I just go some Steam giftcards from a friend and want to put them to good use.
Also FYI my PC isn’t the most powerful in the world so I can’t play anything super high rez.
I have been loving Return to Moria, and also picked up cyberpunk 2077. Not sure your specs but both of those run great on Steam Deck
Someone on hexbear recommend outer wilds to me a while back, I’d like to thank that person…
It was me, I take Xi bucks in lieu of personal thanks these days though
The renembis in the mail comrade
Seriously tho, outer wilds is a slow burn but I really like it
Things that run on my 8gb ram laptop and worth buying IMO:
Chained Echoes is very good JRPG, the writing can be excessively “mature” at times but otherwise its really fun JRPG. The story references to plenty of RPGS from the “golden age” but as someone who never played something like Chrono Trigger the story is entertaining and full of twists. Every “random battle” feels like a boss fight you need to use strategy.
Dark Deity 2 is a game similar to GBA Fire Emblem with emphasis on using abilities to finish maps quickly. I recommend playing Deity or lower because the hardest difficulty is imbalanced. Has inbuilt randomizer and some choices that leads to different gear/story for some replay value. The story can be a bit annoying (although steam reviewers are babies so they exaggerate how cringe the writing is) but the voice acting elevates it.
Slay the Princess is a visual novel about killing a princess. It has lots of different endings and unlike say telltale games even seemingly minor decisions can lead to massively different outcomes.
Lastly, Project Eden Garden is a free game not on steam based on Danganronpa but without tasteless YIKES fanservice that plagued the danganronpa games. It only has 1 chapter right now but from what I have played it has interesting twist you wont see coming and it has a very fun asshole protagonist who is the “ultimate debater”. Just set the action difficulty on kind because for some reason the game has undertale minigame bullet hell sections.
My game is very easy to run if you’re into retro stuff and super cheap, and I love it when comrades play it.
Otherwise Inscryption was a pretty neat time if you haven’t played it yet.
CrossCode is 70% off
A Hat in Time is a fun 3D platformer
Subnautica: survive in the ocean after a shipwreck… In spaaaaace!The following games are cheap (lower than 10 euros), not graphically demanding at all, and range from good to being masterpieces in my opinion:
10/10
- CrossCode
- Hollow Knight
- ZeroRanger
9/10
- Katamari Damacy Reroll
- Spelunky
- Terraria (with friends, 8/10 without)
- Rabi-Ribi (it has horny anime cringe, but it is an excellent metroidvania)
8/10
- Xanadu Next
- Copy Kitty
- Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
- Pseudoregalia
- Rabbit & Steel (with friends)
- Hades
- Ys Origin
- Ys: The Oath in Felghana
- Void Stranger
- Portal & Portal 2
- Ori and the Will of Wisps (Ori 2)
- Celeste
- Undertale
7.5/10
- Grim Dawn
- Minishoot’ Adventures
- Ori and the Blind Forest
I like your style. I see somebody rate ZeroRanger 10/10, I know we’re cool.
I’ll second Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I wish Dragon’s Dogma 2 ran better on lower-end systems/was less intense, though the character creator received a nice bump in quality from DD:DA
Please Touch The Artwork is a cool relaxed puzzle game based on real paintings (£2.15)
Citizen Sleeper is one of my favourite games ever; a really narrative rich (but not long winded) sci-fi game with fantastic worldbuilding, vibes, and politics that uses a novel streamlined version of TTRPG dice to do decision making and resources stuff. Really sublime (£5.02) The sequel is on sale but is new so is more like £15.
Mad Max is an open-world vehicular combat (and occassional Batman game style parry combat section) game that was the best 7-out-of-10 type game when it game out but has aged well & is genuinely a great bit of canon Mad Max lore and worldbuilding if you care about that series. (£2.39)
Thronebreaker: Witcher Tales is a narrative RPG based around playing Gwent (sometimes with traditional rules, sometimes with unique interest puzzle battles) that has writing as good or better than the Witcher 3. It wasn’t a hit, despite being excellent, and so they tried to turn Gwent into Hearthstone later, but Thronebreaker is standalone and still my favourite Witcher game. (£3.39)
Swordship is a fast, roguelite indie ‘schmup’ where you pilot a superfast boat through heavily sci-fi militarised sea dodging turrents and other dangers. I found it difficult, but addictive with a cool style and soundtrack. (£0.84)
Invisible Inc is a fantastic turn-based strategy heist game with a great art style and really good gameplay. I’m quiet a picky turn-based nerd and this is one of the best. It’s also not too punishing (unless you want it to be) and is relatively short to finish a run in a satisfying way compared to longer campaigns. (£3.74)
Steamworld Heist is my favourite of the various Steamworld games. It’s basically robot Firefly and a 2D turn-based shooter-strategy game where your pirate captain & crew board ships, fight your way to cargo with a variety of cool weapons (and hats) & escape with it. (£1.13)
Yoku’s Island Express is a unique, colourful, joyous platformer-pinball hybrid game where your little dung beetle (with dung ball) slides, pinballs, jumps through a lovely, relaxing island metroidvania world. Just lovely all round. (£3.19)
Sludge Life is a stylised, low-rez, 3D open world adventure game with excellent lofi 90s hip hop meets chillwave vibes and a banger soundtrack including the best in game rapper since Parappa; BIG MUD! (£2.55)
Ape Out is a top-down indie action game where you play as a giant ape escaping its captors and splattering armed mercanaries against walls with a Saul Bass animation style and top drawer jazz-drum soundtrack that syncs with your hits. (£2.55)
Monster Train is probably the best roguelite card game since Slay the Spire with more variation and quicker to get into, where you play the forces of hell trying to protect a big train careening through the seven circles to relight hells fires while battling those irritating crusade-fash coded angels heaven has sent to stop you. (£6.29)
Crypt of the Necrodancer is a roguelite homage to old Zelda (so much so Nintendo eventually had them do an actual Zelda version) that’s also a hardcore rhythm game where you move and attack with the beat (and so do all the enemies). As someone who really cannot play rhythm games and never even beat the fourth level I still loved my time with it. It’s got an all time banger soundtrack and the best shopkeeper in games. (£1.27)
Both Citizen Sleeper games are fantastic. The story pacing is great. Be warned that you can softlock yourself really easily in 2 at the very beginning if you go straight to the big mission.
Once you get the flow though, it’s pretty easy to maintain the good path. One slip up can snowball you to a fail state though
I absolutely adored the sequel and I wasn’t expecting it to live up to the first since it’s one of the best and most effecting games I’ve ever played.
I like how the sequel managed to expand on the first game in a way that felt natural. Having to maintain and manage a crew and ship while also juggling all the relationships of the belters and running from the repo man just feels like the next step after helping to restore the Eye
So funny story about my Citizen Sleeper playthrough, spoilers for the first few hours ahead:
spoiler
I thought you could block the tracking on you before the bounty hunter arrives, and when I failed to do so by what seemed to be one in-game hour I was so mad I stopped playing. I eventually went back and I have actually platinumed the game. It’s pretty cool how you can take the early endings and then keep on playing for alternate ones.
I had a similar experience and even at the end I love the fact that you can just go back to the ‘point of no return’ so easily and make different decisions to play them out.
These are some good picks, I enjoyed SteamWorld Heist and Monster Train. Haven’t played their sequels yet, how about you? I also had a good time with Mad Max
I haven’t to be honest. I came to Monster Train kind of late and find myself going back to Steamworld Heist every year or so and it still feeling satisfying and fresh so when I’ve had time I’ve experimented with the other Steamworld games. Haven’t found one that’s stuck for me like heist though.
Oh I meant to ask have you played Monster Train 2 or SteamWorld Heist 2? They came out this year but I haven’t played them yet. I’m looking forward to playing them when they are on a deeper discount. Until then I have plenty of games in my backlog
Yeah, I just meant part of the reason I haven’t checked out the new ones is I keep just being satisfied dipping into the originals.
Monster Train got a really good sequel too, you can use mushroom guys that stack with each other 10/10
I love all things mushrooms so once I’ve (finally) had my full of the first one I’ll check it out.
I’ve been enthralled by Valheim lately. It’s probably one of, it not the best of the open-world-survival-crafting-RPG genre.
And pretty easy to mod to boot, with a ton of mods ranging from extending what’s available in the game already (like adding all weapon types and magic from the meadows biome and above) to game changing systems like classes, abilities, and perks.
It feels like the middle point between Minecraft and Terraria, with a smooth progression curve with clear checkpoints to guide the player through the tech stages while offering some homesteading and down time activities.
It pretty much entirely replaced Minecraft and Terraria for me due to those reasons. Plus, building in Valheim is pretty satisfying. Much prefer having material limitations as opposed to the other two’s gravity defying builds.
Only wish it was a bit more optimized, because my builds tend to be tall and dense and the game really doesn’t like it. And modding could be handled better I guess, Zomboid took a page off of Rimworld’s approach to the workshop and Valheim could do that as well.
Valheim is definitely a game I loved, but man there is still a lot of jank to it that I just cannot stand to bear any longer. All the jank is bearable up until the mistlands and then I just cant deal with the floaty combat, dying destroying hours of skill grinding, inventory space being so limited, and the procedural generation putting some stuff in ridiculous places. All of it leads to pretty poor single player experience (at that point), where it feels like having other players with you is a downright necessity.
But as you stated mods do fix quite a lot of what is broken or should really just be in the game to begin with.
Yeah. The devs did say that the next update isn’t just going to be the deep north, hopefully they learn something from the most popular mods (same as rimworld is doing, integrating some of them into the base game).
Cavern of Dreams, $5.19 - Short and sweet collectathon 3d platformer. I finished it in 8 hours and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. N64 visual style (you can disable the blur filter in settings if you hate it).
Death’s Door, $5 - Cute soulslike combat in an overhead isometric view, not too difficult. You play as a crow, a reaper of souls, tracking down the one soul who escaped from you. You may have to lower settings depending on how bad your gpu is.
Paradise Killer, $5 - A detective game in a world of (sexy) Gods. You have to identify suspects and build a case against them. There is no objectively “correct” culprit. There is also a beautiful 3d environment to explore with some collectables.
Tunic, $15 - Similar combat to death’s door but with the added element that progression is often gated not by items, but knowledge checks. You collect pages of a game manual for Tunic written in a language you can’t read. One of my absolute favorite games.
Sea of Stars, $22.74 - Very fun turn-based rpg that reminds me a lot of Chrono Trigger. I had 45 hours playtime and that’s before the 10 hour free DLC that just released. Timed QTE events for every attack and block a la the (Paper) Mario RPG series.
Rollerdrome, $7.50 - Rollerdrome is the perfect video game. Arcadey shooter on rollerskates with dodge rolls and also you have to do tony hawk style tricks to reload your guns. Unfortunately, Take Two “laid off” the entire team who made it, so consider pirating it instead of buying.
Tunic is incredible
I loved Sea of Stars! Same studio did The Messenger and they have neat little tie-ins. Really felt like they took everything from the 16-bit action RPG genre and distilled out just the good stuff. Lovely game
I liked Death’s Door, very cute and it’s not a huge time sink, think you can beat it in a couple days.
Know you were asking Steam specifically but the current free Epic game is neat. I add them to my Steam library sometimes. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/sable
+1 to recommend Sable, especially for free! Basically it’s like if breath of the wild didn’t have combat and instead was about exploration and quests. You play as a young adult going on a coming of age quest in which you learn about the different professions you could choose. Set in a post apocalyptic world, but a wholesome one. You get to ride on an upgradable Star Wars pod racer.
Free on Epic, $8.74 on Steam.
SteamDB is useful, you can see all games on sale and filter by review score and discount percentage.
My reccs:
Cobalt Core - Spaceship combat similar to FTL with amazing vibes. Technically a roguelike deckbuilder but don’t let that scare you
Drova: Forsaken Kin - One of the best games in recent years, pixel art RPG with great combat
Songs of Conquest - Spiritual successor to Heroes of Might and Magic III with beautiful pixel art
Pathway - Indiana Jones inspired game where you fuck up Nazis in turn-based combat
SteamWorld Dig 2 - Fun mining game, satisfying game loop, chill vibes
Risen - Probably my all time favourite game, amazing eurojank RPG made by the developers that made Gothic
Drova is fantastic! I was really impressed with it. Thanks for the other recs.
I see you’re a fellow New Vegas enjoyer, you’re in good company here!
Have you ever played Gothic or Risen? Drova is basically a spiritual successor to these games. I think you would enjoy them if you liked Drova.
I missed out on playing Gothic during its time, but I did play Risen and really liked it. I’m hoping that the Gothic Remake will be decent enough to enjoy so I can finally see what the hypes about with that franchise. I’ve wanted to try Gothic, but ive heard it’s janky, and without the nostalgia of playing it previously, I just feel too old and tired to deal with that kind of jank now.
I’m biased since these are some of my favourite games but I would say that Gothic I and II still hold up today. If you enjoyed Risen, I think you would enjoy Gothic games since they are not much more janky than Risen. I’m also hyped for the remake, hopefully it will be good
Elden Ring is amazing and surprisingly light on the computer
RDR2 is one of the best action RPGs I’ve played
Hades was a lot of fun
Rogue Trader is a great RPG if you like the WH40k world
And of course Disco Elysium if you haven’t played it
And of course Disco Elysium if you haven’t played it
Are we still boycotting? If so you wouldn’t want to get it on Steam then
I don’t think it’s necessarily a boycott, but people should indeed just pirate it.
I think it can count. It’s not an organised boycott, but the devs have asked people to pirate it/not pay for it, and people seem to be following suit, so I’d say that counts as a boycott.
The Messenger is a real gem of a game. Ninja Gaiden meets Metroid, lovely pixel art (should run on anything), a banging chiptune soundtrack, super tight gameplay, funny writing, and it’s currently 80% off. If you like platformers and metroidvanias you got to check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We4N8-GC57E
Listening to this while going top speed through the level, doin sick ninja moves fuckin wrecking shop, it’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing video games, the whole game is such a treat when you unlock all the movement upgrades and get good at flying around everywhere
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a very good game.