Topic: Game Recommendations for a Sister

@gcunit haha, so not attempting to be contrary because when I first tried it I thought it was amazing for low bar reasons. “Oh look I can play as a woman off the bat and marry another woman, oh look I can have a skin color that matches my own!” (Finally having skin color options was why I finally started playing animal crossing). Devs are starting to realize that character creators suck if you can’t create characters that feel familiar. Finally.

But once I got into the game… the world size in comparison to the day length not a good ratio. A good farming sim usually has a world that you can navigate easily enough that you can have a loaded farm and still socialize. Despite finally having a game where I wanted to socialize it was either neglect my farm or talk to villagers. That’s why a lot of sos games slap the farm near the center or make the town the hub the next screen over. Or increase movement/make the day longer. Now I get it, SV is lifting from the first bokumono that had the same issue….but I don’t replay that one either. That snowballs into making the game overwhelming (and I don’t have anxiety issues…not related to money lol) so it shouldn’t feel that way but it does. Souls games don’t make me sweat the way SV does. And I am sure that is old school intentional, but it isn’t fun. Also SV seems to love all the things I don’t like in bokumono (large arse mines…modern games simplify the mines…and if I wanna fight and farm I can play Sakuna or rune factory or harvestella) As a long time bokumono player I just move on to a game that provides that gameplay loop sweet spot instead as SV isn’t the only farming game. Also many of the community center items are hard/annoying to get. All and all the game feels like work. Not a good feeling for a game like this. And now that bokumono or coral island meet my low bar reasons and look better and (to me ) have a better game play loop, I haven’t touched SV in years. Folks complain about olive town but it actually meets my needs for the things I don’t like in SV. It still needs polish but is my second favorite bokumono now.

When you play a lot of games , a game (especially endless games) has to hook you because you have an entire library to move on to. SV after the initial “I have been seen/representation!” Doesn’t cut it for me.

IMO SV is best for lapsed bokumono players. It feels novel as heck if your last farming sim was ages ago.

@Fizza If you are going to get a zelda game I would say Link’s awakening or a NSO sub so she can try the older games. I am the first to bang the current Zelda is amazing drum, but if she never played an open world game then unless she likes to explore/puzzle through games she may bounce off of it. The older games have a smaller world but still imo feel like a fully realized world. If it doesn’t suck I also recommend the new fantasy life for that reason. Even though it looks to be a large game the gameplay philosophy seems to be geared towards bite sized gaming. If she likes fantasy I also recommend Fenyx Rising. While it is open world it feels smaller than BOTW/TOTK but is rooted in mythology. And it’s cheap usually lol.

@Wolfleaf yeah 20 minutes is usually my sweet spot. Most games that are at least that long means I can get the majority of what I want done in a day and still focus on a villager or two. Granted world layout still plays a part in this and SV even with a longer day would still suffer due to its layout imo.