Got a game you feel passionate about? Sell it to us here!

I wrote a pretty long comment elsewhere regarding Xenoblade 3, which is pretty much my favourite game of all time in 30+ years of gaming. I guess it would be a cool idea for others to do the same - but don’t just give a list, sell your favourite title to us!

So, Xenoblade 3 (Switch, although I now play it on my PC via Yuzu in 4k) is the final part of the RPG trilogy developed by Monolithsoft (Nintendo owned second party, responsible for the overworld tech in Zelda BOTW/TOTK). The director of the series is Tetsuya Takahashi, who is also the creator of Xenogears and Xenosaga (there are links to Blade, I won’t spoil). It shows what happens to the individual worlds of Xenoblade 1 and 2 once they collide. However the series is structured in such a way that you can arguably play them in any order and not miss out. There are of course twists and callbacks throughout to reward those who play them in order. The one absolute rule is for the two massive DLC expansions. Xenoblade 1 (Future Connected, play after 1), Xenoblade 2 (Torna - to be played after 2) and Xenoblade 3 (Future Redeemed - to be played only after playing EVERYTHING else as it wraps up the trilogy).

Xenoblade 2 put off a lot of people with it’s anime-ness and big tidday girls (not me, but eh). Xenoblade 3…doesn’t have that.

It’s serious and is set in the midst of an eternal war between two nations. Each inhabitant of this world is born at age 10, trained as a soldier to fight, and then either die on the battlefield or live long enough to die at age 20 by force. Both nations rely on the life force of the other side to live - hence the war.

The story concerns two groups (three from either side) from opposing sides who join together with the aim to live longer than their artificially reduced lifespans - of the two main protagonists, one (Mio) has only three months remaining. This is the crux of the story, really.

best bet to see if you’d like it are these two videos I took. The first is the first 15 minutes of the game - it introduces the world, scenario, characters, and also introduces the gameplay part-by-part. NO SPOILERS in any of these, I promise.

youtu.be/7DtxCIM3XJQ

The battle system is gradually introduced throughout, at a pretty good pace (eg. chain attacks, transformations, combos, class changing). It ends up sometimes chaotic, but always fun. You can stay as a healer with a rifle, swap to a martial arts class and attack with your fists, or change to a tank class for each characters, for example. You also recruit computer playable heroes throughout the game who offer new classes and weapons.

Chain attacks are an entirely other thing, relying on measured logic and number skills. The other main draw is the story - this game takes some pretty dark turns. Your mileage may vary though, depending on your tolerance for cutscenes. There’s still 100+ hours of actual gameplay easily and the sidequests and community supports are all actually well thought out.

and this is a short video showing the scale of the world (one of 9 massive regions - there’s another desert, a canyon and a forest halfway up a mountain trail in this one. The sword in the distance holds a city at its peak. There’s also an ocean that has a rocket powered boat to traverse, or you could just swim it), plus a short battle with 7 team members:

youtu.be/l5Fe_saXoxo

lastly I guess, if you’re a dr who fan (who knows?), it may interest you that Jenna Coleman voices the Kevesi Queen.

anyhow the game is cool imo. I got the first Xenoblade a week before the UK launch date in August 2011 as I ran a Blockbuster at the time (Xenoblade was localised by Nintendo UK and came out here, Europe and Australia a mere year after Japan. NOA refused to launch it in America, until a petition forced their hand another year later). It blew me away, and the remastered Definitive Version is a classic. The fact that Nintendo UK localised it is why it has its unique UK focused VA throughout. The regions in the games are Welsh, Scottish, etc. It adds a huge amount of character that American voiced games lack imo.

Worth giving a shout out to Xenoblade X (outside of the trilogy’s storyline), which still has the largest world of any game I’ve ever known, eternally stuck on the Wii U. That’s a fucking mental game and I don’t even know where to start with it. If you like Xenoblade, mech battles/flights and Attack on Titan’s soundtrack (sawano), then it’s the game for you.

anyhow back to Xenoblade 3, you may hate it who knows but… hopefully this does sell a few people on it.

Your turn

fen, (edited )

Generally I try to keep my Freelancer obsession under wraps until I’ve known people for at least a few months.

I love this game and have put thousands of hours into both the online and campaign (I speedrun it) and into online server play. If you’re a fan of Everspace, Elite: Dangerous, or other games in that vein, I very much recommend giving Freelancer a look as it still hasn’t been beat 20 years later.

The world is set roughly 800 years after the Alliance has left the Sol system during the Alliance-Coalition War. Following the events of Starlancer (not at all necessary to have played, just tangenting off that universe) five sleeper ships were launched as part of the escape. The five ships named for their home countries - Liberty, Bretonia, Kusari, Rheinland, and Hispania, headed toward the Sirius sector and each landed on separate planets and funded their own governments mirroring their Earth counterparts.

The story picks up as you, Edison Trent, arrive on Planet Manhattan. You and the survivors of Freeport 14, which has been destroyed at the hands of some mysterious and seemingly alien force, are just coming to terms with what has happened and you’re trying to pick up and move on. You meet a Liberty Security Force agent Jun’ko Zane, who has some contract work for you to pick up and outfits you with your first ship. Not two minutes out of atmo and the incoming diplomatic delegation from Rheinland is attacked and destroyed, and you, Juni, and her partner King find yourselves unraveling an investigation that goes to the highest levels of all four major Houses.

The rest of the game is pulling on those threads and unraveling a political conspiracy as you, King, and Juni track down leads. The main structure is alternating story missions and free roam periods, where the story missions expand the area you get to play in and push out to new systems, and then the free roam is you being the titular freelancer and picking up off jobs to earn credits and purchase better equipment and learn more at your own pace.

While the story is interesting, the true hooks in this for me are two things:

  1. The World - There is so much love and lore tucked into every corner of this game. Loads of environmental storytelling, but then nearly every selectable object has an infocatd with additional detail fleshed out. History about everything is thought out to some degree. And if you see something interesting, odds are it has an interesting story to tell. This makes exploration rewarding, sometimes also financially within the game. Each system really feels like several hundred years of development and history were thought out to get to the game world’s current state.
  2. The Controls - Generally in an older game, controls are hard to get the hang of. Freelancer uses an intuitive mouse aim flight system that lets you focus on where you want to go rather than how you have to maneuver your ship to get there, which means it’s not a burden to exploring and makes combat fun while still retaining a lot of depth. It’s not a space sim in the traditional sense. It doesn’t have the systems control that your more hardcore space sims do if that’s your thing, but between the ship customization and ease of flight, the barrier to entry is almost non-existent while still being engaging.

Past the campaign, there is still a very active modding community that continues to support an active online player base. There are plenty of simplistic mods to add new ships, weapons, or QOL features, out to full mods such as Discovery that adds a new house and continues to extend the game storyline through iterative updates and player-driven events, including dynamic player-created stations, to total conversions like Tides of War that wrap the world in a well put together Star Wars skin.

I was active on Discovery for a long time and really is where I put most of my hours into this game, playing online and just existing and driving the world into different directions at the same level of quality as the original game.

I could gush so much more, but just booting it up and playing a few minutes I think is enough to hook the right person. While not on the digital distribution platforms, the usual abandonware sites typically host a copy of the disc iso (as does DiscoveryGC for use during their mod install process) and it will install and run without issue on modern systems. Last fall, the Freelancer HD Edition mod was released on ModDB that updates visuals, textures, and adds some QOL features so that the game properly supports widescreen resolutions and looks great on modern displays.

I love this game, and frankly it’s the platonic ideal of a space sim that I’m still looking for a worthy successor to this day, with the closest from a gameplay perspective being Everspace, and nothing matching the depth and care and just jot of zooming around space.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

Man, this thread reminded me of some of the great old games I used to play back in the day.

And if any of ya’ll are into Space Fighters and Dog-Fight Tactics, boy have I got something for you.

‘Decent: Freespace’ and ‘Freespace 2’.

Although the graphics might seem a bit dated, believe me when I say it won’t matter in the least. You’ll be far more focused on the information your HUD is feeding you, giving orders to squad-mates and navigating the basic controls in a panic.

Unlike some modern space games, you don’t get to just screw around with standard WASD +Mouse controls. Your keyboard is your cockpit and everything pretty much controls as in one (although a simplified one). There is no auto-aim and no freebies, if you can’t keep your aim where it’s supposed to be, you miss.

There’s also a energy-management system where you get to prioritize what subsystems needs more power: Shields, Weapons or Engines. And you can overclock the different systems at the expense of the others on the fly. Choose wisely.

You get to choose your own ships and weapons loadout as you rise though the ranks and gain access to various new goodies, not all missions calls for the heaviest ordinance. Finesse and maneuverability are virtues here.

The story is fairly basic: “Terrans (Humans) and an Alien Race known as the Vasudans are at war. Third Alien Race pops in and wrecks house on both sides. Shit gets interesting as the new Alien Race are technologically superior and neigh unkillable.”

The voice-acting is phenomenal and you really get the feeling of being an expandable grunt, that slowly gets to prove his worth and is let in on more and more Special-Ops assignments, equipment and such. Everything is on a need-to-know basis and there’s a lot you don’t need to know.

The game contains plenty of bonus objectives that aren’t immediately apparent. Sometimes it pays off to stick around a bit longer when you’re told you can go back to base. ;)

I don’t know how good I am at selling the games, but damn if they aren’t the best I’ve ever played in the space-fighter genre to date.

They are worth giving a try at the very least. And they are dirt cheap on GOG as a bonus.

I’ll just add the intro sequence the first game here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-xcgBL1mY

sailsperson,

Not a single post about Prey (2017), the Arkane’s immersive sim gem set aboard the Talos I space station orbiting the Moon? I expected more of you, people!

Prey is a wonderful game. I think it wouldn’t lie make a mistake by designating it an RPG and an immersive sim, given its various skills (that are actually more than a few stat changes here and there - they affect, dictate the way you play the game), the multitude of ways you can approach so many things from puzzles to locations where you’re supposed to be to pretty much any in-game decision.

Prey’s world is rather small, but in the best way possible - it’s a space station, called Talos I, orbiting the Earth’s only moon (the Moon), doing some bleeding edge scientific research thanks to its diverse crew of the very best people Earth could send there. Talos I itself is split into different sections, each with its own purpose, making them unique locations with their own dangers and breath-taking sights; some interiors are spacious and let you navigate the level in stealthy ways, avoiding the hostiles entirely (if you have the wits!), and some are narrower, but many still offer you an alternate path to your destination if you look hard enough.

Prey lets you do stuff. You don’t like crawling in silence, trying to stay away from a fight until you hoover up every resource you can to make you “ready” to face the enemy? Go gun blazing - there’s no shortage of unique lethal tech at your disposal! You want to play a certain role, like be a mad menace to society? Feel free to murder everything you see, either with your own hands or by letting them die another brutal death! You want to be a true video game hero, saving each and every one? Roll your sleeves and get to work, because there sure is some saving to do!

Prey is the game where you think you know what’s going on, but you actually don’t. There will be surprises, and there will be moments of awe, and they’re all just done so well.

And last, but not least, is its magnificent soundtrack by Mick Gordon. The game looks gorgeous, and sometimes can give you some spooks, but the music completes the puzzle, setting its eerie atmosphere.

It’s a game you will likely play more than once to experience everything it has to offer. The game does not force you to do this or that, it does not explicitly tell you what skills to pick to be a good person, and it does not block one path if you’ve already taken another one, but you sure will experience the call of curiosity: “What if I chose only that?” Whatever you choose, you have the ability to craft yourself a unique playthrough, each equally interesting and viable.

ConstableJelly,

Prey is a masterpiece of world-building, level design, and gameplay. I can’t overstate how special that game is. Without spoiling anything, its opening “level” was one of the coolest, awe-striking experiences I’ve had in gaming.

LoamImprovement,

Agreed, it’s right up there with “I am SHODAN” from SS2.

ReynT1me,

Pathologic 2 is a game that makes you feel like the entire world is against you. From the moment you start the game you’re presented with a scenario in which you’ve already failed to stop the deadly plague infecting the city, and you get a chance to do it all over.

You are Artemy Burakh, a surgeon coming back home to his home in the Russian Steppe at the request of his late father. From the moment you arrive in town, things are off. You are quickly branded as a criminal and must hide away or risk being attacked by citizens. Slowly but surely, you keep encountering strange things in the town: an impossible spire stretching into the heavens, a building where an infection has seemingly taken over the walls, a band of children who have broken away to form their own gamg, and the plague itself speaks to you - warning you about the devastation to come.

The game is brutally tough. It has difficulty settings if you struggle too much - but the intended difficulty is meant to crush your will to continue. While fighting off the plague you must manage your own hunger, thirst, and health. Which becomes increasingly harder to do as the plague grows in strength. In addition - at the end of every day the game randomly rolls who in the town gets infected with the plague and for those already infected they could possibly die. Everyone, including you, and I mean everyone in the town has the potential to die. You are tasked with keeping them alive.

On top of that the game is an excellent journey into the psychology of those you meet, and comments on the blend between the supernatural culture of the steppe and the growing industrialization of the city. There’s so much stuff there in the game (mind you there is some jank), and its the kind of game I think about all of the time. Also the soundtrack is beautiful and haunting, with the perfect emotion for each scene.

pipariturbiini,

You like cool space stuff? Science fiction? Exploration? Games that don’t hold your hand? Wonderfully crafted experiences? Mysteries to solve? Existential crisis? “A-ha!” moments?

Outer Wilds is the game. If you answered “yes” to at least three questions, give it a try - you will probably love it.

Thing is, you can’t really explain much about Outer Wilds without getting into spoilers, as the whole point of the game is to explore the game’s solar system, figure out environmental puzzles and read ancient texts of a long-gone civilization to solve a mystery that you find yourself tangled in.

It is simply the most fascinating game I have ever played - it’s amazingly well-thought as an experience, every little thing neatly fits together. And there is no right or wrong way to play - after the ‘tutorial’, the game never tells you what to do or where to go next. It is all up to your curiosity and interests. Stuck on exploring one planet? Go investigate something else. You’ll probably find answers to help your exploration on the original planet! Any way you go about exploration, you will find revelations and eventually reach the game’s amazing finale.

Furthermore, if you know what to do, you can complete the game in around 10 minutes. Outer Wilds is a 15-30 hour game. There are no powerups or tools to unlock - knowledge is what gates you from answers and is what allows you to progress.

Beautiful.

Mummelpuffin,
@Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org avatar

I just wish people weren’t so adamant about the whole “no spoilers” thing with it. It sort of soured my time with it when I finished the intro and was kinda just like… oh, it’s the Majora’s Mask thing. That’s the big mind-blowing twist people are talking about.

I guess what I’m saying is thanks for just talking about what actually makes it so unique / impressive.

thepaperpilot,

To expand on what pipariturbiini said, the game is about discovery and knowledge, so any spoiler you look up is directly removing a part of the game experience for you. I’m sorry your experience was tainted by the advice to not seek out spoilers, but overall I think it does help ensure most people have the optimal experience.

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