The Book of Unwritten Tales comes to mind. It's nowhere near as grandiose as any of your described games, but I fondly remember it being a very charming and wholesome experience. If that's the feeling you seek, you might enjoy it.
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
115 points (97.5% liked)
Games
32124 readers
1506 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
- Space Marine (2)
- Gears of War
All party crpg like pillars of eternity, Baldur's Gate, and the like.
JRPG maybe...
Any of the Dragon Age games.
Golden Sun.
The most memorable RPG I've ever played. The music and art style, beautiful. Especially considering it's a Gameboy Advance game.
In the same vein, Sea of Stars.
I guess you're looking to spend time with interesting characters.
Endearing party of playable characters:
- Bug Fables — A big tiny adventure of three cute insects, with Paper Mario-inspired turn-based combat
- Cassette Beasts — Creature-collecting with heart. You bring one of several interesting companions with you.
- Moonlight Pulse — A metroidvania set on a planet-sized creature. You play as a team of planet-creature denizens fighting off a parasite infestation.
Encountering interesting NPCs:
- A Short Hike — A very small but dense open world game. You encounter characters on your way to find a cell signal in a remote mountain park. With no quest tracker or minimap, you just wander and do what you want.
- Inscryption — Card game with an immersive, spooky atmosphere. The game is hiding secrets from you, though, and you'll meet plenty of shady characters before you can get the truth.
- CrossCode — Action RPG set in a fictional VR MMO of the distant future. You wake up as a player character with no memories of real life, unable to log out. You quickly make friends, go do MMO stuff together and get to the bottom of why you're stuck in-game.
Parasocial weirdness:
- Hypnospace Outlaw — You are a janitor on a Geocities-like service in a simulated 1999 internet. You learn about all the users through their personal websites. This game expresses a large emotional range with just website updates (or the lack of them).
I was going to suggest CrossCode, it has some great characters. And while the game is balls-hard on default settings it has many adjustable options to bring it in line with whatever your skill level may be.
Honestly, my issue with it is that it gets mired in real MMO tedium when it didn't need to simulate that. Stuff like running between NPC traders to trade your supplies up for good equipment and other stuff like having a gigantic pile of consumables.
And of course, I finish the final boss with all the best consumables still in my inventory. The game never pressed me to use them, so I always saved them for something more important. "Oh, that was the final boss. Guess I should have been eating more sandwiches."
The plot and worldbuilding are still really cool. Just don't get into MMOmaxxing.
Persona series, maybe. The entire franchise is all about making friends, deepening relationships, and working together to fight monsters.
I saw somebody here recommend Kenshi, so I'm going to recommend RimWorld as well. It's a colony building game, but it's kind of anxiety-inducing lol
Im just commenting to say every moment I have spent in rimworld has been an unfulfilling waste of my life. Ymmv
Perhaps RPG's with a party, like Mass Effect, Baldurs Gate 3, Fallout New Vegas (many companions with their own stories to find and tag along), Star Wars: knights of the old republic, dragon age.
Some shooters like the later Band of Brothers games, valkyria chronicles or the Mafia series you may enjoy as well.
In Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, there are multiple paths to choose to complete the game, and one option is to choose a fun companion come with you to help you throughout.
Since OP likes open world games, in the later Bethesda RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout 4 you can have companions. not the same level of interaction as Bioware-like parties, but it’s something.
also not really an open world game, but in Midnight Suns you’re a mystical hero in a party with some of the avengers, other marvel heroes, and even some villains. there’s a lot of personal interactions with all the members between missions.
Perhaps RPG’s with a party
Going more old school, Chrono Trigger is another great one with awesome supporting party characters.
You'll definitely experience anxiety though.
Or maybe deep dread.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Baldurs gate 3
And divinity original sin 2!
Stardew Valley
That, it's a grown up person's dream of a place to be. At least for lots of folks out there and me)
And overall it's a good game to play slowly for months.
Bioshock Infinite - Elizabeth as a constant companion is a big theme in the game.
Beyond Good and Evil - A lot of great supporting cast like Pey'j.
Baldur's Gate 3 - Massive emphasis on the relationships you have with your companions.
Brutal Legend - A quasi-RTS where caring for your bandmates and roadies is the only way to win.
Disco Elysium - Kim Kitsuragi, enough said.
Firewatch - Story driven rooted in character relationships, about being alone but trying to stay connected.
Hi-Fi Rush - Great cast of characters who are heavily involved with story and often around or talking to you.
Just Cause 3 - Probably the best in the series, for threading the comedy/action needle and giving you characters that are really lovable.
Katamari Damacy - Feel the love of the King of All Cosmos!
Life is Strange - Rooted entirely around your relationships with close friends and classmates.
Mad Max - Your own personal Gollum!
Nier Automata - You'll always have your PODs.
Portal 2 - Wheatley will keep you good company.
Psychonauts / Psychonauts 2 - How can you be lonely when you're inside someone else's mind?
SkateBIRD - Make friends with birds!
Terraria - There's always some new villager to find.
Mad Max - Your own personal Gollum!
Fun fact: Chumbucket has a bit part in Furiosa.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Psychonauts didn't come to mind but it's actually a really good suggestion.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Firewatch - Story driven rooted in character relationships, about being alone but trying to stay connected.
My pick as well. It’s well written with a nice relationship at its center.
load more comments
(4 replies)
in cyberpunk 2077 your characters sorta never alone after a certain point.
You are never technically alone in Hellblade...
In all honesty, I think you'd love Casette Beasts, it's all about friendship.
While "technically true is the best kind of true", I really would recommend anyone already facing anxiety to avoid Hellblade.
Oh yeah, I was completely joking with that one
I like a lot of singleplayer games, but I also play games that can be played multiplayer (open world survival crafting games).
Borderlands is pretty good imo. You can play alone, but you never really feel alone with all the characters constantly asking you to do stuff for them.
Someone else said Kenshi, which is strictly singleplayer but you can build up your party and have multiple squads running around, taking care of things. And there are generated conversations between them. And there's tons of mods that can change or add things to the game; personally I've added a couple new subraces to the vanilla ones, a couple new whole races of characters to play with, new building and weapon types and such.
Edit: Untitled Goose Game and Thank Goodness You're Here, or even any cozy game really.
The new Star Wars: Jedi games like Fallen Order and Survivor are great singleplayer games without making you feel alone. Mostly cause of BD-1.
I keep seeing aa lot of neat things about Kenshi, but when I tried it out I felt completely lost and lost interest before I really figured anything out.
I don't like when games baby you, but I do like a little hand-holding to get me started.
Maybe I'm just a big dum and turned off the tutorial/tips/skipped something I shouldn't have? Not sure but your comment definitely makes me want to give it another go when I have a couple of days free.
Go watch the General Sam Kenshi vids. The early ones before he knows what he's doing. That's what got me into the game in the first place.
Titanfall 2: You have a titan as a companion for most of the game (there are segments where you're on your own though). And it's a fantastic single player campaign.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. You will work together with an increasing team of friends and allies to survive ridiculous circumstances.
The story is incredible, but the character building is excellent. Great fast paces action RPG with party switching, so you'll always have 2 playing with you. The story really shows deep friendship development, especially if you ensure to do all side quests and talk to characters at various story points.
Give a try to conversational games like VA 11 hall-A and coffee talk
Undertale gives you the option of being kind to nearly everyone you meet, and you can befriend several characters as well.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Dyson Sphere Project, even without the multiplayer mod you are "connected" to the rest of the player base with the Galaxy View.
Factorio, and Satisfactory scratch a similar itch, but on smaller scales. IIRC, both of those games have multiplayer built in.
Kenshi.
The world is brutal, but its possible to pay for some company, buy some slaves, or maybe, juuuuust maybe, find a quirky friend.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Dragon's Dogma is pretty good at making you both the center of the world and being surrounded by people that want you to succeed with how the pawns constantly talk, and even out in the middle of nowhere, you'll run into people just walking around between settlements so the world never feels empty, even in places it maybe should.
Echo
Have you tried Adastra? That story can make you feel pretty good... Until it ends...
The pawns were so dumb but weirdly endearing
They just make me wanna ruffle their hair and call them scamp as they buff my weapon with the wrong element.
So I'm not sure what might make you not feel lonely or anxious. Things like how directly you control the characters with you could he factors I imagine, so I'm just going to list a bunch of things:
A shorter one, but Star Wars Republic Commando. You're a commando unit and work as one.
Dragon's Dogma, either Dark Arisen or the new sequel.
Mass Effect series.
I don't know if Earth Defence Force would be like that or not, at the end of the day your NPC allies could be hit or miss (literally, depending on the weapons you use).
Not sure how you feel about party-based RPGs, but there are tons of them.
I'm wondering if RTS games with campaigns would feel right as well. StarCraft's campaigns have a lot of people constantly talk to/around you.
The Lego games?
Stardew Valley?
Can't really think of indie games at the moment.
Games I haven't played so I don't know if they apply: Persona? Space Marine games?
Mass Effect series.
You could try a Persona Game (or the new Metaphor) These games are build on your relationships with the other characters. They think of you, they contact you often on their own because they want to do something with you. You just have to like to read. Those things are half JRPG, half Visual Novel.
DO NOT play shadow of the colossus... Not a big gamer but never felt so alone in a game...
You're absolutely correct. It's lonely in an achingly beautiful way.
Midnight Suns is perfect for you. It’s part team tactical deck building combat, part superhero relationship simulator. You alternate between fighting evil as part of a squad of heroes (the DLC includes Deadpool) and spending time hanging out and talking with other heroes. And it’s just a phenomenal game all around.
Edit: OP, you okay?
view more: next ›