Recommend a PS4 game that I can actually play

The Game Room
1

I have WWF Super Wrestlemania for SNES.

It is the slowest, clunkiest 16-bit game I’ve seen in my life. The controls have the responsiveness of a garbage truck in -20 degree weather. There are 10 wrestlers, all with the exact same abilities and something like six moves apiece. The options are single, tag team, and Survivor Series (a 4-a-side elimination tag team). That’s it.

It is an absolute joke. It is a complete ripoff at any price. It’s almost as if someone made a joke game to slam the WWF.

And I have been playing it religiously for several weeks.

What I’m shooting for is winning Survivor Series with every possible team. I made a spreadsheet listing every possible 4-man combination in order. First every team with Randy Savage, then every team with Jake Roberts that doesn’t have Randy Savage, then every team with The Undertaker that doesn’t have Randy Savage or Jake Roberts, and so on. In all, there are 210 possible teams (84+56+35+20+10+4+1, or 84x10/4). I’m a little more than halfway done; should be finished no later than my next vacation.

This isn’t at all farfetched, since my previous…goal, for lack of a better word, was to win Tag Team Tournament in WWF Royal Rumble with every possible tag team (for both the 1st and 2nd position). With 12 wrestlers, that worked out to 132 teams (12x11), and it was actually a lengthier task because Tag Team Tournament is five matches, as opposed to Survivor Series’ one match.

WWF Royal Rumble was my first SNES game and it will be my last. Quick, responsive, a nice variety of match types, and plenty of ways to take down your foes. I’ve completed every single task in it hundreds…hundreds of times over, and I’m nowhere near finished. This is the fire-it-up-and-have-a-blast game for me, bar none. (As opposed to WWF Raw, a broken mess drowning in utter gamebreaking crap. I haven’t touched that one in years.)

Why? For one simple reason. I can win it. That’s very important to me. If I can learn it, get used to it, master it, and win in it, I can forgive a lot of flaws, and if it’s a well-made game as well, it’s one for the ages. That’s exactly why I cheerfully blew so many hours on The Tick, an uncomplicated, cathartic beat-'em-up which in every other aspect was a hideously overpadded slog that also had some nasty bugs that cropped up at the worst possible moments.

Which brings us to the the present day and my current console, the PS4. It’s been a shade over two years and I’m still trying to make it worth the purchase. Lately I’ve spent more time playing DVDs on it than games. That’s not a good sign. So yeah, recommendations if you got any.

First a quick rundown of what I’ve played on it so far and how it went:

Assassin’s Creed Trilogy: Ubisoft’s flagship franchise has always been hit and miss, and sad to say I have to call this a miss. It took out two of the best parts of the main line, open-world movement and the ability to become truly powerful, while requiring even more patience and precision to avoid missteps and punishing them more. Also, this is one of those games where it’s really easy to hit the wrong button, a problem which is only going to get worse as my video game reflexes pass further into history.

Assassin’s Creed Unity: Made my thoughts about this train wreck clear here.

Hatsune Miku Project Diva X: What the hell happened?? How did Sega turn “Vocaloid music game”, a concept which was once a stone-cold surefire “Shut up and take my money!” for me, into something I utterly loathed? Meager music selection (even more meager considering how many times you have to play them to get all the achievements), hideously clumsy and mangled gift system, ridiculously haphazard module unlocking system (Oh, right…it’s to encourage you to PAY to get all the modules like a good little gold mine. :mad:), jaw-droppingly awkward interactions, and a convoluted scoring system that makes some tasks impossible with perfect play if you don’t have the right items. Geez, Louise, if this is what Miku has become, bring on Tei Sukone!

Guitar Hero Live: Played the hell out of this on PS2 and PS3, so I figured this was worth a shot. You can’t go home again. Something about the “live” atmosphere just didn’t click with me (the obvious lip-syncing didn’t help), I never got used to the six-fret guitar, and the less said about GHTV mode, the better. I’ve had lacerations that were more enjoyable.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate: This was good. This was really, really good. I’d go so far to say as this was the last truly excellent AC. It takes a while to get there…I remember the long hours spent sitting on the train waiting for money to come in, something I never had to do before…but once you’re kitted out and got the basic skills down, it’s a romp. The best part is that it makes you use the whole arsenal…sometimes you need to be an invisible stalker, sometimes you need to charge in guns blazing, sometimes you need to gather your forces and fight a war of attrition, sometimes you need to drive carefully, sometimes you need to make that perfect shot, and of course sometimes you just need to run like hell. Can get frustrating at points, but it almost always means that you’re doing something wrong and just need to fine-tune your approach. Big thumbs-up!

Assassin’s Creed Origins: Bleah. Here.

Snoopy’s Grand Adventure: A charming little number which obviously was made for younger players. The toughest part was remember which paths I’d taken before so I’d get all the jellybeans. Even so, it wasn’t too hard a task (and the “get every last one” task is usually endlessly frustrating for me). Completed all the achievements without much trouble, but I had no reason to keep the game after that. Fun, easy, but really would’ve been happier renting it.

Superbeat Xonic: With Project Diva and Guitar Hero falling off a cliff (and I’m way too jaded to take a chance on Rock Band 4), could this be the PS4 music game I’ve always wanted? Answer…kinda. This is one of those games that’s fairly reasonable for a while but gets SUPER ULTRA MEGA HARD way too early. The fact that it’s a one-off and doesn’t even have a listen mode limits it further. Haven’t touched it in a while and not missing it too much.

Minecraft: Bleeeeearrrrrgghhh. :mad:

The Girl and the Robot: Haven’t gotten too far in this. I don’t like games where it’s really easy to get lost. Maybe I’ll get further if I can grab a walkthrough on YouTube. It’s generally not a good sign when I need that kind of help, BTW.

Shantae Half-Genie Hero: Haven’t gotten too far on this. I haven’t figured out how to beat the first boss yet. I’m sure there’s a walkthrough on YouTube which could help. Again, not a good sign.

Some additional notes:

  • The main reason I gravitated heavily toward music games for the PS3 was that with no Codebreaker or similar help, I needed something simple I could succeed at without the help. Simpler is better, more accessible is better.

  • I have zero desire to “git gud”, and it’s reached the point where even thinking about playing something that requires plenty of commitment makes me miserable. No sports, no fighting, no wrestling, no simulation with twenty things to manage at once. And my reflexes are essentially gone at this point, so I’d prefer something at a more relaxed pace.

  • I don’t mind having to write down lots of information. I once kept multiple spreadsheets for Dead or Alive Paradise, for crying out loud. I have a computer and lots of experience keeping data orderly and accessible.

  • I don’t mind if there are boring stretches as long as I’m making progress toward something. Again: 210 Survivor Series teams, for absolutely no other reason than I freaking can. I’m fine with “walking simulators” and “tours” and the like. Was that Brothers game any good?

  • I’m not too proud to play something that was designed for young children. Tonka Space Station was one of my favorite PSX games, and I don’t give a rip who knows.

  • No multiplayer. I had zero interest in this from my first day with a PS3, and that was before I read about 25,000 horror stories about online crap.

  • I’m willing to give turn-based strategy a crack, but if it’s one of those games where 80% hinges on dumb luck and there’s nonsense like spearmen taking out tanks, screw it. I want a dice-rolling game, I’ll buy a damn craps table. Same deal with those allegedly fun board game adaptations.

I keep hearing about how easy today’s games are. I want names. I know the PS4 is a fantastic system, I just need to see it.

2

I think people who say “today’s games are easy” are just different people from you. I’m not even one of those people, but for me Shantae is the last thing I’d call “hard”. If I recall correctly I beat it (including getting all optional upgrades) in a single day without dying on my first time through. No outside assistance. Game literacy is a skill like any other that compounds the more games you play. Not to discount declining reflexes with age and similar things like that, but you can breeze through a lot of games just with genre knowledge. Or at least make the startup time significantly slower.

I could recommend a lot of games I find easy or relaxing (even if not easy), but from your list I get the impression you wouldn’t like any of them. Spyro Reignited isn’t that hard, or at least the first game isn’t. I got a bit frustrated at the flying missions, though.

Persona 5 has a somewhat rough early game, but gets pretty easy later on (bonus bosses notwithstanding). You probably do need to look up Persona fusion mechanics though, because they’re not super easy to figure out on your own.

Spider-Man is pretty accessible, but I did die more than a few times, and some of the bonus missions almost made me chuck a controller through my screen. That said, the main content isn’t too bad.

I’m really not sure what kind of thing you want here.

3

Fallout 4.

4

Here’s the thing. As a kid in Hawaii in the 80’s, I had zero access to theater, dance, alternative sports, and non-crappy music. What I had were video games. They fascinated me to no end, even if I could never figure them out (seriously, have you seen Defender?). I never had any illusions that I’d ever get any good at Centipede, or Joust, or Galaxian, or Robotron, or Zoo Keeper, or Pole Position, but it was harmless fun, and hell, it was just a quarter.

And then the late 80’s rolled around, and with it a big, big paradigm shift…UNLIMITED CONTINUES. I cannot overstate how enormous a leap forward this was. In making video games accessible to everyone and taking away the fear factor, it made all the difference in the world. This was also the time when they were getting truly colorful and beautiful. This was the era of Altered Beast, Robocop, Golden Axe, Superman Vigilante, U.N. Squadron, Final Fight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Crime Fighters, Shinobi. I’d gone from watching from a distance to gladly plunking in 8 tokens or more a trip.

And then there were consoles: NES, SNES, PSX, PS2. All had at least some great games, but there was an ace in the hole which made them the place to be…CHEAT DEVICES. Making the impossible possible and opening up all kinds of possibilities.

My point is, as much time and money as I’ve sunk into this hobby, the one overarching mandate of video games is that you have to perform to their standards, and if you can’t meet their standards, the game ends and you’re stuck where you are. I know about this reality, but looking back on it, I never truly accepted it. Failure demoralized me, inability frustrated me, and getting stuck on an area, task, or opponent was infuriating. Looking back on the old computer games, with no cheat codes and minimal if any outside assistance, I see nothing but bitterness and rage. Even now I can hear the screams that rang across the room, feel the 5 1/2" floppies get mangled in my hands. (I swear, Ultima 3 probably qualified as an abusive relationship.)

Bottom line, what I’m looking for is something that isn’t so demanding. The ideal would be something like, say, Myst, where the bulk of the adventure is exploration and there are just a couple tasks where there’s a tiny amount of time pressure. Or Assassin’s Creed 2, where every challenge is conquerable and the hardest tasks are stuff you need to look up. Or Dance Dance Revolution, which starts out nice and simple and you can take on the toughest levels if you feel like it and it doesn’t hamper the game if you don’t. The old make-or-break paradigm of the mid 80’s just plain doesn’t work for me anymore (which is also the main reason I haven’t touched my XBox 360 in ages). That’s why it gets so frustrating hearing easy, easy, easy all the time…I know what easy is, and Otomedius Excellent is not. (Of course, the whole issue of what qualifies as “easy” has always been pretty thorny.)

I’d be happy to have your recommendations. Something new to look up on YouTube, if nothing else.

5

Horizon Zero Dawn has a “story” difficulty which trivialises combat, and allows you to concentrate on exploring and the story. There is also “easy”, which I play on, which allows me to progress without becoming frustrated.

It’s an excellent game about hunting robot beasts.

6

I’ll throw out a recommendation for Ratchet & Clank. It’s got a bit of humor, it’s easy to learn and play, and there’s no real penalty for dying. If you have a PS2, those games are the best, but the PS4 game is good too.

7

Fallout 4. :slight_smile:

8

I’d say play the original Red Dead if that’s possible on your PS4 , or if not some other system, then get the new one when it’s on sale to take full advantage of your current-gen console before it becomes last-gen.

9

Horizon Zero Dawn is an excellent open-world game with an interesting story and very, very pretty to look at to boot. (Someday I’m going to get a PS4 Pro and see how it looks on my 4k LG, especially if the optical drive in mine is actually failing like I think it is.) Ratchet and Clank’s heyday was really PS2, although the PS3 games were good, and the PS3 PS2 collection (much like the Jak & Daxter collection) is worth a purchase even if you had the games on PS2. The PS4 game is better in some ways than the original PS2 game, but not great. XCOM 2 is what it is, but has major load time issues. Just Cause 3 and 4 can be played as a massive open-world game with no story progression if you feel like just running around and blowing things up. Subnautica has a good reputation, although I haven’t played it.

Frankly, it seems like your combination of requirements/desires makes it hard to recommend things. At this point I’d probably go with Horizon Zero Dawn in story mode.

10

The two best games I’ve ever played, I played in the last 12 months: Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War.

I’d give a slight tip to Horizon Zero Dawn; it was was outstanding in just about every single aspect: Fascinating story, a strong, engaging female protagonist that wasn’t just an excuse to have a Lara Croft-esque character with big boobies, combat system, eye-poppingly beautiful visuals. Loved, loved loved this game.

God of War is also outstanding, but in a different way. I felt like taking more time with God of War, in some ways. It’s a gorgeous world, the way they’ve made the load screens essentially invisible is brilliant, I love the dialogue between the main characters (having a young child as the main character’s side-kick could have backfired horribly - it didn’t, it’s my favorite part of the story).

Neither game is ‘hard’ unless you specifically choose one of the ‘challenge me’ story options. Really, there’s no reason to do so unless you’re going for all-complete trophies and what-not. Go with story mode and enjoy the story and the game.

Honorable mention to Witcher 3, which I also loved, but thought it came up a bit short compared to HZD and GoW.

I got my son hooked on Final Fantasy VI and VII on my iPad. I might need to go back and replay them…

11

Is there a reason why you keep trying to play reflex based games if you’re not good at them?

Try something different and pick up The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Decisive Edition?

12

If you are even somewhat a fan of Marvel or the character himself, “Marvel’s Spider-Man,” is a complete joy. They nailed the web-swinging. You could just spend time traversing the city and taking in the amazing graphics.

The story is great that it is close enough to the Spider-Man with whom you might be familiar so that you won’t be confused, but there are enough changes that there are some legitimate surprises throughout the story. And there are some really interesting deep cuts in the game as well.

Combat is fun, although, towards the end, when you are doing “Base” challenges (optional), fighting wave after wave of bad guys feels stressful, but rewarding when you win. The best approximation to combat would be Batman’s Arkham series.

I just finished the final DLC, and I was disappointed that I didn’t have any content left.

13

Blood Bowl 2.

Imagine your obsessive seeds/brackets tournament but with teams of orcs, elves, dwarves, etc instead of wrestlers. It’s a turn-based game so no worries about old slow reflexes.

14

don’t get the any of the wwe after ps1’s warzone wwe games then …… sure most of them have create your own wrestlers and story mode and you might win some here and there but the big ppv matches are essentialy unwinnable boss fights

15

I think there’s a nuance that is being missed here. If I understand correctly (based on other threads as well), DKW’s definition of mastering a game includes being able to get 100% of the achievements for that game, so running the game once in easy difficult wouldn’t do the trick.

DKW, correct me if I’m wrong.

16

I agree with the suggestions of Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, and Spiderman. All excellent games.

If you want something with more humor you may want to look into the various Lego games. My kids and I have played through all the Lego Star Wars, Marvel Heroes, City Undercover, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and probably more I’ve forgotten. For me they hit that level you’ve described of giving you a challenge without being hard. Puzzles to solve without constantly having the protect your character from “death.” If you are killed you just explode in a shower of legos and then appear immediately back where you were, albeit having lost some studs which are the ingame currency. The more you play the more characters you unlock and powers you get which makes it easier to collect studs faster and buy more characters and abilities. They’ve been around forever so I’m sure you could find one in a bargain bin to try out.

17

Yeah the LEGO games might be a good thing to try. Lots of achievable achievements and they’re pretty fun. Not incredibly difficult but you can’t just walk through them.

18

I really liked Lego City Undercover. The PS4 version is much more responsive than the Wii U version and it’s fun to just screw around in the open world even after you’ve completed the game. It’s nice to have a game where people are happy to see you.

Or Fallout 4. It can get frustrating, not with the game-play, but watch out for the bugs. There aren’t any real game ending bugs, but some come darn near. However, it is possible to have a happy ending, get all the collectables, etc.

19

DKW, I agree with Jragon; it’s hard to tell what kind of thing you’re looking for. I’ve read the various Assassin’s Creed threads on this forum, because I’ve been gradually playing through those games (at least, the ones available on PS4,) and I’ve noticed your posts, and nothing personal, but you tend to write these very long, emotional, posts full of purple prose from which I find it hard to actually get a good understanding of why you liked one game and not another. For example, I agree with you that Unity sucked, definitely the worst Assassin’s Creed game yet, and that Syndicate was great… but then, I also thought Origins was great. It’s not even totally clear whether you actually played Origins, or just watched YouTube videos of it.

I also was a child in the eighties, so I can’t be much younger than you. My background with video game consoles was mainly with the NES and SNES, in early-to-late adolesence. Then, with the exception of my sister’s getting a Nintendo 64, for which she only ever got one game, when I was in college, I never owned, lived with people who owned, or played another console system until I bought a PS4 in January 2015. I also was never a big PC gamer. So I have no experience with the whole PS1/PS2/PS3 (or their equivalents in the Microsoft and Nintendo lines) era of games.

So, I’m just going to list every PS4 game I’ve played, in chronological order, and whether I liked it or not. Some of these I never would have thought to buy, but they were free PS Plus games.

Flower: liked well enough for what it was, but a very brief and simple game, made just to show off pretty graphics and help stoners enjoy being high, I guess. I bought it only because I was brand new to PS4, it was on some lists of “best PS4 games” at the time, and it was only about 8 bucks.

Infamous Second Son: liked

LittleBigPlanet 3: liked (it’s for kids, which you’ve said you’re fine with)

Need for Speed Rivals: liked

Watch Dogs: loved (I wasn’t disappointed like a lot of people apparently were, because I hadn’t been exposed to the hype, so it didn’t seem like a letdown. I got addicted to the online hacking component, and for about a year, long after finishing every bit of content, would play the game regularly for hours just to play that. Also, the original reason I subscribed to PS Plus was to play all the other online components, and I’ve continued that subscription ever since.)

Limbo: liked

The Last of Us Remastered: liked

Bully: liked well enough, but didn’t finish, maybe because it was originally a PS2 game so the graphics and controls are kind of dated

Watch Dogs 2: liked (yes, contrary to reviewers, I liked this one less than the original, primarily because the online hacking, which was what I loved about the first one, had been dumbed down and wasn’t as much fun)

Gone Home: hated

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes: meh

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: loved, but almost too engrossing, in that once I was finally finished with it, I said to myself “I can’t believe I’ve been sinking every spare minute of my time into one video game for the past 2.5 months; what am I doing with my life?”

Uncharted 1-4: liked 1, loved 2-4 (1 had a bit too high of a shooting[noparse]:p[/noparse]uzzle-solving ratio for my taste)

Rise of the Tomb Raider: liked

Hitman: liked

Fallout 4: liked (but like MGS: V, too engrossing in retrospect)

Inside: liked

Just Cause 3: loved (never would have thought to buy this; only got it because it was free on PS Plus, but tons of fun)

Assassin’s Creed II: liked

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: liked

Assassin’s Creed Revelations: liked

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag: liked

Stardew Valley: liked, but it doesn’t have an end game as far as I can tell, so never finished; just kind of petered out after a while.

Assassin’s Creed Unity: hated

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: liked

Assasin’s Creed Rogue: liked

Rime: meh

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate: liked

Mad Max: meh

Assassin’s Creed Origins: liked

Trials Fusion: liked, but haven’t played much of this

XCOM 2: meh. Didn’t know until I started playing that it was a turn-based strategy game. Both this and Trials Fusion I got only because they were free on PS Plus, to hold me over until Red Dead Redemption 2 came out.

Red Dead Redemption 2: liked, though I’m still in the epilogue

Also somewhere in there I started Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, but as soon as I realized it was another Gone Home, I discovered I hate these “walking simulator” games.

Next in my queue is Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Here are two quirks about my video game tastes that seem to run counter to many people’s:

  1. In these open world games, apparently a lot of people like to just mess around in the open world for hours on end, but I don’t really get that. I tend to be a completionist, but I really only like doing the activities the game lays out for me to do (main missions, side missions, side activities) and then I’m done. For example, people will say they play a GTA game just to cause destruction and see how high they can get their wanted level, or one review of Watch Dogs 2 I read said “pretty soon I found myself ignoring all the story missions, and just having a blast driving around the city of San Francisco, taking in the scenery.” What’s the appeal in that? The map is beckoning me with icons signifying things for me to do!

  2. Playing a game is a one-and-done deal for me. I start it, play all the way through, watch the ending credits, put it on the shelf, and never touch it again. Apparently replaying games is something a lot of people do, but again, I don’t understand the appeal. No matter how much I enjoyed the game, I experienced everything and know how the story goes, so I have no interest in playing it again.

So, make of my tastes and opinions what you will.

20

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this…Gotham, The Titan Games, and The Good Place on the same night takes a lot out of a guy. :slight_smile: Welp, the time’s finally come for another week of relaxation and doing stuff that’s not work, so I finally got the time to look up videos of some of these games.

First, though, a clarification. I don’t need to be able to get 100% achievements, nor do I consider it a benchmark for proper difficulty scaling. I mean, I’m delighted when I manage it (or even get pretty close), but it’s not a dealmaker or any kind of gauge of the quality of the game. I could’ve easily gotten all trophies for Project Diva X if I cared enough to put in the effort, and I didn’t care enough because that one was absolutely atrocious. Likewise, the first Assassin’s Creed for PS3 had no trophies whatsoever, and it was compelling enough for me to play it through three times (yes, endlessly repetitive irritations and all). As long as all the important tasks are achievable and and all the places are eventually accessible, not being able to to do a five-wall trickshot while standing on my head for that ultra rare gold trophy is a small loss.

I see that most of the recommendations are open-world shooters. I’m sure you all enjoyed the hell out of them and found the stories compelling. But now that I’ve seen actual gameplay footage, I now have two more concerns.

  1. At some point there are going to be multiple enemies, meaning attacks from multiple directions, and lots of projectiles flying across the screen that the player has to dodge somehow. I’m terrible at this. I mean, I was never that great at the last Punch-Out (crappy reaction times and all), but since all the punches were coming from the same direction so, I at least could make it a semblance of a contest against TD Great Tiger. If I try to jump onto Horizon Zero Dawn or Fallout 4 or Ratchet & Clank (which I never played during the PS2 era), I’m very afraid that at some point I’m going down in a hail of gunfire, and that’s the one roadblock I can never, ever get past.
  2. I need a map. This is absolutely non-negotiable. I’m not going to spend 15 minutes finding my bearings or figuring out the one tiny juncture I hadn’t reached yet. I haven’t seen one in any of the recommendations.

Are you basing these on Assassin’s Creed? Important note: For all the grumbling about how the real world completely ruins the immersion and makes everything unplayable, Ubisoft really made an effort to make the games accessible and avoid hopelessly frustrating spots. There is a lot of hand-holding, and that’s how I was able to stick with it for so long. Knowing where to go, knowing where to find important stuff, and, most importantly, knowing I can beat my enemies, or when the get too tough, knowing I can run away. Changing the combat system to be like every other PS4 game ruined Origins for me, and I have no desire to ever subject myself to that again. Now, God of War, well, that was made in a more innocent time, so at least it’s possible to hit a goddam enemy every so often. But in the four videos I’ve watched, I’ve already seen some very nasty enemies, and I know it’s only going to get tougher from there.

Blood Bowl? Oh lord…EVERYTHING about that one is pure dumb luck. Every. Single. Thing. Yes, I know there are strategies, yes, I know that complete flailing moronic goofballs (and I certainly would be one if I ever tried it) don’t pull wins out of their rectums that often. Just the fact that it’s possible for something to go disastrously wrong, or even lose a player forever, makes this a non-starter. I may be abysmal at fighting games, but at least I don’t feel like I’ve been robbed when I get my butt kicked. Don’t get me wrong, this looks really pretty, and I’ll gladly be a spectator any time. But just a spectator.

Legend of Heroes? Okay, here’s the thing about turn-based fantasy. There’s a whole system to learn with a bunch of numbers. That requires a lot of learning. There’s plenty of luck involved. There’s a vast, rich, colorful world with absolutely zero maps whatsoever, meaning simply getting to the next location is a massive crapshoot. There are extremely specific solutions to extremely specific tasks which are revealed only under extremely specific locations and circumstances, if at all. And there’s a whole bunch of fightin’ and levellin’ up to get in proper shape for the later challenges. I’m really worried that I’m going to invest a whole of time and effort only to either 1. get hopelessly stuck because I have no idea where to go or what to do next, or 2. reach that one obscenely overpowered gigamonster that can smash my party in three seconds and render all my hard work totally wasted…a valid concern since this happened to me in every freaking turn-based fantasy I have played in my life. (Also, this looks like a PC game, which I’m not in the market for at this time. I’m mostly concerned with my PS4.)

“But what else is there?” Well, looking at my old PS3 collection, I see a lot of music games. Looking at my Wii collection, there’s miniature golf, flying, boxing, that one circus game, a couple vertical shooters, several shooting games I enjoyed a whole lot…y’know, when it comes to no-stress gameplay, the Wii was the system to have. So what, the industry decided that one system was enough?

Look…I appreciate these suggestions. I really do. But if this is as stress-free as the PS4 gets…well…I look at all those empty cases, each of which once held a game which I threw away in disgust, and I see how many there are now, and I’m taking a good, hard back look and seriously rethinking some of the decisions I made in my life. And it’s reached the point where I just want to justify the $300+ I spent on this thing and at this point I’m not sure if that’s even possible.

Eh, what the hell, I’ll give God of War a shot someday. Or Lego Underground. One of those two.