I played Nine Sols recently and it had a transformative effect on my gaming experience. I’ve found myself no longer getting mad at fairly structured games and deeply enjoying the personal refinement of my skill set in pursuit of a goal. Suddenly this shift in perspective has allowed me to see difficulty in a new light and truly savor the victory that comes after significant effort. With this new perspective, I decided to try the game that had made me hesitate the most with its reputation for difficulty: Sekiro
Its been truly eye opening to realize that my nervousness has only kept me from a good time. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready for it…
Following that trend, I started Celeste for the first time even though I never play pure platformers, and it has blown my socks off. Do I suck? You bet your ass I do. But I know it’s from a lack of detailed platforming, and developing that skill has been very fun and satisfying.
Now, I’d love to hear from others. What games made you regret waiting so long to try them?
Brütal Legend
Released in 2013. I’ve had it in my Steam library for long enough that I don’t even remember where I got it from. Probably from some Humble Bundle. Anyway, I figured it was just some cheap game with heavy metal theme as a gimmick, and never bothered to even install it.
I bought a Steam Deck a couple of years ago, and figured I’d play less demanding games on it. Looked in my Steam library for games I’ve never played, and there’s Brütal Legend. Turns out, it’s actually a pretty solid game. Sure it has some issues, but overall it’s a humorous action game that’s full of heavy metal references, and even has some unique game mechanics to boot. And, not only is there licensed music from a number of metal bands, but some of the metal legends, such as Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister, appear in the game.
The graphics are a bit outdated by today’s standards, and the RTS sections can be a bit janky. But I didn’t mind those, the rest is too good.
If you are a metalhead, definitely pick this game up. Or if you like comedy or unique games. It’s currently only €3 on Steam, and even has a native Linux build.
That game has arguably the best curated playlist ever.
It introduced me to 3 Inches of Blood, along with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and Skate 3.
It also had some good Tenacious D songs (of course), Children of Bodom, Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Saxon, Motorhead…
I loved Brütal Legend when I was a kid. I was obsessed with Psychonauts, so when I found out Double Fine was making a new game I went apeshit and gobbled up every bit of news I could find for it.
I even bought the game before I had a console to play it on.
Edit: and yes, so many Metal greats actually voiced characters in the game. Ozzy, Lemmy, Rob Halford (who plays two characters), Lita Ford…
The Cave is another great Double Fine game. Really fun and can be played couch co-op.