Is it recommended to play the other Mother games before 3?

I’m waiting patiently on Astrobot to get within my feasible price range, I adored Playroom :).

I am probably in an extreme minority here, but my favorite final fantasy game is… XIII. I remember being so hyped when it came out, the graphics on my PS3 were unreal. This was at a time in my life where I was unable to finish any big game due to limited attention span, but I played the first hours of that game a lot and really enjoyed it. Since then I’ve tried getting into VII, IX, XII and XIV, and all of them I bounced off of. However, trying XIII again years later on PC, it just feels so comfy. I don’t need to think too hard were to go or what to do, just let the game guide me and enjoy the music and spectacle.

I’ve noticed lately that I absolutely love linear games: half-life, portal, uncharted… are all experiences I adored because of their simplicity. Just move forward! I feel that a lot of mainstream gaming has become about side objectives, open worlds and collecting 100% of collectibles, and it is honestly exhausting. If you have any linear game recommendations, please chime in :)!

What an amazing comment, this reads just like a blog post! Will definitely check it out!!!

What a great video! I was afraid going in that it would have some “forced” new opinion on the game to be relevant, but it was actually super important and interesting.

Thanks for sharing!

My personal favorite game of all time. Such an absolutely incredible experience, both from for the gameplay / puzzle mechanics, the story, the music and themes.

Not necessarily a VN, but you might like Pony Island if you liked Doki Doki.

Digital: A Love Story is also an experience that was really powerful for me.

I was unsure if choosing a specific visual novel would make the discussion too limited, so I decided to go with the genre as a whole for this thread.

Still, I sneakily used my favorite visual novel as the image: Steins;Gate! It was my first game in the genre. I bought it on a whim for PS Vita, after seeing the glowing review headlines that applauded it for its great story and music. Little did I know that this meant only story and music: there was barely any gameplay! This together with the fact that some of the tropes felt really strange to me at the time (I was not really into anime culture) made me regret my purchase and almost stop playing.

But somehow the story got its hooks in me. Only a tiny bit at first, but day after day I became more engrossed and looking forward to my play session. I read it mostly during the night while in bed, and it really took over my life for some time. Eventually I finished all routes and achieved the true ending, which is one of my favorite endings and stories in videogames as a whole.

Since then I’ve played lots of others. Some quick thoughts:

-999: a bit disappointing, the story felt very contrived and not as great as others experienced it.

-Virtue’s last reward: a real step up from the previous game, complex and satisfying story with a very meta twist to it!

-Zero Time Dilemma: often described as the worst in the series, but somehow this story really grabbed me from start to finish. The stakes were extremely high and while the story was very convoluted, the payoff worked for me.

-Danganronpa 1 and 2: very strange and over the top, but extremely well written mysteries with great presentation and soundtrack

-Ace Attorney: the first game in the series. I played it on switch and liked it, but didn’t love it. The humor felt to childlike for me at times.

-Planetarian: fantastic little gem of a game. Most visual novels will demand dozens of hours of your time, but this can be finished in less than 5 hours. Absolutely amazing.

-Muv-Luv Extra: I am currently finishing all routes for the first game in this trilogy, as I have heard multiple times that the 3rd one is incredible. I liked it most when it was just funny nonsense (it can be quite hilarious at times). The serious parts really didn’t hit home for me and a lot of the content feels a bit problematic and strange. I suppose some of this is culture, some of it satire and it was originally an erotic game so that might have something to do with it.

I’m glad that it seems sufficiently different from Ghost of Tsushima. I kind of dislike how most sequels these days are almost the same game with some small improvements in graphics and gameplay (Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-man 2). With the new character and time period, this seems like a more substantial change!

It is a website (https://barter.vg) that links to your Steam profile. You can then publish a list of games for which you have unredeemed keys (from bundles or something similar), and you can add a wish list of games you would want (or sync with your Steam wish list).

You can then start looking for matches (people who want stuff you have and who have stuff you want) and send / receive offers. Once you both agree on an offer, you contact each other trough Steam and exchange keys, redeeming immediately to make sure the key works. Afterwards you indicate that the trade went well on each others public profile. Scammers are kept at bay by a system of trust: people who have done a lot of trades already without disputes can clearly be trusted. This is why it is linked to your Steam profile, to make it harder to make burner accounts.

When you first start trading, it is an unwritten rule that you reveal your key first to the other party (assuming they already have done a lot of trusted trades). My first experiences were all super nice, people are very friendly and supportive, it’s like this community of game collectors who like to find good deals and help each other play the games they want to play. I highly recommend it!

I am at 9 successful trades right now, since joining a few months ago! (my profile to give you an idea: https://barter.vg/u/a46a/)

I finally got this game through a steam key trade on barter, traded for a game I didn’t need from a Fanatical bundle. It’s now sitting in my library until I have the time to focus on it, as one of my best friends recommended it to me as one of his favorite games ever. So I want to give it the time and focus it deserves, hopefully it will click for me too!

I really like this game a lot. I know it has problems, but it’s the first time since Dirty Bomb that an online shooter was able to grab me. I just really love objective based shooters, that way I can still be useful even though my aim isn’t the best.

I just play shotgun healer and push the objective. The spread on the gun allows me to have a decent amount of kills while also healing teammates and getting closer to the win.

It pokes out with the DS Lite :)

My favorite DS game by far was Lock’s Quest. It was the first game that got me genuinely emotional, I had tears in my eyes during the ending. I remember initially being disappointed, as kid me wanted a strategy game, not something where I still had to run around and repair stuff in real time. But my god, my opinion changed quickly and both the gameplay and the story captured my fully. The music was just the icing on the cake.

My most played game by far was Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades. Shredding Can’t Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while sitting in a restaurant with my parents is one of my favorite memories of that time (with headphones of course). I believe this game single-handedly formed most of my music interests for my teenage years.

Finally, I have to mention Bionicle Heroes. I am a massive Bionicle fan (and currently rediscovering it through finally reading the books). This game is by no means a masterpiece, but it is a surprisingly fun first person shooter with great controls and decent graphics for the time. I adored it because my parents were very strict and didn’t let me play realistic shooters, but this way I could get my fps fix and play in the world of Bionicle at the same time!

My device was a Nintendo DS Lite, White with flame stickers that came with the Guitar Hero game. I loved that machine to bits.

And it was the only one able to fully hold a Game Boy Advance cartridge!

I’ve never played these games. It all just feels extremely overwhelming with the large amount of menus and systems. I’m also unable to focus on long games (I also have issues with long open world games like Breath of the Wild for example), so that is another thing that pushes me away. But the idea of a cosy grind while listening to podcasts does interest me.

However, I have seen the film: an absolute masterpiece in the “bad film genre”. Just beautifully brainless action, similar to the amazing Resident Evil films of the same creator.

Thanks for this write-up! It was a very interesting read and actually makes me want to try out the series now (especially P3 and p4).

Love that piece of sountrack you shared! Such a nice and melancholic melody!

I have the remake (The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition) in my Steam backlog. I’ve been meaning to play it for a while, but it seems like a game that will require my full focus to not forget the story / puzzles. Once some of the games I’m currently playing are finished, I might give it a go. Also seems like a fun game to play during the winter times, so maybe I’ll get around to it in a few months.

I absolutely love this retrospective video about the series by youtuber Ahoy: RetroAhoy: The Secret of Monkey Island. I highly recommend it!

What are you trying to achieve here, “triggering” people? It just registers as infantile to me.

My favorite is honestly my PS5. The load times are fantastic and I love the feel of the controller and the rumble / adaptive triggers. I also fucking loved my PS Vita, to bad it had such a mediocre run games wise.

Worst is pretty harsh, as I have loved all my consoles. But there’s no denying that the PSP was a bit garbage with its single analog stick (which was also very hard to use).