Board 8 > What Game Pass game(s) should I play?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Never played any of these games/series before. These are all games that have piqued my interest at least a bit. There's others not on the poll that I know I'm going to play like Bug Fables, Monster Train and Undertale, but these are ones I'm less sure on and might be a big time sink, so I figured I might as well ask here.

I don't always like Roguelites but I sometimes do, so Morta and Gungeon are possibilities. I like Dead Cells and Necrodancer but I really couldn't get into Spelunky at all, if that helps. Also considering Neon Abyss.

Myst I want to play because of how important its legacy is to gaming, but IDK how well it plays these days. I can get very frustrated with adventure games if they're difficult or obtuse >_>

Pillars of Eternity is supposed to be have a great story I think, but I have never played one of those isometric D&D style RPGs before and I don't know if I'd enjoy playing them. Closest I've gotten is KOTOR I think? Which I did like, but not for its combat.

Psychonauts I just never bothered with but with the sequel getting a ton of hype and both of them on there it's on my radar now. Not sure if the original holds up or if I'm better jumping in to 2.

Yakuza is a series I've never played, and going through all of them is an intimidating time commitment! I've heard 0 is the one that's best to start with, at any rate.

Any thoughts and comments are appreciated!

---

Yakuza is good. You can play 0 and not play anything else if you like - it's an excellent game even as a stand alone. It's my favorite of the ones I've played on there.

Psychonauts's story and characters directly tie into 2 (or some of them do, at least - most of the kids don't show up in 2), but it's definitely a far inferior game, and 2 starts with a decent recap of 1.

I hated Pillars's gameplay when I tried it, but apparently they patched it to have good AI companions? I dunno, might be tolerable now.

I assume Myst holds up decently, because the gameplay is all you using your brain to solve puzzles. But I found it pretty difficult/obtuse when I tried it as a little kid.

Impossible Lair felt like bad DKC to me (I like DKC).
---

Psychonauts 1 likely still holds up and might as well get in on that while it's the hot thing. It's probably preferable to go into 2 with some background anyways.

I would have said Yakuza 0 in a vacuum but it's a much bigger commitment so it's the runner-up. Not even talking about the rabbit hole that is the series, but each individual game is also pretty huge.

---

Psychonauts and Yakuza 0 are definitely the top picks here

---

Yakuza 0 is the best choice you can make among the games listed here. It's probably the most fun I've ever had with a single player game.

---

No "none of the above" option? You still have like 15 Final Fantasies to play!

I always thought Impossible Lair controlled like molasses and while the concept seems cool on paper the execution on the Impossible Lair just kinda sucks.

---

The Impossible Lair hate in this topic is bewildering! That game is incredible. Not Tropical Freeze incredible, but still a must play platformer.

I'm playing Psychonauts for the first time right now myself. It's decent so far. The writing and characters are really good, gameplay is just okay. I'm early though. If things pick up, I can see myself really digging it.

And I need to play Yakuza 0. If it weren't for Hades, that might be my next title. Haven't touched the Yakuza series, so having it all on Game Pass is awesome.

---

Wait, No Mans Sky is Game Pass?

Does it have co op?

---

Thanks for all the feedback! A clear top 2/3 here.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Yakuza is good. You can play 0 and not play anything else if you like - it's an excellent game even as a stand alone. It's my favorite of the ones I've played on there.

Hm that's a good way to look at it, thanks. I'm fine with one big game, but 7 is very daunting!

I do generally like playing things in order, so the Psychonauts love will be enough for me to give the first one a shot if it hasn't aged too badly.

Interesting split on Yooka-Laylee opinions. I adore Tropical Freeze and DKC2 for what it's worth, I didn't know this one was divisive!

MartinFF7 posted...

No "none of the above" option? You still have like 15 Final Fantasies to play!

Look I need breaks! And I usually have two games going at once, I have just started Crystal Bearers!

---

Psychonauts 1 holds up very well because the game was always about the characters, stories, and super out there level design.

Play it and play 2

---

Alternatively, play Psychonauts and we will do a play through together (I have it on steam but still)

---

Psychonauts is extremely timely of course, but Yakuza 0 is a must play.

---

One of these is part of our Game of the Month lineup (Yooka)

---

Just play Yakuza 0 and you can ask this again in two months from now

---

Yakuza 0 for sure. Works as a standalone and it's one of the best games in the series.

StartTheMachine posted...

I'm playing Psychonauts for the first time right now myself. It's decent so far. The writing and characters are really good, gameplay is just okay. I'm early though. If things pick up, I can see myself really digging it.

Okay, after the last segment, this game is great.

---

Well it looks like my next 3 (4) game pass games are sorted! Not sure which I'll do first, probably not Yakuza judging by how long it'll likely take. Thanks for the help!

LiquidOshawott posted...

Wait, No Mans Sky is Game Pass?

Does it have co op?

It has some form of multiplayer, i don't know how it works though.

Arti posted...

Just play Yakuza 0 and you can ask this again in two months from now

Will the answer then not just be the Yakuza after that lol

---

Arti posted...

Just play Yakuza 0 and you can ask this again in two months from now

This is me. I started playing Yakuza 0 about six weeks ago and I'm only about halfway through the story. To be fair, I did stop and do nothing but play minigames and side stuff for something like 50 or 60 hours.

---

Gungeon is a great game to pick up and play in short bursts so you could use it when you need a break from playing a longer game. It's one of my go tos if I'm playing a long game and want a brief palate cleanser to reset my brain.

Monster Sanctuary was fun
I didn't get very far though

---

andylt posted...

Will the answer then not just be the Yakuza after that lol

I don't see a problem

---

StartTheMachine posted...

Okay, after the last segment, this game is great.

Curious what level.

Spoiler tag it if needed.

but yeah it starts off pretty neat but the middle to end of the game levels(minus last level which is awful) are incredible. Still has probably my favorite level/world of gaming ever i am the milkman my milk is delicious

---

Aecioo posted...

Curious what level.

Spoiler tag it if needed.

but yeah it starts off pretty neat but the middle to end of the game levels(minus last level which is awful) are incredible. Still has probably my favorite level/world of gaming ever i am the milkman my milk is delicious

The Goggalor/Godzilla parody level. I said I was early! The underwater boss fight leading up to it was very creative, if a bit long, but Lungfishopolis was great. The news breaks and the criminal resistance revolutionary guys had me dying. The Milkman Conspiracy is certainly interesting too! If I can just figure out how to get this goddamn flower.

I'll wait to uncover that spoiler tag until after I beat the game.

---

Of these, I pick Children of Morta because I feel like its been on GP for awhile and will probably leave soon.

---

I wouldn't worry TOO much about 'having' to play the Yakuza games.

While there is a good deal of continuity for the series such that you want to play them in order, each individual game is otherwise a self contained story. There isn't one giant overarching plot and tons of cliffhangers or anything, its just the character development/relationships that progress from game to game for the most part. You can mostly think of them as like... idk something like the Die Hard movies or something. Self contained stories that feature the same characters that sometimes references past events.

As such, it's very easy to just stop and not play the games and be satisfied with where you are after finishing one. As said, 0 especially is pretty stand alone since it's a prequel. (Though with all that said, I do recommend them all eventually- they're mostly all pretty good to some extent or another)

Anyway, Yakuza 0 gets my vote because it's my favorite of the ones you listed, but really all of those games are quite good. I haven't played them all, but the ones I have played (Y0, Prey, Pillars of Eternity, Psychonauts, Impossible Lair, Enter the Gungeon, and Myst) are all well worth it and I'd recommend any of them.

prey is legit amazing

---

Glad to see (almost) all the games getting some love! I'll def start with the top 3 (probs Psycho first) but will likely make my way around to most of the others. I'm very glad that Y0 functions as a standalone game. But who knows, maybe I'll get sucked in and wind up playing all 7 of them!

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Of these, I pick Children of Morta because I feel like its been on GP for awhile and will probably leave soon.

I can never tell how long games will last on GP. For big third party titles it feels like there's usually a hard 12 month limit, but for smaller indie ones I think it's much more lenient. Not sure though. As Murphiroth says about Gungeon, Morta might be a good one to do in bursts in the middle of a big game like Yakuza.

---

Yeah Yakuza is really easy to start/stop in the middle of the series. I've finished 3 (so four games total) and took a couple breaks to get up until that point. I hear 4 and 5 are some of the longer games in the series, so I'm ramping up to that in terms of willful time commitment after having just completed a different series-focused gaming binge.


---

Hey I'm down to turn this into a Psychonauts discussion topic if you play it too

This game has really, really creative and interesting worlds and characters, but the actual gameplay is like 6/10. This whole playthrough has mostly made me excited for the potential of the sequel to deliver on both fronts. I love these worlds and the concepts of them and want to enjoy actually playing them more.

Fortunately I like collectathons, so funny enough the collectathon aspect is one of my favorite parts.

---

I feel like Psychonauts is best viewed as an adventure game that decided to be a bit more involved than point-and-click rather than a traditional platformer.

---

CasanovaZelos posted...

I feel like Psychonauts is best viewed as an adventure game that decided to be a bit more involved than point-and-click rather than a traditional platformer.

this

neither game has great gameplay, the joy comes mostly from the creative world design and characters

---

CasanovaZelos posted...

I feel like Psychonauts is best viewed as an adventure game that decided to be a bit more involved than point-and-click rather than a traditional platformer.

Oh, absolutely. I haven't played a point-and-click adventure game in so long, and I had that realization the other day.

---

Impossible lair

I do like platformers but describing Psychonauts as an adventure game has me extra intrigued.

Somebody finally voted Pillars of Eternity! And it is fun watching Yakuza and Psycho battle it out for first place lol.

---

andylt posted...

Somebody finally voted Pillars of Eternity! And it is fun watching Yakuza and Psycho battle it out for first place lol.

PoE is fine but not my favorite isometric game, and honestly I was getting a little bored by the third act. PoE 2 is better but I can't imagine playing it without playing the first

---

Played a couple hours of Psychonauts, it seems like my kind of thing so far. I like collectathon platformers so the gameplay doesn't bother me lol.

---

The Milkman Conspiracy was brilliant, easily my fav level so far. Not at all for the platforming, I just loved the vibes. 100% my thing. I wouldn't be surprised if it's either a fan fav or completely hated because of its lack of platforming/backtracking etc, but I was all for it!
If the game keeps up this quality going forward I will be very happy.

(Lone quibble: Invisibility should've worked on the sniper!)

---

The Milkman Conspiracy must be the most popular level, right? It's the one I immediately think of any time I reflect on the game, an all-time great.

It even has its own Wikipedia article?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkman_Conspiracy

---

Oh cool I am glad it's popular! I didn't even think how the gravity stuff was probs really innovative at the time.

---

OK, Psychonauts beat! Good game, thanks for the rec everyone. Lots of great stuff but clear areas to improve upon, so I'm excited to see the sequel. My hopes are they'll improve the pacing (seriously like 40% of this game is tutorials!), the platforming, and ideally the ending won't be so... weird. I also look forward to seeing the mental health themes expanded on, with 15 years more growth there's a lot they could do to flesh it out!

The last level was indeed not great. In addition to the focus on the subpar platforming, who the heck thought it was a good idea to centre an entire level's aesthetic on meat! They don't even do anything fun with it, it's just giant hunks of meat floating around and everything looks all red and gross. In general I felt like they rushed the ending hour or two, the stuff with Raz's dad doesn't get any time to breathe and they wrap up the asylum too fast. The game felt like it needed another level at the top of that area, either from Loboto or the turtle or the woman idk but it needed something else. Also the trip up there was not very fun lol.

I'm complaining too much but I really liked this game a lot! The vibes were great and it's easy to see how a sequel could clean up the rough areas. Just trim the fat and add more m-... add more substance.

Milkman Conspiracy > Black Velvetopia > Waterloo World > Lungfishopolis > Gloria's Theater > Meat Circus. The rest are pretty much tutorials and I'd have a hard time ranking them.

---

Psychonauts 1 had a notoriously rushed ending which shows. Meat Circus is an awful ending.

The sequel is better in pretty much every way

---

Good, I've started looking at stuff online and yeah I see that Meat Circus is widely disliked! And apparently it used to be much more difficult, yikes.

---

Fittingly this video was in my recommended section this evening!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWjnOUfVHDU

He's a bit more effusive about the game than I am but it's still an enjoyable vid. The stretch from Lungfish to Velvetopia really is super great (though I felt Gloria's Theater didn't reach its potential, great premise but it didn't feel as fun to play as the others imo).

---

Hmmm, I liked Meat Circuis decently well. I'm a weirdo. I'd certainly put it above Gloria's Theater. Also Black Velvetopia > The Milkman Conspiracy.

More importantly, I really did end up enjoying Psychonauts quite a bit. Tomorrow is my last day on vacation and I'll probably boot up the sequel pretty quickly after I get home. Hype!

---

Sequel is great and improves on the first in basically every way but the comedy. First is still more charming/funny

---

I hadn't realised my Game Pass runs out in a couple days, so I picked a short game next that I could finish before it runs out (I'll get it again in a couple weeks or wtv for Yakuza, P2 and the rest).

I played Myst, and was surprised at how well it holds up. I was expecting nightmarish puzzles that would have me tearing my hair out, but there's nothing too bad. I did need to take notes though! The atmosphere is great, I like how they use music, and the way of telling story is for the most part really cool. It's not hard to see why this became such a sensation, or how it inspired so much that has come afterwards. I was a little let down by the ending though, it's so clearly a sequel hook and they take the simplest possible conclusion for the brothers+father story. They lean into the worse parts of the storytelling there too, I much preferred quietly roaming around the ages discovering the world and piecing things together myself over all the expository dialogue.

Overall I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, moreso than many adventure games that have released in the years since! FWIW the version on Game Pass is (I think) the VR remake just altered for consoles, so it's free roam instead of point and click, and maybe it improved things over the original that I'm not aware of. I believe the puzzles are all the same though so I don't think I missed out on anything, if anything it was just easier to move around.

---