Asklemmy

Hmm.

• Usually open world. I like occasional other types, but a world with an explorable world map is more likely to keep my attention.
• Has to at least start more green than city. Cityscapes/Sci-fi settings bore me visually. This applies to real life too.
• Bright. If I need to play at night with lights off to see where the heck I’m going, I don’t like it.
• Usually some creature in the world to catch my interest. Like (inklings/octolings/salmonids in Splatoon).
• A good story is nice but not at all needed. I like environmental storytelling and aimless wandering.
• No “game complete”. I want to keep my save file forever.

Not hard rules of course, I have exceptions.

Like Metroid sounds perfect for me in some ways, but because it’s so dim and sci-fi, I can’t stay interested. Splatoon has amazingly dark lore that’s only visible past it’s bright happy exterior that I LOVE. Stardew Valley/Minecraft/Animal Crossing are in my alley.

As a fan of FPS games, I prefer games which have a very high amount of depth and complexity either in terms of movement or shooting. That's the reason why I'm not a fan of arcade shooters like COD or Halo.

Mod support is also a decisive factor for me.

i'd say i choose the almost all games i play based off of one or more of these questions:

• is there automation in the game? (i.e factorio)
• is the game largely mechanics-driven?
• how much room is there for skill expression?
• does the speedrun look fun?

other than those, i pretty much only play co-op party games with friends and ~1 rpg every couple years. right now i'm playing fortune's run, an imm sim i've been looking forward to since the last steam next fest - very fun so far.

Hey OP based on your description, I think you'd love Kena, Bridge of Spirits. It's very colorful and cutesy with Pixar style graphics and dark souls style combat and difficulty (it's seriously tough as nails in some parts).

I like eye candy 😏🍺

I also like defeating a Big Eldrich Bad, and a touch of exploration and discovery. Controls can be complex but they have to be intuitive and not rely on real-time battle, or just be manageable.

My favorite games ever are the Final Fantasy series, esp. VII. Also liked Legacy of Kain, Castlevania I and II, and the earliest Tomb Raider games.

Loved Lord of the Rings Online, Aion, exploring in WoW but my bandwidth won't support MMOs anymore.

makes sense, Nintendo makes consistently fantastic games. even their less than good ones are often times better than most other companies. I cannot describe my process for picking games other than watching gameplay videos and seeing if it looks fun to me.

I try every series at least once, usually by getting them from a local library. If it sticks, I stick with it.

Good story, good graphics, good audio, has to run at 60fps with a decent resolution on PS5.