Tired of Playing the Same Game Over & Over Again? Try These Underplayed Games Instead - Article
by Craig Snow , posted on 28 September 2021 / 5,337 Views
The following is a guest editorial.
Playing video games is one of the best ways for people to escape reality and relax a little bit. This is especially true today, when we live in such uncertain and unusual times. However, playing the same video games over and over again, no matter how good they are, can become a bit exhausting. If you're looking to mix things up a little bit then check out these underplayed gems from 2021. STS betting might also have what you need.
Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PC, PS4, PS4)
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is one of those games that leaves you smiling after you finish playing, so if you're looking for something more cheerful for a change then this is a great option. The gameplay is pretty simple, yet also inventive, and the story is incredibly cute.
You play as an adorable anthropomorphic dog who has a very strange but important mission - to restore color to a colorless world. After a challenging and gloomy year and a half for most people, this game is just what the doctor ordered. It includes a lot of fun quests and interesting characters, but the main selling point of Chicory: A Colorful Tale is its creative painting mechanic.
Chicory is actually one of the most acclaimed titles of the year so far, even though it flew in under the radar, and the critics were absolutely smitten with it.
Everhood (PC, NS)
A favourite of our own Issa Maki, who gave it an 8.5, Everhood is another incredibly inventive indie offering that mixes and matches genres while telling a deceptively engaging storyline.
Everhood features an art style inspired by the classics, as well as more modern imitators like Undertale. And it mixes a number of different genres together, most notably the music & rhythm genre with the RPG one.
"This level of quality, love, and genuine dedication is the exact thing that the gaming industry should be supporting."
Guilty Gear -Strive- (PC, PS4, PS5)
Another review staff favourite, Guilty Gear -Strive- is the latest entry in the acclaimed Japanese fighting game series Guilty Gear, from renowned fighting game experts Arc System Works. While Japanese fighters can often seem intimidating and complex from the outside, -Strive- takes great steps to make this particular series more approachable to series newcomers, trimming down some of its complexity.
That's not done at the expense of the core gameplay, however, and as our own Lee Mehr put it, -Strive- is "mechanically rewarding, visually sumptuous, & aurally satisfying to an insane degree; plus it's supported by one of the sturdiest online systems I've seen for a fighter."
Wildermyth (PC)
Switching gears to the strategy genre, Wildermyth is a tactical RPG inspired by tabletop classics. You're tasked with leading a band of heroes as they grow from reluctant farmers into unique and legendary fighters, combating unexpected threats and strange monsters across interactive battlefields.
It mixes excellent story-telling with procedural generation, making for a highly replayable title that also has a lot of heart and soul. It also means the decisions you make in gameplay are truly impactful. If you like strategy games or tabletop RPGs then this one is for you.
Cozy Grove (PC, PS4, Xbox, NS)
Let’s end on a delightful note, shall we? If you've ever played games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing then you should definitely like this life-sim game about camping on a haunted island. Cozy Grove operates in real-time, which means its features and beautifully hand-drawn landscape both change as the day turns to night, much like in Don’t Starve.
While the game invites you to check in each day, it doesn’t put pressure on you to do so like other games of this nature. Your objective is to help the spirits on the titular island with various tasks, while getting to know and care about them. But above all it's a very charming and relaxing adventure.
So there we have it, five of the year's best 'under-the-radar' games, to help freshen your gaming palette and perhaps expand your gaming horizons.
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I don't get it how people have time to play games over and over again, I still have to finish GTA5, red dead 2, Assassins creed odyssey, origins, and many many more. I still haven't finish even short games such as ratchet and clank, I still have a pile on switch to also finish, there's just far too many big games and no free time, as I'm working 80-90 hours per week at the moment.
a lot of people not working these days!
Why? Here where I live we need a lot of workers urgently, some businesses are closing down due to lack of staff. In this hotel we are working at less than 50% staff, hence why we are doing 90 hour weeks.
But even before when I had a 45 hour week, there was still too many games to finish, games such as witcher 3, assassins creed, monster hunter rise take around 100 hours each, I have got at least 30 such games to finish. And many more to come, by the looks of it, Returnal and zelda skyward sword will keep me busy until the end of the year. Then next year will try to finish assassins creed, far cry 6, GTA5 ps5 remaster, pokemon arceus, bioshock infinite, Demon souls, Ratchet and clank. GT7, Yakuza collection (I just started from the first, this series will take me months), also looking forward to age of empires 4. Also need to restart red dead redemption 2, I played around 10 hours a long time ago, cant remember much now. Still need to get ghosts of tsushima, also bought recently days gone which I was loving just played 2 hours. Just bought on store also Hades and Metro exodus, and I have many more on my pile that I cant even remember. Want to get the mass effect trilogy collection too.
It will take me years for these games alone, and by then there will be way more games coming.
nailed it!
Chicory is a wonderful game and a big step forward from a talented dev.
I've deleted my comments. Thanks for listening to the suggestion.
No problem - you didn't need to delete the comment tho!
sorry...just didn't want to clog up the conversation with what amounts to housekeeping. I see now, though that it doesn't do anything other than making the rest of the conversation not make much sense. Anyway, great article. I love the little weird games. Right now I don't want to get heavy into anything since Metroid Dread is right around the corner and these types of games are great to pass away some leisure days and nights until the main course arrives.
I’m glad you made the suggestion as I’d have made the same mistake - despite being on this site for like a decade or more.
The games are listed by platform down the right side of the screen, under the 'Related Games' header.
On mobile?
I'm not sure how it works on mobile - I always browse VGC on PC.
Aha…now I see where. I still stand by my statement. It would be so easy to just include what platforms each are available for in each of the blurbs rather than having people have an Easter egg hunt to find out if they can play the game on their system. Even the links to each game aren’t in order so you have to scan up and down to make sure you didn’t miss the platform.
I've added them to the headers now.
I got to a PC and see what you mean. Yeah, not available on Mobile…and messy on the desktop. Would have been cool just to include the info in each of the blurbs. Would solve both issues.
How is that chicory game not on Switch? Looks interesting and like a good fit.
