Decades:
Genres:
Welcome back. This part of the series will be primarily focusing on genres. So far I have [Turn based RPG, Action RPG, Board Game, Arcade Game, third person shooter, MMO, Action, 4X (Civilization-like), 3D Platformer, Roguelike, Dungeon Crawler, Card Game, Point and click, Indie, Text dungeon, Stealth, Rhythm, Horror, Metroidvania, Survival, Sandbox, shoot/beat 'em up, City Builder, Adventure, Simulation, Puzzle, Bullet Hell, Fighting, MOBA, Real Time Tactics, grand strategy, Racing, Walking simulator, Tower Defense, Sports, Idle, Trivia, and Casual] as available genres. Let me know if I missed something, and I will try to get it added.
This is eventually all going to get compiled into one megathread for people who want gaming recommendations from Chapos specifically. Other consoles and genres will come in sporadic subsequent threads. Please contribute to previous threads if you missed them. This is meant to be an exhaustive list.
Expanding on your choice(s) is definitely a plus. Not everyone knows about or has played non-mainstream titles.
hands down the nonary games series. it was danganrompa but before it was cool and better.
there are 3 games
999 aka 9 doors 9 lives 9 hours
virtues last reward
lastly zero time dilemma!
The zero escape games are absolutely fantastic and some of the best stories I ever experienced
of course virtues last reward is my favorite but all of them are so amazing in some way
The New Order mod for Hearts of Iron 4. No, wait, come back, I'm actually serious.
To give a "quick" run-down, it takes place in an alternate reality where the Axis won WWII (original, I know) with an ensuing Cold War between the US, Japan and Germany along with their respective spheres. You're supposed to follow along your nation's specific storyline via long, detailed event and flavor text which covers a variety of characters, ranging from the leadership at the top to the ordinary, faceless citizenry down below. The gameplay is very much a departure from the traditional sandboxy GS wargame formula of HoI4 and its more prolific mods like Kaisereich. Essentially, everything is tied to a Focus Tree with various diverging paths which determine what actually goes on in your nation and the rest of the world (who you declare war on, what bonuses you receive, which leaders/ideologies come to power, etc), all with various minigames and mechanics unique to the nation in question. It's best thought of as a visual novel with a wargame attached.
It's honestly some of the most compelling writing I've seen from a game. Even while playing as one of the many grimdark, doomed-to-fail story paths, I was still motivated to play through and see the rest. It also holds no punches when it shows just how vile and bleak a fascist-dominated world would be, without resorting to usual wehraboo tropes (looking at you, Man in the High Castle). If I had any criticisms, it's that that switching back and forth between reading and actually playing takes a while to get used to, though I'm not sure if that's avoidable.
One time I went on a date with a Muslim woman and had sex and I later texted her saying I was playing through My Girlfriend Is The President and she never replied to me again.
Oh damn, I had seen that on Steam and now I kind of want to play it.
it's a lot better than I thought it would be. I went into it blind and I highly recommend doing the same. It's the only visual novel I've ever played and it isn't normally something I'd give a shit about but my discord bros begged me to stream a little of it some time back and it was a very good game.
It's pretty great, though it has a lot of stereotypical dating sim vn type stuff just so you're aware.
I'm only a little bit into book 2, but Umineko is fantastic. I got into it from all the discussions on the shrieking shack podcast, and it doesn't disappoint. If you haven't heard of it, it's about this shitty rich family on their private island having an inheritance dispute in the middle of a typhoon, and It's a lot of fun. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that. It's worth noting that there isn't any gameplay and there aren't any choices, it's really just a novel with fun anime art and a killer soundtrack, but it's on steam so it counts.
its so long im like 6 hours into episode 1 of question arc and is just so much
It's very long. I have 25 hours on record and I'm only a little ways into episode 2. What's the most recent thing that happened?
spoiler
___ so im horrid with names bear with me natsushi (purple lady) just whipped a Winchester out and the servants just informed battler beatrice is definitely real and non physical/visible except for butterflies or when she wants to be
VA-11 Hall-A is really good. You play as Jill, a bartender in a cyberpunk city and serve drinks to the various people that come to your bar. There aren't any dialogue choices so the only real way to interact is through making different drinks to alter how conversations and relationships develop. For example giving a different drink than what that person asked for or increasing the alcohol content of a drink to get a customer drunk. The player character is a fully fleshed out character with backstory and development which is interesting, I feel like a majority of VNs just have a player self insert who doesn't speak, not that's a bad thing its just interesting. The game does a good job of having a large variety of characters with interesting stories to tell and different interactions/relationships with Jill and each other. The dialogue is very casual for the most part and has a tendency to be fairly crude which is entertaining while also having plenty of serious moments. The game uses the cyberpunk setting really well, with a lot of commentary on AI, technology and cooperate control over society. Overall an extremely solid visual novel that I've actually replayed multiple times despite the fact that the game doesn't have any branching paths/ different endings, I just enjoy it that much. I'm really looking forward to the sequel N1RV Ann-A which has a similar premise but takes place in a Caribbean resort bar instead of a city bar. I might as well mention Coffee talk here as well since it has the same gameplay loop of serving drinks during a visual novel just in a coffee shop in Portland with fantasy races living along side humans like elves and orcs. It kind of captures the same energy as VA-11 Hall-A but I didn't enjoy it quite as much but still had fun playing it. It's fairly cheap and has a demo so it's worth taking a look at if you really like VNs.
As a side note you could add "Walking Simulator" as a genre if you wanted to. I think games like Stanley Parable and Gone Home are unique enough that they could have their own thread although they could also just be considered adventure games. The term "Walking Simulator" is pretty silly and kind of pejorative but it seems to be what people are ok with calling the genre.
Katawa Shoujo is a fairly standard waifu fantasy "dating sim" VN written by 4channers which is remains one of two videogames where I cried at the ending. (The other one was saving
spoiler
Zulf
at the end of
spoiler
Bastion
)
Its sthick is that it's set at a school for the disabled where the MC transfers in after sufferring a heart attack.
I remember being charmed by the characters, but I was also much younger and chuddy at the time. Consider this a half-star recommendation until I replay it.
I really like Secret Little Haven, which is about an extremely online trans girl in 1999. The game simulates a Mac OS inspired interface and the narrative is told through the protagonist interacting with other characters through an instant messaging application.
I'm late to the party here but Dramatical Murder is fucking insane. A great game if you love psych horror, gore, torture, and also fluffy gay good ends. It's got a cyberpunk sorta-anticolonial setting.
Also the first Red Embrace game. It can be kind of stilted, but the boys are good and the way they handle the main villain is great. Gay vampire dating simulator.
