Cassette beasts is a great pokemon like with some fun twists and great sounds track

Let's go with some good non-AAA games that were not sequels and never got one either.

Single player:

• Baba is you
• Brothers
• Mark of the Ninja
• SUPERHOT
• Vanquish

Better in co-op:

• Astroneer
• Deep Rock Galactic
• Nine Parchments
• Outward
• Renegade Ops

Thumper is the best rhythm game I've ever played, and it was made by two ex-harmonix employees who were disappointed by the direction of rock band and similar titles. It throws away all the wish fulfillment and commercial stuff and the result is amazing.

I've been thinking a lot about this for the past few years, and have noticed a trend in what games I've found to be actually good.

I noticed three very specific commonalities, and all of them have at least two:

• Foreign (Non-American)
• Indie
• Small studio

Basically all of the good games that I've liked in the past ten years have been at least two of these, and I'm sure if you think about it, the great games you've played have also been this way.

Stop buying big US studio games, their shareholders all require them to maximize their income with really anti-comsumer and predatory designs and practices. You won't have fun, and it'll be expensive.

Go play EDF5 with some friends. It's jank but super fun. 6 is being translated and ported to PC soon.

Raft is great, too.

Talos Principle was fantastic, if not a little melancholy.

And weirdly, Minecraft Java is still good fun. Go check out some of the mod packs like All Of Fabric 6. Host a local server, port forward, play with friends. Literally world-class, free content made by grassroots, passionate developers who do it because they love it.

Valheim was great years ago, and while their development cycle is slow, it's been solid.

But seriously. When somebody refers or suggests a game to you, the first thing you should look at are how they make money, because that is ABSOLUTELY where the industry is at, and has been for a decade now. We used to have centralized talking heads like Total Biscuit who would bring up topics and discussions trying to keep these studios and publishers in their place, but he got taken out too early and now the community is ultra fragmented with no central integrous authority to reference and publishers and studios are out of control with nobody to answer to except investors.

It's like the loss of a union, except it's industry wide.

There are gems out there, but you gotta get past the advertising and learn to smell the bullshit business practices. They don't have to be standard, but remember that gaming has only turned into gambling and Gaming-as-a-Service (GaaS) because credit cards got involved post-purchase as a source of revenue.

Sure, good things come from it, but the trade-offs are entirely insidious and clearly motivating for standardized enshittification. We adults made our own graves by accepting and spending. Sure, even if the money isn't that big of a deal and the content you get might be good, you're voting with your wallet and training a soulless system.

It's ABSOLUTELY a mirror world, just like the media - if you consume, there will be more. Stop buying shit games like Diablo 4. Blizzard can take the hit unfortunately, and if those business practices stopped making as much return as they did, they wouldn't be supportable.

Sure, initial prices would go up, but at least the games wouldn't be ruined with money shops, proprietary currencies, battle passes, and all the other ultra predatory shit that makes them money that ruin gaming.

Reward creators and studios that stick their necks out to make something purely fun, despite their CFO compromising and forcing their developers to implement these practices because otherwise they'd: "be leaving money on the table, and we are a business, after all."

But remember:

• Foreign
• Indie
• Small Studio

These are demographics that are typically more resistant and empowered to make FUN games.

For anyone that likes horror, I can’t recommend Red Candle Games enough.

Detention takes place during the White Terror in Taiwan in the 1960s, and is about a student trying to get out of the school after a typhoon, but it turns into something so much darker and sadder as the story unfolds.

Devotion is probably the best PT-esque horror game out there, taking place in a Taiwanese apartment during three different years in the 80s, and is about a script writer trying to create his “perfect future” while he’s trying to figure out what happened to his young daughter. It is one of, if not the, best domestic horror I’ve ever played. And anyone against censorship should definitely get it, because the game was pulled from Steam because of an art asset that got left in by accident that called Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh, and then GoG said THEY would sell it, but it seems CD Projekt worried China might retaliate and not allow CP2077 to be released in China and backed out a day or two after they said they would carry it (they claimed it was because of “gamer response,” but refused to respond to anyone asking for more details).

Detention, you can get anywhere - it’s even on iOS and Android along with PC, PS Store, and Switch, but Devotion, you can only get from Red Candle’s website, and it is more than worth the $17 bucks: https://shop.redcandlegames.com/

Although it looks like you're mainly focusing on single player games, Titanfall 2 is a great alternative to Call of Duty. Its movement is insane, it's fanbase isn't toxic and it's actually fun.

Do you have steam? Click on a tag (preferably a more descriptive one, but multiple can be selected on the next screen) of a game you enjoy, but think the soul has been lost from, sort by user review, find something you haven't heard of before, enjoy the next entry in your preferred genre!

Alternatively go to the games store screen, at the bottom, after "more from this developer" is "users who enjoyed this game also enjoy"

Steam makes it very easy to expand your library, like it's their business or something.

Edit to add Missing the point of let's get some community involvement in here rather than turning to our benevolent monopolistic overlords.

~~Crack~~Factorio

Management games like Software INC, Startup Company, Big Ambitions, Sim Airport and SimCasino.

if you enjoyed diablo 2,grim dawn feels like a spiritual successor to that game specifically, whereas d3 didn't really.

Outer wilds, tunic, a short hike, fez,

Unless it's something that you are a super uber fan, avoid buying a game before it comes out.

It saves a lot of heartaches and headaches.

Plus, in today's world... why pre order? It's not like a game will run out of copies...

If you want something that feels like Pokémon but was created by someone who isn't just trying to shit out a new game every year, check out Casette Beasts!

I haven't played the beta yet but I'm hoping that The Finals, which is made by ex-Dice devs, will be a good alternative to Battlefield and COD. I just miss destructible environments so badly. Bad Company 2 was so so good back in the day.

I guess I may suggest my all time favourite RPG. It's Disco Elysium. A brilliantly written and crafted gem. You will find an amazing storyline, crazy dialogues and choices, psychedelic visuals. Such a gem must not be forgotten. What a pity the company almost dissolved after the release and the original authors won't have a part in the sequel.

I feel like the Sonic franchise's last great game was Adventure 2. There've been a couple good ones since then, but not great.

Anyone got a good replacement?

Chrono Trigger

The best game of all time, period.

If you like smash brothers, rivals of aether is really fun and has support for steam workshop.

The answer to your question is the indie market. Lots of unique ideas, ton of games that are a product of passion and not profit chasing.

My personal recommendation because I don't see it mentioned a lot is Pathologic 2. Product of decades of work and one of my favorite RPGs where every single choice you make does matter. It's a pretty bleak and heavy game that has about a 30 hour runtime and it's really stressful so it's not for everyone but I personally loved it.

My previous comment seemed to miss the point of this thread.

In the spirit of this thread I would love to find an alternative to "Settlers 7, a new kingdom". The simplified combat, the urgency of the tech tree, the all or nothing of trade routes, and the really deep 4x in an RTS elements were friggin amazing, but Ubisoft drm really kept me away from trying any other entries to the series, and they haven't indicated anything new coming out. So where can I guy go to get his settlers fix? If you haven't played settlers 7, and are ignorant of why ubisoft is synonymous with the devil, give it a shot, it's a wonderfully fun experience that I haven't found replicated anywhere else.

Any game from Supergiant I would recommend in a heart beat.

Stop playing AAA games!

For ARPGs if you feel burnt by Diablo IV, I can recommend Path of Exile. Arguably the king of the genre today.

Others mentioned Grim Dawn, which has a bit slower gameplay, but a good choice nonetheless.

If you're looking for indie ARPG, then there's Chronicon. Nice little game that I really want to go back to again.

If you want to play animal crossing, but only have a PC: try Dinkum. Same gameplay loop, but with a few minor twists and turns. And the setting is Australia. Hence you ride your mu around town, shearing the wool of your pleeps and milking your vombats. Ofcourse you need to defend them from crocos and fire spitting bush devils. But anything you kill can be thrown on the BBQ. And to get rich, you start a fairy bread empire. Exporting millions worth of sugary goodness.

Path of exile is a arpg made by a small studio

Pretty random list off the top of my head:

Hyperlight Drifter, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Ruiner, Grim Dawn, Rime

geometry dash

what are other good monster collecting games

Maybe I am just getting old but I've started to spend a lot more time with older games and titles that may be rough around the edges but have some unique ideas and actually take some risks with their game mechanics.

One of these games is Outward which has a lot of walking (quick travel is almost non existent) and serviceable combat system that leaves a lot to be desired. However both of these do give the game some flavor that is missing from many modern games now combine this with interesting "death" mechanic where instead of respawning you're thrown in to random scenarios related to the area where you died. Another mechanic is backpack which you'll need to carry any meaningful amount of items and which will limit your movement in battle if you do not drop it with all your items. The way palyer needs to sacrifice health to receive mana is also interesting and how different each mastery tree is is also nice. I do have to admit that I'd like the game a lot more without time limits on quests as they stress really me out.

Another one is Incredible adventures of Van Helsing which is diablo-style ARPG that doesn't take itself too seriously. It took me awhile to understand the games mechanics which lead to bad time initially but once I understood the power-up system, focus on flat elemental damage bonuses instead of percentage based ones and how silly some skills where with power-up the game got me hooked. The dialogue and story is also pretty good for ARPG and fully voice acted.

Third one is Wurm: Unlimited which is basically special version of MMORPG Wurm: Online where players can host their own servers with their own tweaks and mods. While Wurm Online is substriction based mmorpg with very very slow progression most Wurm Unlimited servers are free to play and have quadruple experience modifiers making the game a lot more enjoyable. The game is basically medival fantasy sandbox where players can terraform the world, build all sorts of structures, hunt, farm and even do pvp on pvp servers. While a lot of the game is just pressing buttons and waiting for action timers to pass there's a lot of depth in the game and it can get suprisingly immersive. I do however recommend joining to one of the long lasting servers like Sklotopolis instead of playing the game solo on self-hosted server as the experience is a lot better with small community even if you prefer to do things solo as the world will feel a lot more interactive and a lot less empty.

I've been enjoying peglin quite a bit.

Due process is a fun alternative to rainbow six siege. Unlike siege you actually have to coordinate and play tactically but unfortunately it’s pretty much dead at this point.