It's good in a way that isn't really expected - the only thing I can say without spoiling is it did something really different with things that had been there a long time.
Undertale is such a bolt of lightning. It both depends on its player having experience with traditional JRPG and having no fucking clue what it is. But when the conditions line up, as it did for many people at release, it was such a master fully crafted experience. But even the slightest amount of "it's good because..." really siphons part of the experience away.
Tbh, I played it for a few hours, didn't like it and don't understand all the fuss about it. Does it get good later?
I was at a point, where I was going through a cave with a castle in the background (it was a few years ago), it was probably some kind of riddle, but I couldn't be bothered.
Is it worth going forward or did I see enough to just say "it's not my kind of game"?
Or at least don't do anymore than choose your preferred platform and then buy it. Its available on Windows, Linux, Mac, PS, Xbox and Switch but not on Android or iOS.
Its a couple of bucks on steam at the moment, included in PSN if you do that, or full price everywhere else.
I disagree with FEAR simply because I'd say to play it on the hardest difficulty and go balls to the wall because the AI will fuck you over if it gets the chance; and the longer you take to clear a room, the more time the AI has to organize and execute a plan. If it weren't for the fact that I've seen plenty of people get stuck on FEAR because they tried to play it like a cover shooter, I'd fully agree with you.
Yes! Return of the Obra Dinn 100%. You can still watch other people play it on YouTube later and have a blast seeing them figure things out. And read Lucas Pope's excellent devblog later as well.
I am super intimidated Return of the Obra Dinn. But it looks so cool, and I feel like it uses a lot of lateral thinking and makes you smarter for playing it.
I went into Oxenfree completely blind after picking it up for next to nothing on the switch store. Great story with choices that actually matter. OP, do yourself a favor and play this without a guide.
You should go into Nier: Automata thinking it's a game about a hot chick fighting a bunch of robots. The only spoiler you should know is that the end isn't the end, and you need to play it again.
You should go into Spec Ops: the Line thinking it's a game about a cool special forces team fighting a bunch of terrorists or something. The only spoiler you should know is that it's supposed to feel like a generic third person shooter.
Haha I stopped playing Nier Automata after finishing it once. Yeah, yeah I heard it's not the end, but the gameplay really isn't good enough to go through it again. Right now I'd give it a 7/10, but if you force me to do it all again I am going down to 3/10.
I think it feels incredibly cheap to do this gimmick.
For you, a little extra spoiler: the next ending also isn't the end, there's a lot more. I will admit that playing the second run is a big grindy at first, but it quickly differentiates itself from your first run by the time you get to the first boss. Also, in the second run, the side quests are crucial.
An extra-extra spoiler: there's a lot to dig your teeth into, philosophically, that makes the whole rigmarole worth it.
I love Nier! I'm thought the second play through would be a slog, but they kept it really interesting imo. And starting it up for a third time was wild. Even starting that game is part of the game mechanic, it's so neat!
i bounced off tunic super hard. i love the puzzle aspects, the cryptic manual pages, and figuring things out, but the combat was way too brutal, even on the easier setting. the bigger white ghost enemies at the very start killed me so many times i no longer want to go back to it.
I’ve slowly acclimated to Soulslikes since Tunic, and a common theme is that they make you think you need to be pressing more buttons, when they’re often teaching specialized bits of patience. In Tunic’s case, a lot of people expend their stamina too quickly.
I thought the reward for the puzzles was not good enough, either. When you play Outer Wilds, you figure things out, unlock a wonderful story, and learn tricks for other puzzles. When you play Tunic, you (eventually) figure things out and get a bad ending for a game that barely reveals anything, story-wise.
I also thought that requiring a web app or a bunch of paperwork to figure out the language was far too inconvenient for a game made in the 21st century. They borrowed the wrong lessons from Fez.
Understandable. It got pretty frustrating for me too at various points. I'm kinda bad at this kind of combat in general. Most of what motivates me to push through it in games like Dark Souls or Tunic is being interested in the world. But sometimes not even that's enough.
I just finished playing tunic (good ending). A friend and I were playing it at the same time. If I didn't have that friendly competition I would have dropped it so many times. There is way too much manual work in this game that you often times aren't playing a video game anymore.
At the end of it all I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment just relief that I'm done with the game. Only to find out after doing the secret puzzle is just more meta puzzles outside the game.
Outer Wilds on the other hand is fantastic and not having to use a pencil and paper to advance in the game is A+.
Journey. You can get it on PlayStation, iOS, steam (on sale for $5 atm) and epic. It is 2-3 hours short and not very challenging, but it does look absolutely stunning and has a very beautiful gameplay mechanic that you better find out for yourself.
IMO it is one of the best games of all time and one that really demonstrates what the medium is capable of.
I wish someone had told me what Journey was about so I could have avoided it. I went in blind and didn't enjoy it at all. It was a cool concept but it wasn't for me.
The person I matched up with was a 10/10. I went in blind but I knew it would match me with someone. I found them right away and they stayed with me the whole game. My partner got a person who dropped out, then restarted. Got another person… speedrunner. Tried once more and got someone who dropped out after an hour. Got another person they finished with, super frustrated. They did not have my experience.
Thank you for this. Just recently picked up and played through twice Gris and Neva. Even though they're short as well I really find myself loving the visuals, gameplay and the atmosphere created by these games.
I tried it a few years ago and gave up after an hour of not knowing what to do. But I had this week off and tried it again, it I'm really enjoying it this time. It's not like anything else, and once that initial bump is passed its learning curve is really quite good.
It is one of my all-time favorite games. I have unfortunately played it to death; I've run out of stupid challenge runs. The game has a story and uniquely for survival games it has an ending, there's a Win The Game button. But the game is as much about the story you're going to create; the way you choose to go about things, the order you decide to explore in, the happenstances of your adventure are maybe more important than what the wiki says the story is. Savor that.
I will offer this hint. I don't think it's a spoiler; I think there is a strong possibility this hint will prevent you from alt-tabbing out to look up the wiki and accidentally encounter a spoiler. But I will tag it as a spoiler anyway.
spoiler
If you find yourself without an immediate goal, you're milling about the ocean thinking "well now what?" Go deeper.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but your comment is so true it hurts. When you first figure out how minesweeper works, your mind is blown away.
I’ve had that one in my library since it originally came out and I’ve been wanting to play it ever since, but haven’t found time. I understand they’ve added quite a bit since the early days!
Sauna2000 (it's not out yet, but there are some demos floating around).
Squirrel stapler
Cruelty Squad - depends on the kinda person you are. If you're super open-minded about game presentation then I'd tell you to go into it blind. If not, then I'll happily try to sell you on it. If it helps, the game looks the way that it does because of how fucking confident it is in itself; and that confidence is fully justified. Give it time, even if the first level doesn't hook you, give it time because in my experience it will eventually hook you and reel you in and leave you thinking it's one of the best games of all time.
Undertale
Hypnospace Outlaw
Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Give the first two a try, and if you don't like either one, skip BRC; it's a spiritual successor to JSRF and if you didn't like JSRF then you probably won't like BRC.
Hylics. If you liked that and wanted more, Hylics 2. Hylics 2 actually does something throughout the game that I've only ever seen as a gimmick in other games. It's really cool and it'll probably catch you off-guard every time it does it.
Katamari Damacy. If you liked that, there's also We <3 Katamari.
Myst. The newest version has VR support. If you liked that, the recent Riven remaster also has VR support.
S C O R N (if you like Myst, give it a try. It feels very myst-like)
Hrot (boomer shooter, but if you like boomer shooters then you should give it a go).
If you're at a place in your life where you're trying to still find yourself: Night in the Woods. Especially if you're a furry. This game is really fucking good. It'll make you laugh. It'll make you cry. It'll make you miss home but also be glad you aren't there anymore. It'll make you question your place in life and who you are. Also, you can interact with things multiple times, make sure you don't miss out on dialogue, you'll regret it.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl - This is hard to go into blind because it's buggy as fuck and most people recommend some form of community patch even for your first playthrough. That said, play it on the highest difficulty. It's unironically more fun once you get used to it. If it's too hard though, don't be fooled into thinking that dropping the difficulty will make it easier, the hardest difficulty is special (you can only take a few hits, but the same is true for most enemies), and dropping it down will result in enemy difficulty scaling becoming more traditional (buffing health and damage).
Portal (and Portal 2).
Bugsnax.
If I can throw in a movie too:
Willy's Wonderland. It's a Nicolas Cage movie and that's all I'll tell you. DO NOT LOOK UP THE TRAILER. I wouldn't have watched it if I hadn't seen the trailer, but the trailer also has huge spoilers. I'm not a huge movie person and I had to watch it after seeing the trailer, but again the trailer has spoilers. It is on my top-10 movies list now.
Portal 2 has, hands-down, the most hilariously-written dialogue I have ever seen in a video game. That alone is worth playing the game, but it's also a fun puzzle game to boot.
One of my all-time favorites. If you don't like horror games, don't let that stop you. It's too important a story to pass up, and worse-case, you can turn off some of the scary elements of the game. It's really a sci-fi masterpiece first, and a horror game second.
Just started playing Skyrim for the first time last week.
My character is optimized for ending fights before they begin – by liquifying the opponent's noggin' with one swing of her 2-handed warhammer.
Other than that, she travels the world collecting ingredients to cook, brew and smith stuff with.
I suspect that's not an optimal build, but it's fun.
There's a couple of quests that have a time limit, and it's easy to not be aware since all the others can be completed whenever. I only knew beforehand because I read about it, and I'm glad I did, because letting them unintentionally expire has really bad outcomes.
Also I got a mod for infinite respecs. Otherwise I would worry about wasting finite consumable points and never spend them.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention one of my favorites:
Spec Ops: The Line.
The risk with going in blind is that it seems like a generic cover-shooter that doesn't do everything quite as well as its competitors but it actually works to its advantage once you get into it.
If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it, you can usually find it for really cheap.
Well you can’t buy it digitally at all anymore and if you do find the disc it’s usually priced as a “retro collectible” so the only reasonable way to get it is via the high seas—which, technically, is “really cheap”
David Cage gets lots of shit for his games, but If you experience them blind without spoilers ahead of time I find they're pretty good interactive movies.
That one's tough. I went in blind when the steam version released and had a blast. The actual "game" part is not challenging once you figure out the basics. The fun of it is the stories that spring up that are mostly out of your control.
So, I'd say going in blind, but being open to asking questions or googling specific things is a great way to play it.
I think they're all games that seriously benefit from not knowing the lore or mechanics beforehand... you didn't even contribute aside from being snide to me so how about you explain what I did wrong?
Surprised I haven’t seen Undertale yet. The online fanbase is hilariously toxic, (seriously, don’t go looking for any extra details about the game after you finish it) but it’s a solid game that should be experienced 100% blind. All I’ll say is that it’s a game that is written to subvert expectations; If you go into it expecting to play it like a traditional RPG, you’ll be in for a big surprise.
Everyone always glosses over his second big game, The Hex. It’s fucking stellar, and a GREAT game to go into blind.
Quick edit: I didn’t think I’d like it more than Inscryption and it doesn’t have the same replay value, but after beating it over the course of two days… The Hex is his best work. Very excited for Pony Island 2.
warframe used to be. but it's near-impossible now to start & get through even the first major 'holyshit' moment without having it at least partially spoiled before hand.
TBF, Warframe was far from a free-to-play tier experience, at least back when I played it. The Second Dream is still my favorite story quest in any game I've ever played
The Halo 1 and KOTOR twists do hit pretty hard if you somehow haven't been spoiled. KOTOR has one of my favorite reveal sequences ever with showing you how much foreshadowing you missed, and Halo's twist turns the game on its head.
I mean, it's a 22 year old game, but since you asked nicely... 🤷♂️
Seeing that silt strider just outside Seyda Neen after the intro to what looked like your run of the mill D&D style fantasy RPG was a surprise, to say the least...
... and it was just the beginning.
It's a real shame later Elder Scrolls games mostly lost that otherworldly feel.
It's almost impossible to have not been bombarded with the main story and setting of Morrowind by this point. But when this game came out, it was an experience and a half. Unlike anything I had seen before at least. Sure, Ultima, TES 2, etc all existed. But none of them had never sold their world so effectively if you ask me.
What, and I can't state this clearly enough, the FUCK did I just play?
I wasn't prepared to have the history of punching explained to me on Mars in a frog platformer.
God of War 2018. I played all the original games but I was still just a casual fan. I heard about the new game coming out but didn't really pay much attention to it. I eventually play it and holy crap I didn't know it was going to be what it was. Before playing it, I had RDR2 as my game of the year but GOW really stole it in the end.
EDIT: Jade Empire doesn't really fit, so I'll go with Observation instead. I'll still argue you're better off not knowing anything about KOTOR aside from being an RPG in the Star Wars universe.
Yeah, definitely. I've still managed to finish it some 20 times but going in blind the first time really contributed to me loving it so much.
I'd also argue you shouldn't look too much into the sequel. Not because of any "thing" in particular but because it's more fun to immerse yourself in the game and slowly begin to unveil all the major themes of its story.
It's by the same guy that made The Stanley Parable, but it's more serious.
It's the same themes from Stanley Parable except made into an actual story instead of one long recurring joke.
I'm not saying the long recurring joke is bad - someone will probably hate that I said that - but they're just two different things that both do their different things very well. The Stanley Parable explicitly never builds to any kind of conclusion.
I feel like the obvious answer would be something like Fallout New Vegas, DLCs as well (especially the DLCs) or any visual novel games like Song of Data or the Danganronpa series.
Though for non-obvious answers, gonna say Brok the Investigator. Story driven with changing how you play affecting the ending you get. Non-obvious because I don't see a ton of hype around it, even though there's a cool looking DLC being developed.
Edit:
Forgot to add just about any puzzle game to the list. I watched someone play a puzzle game (Baba Is You) roughly 4-5 years ago and picked it up last spring. Just long enough for me to remember almost none of the solutions. Definitely much more fun that way. Same reason I loved Portal 2 back when I got it on xbox. Didn't have a clue what would happen or what the puzzle solutions were.
I don't think this one is even vaguely possible anymore, but "I Wanna Be The Guy" would be my suggestion for this question. That first encounter with the game is one of the most special moments in all of gaming.
Lol, Fear and Hunger is banned in Germany (which usually means it's good).
BG3 might be a bit above my current PC's capabilities.
I've donated my gaming PC for controlling the lighting at a local non-profit concert venue, so now I only have my laptop to game.
I think it's not banned, but doesn't have an age rating, which makes it ill gal to be advertised in Germany. Since displaying the game counts as "advertisement", Valve simply doesn't let you buy it.
I've played BG3 mostly on geforce now, it's a nice workaround if your pc is not capable enough.
If you buy it on steam you'll have synced saves for when you get your pc back.
They are still updating the game and it has official mod support (not on geforce now though).
I actually think an argument could be made for Disco Elysium not being one of these games actually. I've seen people bounce off it because they went in with the wrong expectations. The game doesn't really market itself correctly: it claims to be an isometric RPG and a detective game, but it could be argued the game is actually neither. Also lots of people miss out on a lot because they weren't aware of the fail-forward design principle.
Yeah I decided to run away when asked to pay the bill. Failed the roll and while jumping and giving a double bird to the manager crashed into and old lady in a wheelchair. Manager was so upset he gave me a huge discount on the bill.
There isn't a game that exists that isn't better going in knowing very little, if anything at all, about it. I don't even understand reading an entire guide or wiki about a game before you ever even load it up and play.
This is the worst example in this thread. You do not want to launch this game unprepared!
Much better to have an established player with enough resources build and equip your character.
If you put too few points in resources, choose the wrong class or race, or get hit by a random nerf, you'll be locked out of most of the progression.
There's no second chances, all you get is one save. And when you quit the game, it bricks your system.
Bokura. This is a bit hard though since the Steam store page kind of spoils it but just get it and think of it as a cool short co-op puzzle platformer.
My wife and I played it. Lots of fun! Forcing ourselves not to look at each others' screens for the puzzles and dialogue was hard, but definitely made it more enjoyable from a communication aspect!
Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program. At least don't watch people like Nilaus and Dosh Doshington play the game until you've tried to make your own solutions first.
The most I will tell you is that it's an adventure game with some minor tower defense elements. And that it is the best game I've ever played, and no game has ever topped it since.
I've recently been eyeing the case for that game on the shelf and thinking about going back to it, but it's been so long since I last played that I 100% would need to start over again. I had gotten prob 20+ hours so it's a lot to lose. But I remember the story being pretty mindbending, and there being some interesting mechanics.
Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery. This game is fairly old now (like maybe 15 years) and I’ve only played it once and it took like 4 hours of total playtime, but it remains among the most memorable games I’ve witnessed. I HIGHLY recommend it.
Yay! Just, please don’t leave it untouched. Mild spoiler, but the game tells you how long you should play each session and the first is 30 minutes. So please give it a 30 minute chance to grab you
Another opportunity to shout out my 2024 GOTY, Dread Delusion! I have so much love to gush for it. I wouldn’t say it “blows the mind” per se, but it knows what it is and executes it soundly. Give it a shot if you enjoy the sonder-type experience from a well-crafted storyline
I haven't played in a couple of years now, since they released the big open world plains. I did install it earlier in the fall, but still haven't gotten around to it yet...
For normal Factorio i would not absolutely agree,but for space age this is absolutely true. It takes a lot from you when you already know how to get started on the new planets.
I'll also add The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC. I know there's a remake coming out next year, but there's a bunch of shady stuff surrounding how they're gonna localize it. (Supposedly, they're gonna use AI to try to do most of it and then have real people brush it up.)
So I'd recommend playing the original instead. It's a 2.5D game with a mostly 360° camera. It uses turn-based combat, but not traditional turn-based combat. And it has a great story.
It's also on sale for only US$9.99 on GOG (which is DRM-free) and Steam.
Oh no, are they really going to use AI to translate a Falcom RPG? That's fucking heresy. The scripts in those games, are one of the things that set them apart from other JRPG schlock...
spoiler
The persistent/recurring NPCs having their own little side stories that you can miss or skip entirely if you don't talk to literally every NPC twice every single day (I haven't played a ton of Trails in the Sky series yet, was going to wait for the remake, but now I'm not sure.... This take is based on Cold Steel and Zero/Azure), is one of the most charming aspects of these games imo... Each NPC has their own individual personality, and it remains consistent (or sometimes even changes through character growth. In the background and completely missable if you don't exhaust all of their dialogue. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking of Mint from Cold Steel I & II. What a little rascal! And her interactions with her uncle, Professor Makarov. Then Makarov's budding romance with that other teacher after Mint sets them up... Lol, I remember this shit more than some of the main plot.
I love that shit!
And, typically, it seems as though they put a lot of care into the localization. This is super disappointing if true.
I get that these scripts must be massive but I'd rather wait an extra 6 months or whatever, if it means the NPC dialogue doesn't read like ChatGPT.
Edit: I realized that this thread is all about going in blind, and my comment could be construed as ruining that. I despise spoilers of any kind (and my brain seems to seek them out so as to troll me), so I'm very sensitive to that. Apologies.
Way to make me feel old, I don't know any of those games.
Where's my late 90s early 2000s gamers at?
I'm going to nominate:
Fallout (1997) for plot twists and introducing (to me at least) open world role playing.
Fallout 2 (1998) for further plot twists
Max Payne (2001) for stealing bullet time from the matrix and putting it in a game
Mafia (2002) for being a kick ass game that would blow your mind, by making 6 hours of your night disappear, and not lifting the lid on that plot twist before you heard the birds start singing, and realize that you should probably hit the shower and get to school.
If Fallout introduced you to open world RPG's, that means you missed Daggerfall.
Arguably the greatest open world RPG of all time.
That was the game that absolutely, completely blew my mind with its openness, freedom, and scale (none of which were matched by any following TES game).
Well worth blocking the phone line for an entire night and running up a phone bill that'll get you yelled at by your parents, to download the 140MB installer.
Dark Souls and Return of the Obra Dinn have already been mentioned, but I'll also recommend Universal Paperclips. These also happen to be my favorite 3 games.
I don't see the point in stardew Valley and witcher, they are pretty self explanatory. But going in blind into Minecraft? Yeah, you're not getting anything done.
Funny enough, I was in this situation. Didn’t really grow up in a culture and time that was heavy about Star Wars. Someone pointed out to me that my last name backwards was Anakin, harped on me to watch Star Wars, and I got about forty minutes in before I realized I just wasn’t into it.