With gaming often bringing me into a really depressive headspace sometimes with how the markets are developing, whats a game you can always go to and just be lost in, or just be happy with?

Personally i would go for advance wars 1 and 2 on the gba (there is no remake and never will be)

the artstyle, the music, the game-play is just simple, yet effective, a sublime experience of very fun times.

Whats yours?

  • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Try not to have an overly rosy retrospection about this. There were plenty of crappy, cash-grabby games in decades past. We just don’t remember them because they were crappy, cash-grabby, and not worth remembering. They hadn’t invented microtransactions yet, but that’s just one more flavor of crappiness.

  • UnderlyingLogic@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Stardew Valley is amazing for this. Minecraft was it for years and years, but Stardew is just like a nice hug. I adore it.

    Hogwarts Legacy has also fallen into this category for me now.

  • Fox@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    It is still Guild Wars 2 for me.

    It is very chill to play and only explore and it also has more challenging content if i feel like it. Best MMO out there. At least for me personally.

    If anyone can show me the way to a guild wars 2 community here i would be grateful btw.

  • _finger_@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Star Wars: Racer - I know every track by heart at this point, have it on my Switch and still play quite a bit. Amazing flow state game.

    Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - absolute classic and the nostalgia I get from playing is unmatched

    Age of Empires 2 - the music is just muah

    KotoR - Best Star Wars game ever made next to Dark Forces 2 and Jedi Outcast

  • strudel6242@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Bloons TD 6. Just so incredibly addicting, and there’s depth to the different monkeys and how they interact, especially when you think about all the upgrades.

  • Buck Fucket@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Anyone of my simulation/management games. Whether it’s running a hospital, creating an auto manufacturing assembly line or helping some brave adventurers find oxygen I’m always more at peace with a single player goal driven experience.

  • Wingy@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Portal. I’ve played through it enough times that I can complete it in a little under 20 minutes. I’m not very good at games but there are a lot of fun and easy tricks to run through it quickly. Playing it a bunch of times is relaxing and fun for me.

  • tiwenty@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    For me that’ll be Stardew Valley. I can just zone out to the really nice music. Also a few years ago I used to have Planetside 2 in that rotation. I was kinda bad but with the MMO aspect, I could always run somewhere for the objectives and have fun. Finally, I like Trackmania to discover new tracks and just chill.

    • alehel@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Stardew Valley actually stressed me 😅. I felt like I was always falling behind. And no one wanted to dance with me at the dance :(.

      • Debaucherella@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I recommend Sun Haven then. There’s no stamina and you can adjust the day to last from 15 mins to 40 mins (although passout time is 12am compared to 2am in SDV) but with the 40 mins per day, I felt a lot less rushed

      • tiwenty@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I can see how it’d do that to someone, I know some people that are in it only to optimize their revenue to squeeze out more golds for instance, and that’d be stressing to me. Personally I don’t care about completing the game, at a given time I just try to fill a few objectives, like getting a spouse and finishing the community center bundles, or reaching the deepest in the mines while upgrading my tools… Just free yourself from that FOMO feeling and you’ll be better off :)

        • alehel@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Gaming is probably the only sphere of my life where I actually experience FOMO. There are several games where I can’t resist trying to do EVERYTHING, only to get burned out and leaving the game before I finish it. If I’d just concentrated on the story, I’d probably have finished in half the time, but instead I walk around trying to achieve everything.

          • tiwenty@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I can understand to an extent, to me it’s appears a lot in open world games such as Skyrim and to a lesser extent Zelda BotW/TotK. Or maybe it’s a hoarding issue hehe ^^’

    • AntifaLockhart@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Lots of love for Stardew. “The Valley Comes Alive” is, for my money, one of the finest pieces of video game music out there.

      • tiwenty@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Exactly! I myself have it on Switch and PC, and I don’t regret buying it twice cause that was damn cheap given it’s (almost) a one man game!

  • hikaru755@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    XCOM 2 on the lowest difficulty. Sacrilege, I know, but there’s just no better feeling than waltzing through some aliens with my whole squad intact at the end while feeling like a tactical genius. And even the weird Chimera Squad is just fun at times for a bit of a changeup.