Just replay: all the epic 80 hour RPGs I no longer have time for as an adult. I bought the Final Fantasy Pixel remaster collection, got a bit through FF 1, and decided I just didn’t have time. Haven’t actually played through them for the first time, but I got both Divinity Original Sin and Baldur’s Gate 3 and also only scratched the surface. I haven’t even left the intro dungeon in BG3.
Play again for the first time: Any game where discovering the mechanics is the game. Minecraft was the first such experience for me, though the discovery aspect I believe is somewhat unintentional. Mojang just didn’t bother including a proper guide or tutorials, so trial and error and/or wiki walking are the norm for new players. I bought the game when it was in beta, back when the player base was made of mostly adults with the means to give a random Swedish guy $20 via PayPal, and I miss the (very relatively) smaller community.
As for games where this self-discovery gameplay loop is intentional, definitely Tunic. I bought the game thinking it was a Zelda clone that could serve as a light-hearted palate cleanser after the bleakness of Hollow Knight and Eldin Ring. Oh, boy was I very, very wrong. I got so obsessed with trying to decipher the in-game writing system that it was effecting my sleep and I had to delete the game for a while. I ended up cheating to get all the manual pages and the good ending, but I replayed it earlier this year via Game Pass and tried to do it again without looking things up. It’s not the same as going in blind even three years later but I did manage to get all the pages and solve the related puzzle without a guide, as well as crack the writing system.
Just replay: all the epic 80 hour RPGs I no longer have time for as an adult. I bought the Final Fantasy Pixel remaster collection, got a bit through FF 1, and decided I just didn’t have time. Haven’t actually played through them for the first time, but I got both Divinity Original Sin and Baldur’s Gate 3 and also only scratched the surface. I haven’t even left the intro dungeon in BG3.
Play again for the first time: Any game where discovering the mechanics is the game. Minecraft was the first such experience for me, though the discovery aspect I believe is somewhat unintentional. Mojang just didn’t bother including a proper guide or tutorials, so trial and error and/or wiki walking are the norm for new players. I bought the game when it was in beta, back when the player base was made of mostly adults with the means to give a random Swedish guy $20 via PayPal, and I miss the (very relatively) smaller community.
As for games where this self-discovery gameplay loop is intentional, definitely Tunic. I bought the game thinking it was a Zelda clone that could serve as a light-hearted palate cleanser after the bleakness of Hollow Knight and Eldin Ring. Oh, boy was I very, very wrong. I got so obsessed with trying to decipher the in-game writing system that it was effecting my sleep and I had to delete the game for a while. I ended up cheating to get all the manual pages and the good ending, but I replayed it earlier this year via Game Pass and tried to do it again without looking things up. It’s not the same as going in blind even three years later but I did manage to get all the pages and solve the related puzzle without a guide, as well as crack the writing system.