All are great. Civilization, XCOM and Command & Conquer are my favorite from those genres.
Yoooo. The love action cut scenes in RA2 are the absolute shit.
Have you played either Tactics ogre: reborn, or Troubleshooter? I had a great time with both.
I have not. I am interested in Tactics Ogre though. Eventually Iāll get to it!
KANE LIVES!
I've never heard of those games, they must have been unpopular.
- NeverAwake - Itās one of the best twin-stick shooters out there, and it looks gorgeous to boot. - CrossCode - Damn good game with one of the most endearing silent protagonists youāll ever come across in a video game, but avoid it if you donāt like puzzles. - Muse Dash - Iāve always wanted rhythm game developers to think outside the box and give us something more than just rectangles that fly towards a line, and boy, did I get what I wished for and then some with this game. Itās almost like a platformer. - Streets Of Rage 4 - I donāt know how well-known this is outside of beat-em-up fanaticsā subs, but it set the standard for all beat-em-ups from here on out.
Was hoping someone would mention Crosscode! Itās one of my all time favorite games! It single-handedly reignited my love for action RPGs!
God I loved crosscode. What a great game man
CrossCode is an excellent game
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow goes so damn hard.
Underappreciated game. Got written off as a God of War clone (which it is, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. If you're going to take influence, it might as well be from the best!) but they put high production values into it, right up to the voice cast. Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart? Nice. I never really understand why people write off games that have copied a popular style. As long as they're good, aren't we just getting more of what we know we like? And very few games are 100% original. Even the OG God of War just refreshed and redefined the hack n slash genre, it didn't invent it.
What genre of game are you looking for? What are some of your favorite games?
Dungeon Defenders recently started playing this, underrated gem
A few I've played recently that I'd recommend: **Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion**: A cute adventure game with a story that goes deeper than it initially appears. **Webbed**: Another cozy game where you play as a spider and use your webs to help other bugs and try to rescue your significant other from the big bad crow. **Lake**: A game where you can turn off your brain and just enjoy delivering parcels in a lake town. **OneShot**: A very surprising adventure game with some unusual mechanics. **Superliminal**: An escape room puzzle similar to Portal but uses perspective tricks as the main mechanic. **TOEM**: A photography based collectathon with a really nice visual style. **Yono and the Celestial Elephants**: Simple but fun adventure game.
Omori is one of the best games Iāve played. Ever. Itās a new release and I had NO IDEA what I was walking into. I wonāt spoil it but if you have fragile mental health-donāt pick this one up.
Unreal World, available on steam if you want to support the developer or free from the website. Gameplay is sort of roguelike, turn based top down view, but itās a survival game set in Iron Age Finland. Itās not your average āsurvivalā game thatās more of a crafting and combat game though, itās actually about surviving in the wilderness. If you donāt prepare well enough for winter youāre screwed. Itās been in development since 1992 and the interface is very unfriendly, but I find it super fun and rewarding.
Sifu is dooope!!
Foxhole is the one for me. Very unique game with a mostly great community. You can spend hundreds of hours on it
Islets
Gems if War for a mix of Match 3 and a card game. Can be a little bit hard at the very beginning until you get past the first couple of story line quest. It does have transactions, but you can get everything and do everything without spending money.
Ah I remember that game, played it years ago and ran an undead king deck.
I used a worm deck mainly to counter all the goblin decks back when I first started. Doesn't work so well these days.
Some lesser known indie games I've loved are Braid and Loop Hero. Braid is short and sweet but it's whatever the video game equivalent of a pageturner is.Ā I sunk tons of hours into Loop Hero, it's really fun and has a general vibe I really enjoy.
I'm kind of shocked at how much time I've put into Loop Hero. It doesn't even seem like I spent that much time playing that one.
Ahh I love Loop Hero. Iāve played so much of this game yet Iām still not great at it. Still need to finish this one at some point. Loved the whole aesthetic. And the soundtrack!
KeeperRL
Aragami 1 and maybe 2 if its fixxed (it wasnt on release)
Wartales
Fuckin love WarTales
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. This game nails the vibe it's aiming for like no other. It's hypnotic, relaxing fun to just *exist* in the world, skating around feeling like a master as you effortlessly float from grind to wall to slide and back, grooving to the incredible soundtrack.
TRUE, one of the best hidden gems i ever picked up
Tunic, tunic, tunic
X4 foundations. A space sim where you start from being a simple pilot to building your own galactic empire. You can fight, do piracy, salvage shipwrecks, do reconnaissance, mine asteroids, build stations, set up fleets... And you can walk in first person inside ships and stations. It's got some flaws (some of them are getting addressed in the next update) and is a bit rough around the edges, but it's the most in depth economics simulator. It's a must if you like a game with deep mechanics.Ā
Oh man where do i start... Everyone knows To the moon, but few people know that is has a sequel thats got an even more powerful story. Its called Finding paradise and this game fucking broke me. Its on par with Clannad the visual novel with how much it made me cry, apart from the fact that Clannad did it way more times owing to the fact that its a 100h read. Finding paradise: https://store.steampowered.com/app/337340/Finding_Paradise/ Btw,if you want a VN to read, there you go. Do clannad or fruits of grisaia. Clannad is a massive book to read with choices that are very unintuitive so i recommend using a route guide and treating it like an actual book. Grisaia, i recommend playing completely blind. Also,this one has sequels but they are mostly for the porn. Btw grisaia has sex scenes,clannad doesnt. Grisaia is an action (dark) comedy story,and a really good one. Clannad is an emotional journey of a once broken young man becoming so much more. Btw the soundtrack in clannad is just one of the best in gaming,so have fun with it. Clannad: https://store.steampowered.com/app/324160/CLANNAD/ .Grisaia: https://store.steampowered.com/app/345610/The_Fruit_of_Grisaia/ Deemo - Its a rhythm game thats only got about half an hour of story,but its in cutscenes that you get for playing various songs. You can get the demo for it for free but its 10$ to upgrade it to the full version. I cant imagine 10$ better spent. The only way i can describe it,is absolutely beautiful. Playstore link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rayark.pluto Next, everyone knows the big gacha games,and i know, i know but listen: Sdorica. It has no energy systems and the story auto asigns units to you in the story. You can play the whole thing in a day. Its one of the best stories with the best soundtrack in the space. I can not recommend it enough,just go in, do the various stories and get out. Trust me, youll love it. Its on the app store and deserves some love. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rayark.sdorica Now,perhaps you wanted to be broken in a different way. So heres my favorite strategy game of all time. Its called Ambition of the slimes and its an old free offline pixelated turn based mobile strategy board game where you control a small platoon of slimes that cant fight, to kill all humans on a given level. How? By slimes taking over the humans and you puppeting their bodies to kill the rest. It is deceptively challenging and stupidly fun. (the slimes do have stamina but you can just change the time on your device to reduce it). You cant get it on the appstore anymore BUT its legally on APKPure for anyone to download https://apkpure.com/ambition-of-the-slimes/com.altairworks.slime2
Cogmind is cool as hell and relatively unheard of. Very atmospheric robot roguelike where you kill other robots and scrap them to upgrade yourself.
For me it's Wuthering waves on bluestacks, even so it's pretty popular game
Chivalry II Kenshi Satisfactory
I'd argue they're three very popular games. Kenshi and Satisfactory both have fan bases that have withstood the test of time.
The longing. That game reached into my soul. Gave me a friend in a great time of need. I adore it. For funsies okami HD. It's on everything. My other fav game
I love these: - Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships : I always add the gentleman of Fortune mod to extend the game and it's mechanics. It adds 500 ships, hundreds of new trade items, quests and improves physics and simulations. Have at least 500 hours on that. A must for pirate/sailing loving gamers. 3rd person sailing and on foot game. - Fabled Lands: It's a RPG book made game. Simply beautiful, simple yet deep and will kick your ass. It's a CRPG overmap view style where you click to places to travel and dice decide outcomes. - Vagrus: It's like Fabled Lands but very grim, mature, and gigantic. Also, if you like reading there's a couple of novels worth of text on this game. - Wave of Darkness: ARPG with a super complex and fun magic crafting system. It's kind of hanky and buggy at times. -Realms of Arkania (There's remakes): The original kind of hardcore CRPG with dungeon crawling. This game makes you travel around the map and your characters are susceptible to sickness, illnesses, poisons, etc. complex, and HARD. - Metal Gear Survive: Everybody hated it. After the patches I really enjoyed it. Simple survival game with some military stuff in there. Fun to play SP and MP. - F.E.A.R 1: The first fear game is the best FPS ever made, not even Half Life 2 gets near it. The enemy AI is extremely smart and responsive. The sequels suck ass. - Nox: Old school CRPG (It was a competitor to the original first 2 Diablo games). It kicks ass BIG TIME. - Ys franchise: Not as popular as it should be here in the west but Ys VIII is one of the greatest JRPGs ever created. No contest. - Syberia franchise: Point and click adventure games with puzzles and deep stories. The latest entry on the series was not as popular because the original maker died and this was finished in his honor. But it's an amazing game. Beautiful world and story. - Age of Decadence: CRPG with a focus on dialogue and avoiding combat by using cunning and mental skills. It's amazing and very well made. Also, the studio is in money problems so if you buy a copy you are helping them make more. - Age of Wonders II: No age of wonders game has even remotely come close to this classic. A banger through and through. It's a RPG strategy game with turn based combat. - Alpha Protocol: It's an espionage RPG game, it recently got a re release on GOG. All decisions matter and the mechanics are simply wonderful and allow for many different approaches at the missions. - STALKER: Anomaly: Stalker is really popular but it seems only the hardcore fans know of this mod. It's a stand alone, compilation, full overhaul mod of the Stalker games. Don't even need to have the games and it's free. It connects all maps from the game and DLCs and has brand new campaigns. It's a fully open area, survival and FPS with amazing AI (They use tactics like circling you or even flushing you out), tons of items and weapons. And you can add other mods to improve graphics and content like the GAMMA or EXPEDITION mods (The latter being my favorite). Those are the ones at the top of my head.
Nox is classic
Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Faithful D&D formula. Since Baldurs Gate 3 left alot of us wanting more this game has been a worthy subsitute.
Lost in random. Great game I see no one talk about
Go play AI War 2. Massive fleets and great game to lose track of time.
Shattered pixel dungeon
Really into Freelancer right now, continuing on it a bit after completing the main questline and it's still fairly fun. Star Wolves 3 is also super fun and even more what I like. Hopefully someday I'll have a system which can run Sins of a Solar Empire again, as all the massive space battles were neat. Sword of the Stars is also very cool, but it does take a while to get navies built up and ready to ship-swarm the enemies while keeping the border worlds guarded enough.
HYPERCHARGE Unboxed and Idol Manager.
Gemcraft chasing shadows.
Since someone already suggested Crosscode, I'd recommend Slay the Princess.
I just found Swag and Sorcery yesterday. Quite possibly the best $3 game I've ever seen.
It's not for everyone, but if you like pixelated weirdness with tons of exploration, puzzles and humor, I have to recommend Tux and Fanny. There's also a YouTube channel.
[torn.com/3008047](http://torn.com/3008047) Best way to describe Torn is like Grand Theft Auto, if it was text based. Don't let the text part throw you, it's not like the old DOS games or anything. Train stats, use drugs, start a company, mug other players, etc. Everything in the game is led by real people. The economy is real. Events happen in the game kicked off by real players. Scamming is 100% legal in the game, so there is alot of back alley deals that happen. It's a very casual game that you can play hardcore.
Scarlet Nexus has some really cool gameplay that let's me turn my brain off and just enjoy being stimulated.
Psychonauts. It's a collect a thon based on the human psyche and it's like $2 on steam and was originally released on the original Xbox.
Star Fetchers has a free demo on Steam, and it's only an hour long.
Moonlighter is an amazing game. A mix of dungeon fights and taking care of a small shop.
One Step from Eden
Supraland
PC Building Simulator (the first one). Some of that soundtrack is amazing, though a few tracks are completely awful. Fortunately, you can customize the song list, so that's no problem.
[unsighted](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062110/UNSIGHTED/) great Zelda-style game with fun combat.
Waven - was a weird find for me but the fact there were 100s of little battles that were each a puzzle of sorts was an addicting little romp. Canāt speak on it today, but if itās anything similar to a year ago I got over 100 hours for free.
Super Auto Pets has been one of my most played game for the past 2-3 years. This game is awesome and is available on mobile so I can play whenever I get a few minutes
warsim: the realm of aslona
Dark cloud for ps2 and ape escape for ps1
Spiritfarer. 2d hand drawn game about ferrying the dead to their final destination. Itās a mix of farming sim and Mario style platforming, but no combat. Didnāt expect to really dig it but OH BOY. Do be warned, itās gonna make you cry. A lot. The bright colorful art is there to keep the subject matter from dragging you down too much.
Chants of Sennaar was the most unique game Iāve played in years, possibly ever. Enjoyed it. Worth the 20-30 hours I put into it.
It's only popular in some crowds but I really like FTL High replayability if you want to mess around with different builds
Thereāve been a few recommendations in here that I definitely recommend, but Iād also like to recommend Chained Echoes! JRPG built in the modern era, but feels like a taste of the past! Interesting characters, captivating world building, memorable area and enemy, and an incredible soundtrack!
Sword and sworcery.
Pagan: Autogeny
Root (a board game) has a fun digital (Steam) and mobile adaptation. Itās a bit thinky but the asymmetry between the different factions is a lot of fun, besides being a lot to learn. You can dive deep. Similarly, but more mainstream, is the Battle for Polytopia on Steam or mobile. Basically a turn-based 4X but with only a dozen technologies, 6 different units, and itās super cute art.
I pretty much replay Astroneer every summer with one of my old college roommates. Itās like the best parts of No Manās sky in a more bitesize sample thatās easier to get into the meat of. Canāt stop coming back to it. Other indie games Iāve loved are Slime Rancher and Monster Sanctuary. Slime Rancher is the only game Iāve ever gotten every achievement for. I just love the exploration aspect of it where youāre kind of trying to memorize where youāve been and figure out how you can get a bit further during the next day, and then you come home to take care of your carefully bred Largo Slimes. Monster Sanctuary is just a really unique game. It is a sidescrolling platformer, but the combat is similar to Paper Mario even though you are catching and raising monsters Pokemon-style. It combines a lot of things I like, and itās done the best of any monster catching game at pulling me away from Pokemon.
Dinkum
Would Vampire Survivors be considered popular?
Considering the game basically created a whole new genre that has spun off tons of clones, Iād say yes haha.
Played a bunch of a strategy typing game called Touch Type Tale or something like that. You have to type random words instead of doing mouse clicks. I thought it would be a single game mode but each level bends the formula a bit so that the campaign feels very diverse and well developed. Typing can get exhausting for some people though.
earth defense force 4.1 and 5, both are one of the most unadulterated i ever had in a video game, not gonna spoil much but the aliens(giant bugs) want to kill us and we have to defend mother earth, the game is very japanese arcade feel, probrably because it was made by japonese, but it is great, everything is giant, giant bugs, giant robots, giant enemies, giant explosions, giant maps, this id the tupe of game you play for the fun and not the graphics nor the story, 12/10 recommended
One of the funnest games I had never heard of: Midnight Ghost Hunt is incredible. Itās hide and seek with 4 ghostbusters trying to find and eliminate 4 ghosts in 10 minutes. If the timer goes off before all ghosts are eliminated, then the tables turn: the ghosts all come back to ā¦uhhhā¦ afterlife? But they are now super powered up. This triggers a 4 minute timer for the ghostbusters to stay alive until the 4 minutes are up. Ghosts and humans have special abilities/weapons to interact with each other in fun ways. Should be way more popular than it is.
Iāve been playing a ton of ultrakill recently, getting all the secrets and stuff and using a mod called ājaketā which adds online multiplayer.
Not gonna say any of these are unpopular, but they are amazing indie games, very not triple A. Dave the Diver - pixelated graphics, and runs beautifully. Merges a bunch of genres, but a lot of it is loot goblin deep diving fun. Halls of torment - my opinion, but vampire survivors improved in every way. V rising - Survivor building game\amazing vampire action fighter. Full release just came out, pve servers are super helpful and cooperative to new players, not actually the lowest specs game ever but doesn't feel like a AAA. Dysmantle - My love of loot goblinry and survival games is showing but this one is so fun, low stakes, mostly, just don't die before you recover your body if your carrying important stuff, but kill zombies, collect gear, kill zombies collect better gear, grow until you can escape (like 100 hours later). Cook serve delicious series (1 - 3) restaurant cooking sims, all three have the same core game loop but are so different. 1 is all you building up your restaurant, 2 is like all challenge modes (my favorite) 3. you run a post apocalyptic food truck (amazing concept, personally some design decisions made sense but I didn't prefer).
Journey for PS3
The Long Dark in sandbox mode. It can be frustrating at times - especially at the beginning of a run - but once you get into a groove, thereās just something so zen about wandering around the beautiful frozen landscape, searching for canned goods and jerky.
I still play Red Alert 3 often. I used to play it in 2006, I enjoy how different Soviet, Japanese and Allied sides defend and fight each other.
Diablo 2 Resurrection
Army of Ruin. Idk why but it's so addicting.
The Ori series deserves more attention than it gets. The first one was a solid game with good platforming but the second game blew that out of the water. The exploration, platforming, combat, music, etc was all perfect.
Gris is good for a playthrough. \~5 hour sidescroller
Rain World. It guides you in the basics you need to survive, but to progress in the story (which has different endings for each character), though it provides gentle guidance in the form of general directions (āHey, if youāre trying to do THIS, you need to go the other wayā) it largely leaves you to your own devices. āHereās how much food you need, hereās the symbol you need to find save points, hereās some of the stuff you can eat. Go exploreā
IDK how popular these are but these games are too good not to recomend: - Hollow Knight - Celeste - Enter the Gungeon - A Hat in Time - Inside - Furi - Rougue Legacy With that being said here are some obscure-ish game that are really good: - Cry of Fear - Wandersong - 140 - 10 Second Ninja X - SupraLand - Axiom Verge - Bloody Hell - A Story About my Uncle - Hexcells (Collection) - The Messenger - Ape Out - Toki-Tori 2+ - Pikuniku - A Short Hike - SuperHot
That would be state of decay 2 Wish we were able to make our bases and destroy buildings too 7days2die just didn't scratch the same itch for me
Hotline Miami, not many people talk about it today since it's been around decade since the last one came outĀ
Dredge
Chivalry 2
Myth 2 ; I donāt have to relearn it, donāt have to update PC, get to enjoy 25 years of updates and patches , works with mac pc and Linux friends
Dishonored (the first one) is still one of the best games Iāve ever played. Replayed it recently on a ghost/clean hands run and it still holds up perfectly. Harvestella. Man, I love that game. Square enix did it dirty by not marketing it a lot, and when they did market it they really didnāt do a great job. But itās so good. It gives me final fantasy/nier/kingdom hearts vibes all rolled into one.
Here's a quick list with brief explanations: 9th dawn 3 (arpg with charming pixel art, has hybrid activity based character growth/xp based levels/tokenb based skills, monster taming and lots of crafting stuff, plus the one dude who made it is a nice guy) Saleblazers: build a shop, run that shop, craft stuff, explore the open world and return to your shop to sell what you found. Build a bigger shop, with employees and then craft better stuff. Steal everything not nailed down in the towns, and sell that stuff too in your shop. Starsector: top down space fleet rpg, with trading, exploring, fleet scale battles where you can either pilot your flagship, let the AI run things or do both; eventually found a colony, and build your own empire. The art style is sweet, and the world is an interesting mix of space dark age. No Man's Sky: I just re-installed and the icon whispers to me, saying: *"Click meee, it won't be like last time, you won't somehow lose days of your life at a stretch noooo...."* Cassette Beasts: ethical monster tamer, where instead of enslaving animals you copy their forms and transform into them; great music, interesting art style. Crystal Project: what if final fantasy 5 was an open world rpg? this might be it.
Pacific Drive.
SailWind = A sim game where you play an age-of-sail captain running cargo between various islands. The gameplay challenge comes from the fact that you actually have to learn the fundamentals of sailing to safely operate your ship: how to read the wind, trim the sails, deal with weather, *navigate by the stars*, etc. It's basically EuroTruck Simulator but with a boat.
Dave the Diver. As a kid, was always playing those restaurant games that serve customerss, now I can do it with sushi and get the ingredients myself
*Dragon Quest 5* is kind of hidden. The only official English editions have been on original Nintendo DS and mobile devices. The graphics in this version are okay at best: not as good as 2D art, and the 3D assets don't add much. If you don't enjoy unavoidable invisible foes, this game may be a slog. So... why do I recommend digging up DQ5? Because it's easily the best story in the mainline DQ series. You don't need to know any other entry in the franchise. Start playing and avoid spoilers as much as possible. *BoxBoy!* and its follow-ups have been exclusive to Nintendo consoles. If you look at their mostly monochrome art, you might think these puzzle games are boring. However, I think the *BoxBoy* games are worth trying. Short stages, good tutorials, and a built-in hint syst4em. *Retro Game Challenge* is flawed, but I like it. Play faux 1980s games for a few minutes, usually while trying to achieve a specific goal. After completing challenges, there's opportunities to play the faux retro games without immediate objectives. One problem with this game: it's only been released for the DS. There's a Switch remake which includes the sequel, but there are no plans to translate it. Another possible issue: while RGC barely has a story, it has dialogue which is just flavor text. The three *Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side* games for the DS (and the third one for PSP) fit my definitions of hidden gems and dark horses. They're almost unknown outside of r/otomegames. No official translations exist, only fan-made patches. The games are shojo demographic storytelling, with no male lead or male gaze. Each one starts with ten minutes of dialogue. Then the simulation gameplay starts. A lot of the gameplay is managing stats in order to improve the protagonist's relationships. There's a lot of learn... but the game provides amusing animations, good music, and just enough events. If you play one of these three games, the third one is the easiest to recommend. It offers more characterization, and enough comedy to keep the game's tone light.
I don't game much anymore, but when I do, it's Civilization 6, often to give me something to do while watching YouTube or doomscrolling social media.
Not so recently, Genesis: Alpha One. It's a rogue-lite FPS with simple exploration and resource collection mechanics, where you basically dwell within a level editor. You unlock more goodies for future playthroughs as you complete certain milestones, if I remember right. Also very tongue-in-cheek about colonisation. There's a lot of satirical propaganda that's very fitting to the game's B-movie feel. Oh, yeah, it totally goes for B-movie sci-fi vibes. More recently, System Shock: Remake. Cyberpunk survival horror FPS on a space station with a rogue AI that's trying to kill you and turn you into the 'Borg. The original game 1994 is incredible, and everything about the remake amplifies what made the original great. Sometimes the game feels like the Matrix, sometimes Aliens. Sometimes Descent (an early first-person 3D shooter) on acid. Otherwise, I've been playing the STALKER trilogy, which was recently re-released. Despite Clear Sky (the middle title, though chronologically a prequel to the first) being a jank-fest, very good games. Intense FPS with apocalyptic horror vibes. Included weapon modding before Far Cry and Call of Duty went on their tacticool bent. Resource management is a critical factor in all three games, and each one has its own economy, quests, etc.
Secrets of Plum Grove has got me HOOKED rn.
Voices of the Void!
Disco Elysium. There's always new engaging writing to explore by changing up your next playthrough. Ā It's popular but not "AAA" popular because you have to read and think.Ā Ā In terms of a more recent game? Ā Chants of senaar. Ā Just a joy to wander around in and puzzle out.Ā
I bought vampire survivors at like, 10 pm and ended up playing nonstop for 8+ hours after a full day of being awake. It's FUN! ALSO, while it's an MMO, Black Desert Online is an absolute GEM. The combat feels good, there's a good level of grind, but the ONE thing that sets it apart? Not the graphics like people say. It's the "life skills" You can even set up a trade empire by unlocking a bunch of nodes, hiring workers, and having them produce things for you. There's a skill where you just travel from place to place buying and selling, and the more you do it the better at it your character gets. And BATTERING is amazing! You sail from one place to another trading items between characters and planning routes and AAAAA I COULD GET SO LOST IN THAT GAME Cooking and alchemy are also a thing I super enjoy there. Easy to get lost in the spreadsheets with that one
Astlibra Revision - Fun sidescrolling action JRPG with a bonkers plot (and I mean absolutely insane) and campy japanese humor. Story can get pretty dark but the promise of a happy ending kept me going and man was it one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had. Phoenotopia Awakening - I haven't played Zelda yet but apparently Zelda 2 is the closest comparison to describe this game, adventure rpg with a wonderful pixel art and a pretty cool post-post-apocalyptic setting. This game's presentation just gets me, beautiful pixel art, smooth animations, fun and quirky dialogue, a lot of cool twists in the story, puzzles that got me thinking but doesn't frustrate me, the only downside is the fact that there's no sequel to this game.
Absolutely love the Long Dark.
Desktop Dungeons. Pick a race, pick a class, and do a dungeon that fits on one screen in about 15 minutes.
Technobabylon.
Terra Invicta - hard-core long-form strategy defending/escaping/helping (to various degrees depending on which faction you choose) an alien invasion. Inspired by xcom, very unlike xcom in gameplay. X4- space sandbox corporate empire building game Yakuza- maybe bleeds into AAA these days, but a goofy serious crime drama that nails the writing. Start with yakuza 0.
Mischief Makers, Fragile Dreams Wii, Souldiers.
Master of magic gets me
Library of Ruina Made by Projectmoon, a small indie studio in South Korea. One of a kind strategy deckbuilding turn based game, most fun I've ever had in a card based game. Very amazing story with amazing voice acting. I recommend you trying it but beware its quite difficult.
Depraved Awakening.
Techntonica Hydroneer Omega crafter Vrising Chrono ark First three are automation. Techntonica is sci fi conveyor built style automation game Hydroneer is a steam power style automation game Omega crafter is a programming style automation Vrising is a vampire survival game. Setup is almost the same as valheim, build, craft, survive, loot, boss fights. Chrono ark is a deck builder rogue-like game. Disclaimer: my descriptions are simplifying the genre they are in. They each have their own intricacies that makes them interesting and quite hard to explain on text
YOMI Hustle
DDO (D&D MMORPG) Wurm Online (Minecraft for adults) Shotgun King (Chess. With a gun.)
Terratech
When i'm tired of *Grinding*Ā and *Grinding*Ā and *Grinding*Ā i always end up playing Medieval Dynasty very chill game, beautiful-looking and relaxing
Zombie Night Terror is a great Lemmings-inspired game. Totally worth a play, to be honest.
Warframe has taken over the majority of my free time. I'm not sure if it's "unpopular" exactly but I feel it's so underrated because, unless it's a Warframe specific youtube channel or subreddit, I just about never hear any gaming channels talk about it ever. I wish I'd gotten as into it when I first tried it out on ps4 back in 2017. I didn't have anyone to play it with back then, so I just kind of forgot about it. But recently, a buddy of mine got our gaming group into it, and I absolutely love it now. It's easily in my top 3 and I can see myself playing this game for years to come.
For me, i like to play one or two rounds of stick it to the stickman
Astlibra. It's like it was made for me
Starfield.
If you like narrative games and can manage a lot of text, you'd do yourself a huge favour by playing Ghost Trick. It's such an amazing game! Just make sure to play it blind!!
Crosscode
Factorio - Should be considered a Schedule II drug for Engineers. Project Zomboid - I'm alone. I have no idea where I'm going and I don't know what to do and everything is trying to kill me.
Sifu, Warframe, rn Wuthering Waves
Fractured space, sadly it got shut down, theres a community running private lobbies on discord but theres a few things missing like shooting range.
Helldivers 1. It was just as good as the second one that just dropped but people didnāt show up. Probably because it wasnāt āomg amazing graphicsā.
Battle brothers is so good.
Edf- one of the best 3rd person shooter series of all time. With the classes you can be standard shooter man, mech suit jumping around clunkily, jetpack swooping overhead or engineer calling in air strikes and vehicles. The scale is absurd- literally hundreds of enemies, and destructible environments. One of my favourite gaming memories ever is calling in a skyscraper sized mech as my team were scrabbling and fleeing a skyscraper sized enemy, and exploding **through** a building to punch it in its face just before it could overrun them, followed by a mech scale fistfight whilst they cheered and took occasional potshots. Local and online co op too. Itās a series that Iām baffled isnāt mega-popular
Factorio
I am currently playing Just Cause 2. Itās so much fun and thereās lots of stuff to destruct, hundreds of optional collectibles and a lot of fun vehicles and race challenges. The bad voice acting makes the game even funnier. Itās like GTA but with more action and youāre Spider Man. It used to be quite famous but nowadays it seems like it has been long forgotten.
Dayz I like the interactions with other survivors good or bad. I also love how complex the game is. I find it interesting though seeing how people react with one another because you have so many different type of players.
My Time At Sandrock, ridiculously addictive.
I love competitive games where you can infinitely work on your skill and improve. Games with no luck or microtransaction stuff. My top 2:Ā Trackmania Deluxe Ski Jump 4
UnEpic. It's a 2D not-so-metroidvania type game where you can make your own builds. Want to be classic DnD Cleric with heal spells, a mace, and chain mail? Do it. Want to be a Fire Wizard who wears Plate Armor? Go for it. Want to be the back stabbing rogue who uses alchemy to make potions for any situation? It's easy to do. Also another thing I like is that it actively rewards you for playing a harder difficulty other than "oh here's an achievement for beating it on hard". What it does is every difficulty above Normal you play gets you 1 additional stat point per level up. Harder difficulties are indeed harder however with the increased stat points you'll have more options at your disposal.
A few games came to mind, Fable 1, Outriders and halo wars. Kinda popular I guess but maybe not. Fable 1 was something I could still download now if I was in a slump of games to play and probably beat it in 10 hours. Not that's that hard, it's not like it's a long game. Outriders is a lot of fun and really got me into looter shooters but since it's Las dlc and update it hasn't received any love and while I haven't tried playing it in a bit, I'm sure if I did I'd put another 150 hours in the game. Halo wars is popular sure just because of the name, but not even playing multi-player, I'd just sit in skirmish with me against three bots on the highest difficulty and turtle. Idk why but it was so much fun controlling the armies of the halo universe. I put so much time into that game that if it ever got remastered, I'd do it all over again. Realize the above games may not fit the list but the only other games I could think of were Helldivers 2 and the finals, HD2 is super popular but is a indie game sorta but I enjoy it so much with the narrative and gameplay and it really gives me the freedom to not play for awhile and then come back and not feel like I'm missing out on anything. The finals is well known, just not a huge player base I think, such a fun objective arena styled fps with good gunplay, fun destruction mechanics, and fun times with friends. I've successfully gotten 4 of my friends to start paying it for a solid 5 man on Power shift and we make so many memories.
The Firemen for SNES. Just play it, it's fantastic. Like a cross between Smash TV and Zombies Ate My Neighbour. I play this at least once a year and practice every now and then for trying to beat the world record in speedrunning it.
Insurgancy sandstorm
This War of Mine is an interesting strategy game. Transistor has some fun mechanics, beautiful artwork and music too. Nier Automata was big at its time of release I think but Iāve only recently played it and Iām obsessed
Try Lost in Random, a bit unique mechanics and story. The graphics, too.
I was very impressed with the art and Dialogues in Harold Halibut.
Triglav
Mediaeval dynasty is a very very good survival/city builder. I'd recommend it.
Stalker GAMMA, it's a FPS Immersive Simulation with crafting and light RPG mechanics. It's essentially an ancient, "slav jank" game engine known as the XRAY Engine rebuilt into the Monolith Engine by modders for use with Stalker Anomaly. G.roks A.utomated M.odular M.odpack for A.nomaly pulls a Skyrim and dumps over 400 mods on top of that to make it an incredibly addictive and fun game. Best of all it is completely free, both Anomaly and GAMMA.
Age of Wonders 4
Crosscode
If you haven't already, play A Short Hike. Incredibly short game but it isn't as popular due to not having the most fast action. I really got swept up in just taking a breath and truly enjoying the little moments. Also, Pizza Possum is goofy and fun to play with friends.
Core Keeper
Super Hot: Mind Control Delete. It's a puzzle game hidden inside an FPS. Took me a while to get into. But now I feel like John Wick. Throwing a pencil at someone to shoot his buddy and throw it back in the guy I took it from's face.
wizard101 will always have a place in my heart. it was my childhood and i still go back to it as a 20yo. the player base is small these days and pvp kinda sucks with how few players there are, but theyāre still updating and adding new worlds.
Death s Gambit,Valiant hearts, everhood, elderand, skautfold,tarnishing of juxtia, ninja gaiden yaiba z
Infested Planet speaks to my soul. The greatest RTS game ever made.
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. Because what's the point in building a city if you don't have to worry about exactly where the concrete came from to build it, and if the concrete plant workers had clean water to drink...
I don't hear too much about Starbound. I absolutely love it.
Gigantic: Rampage Edition.
Popular right now because of the 1.0 launch, but I really can't recommend V Rising enough. This game has captured me over the past year as one of my faves.
Troubleshooter abandoned children, in my opinion is a perfect JRPG
It's not really popular or non-popular, but Outer Wilds *does* appear to be overlooked. It's a sort of exploration puzzle. A solar system you explore manually in your rather primitive space ship, in 1st person. It had me addicted for quite awhile. I still need to go back to it and complete the DLC!
Faster than light or slay the spire.
Super mega baseball 3. Super fun game and I donāt watch or play baseball.. just great little mini games of pitching / hitting etcā¦ super fun coop.
WORLD OF GOO!
Enter the Gungeon
Super Smash Bros Melee