There are three genres of games that I like. Roguelite-likes, soulslikes, and cozy games. Actually, since coming home from the hospital, I haven’t really played any roguelike. I dipped my toe back into Binding of Isaac: Repentance, but I didn’t enjoy it. That’s a game that I used to play every day for years (Rebirth), but every new iteration has made me play it less and less because it gets harder and harder. And it was plenty hard in the first place.
The soulslike I’m playing right now is, well, Dark Souls. Also Dark Souls III. I just bought Tails of Iron by Odd Bug Studio, which is affectionately known as Rat Souls and is about a rat doing soulslike stuff. But I’m shadowing Ian in Dark Souls and mucking about in the second DLC of DS III, which is enough Souls for me at the moment. Oh! I ventured into Sen’s Fortress in the original game to get the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring so I can do the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring/Hidden Body combo for the rest of the game. That makes me nearly impossible to detect by the enemies until I’m standing right in front of them. In order to get Hidden Body, I had to kill the hydra so I could kill the golden golem so I could free Dusk from said golden golem. Then, I summoned her so I could buy Hidden Body from her. Yeah, it’s that complicated. Once I did it, I realized that I could not be summoned by Ian for the Hydra fight. I messaged him to apologize and he thought it was funny I had just unthinkingly killed the Hydra.
As for DS III, I hate this DLC. It’s so incredibly hard and tedious. I know you could say that about all of the FromSoft games, but they always make their DLCs for the hardcore fanbois. And as a squishy caster, it’s never any fun. I played the third game when it first came out, which is not the way I usually play these games. So I could not consult the Wikis as extensively as to how to do things. I clearly remember finally beating the first boss of the second DLC with the aid of the two NPCs. I wearily trudged to the next area (after going to Firelink Shrine, of course). Bat demons took me to the next area and I sat down at the bonfire. I was embered because that’s what you have to do to summon. Someone immediately invaded me, which meant I had to jump off a cliff in order to deprive the invader of the satisfaction. Before I could do that, however, phantom archers arose and arrowed me into oblivion. I actually cried because I was so frazzled at that point.
The DLC of FromSoft games are always way harder than the actual games. I summoned for three out of five bosses in the Bloodborne DLC because I was so sick of the game at that point. Remember, I play most of the games well after they release and buy the complete editions, which include the DLCs. Most hardcore FromSoft fans love the DLCs, but not me. I don’t play the games for the difficulty and the vanilla games are plenty hard for me. So when I get to the DLCS, even if I’m not playing them continuously from playing the main game, I’m out of fucks to give.
I summoned for all the bosses in the second DLC of the third game. I eventually went back and soloed them all, but I just wanted to get through the content. I didn’t enjoy the second DLC at all and it’s still not a favorite area of mine, even though I can race through it now. I don’t like hard for the sake of being hard and it doesn’t feel like the difficulty serves a purpose in the DLCs. I’m really curious to see how Elden Ring handles difficulty because they seem to have included more ways that you can adjust the difficulty. People were griping beforehand about the summons, but you don’t have to use them. Or the Ashes of War. Or the adorable mount named Torrent. Or the Stakes of Marika that are checkpoints, usually in front of bosses. You don’t have to level up or upgrade your weapons. I’m sure someone will onebro the game, though I’m curious as to how it’ll work in on open world. Same wit no-hitting or no deaths runs. Is it even going to be possible?
How did I end up nattering about Souls again? It’s because I can always talk about Souls.
Back to the topic at hand. Cozy games. I have loved them ever since Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall). But, I don’t love all of them and I’m very picky about which ones I like. Not on purpose; that’s just how it ends up. Like everything else in life for me–I like way less than I don’t like. In this case, the last cozy game I really dug was Cozy Grove by Spry Fox. I played it every day for months because that’s the way it’s supposed to be played–in an hour or so chunk at a time. It plays in real time and there’s really no point to go more than once a day. It’s building up an island and helping spirits with their final requests so they can let go of life.
I’ve played it for more than six months, actually. I started in April. There are different collectibles (environments) for the different seasons and I just have winter to go. It’s a wonderful chill game and I’m impressed by how Spry Fox keeps adding to it. They put in a major update per season, which is really cool. And they’ve added new characters, too. They’ve listened to the complaints and have continued to improve the game.
Another cozy game I absolutely adore is Spiritfarer by Thunder Lotus Games. Huh. Funnily enough, all three of the cozy games I’ve mentioned have serious themes and have all made me cry–and not in frustration from the gameplay, either. Night in the Woods wrecked me emotionally whereas Spiritfarer really touched my heart. Cozy Grove warmed me and continues to make me smile. These are my three favorite cozy games and I’ve tried so many of them.
I bought two recently with very high hopes for both. One is Grow: Song of the Evertree by Prideful Sloth and the other is Chicory: A Colorful Tale by Greg Lobanov and friends. The former looks to be hand-drawn and is colorful and cute. The latter is also colorful in a more deliberate way. Both have very positive reviews on Steam and the latter was raved about by MinnMax, a local games website supported on Patreon.
The former was….how do I say this….not my cup of tea. There was a bunch of text and explanation up front that really put me off. To be fair, I didn’t have to click on each conversation point, but I didn’t want to miss anything, either. The evertree is what sustains everyone (the song of the evertree. Get it?), but then the bad stuff has crept in. Don’t remember the name. It has cut off the song of the evertree and it’s your job to grow a new evertree.
The controls are clumsy and the gameplay is not engaging. I don’t mind doing chores and whatnot, but in the first fifteen minutes of this game, ten minutes were spent with lengthy explanation and five minutes of planting seeds and cutting down things. I mean, I knew this game was a lot of resource management going in, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so heavy right off the bat. Plus, you have to scroll through your tools in an unwieldy manner or at least it’s not well explained.
Honestly, I was just so impatient after the excruciatingly-long intro section, I may be giving it short shrift. And I want to make clear that I don’t mind reading in a video game. But not for ten minutes at the beginning. And probably a lot more in the game. It just didn’t grab me and I quit after planting the tenth seed or so. I may try it again, but it would have to do something dramatically different to pull me in.
The latter…man, I really wanted to like it. I dug the premise (the paintbrush wielder disappears. You, the janitor, pick it up and try to find her) and the main idea of coloring the world for various reasons. I liked that the characters were all animals with food names (I chose Sushi after misunderstanding the question of my favorite food and answering Chinese) and everything is food-related. I made it through the first chapter and enjoyed myself. It’s a perfectly pleasant game. But….there’s that something missing that makes it a must-play. When I reached the end of the first chapter, I was perfectly happy to stop playing. Again, I’ll give it another shot, but I’m not sanguine that it’s the game for me.