Nah, I can’t sell anyone on The Wonderful 101 😂 It’s an insane game for mentally unwell people…

I guess if you like Saturday-morning cartoons and goofy action games with considerable combat depth, and are comfortable with motion inputs a la fighting games, pick it up on sale?

My blurb on the back of the cover would be: “You can air juggle alien kaiju in this one…”

If you were ever at any point into Super Sentai/Power Rangers, it should be a no-brainer to at least give it a shot; however, keep in mind this is THE Kamiya game… so if Devil May Cry 1 or Bayonetta annoyed you in any way, you’ll probably find the same 10x in The Wonderful 101.

It’s also the most video game-y video game that has ever video gamed. Wall-to-wall insanity, no chill.

Outer Wilds (not Outer Worlds!) is a brilliant game that is hard to advertise without spoiling stuff. It is from the genre sometimes called metroidbrainia, where finding the puzzle solution through in game hints to progress is the game mechanic. So its possible to finish the game in 20 minutes, if you know what to do. But getting there usually takes you 20 hours.
Now to why its great:

• the story is at its core a mixture of enlightenment thinking and celebration of curiosity and the human spirit. It does have a lot of sad points, but ultimately it is a celebration.
• I love the characters. Part of what makes this game so great are the variety of different personalities you can experience.
• the DLC is one of the best ever, where they managed to catch the spirit of the main game again and added to it, without contradicting themselves, which I honestly didnt think possible after finishing the main game.

Planescape Torment walked so that Disco Elysium could run. PT plays in the planescape setting of D&D, a world where belief is the foundation of everything, so with high enough stats, you can debate somebody into believing they don’t exist and they will vanish immediately.
You are in Sigil, the central city of the multiverse, directly in the middle of neutral. Neutral between the planes of Good and Evil but also between those of Chaos and Lawful. This neutrality needs to be enforced of course, which is the job of a nice woman called the Lady of Pain, which has the iron throne as headdress and cutting you down on the spot is the nicer treatment for offending her.
And I didnt even tell you of the protagonist, the Nameless One. You wake up in a morgue, update your journal all the time and try to find out why you can’t die. A former You was smart enough to try and give you some instructions via tattooing them onto your skin. So you take your wisecracking flying skull buddy and start looking for answers.
Yes, this game is weird and a lot of text with bad battle mechanics, but the good kind of weird and you don’t play PT for the fights, you play it for the world, the stories and the characters. For example the chaste succubus with a brothel for intellectual debate and no that is not an euphemism but 100% what it is. Play the game if you don’t believe me! This is sneakily a recommendation for Disco Elysium as well, but PT is the more patient game, so I wanted to highlight that one more.

Resident Evil 4 (GameCube) revolutionized modern horror with a 3rd-person, over-the-shoulder camera, a memorable storyline that expanded the lore of the franchise with new and returning characters, and graphics that pushed the console to its limits. Its main critique was the action-oriented gameplay, with long stretches of gun-fights (and cheezy dialogue), but I’ve found plenty of moments that had me shivering from survival horror.

Eastward is an indie game I actually first learned about here on lemmy, just a couple weeks after its release. I went back and replayed it just a month ago and it’s so good. I can acknowledge that it’s not for everyone, it almost feels like the target audience is me specifically.

The dialogue is really wonderful and you fall in love with the characters. When I play games I generally am talking to every npc, Eastward made that feel rewarding for me. There’s not much for tangible benefits, it’s just that to me the dialogue feels very…human (the robots included). If you’re inclined to check in with the npcs you’ll catch wind of little dramas and occasionally see them resolved, and none of it really affects gameplay or the story but it makes the world feel more alive.

My personal favorite, and one I wouldn’t have found without going out of my way to talk to the npcs - the train attendant robot talking shit about the repair-worker robot:

The most frequent complaint I’ve seen about Eastward is too much dialogue and too little game, so ymmv. Slight oversimplification, but the gameplay is basically Zelda but with a frying pan instead of a sword. It’s not innovative but I still find it fun.

The story was heartwarming at times and (with help from the environmental visuals) creepy at other times. I will say it was a bit of a letdown just how much was left open-ended at the end though, there were a few plot points where I was looking forward to seeing how they’d be explained or where they were going and the game just never gave an explicit explanation.

The pixel art is so special. I try to avoid looking up too much before playing a new game and there was one moment in particular that just floored me visually. I do think the game as a whole made a stronger impression on me because I went in mostly blind, some of the ways the environments change and evolve visually as you move forward really impressed me.

tl;dr the appeal is lots of emotion captured in the details

I discovered, by playing Dishonored, that Arkane Studios made some nice games. I bought Dark Messiah and Arx Fatalis and have been enjoying them.

I’d recommend Dishonored, it’s quite fun. You can go with the stealth route or the maximum carnage option, you choose.

Chrono Trigger is still my favorite game of all time, even over 30 years later. It is the only game I have played which I can legitimately say has no fat and has as close to perfect pacing as possible. IMO, the original SNES version is the best version of the game. I find the original Ted Woolsey translation to be more emotionally impactful and it doesn’t have the extra cruft that the newer versions of the game has.

Silent Hill 2 has one of the deepest stories and some of the best storytelling in any video game that I have ever played. The game does an excellent job at portraying a dreamlike atmosphere. The original game specifically is very well-paced, especially compared to the remake which adds a lot of needless padding to extend the gametime without really adding much to the story, and IMO has less impactful voice acting compared to the original. If playing the remake, I would recommend playing through the original first. The Enhanced Edition mod on PC is a very convenient way to get a high quality fan remaster and is a great way of playing the original game. Try to avoid spoilers for this one.

Terranigma is an action RPG on the SNES that, since it was never released in North America (a release on modern platforms is scheduled for 2027), never got as much attention as I think it should have considering the sheer quality of the game. Not only is this game a ton of fun with excellent control and gameplay, but its story and atmosphere are both very unique compared to any other game that I’ve played. It is considered to be Quintet’s magnum opus for a reason.

B3313 is a game unlike the others on this list, being closer to a game like Yume Nikki or LSD Dream Emulator. It is a ROM hack of Super Mario 64, but instead of just adding new levels or gameplay mechanics, it transforms the world of Super Mario 64 into this absolutely massive place that you can’t help but get lost in. While there is technically a goal and an ending in the game, I prefer to ignore those and just play it without any real endgoal in mind. The Unabandoned version is the one that is still being updated and is the version I recommend. Also maybe avoid the fanbase for this one.

Call of Cthulhu by yashum is a ROM hack of Super Mario World that is one of the most creative I have ever seen. It has an excellent atmosphere and very creative gameplay mechanics that turn Super Mario World on its head. Playing on a system or an emulator that supports save states is mandatory for this one, as there are no saves otherwise, and dying will reset the game back to the beginning. The game itself even recommends the use of save states.

OMORI is an indie JRPG that is an emotional rollercoaster. It doesn’t have the best pacing, the most creative gameplay, or much replay value, but what it does have is incredible emotional depth and atmosphere. This game took many years to be developed and it shows in the final product. This game asks deep questions about the relationships we form with our friends and how strong those relationships can be. Try to avoid spoilers for this one.

There are so many games i want really everyone to experience like Beyond Good & Evil or Psychonauts.

But i’m a racing game enjoyer at heart. So i’m going to namedrop NFS 3, 4 and the Test Drive Unlimeted PS2 version. The last name drop is no joke. Its the very best PS1 racing game physics which happen to be on a PS2 i ever experienced but on a ridiculously big map.

But the ultimate arcade racing game is imho Midnight Club 3. I grew up with the NFS games on PC. Through the years i went hardcore on racing sims. Have been an elitist. But this game pulled me back to the fun(complete lie, but i was told to sell the game to you, but i truly believe it would have been good enough to actually do that). But seriously i never had a PS2 when MC3 was relevant. Emulation of the PS2 took a really long time to render MC3 flawlessly. But now in 2026 its just great. You should really check it out if you have any itch to play a great arcade racer. It does so many things which feel so fresh to this day. So many events have unique scripted things happening. Its crazy that this still stands out over 20 years later.

This is the guide i followed a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-GHRo49XJc

You should play Morrowind! We’ve got:

• A handcrafted, in depth alien world to explore with surprises literally around every corner
• divine apotheosis disease that turns you into a zombie shambler
• catgirl booba
• self-appointed divinity and all around man of mystery Vivec whose main claim to fame is that he canonically, as an in-game Elder Scrolls character, managed to access the Elder Scrolls Construction Set and assign himself the ‘deity=true’ variable
• The Pain Glove ™
• Furry fulfillment fantasy where you can become a big buff wolfman and run off into the wilderness
• Wizard fulfillment fantasy where you can rack up all your stats into the millions by abusing loopholes in magic research, and then craft the potion seller’s strongest potions concentrated to a point that they could knock out God
• “I cast Everyone In This Town Dies Instantly”
• being sexually propositioned by a Daedra
• being sexually propositioned in order to recieve a promotion
• leaping sixty miles in a single mighty bound and then splattering yourself across a rock face in one shot because you forgot to account for landing your mighty leap
• Selling swords to a crab
• selling a merchant an enchanted shirt of “Fire Damage 1pt per second, constant effect” and then waiting for him to keel over dead so you can loot his store with impunity
• an entire province full of rogue wizards where “I’d like to see you stop me” is the whole of the law
• dream daddy Dagoth and his castle-stomping giant robot
• caves made out of meat
• trying to fight the luckiest man of all time and being literally unable to land a hit on him without abusing the actual fabric of reality
• The Boots Of Barry Allen
• “That’s a good argument. Unfortunately,” Weakness to Magic 100%, 10 seconds. Weakness to Fire 100%, 10 seconds. Fire Damage 100pts, 10 seconds.
• lockpicking your way inside the government treasury and making off with all the contents
• The Corpse of Peke Utchoo
• “Listen, this is very important. I need you to stab me in the face.”
• ‘mines’ full of bugs where the ‘miners’ harvest the bug eggs in order to eat and sell (this is the primary food source of the region)
• smuggling Dwarven artifacts
• smuggling drugs
• radical abolitionists as a joinable faction
• lizard people
• “Yeah so, to complete this pilgrimage you need to go drown yourself in the sewers. God says so.”
• the joys of property ownership
• having enough strength score that you hit someone once with a longsword and the weapon instantly shatters in your hands, but it’s okay because their entire skeleton exploded
• having 100% magic resistance and watching enemy spells just ping off of your shiny pecs with zero effect
• skill trainers that are sometimes actively hostile to you. The greatest enchanter in the land is a daedra worshipper that lives in an old Dunmer stronghold. He ain’t gonna be happy to meet you. You want to learn his secrets? Do something about that.

…and more. This is just what I pulled off the top of my head in 20 minutes of thinking about it. I love this game, it’s peak elder scrolls in my opinion and nearly peak early-2000’s gaming in general.

It’s a little crusty though. I grew up playing it so I can deal, but the modern gamer is going to struggle a bit. I’m going to give you some tips for the most common complaints.

“The combat sucks! I can’t hit anything!”

The combat is roll based, like D&D. You wouldn’t expect your D&D wizard to competently cleave someone head to asshole with a greatsword, and you shouldn’t expect your Nerevarine to do it either with 30 AGI and 40 Long Blade. Chance to hit is determined by Agility score and weapon skill, and damage is determined by strength score and weapon skill. Make your AGI nice and high at character creation and pick a major skill weapon that you like and stick to it. Using gold to gain skill training goes a very long way towards competency in Morrowind and at low skill levels, it’s cheap enough to make it a regular part of your shopping. If you find a really cool axe and you only have 5 in your Axe skill, go get some training with it before you try and take it out into real action. Failing any of that, the “Fortify Attack” effect from the Warrior birthsign or the Orc’s Berserk power adds directly to your chance to hit. 10 points gives you 10% added on top after your normal to-hit calculations. Doesn’t add any damage though.

By mid to late game, with relevant stats and skill levels at 70 or 80+, missing melee strikes in combat will become kind of rare, even without fortify attack boosts.

“The leveling system sucks! You have to optimize everything with meta knowledge!”

Morrowind is a hilariously unbalanced game, you definitely do not need optimal levelups to succeed. If you do want to get optimal level ups, you are going to need to perform some strange cheese using meta knowledge. But as a casual player, just making the skills you want to use your Major/Minor skills and leveling up normally as you gain experience is plenty fine, you’ll be totally okay.

One caveat to that though, is that your HP total is dependent on your endurance score, and it is not retroactive. Getting your endurance high, or maxed, early in the game is usually a primary goal for most experienced players so that you get the maximum amount of HP per level up. I do recommend this. However, there are many other ways to get around this if other stats are more important to you, such as max HP boosting potions or enchantments, or just one of many ways of avoiding being hit in the first place (shield spells, flight, concealment or stealth, killing the enemy dead in one shot from 50 meters)

“I don’t know where to go!”

Just read, bro. People give you directions to get places. You don’t have quest markers but you do have a quest journal that will let you go back and read the exact dialogue of the quest giver whenever you want.

There are a couple of occasions where people will give you bad directions, or the place you’re looking for is just hard to locate. For those, UESP exists. I’ve been playing this game for 20 years and sometimes I still have to look up specifics on some places, the game is that big. I’ve run this game probably two dozen times and I usually find at least one thing I’ve never seen before each time.