undertale and deltarune. i kinda always dismissed those games as youtuber fandom shit, if that makes sense… stuff made to appeal to fandoms who love to pull nonsense out of their asses to make the games deeper than they really are. game theory bait. and i’ve heard so many horrors about the utdr fandom, it made me want to steer clear of the games. and i figured, since i already got spoiled a ton of stuff from undertale through cultural osmosis, what would be the point of playing it?

but they still interested me somewhat, since i heard from more people that they were actually really good… and i got spoiled one more thing i didn’t know, and i figured if i want to play these games someday, i have to do it now so my enjoyment of them isn’t ruined more by just existing on the internet

so i did! i played undertale twice in a row (i didn’t do everything needed to get the pacifist ending the first time), and the first 2 chapters of deltarune right after that (only those were released then). and oh my, i’m glad i did because these are some of my favourite games now. tho i still think I would’ve enjoyed undertale so much more if i hadn’t been spoiled a bunch about it…

don’t judge games by their fandoms. things are often popular for a reason, and fans of something often lack the creative experience of the original creators (which is not to say that there isn’t good utdr fan content, there is, a ton! but there’s also a lot of crap)

i still dislike the gaster theorists tho

Nine Sols was amazing!

I played it after I finished Silksong when I just didn't get over the difficult but fair 2D itch yet.

I'm glad I played it, the story, the gameplay, level design, and the music were all great.

And I really loved the Tao + Cyberpunk + Cat people lore and setting, it was really creative.

Outer Wilds. Took a lot of time to start and then a lot a time to actually click. Now it is one of my all time favorites.

Recently it was Balatro that I played for the first time 2 months ago.

Baldurs Gate 3. Seemed expensive, complicated, and not my type of game at the time.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I only recently played Portal 2 & 1 (in that order lol). Really enjoyed them, I totally see why they're considered a classic!

I just made it to Act 2 of Baldurs Gate 3. I'm obsessed.

Persona 5.

Wasn’t the biggest fan of RPGs but 5 is as easy as Chrono Trigger, with a cozy life sim and anime stapled ontop. A fun ride if you enjoy any of these. Though drop the difficulty to easy if you aren’t the biggest fan of RPGs

Dark souls. I tried it a few times and dismissed. I returned to DS2 when DS3, at the request of a fanboi friend.

Accepting defeat, dusting myself off and surpassing all odds changed my mentality and patience with gaming forever.

Fuck me big bad boss? No, fuck you

GTA San Andreas. I still have a dent in my forehead from that case.

Pacific Drive

It was hitting my suggested sections for almost two years, all my game searches, tags, and algorithms. I brushed it off as some wandery nothing indie game.

It came out in 2024, but then this year 2026 a few months ago, I finally decided to give it a ahot and it was NOTHING like I thought it was. Also, a lot more blatantly queer first and deeply queercoded, which is an extremely refreshing change.

I'd been playing games like snowrunner and expeditions, and waiting for the steam frame to come out to play a bunch of vr games, so a cozy horror survival driving game that feels kinda like gta meets raft meets forza or snowrunner or something was not in my expectations.

It's technically a roguelite extraction survival crafting story adventure rpg, kind of. Horror-lite, fantastic fresh soundtrack, based in an alternate timeline 1990s USA Washington State Olympic peninsula. It's done quite well and I don't want to finish it, though I'm close. It has some mods through Nexus mods, but most are primarily to make things easier balance-wise. No workshop support, doesn't run great on steam deck but does run okay if you turn the graphics down all the way. Has probably the best dualsense controller integration I've played in a game, though, I generally don't play many that have native support for dualsense features because they all look boring to me.

Anyway, if you like Washington State, driving, crafting, music, and you're gay, give it a try. It's only single player, though, and expect to put 40-60 hours in it. I've got about 90 so far without the expansion and am avoiding finishing it because I like it. Most of the bad reviews are from two camps: homophobes and people who this niche game doesn't quite fit. But if what I've described to you sounds attractive, seriously give it a try. It goes on sale for about ten bucks USD. You don't need any dlc, there are a few skin packs that give you infinite usage uniques, the soundtrack, and an actual expansion that seems like a totally separate gamemode that I plan on playing after I beat the story.

I do strongly suggest using a dualsense controller if you have one.

Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. It was on my wishlist for awhile, but some of the negative reviews had me thinking it wasn't something I would enjoy. Then I kept seeing comments that it was a good game to play if you like Skyrim. I disagree with that, it's not so much Skyrim vibes than as if Oblivion and Elden Ring had a baby that was into weird creepy shit and obsessed with the Knights of the Round table.

It's cool AF and I was absolutely obsessed from the very beginning. I am glad I waited a bit to play it because there's 3rd person mode now and I don't think it initially shipped with 3rd person mode. I get insanely sick playing a lot of 1st person games. Some games I'm fine with and other games I'm puking my guts out and going to bed within 15 minutes of booting up the game, so having 3rd person mode (even if it's officially unsupported and a little glitchy) means I can play for hours and actually enjoy the game.

Undertale/deltarune. I played a demo for one of them (I forget which) and I found it too handholdy with not enough happening. Of course the games get a lot more fun after the tutorial section, but for me at the time it just felt too dragged out, so I didn't properly play them until a few years later

Not recently but Sleeping Dog. Always looks to me as cheap gta clone but wow this is the hk police drama that the game industry lack. The driving is more arcade-y which is fun.

Bloodborne

For years I had it in my library, I would restart it every couple of months and give before the first boss. Then one day I decided “fuck it, I’ll do it”. After 2 miserable weeks I finally got to Vicar Amelia and got hooked like I had never been

Persona 5 Royal. And with it the entire Persona series. This shit is amazing.

Mass Effect Andromeda. It's fun as hell and I'm so glad I didn't listen to those who had nothing but bad things to say about it.

its unpolished, sure. but unpolished diamonds are still diamonds. the characters are wonderful, the planets are amazing, the combattttt oh my goodness. and some of the choices are quite interesting.

currently on my... 6th? 7th playthrough? and I love it so much I'm planning personal challenge runs for future plays. it's my favorite mass effect to reach for now when I have the mass effect itch.

From Software Souls-like games.

In fact, I’m still technically sleeping on them as I don’t know where to start. Assuming I can only play on a PS3 or Steam Deck - where would be the best jumping in point?

I just picked up titanfall and binding of isaac for peanuts in the last steam sale and I am having a ball!

Stellar Blade. Only just played it a few months ago.

I thought it was just a gooner slop imitation game but a friend recommended it and let me use his steam family share to play it. It's actually a legitimate action game that's pretty damn fun with a good story too. I'm actually excited for the sequel.

Kingdom come: Deliverance.

I'm pretty far into my first playthrough. I had barely even heard of this game, but once I got past the initial frustration of realizing that I'm just a blacksmith's son, I'm having a blast!

I wasn't sure how a lack of fantasy (monsters/magic) would turn out, but I don't miss it at all.

A couple years ago, i found a video about a rhythm game with a cool story named vivid/stasis. Since i was curious about the story and it was free, i added it to my steam library

It took me a while to actually start playing game and its amazing

Hollow knight.

I had a bunch of soulslike phases but hollow knight I couldn't get into because "there is not even dodging mechanic"

Then the mantis lords fight made the game kinda "click" and I did find "dash" ability too so it was fun.

Then it kept becoming more fun through the story. Pretty much only soulslike I got into the lore of.

Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995).

I had it growing up as a kid, but could never beat the third level so I shelved it and forgot about it, until a few days ago when I decided to try it with The Force Engine which adds mouselook and some quality of life features.

As an adult, I finally was able to figure out that 3rd level, and appreciate the cool setup for the missions (in a way, it's kinda like Andor).

Was absolutely blown away by how much I enjoyed the combat and level design, had an absolute blast from start to finish, and now consider it one of my favorites.

Several years ago now I played witcher 3. It was released in 2015. I enjoyed this game way more than I thought I would and couldn't believe I slept on it for 7 years or so before finally playing it

Breath of the wild actually.

I had been massively burned by empty and dull mission based open world games. Also I'm not the biggest Zelda fan, it's very hit or miss for me.

So I got in (very) late, at the switch release (owned wii-u too) and was massively enjoying the game. Everything there was something to see and to do.

I also hesitated on tears of the kingdom and yeah... It's not for me.

I have fell asleep playing Civilization a few times :) Just...one...more...turn.

It semi-counts, but I'd also add Space Station 14 to the mix. Semi, because 14 is prety recent, but it is a modernized mostly 1:1 rewrite of Space Station 13, which is the game that I'd consider myself sleeping on.

It's my current obsession, that game is just so much fun. A disaster simulator where you throw 100 people into a ~2 hour long shift on a space station, and ask them to keep it afloat. From people doing engineeirng, atmospherics, science, medical, security, cargo and command, janitor, barkeep, etc. It's a great roleplaying experience.

The core design is that most of what you can do can fail spectaculary. Engineering powers the station with a contained black hole or a ball of tesla, better hope they keep the containment maintaned. Science is doing research on artifacts by doing randomly chosen stuff (touch, spill something on it, look at it, etc), which has a random associated effect from "create a monkey", "get radiactive", to "a thermonuclear explosion". Better hope they did scan the artifact before they touched it.

And to add to that, you also have a lot of different antagonist roles you can randomly get, from a blood cult that kidnaps and converts people to spill enough blood to summon their diety, through thiefs, terrorists that want to arm the nuke and destroy the station, to changelings or sleeper agents that are tasked with killing specific crew.

It's loads of fun, and the community is amazing, especially on medium RP server.

Didn't play The Last of Us until a few months before Part 2 came out. I went into them pretty much blind, and I'm really glad I got to experience them like that. Real masterpieces these games.

Songs of Conquest. Had a weird relationship with it at first, almost like I wanted to dislike it, not sure why. I would think "this is so plainly gamified, the map is cartoonish in its resource implementation, the building feels constrictive..."

That said I've kept coming back to it. Something about the high fidelity pixel art, the clarity of its gameplay, the choices it forces, all of it started to really hook me. Even the combat, which first came off to me as insanely swingy, now just feels much more intensely tactical. Sure there are ways to abuse it, but all in all, even the AI is pretty decent (though the autoresolve logic is complete trash).

With the community mods and honestly solid gameplay even with the base factions, I have to say I really recommend it at least for a try to everyone.

I don't really have fomo with games. Im fine playing them later as long as I enjoy them. I only have so much game playing time so im rarely playing something I don't enjoy.

Based on what you've described that you liked about Nine Sols, you should check out Sekiro.

Best game I have ever played in my life. My only complaint is that it has made other games less enjoyable by comparison.

Doki Doki Literature Club
I didn't know it was free to play, so I ended up spoiling myself on the plot before finally playing it.
Still got caught off guard.