Games that I put in this category: The first spyro game (not sure about the later ones, havent played) and A Link Between Worlds are both very fun and rewarding to complete and never feel like a chore to do so.
One game that is very much NOT in this category, as is often said, is DK64 lol. But everyone says that. I’ve also heard people say Super Mario Oddessy is fun to beat but not fun to complete, same with BOTW because of the Koroks. People usually say this about SM Sunshine as well but I dont really mind it in this game.
Sidenote complain about the world: Sandbox games combined with my autistic obsessive compulsive need for completionism lead to me playing them with very frusterating habits lmao. No Man’s Sky is the worst for me. I LOVE that game but god the respawning ROCKS ruin the experiance kind of. If the rocks stayed gone, I could use them to gradually explore the worlds I’m on in a completiony way. (Even knowing that like even a single planet is kind of impossible to fully explore let alone the entire fucking universe lol). But I cant!!!
Sorry I need to shove that rant into everything. Completionist mindset also limits me with games like Terraria, Minecraft, and Starbound as well but not as badly because I at least can keep track of exploration in those (Or just dig deep pits in minecraft as I enjoy doing to waste time while I watch streams lol).
I also get myself caught in absurd goals that NOONE expects you to do and the game doesnt keep track of (no achievemnt for it or anything) sometimes like doing all coin runs in Mario 64 or marrying, seeing the 14 star event, and then divorcing every spouse in Stardew Valley lol. (I acutally havent started the second thing but it is sort of in my head as a goal).
This turned into a general rant about how my completionism effects me lmao but anyway thoughts.
Fallout 1 and 2
If you go around to all the settlements helping people, you get a different and better outcome for each of those places during the ending sequence of the game. Not sure what that looks like if you go around committing evil, cuz evil playthroughs are whack
Evil playthroughs in games with writing strong enough for you to care do suck, but the very completionist in me that Ive been talking about drives me to experiance everything a game has to offer lol
Hades and Hades 2 have fun extra goals after you start consistently beating runs, but not so many that it takes a staggering amount of time or skill to seal the deal. 32 heat/vows are hard but not wickedly so. Chatting with the gods is consistently interesting as there is a lot of conversations to unlock.
Baldurs gate 2 and it’s expansions are a lot of fun if you don’t mind the dated game style. Exploring every nook and cranny in the game makes you far more powerful than if you just go through the main quest line. There is a lot of content and interesting stuff to see in that one.
there is a lot of conversations to unlock.
Unlocking conversations is my favorite type of completionism! I’ve been meaning to try Hades.
Like when I was a kid I’d play JPRGs but run from battles so I could get to the next town and just talk to people and that was like one line of dialog each! I love talking to people in games always have. So that sounds fun.
would you say hades 2 is in a place where its worth playing instead of waiting a bit for early access to end?
It’s very good now but I’m sure the full release will be better
I’m growing to really enjoy appreciate the Soulslike approach to items and exploration rewards. I may never use 99% the items, but I want all of them because the descriptions are cool and it’s always fun to get something unique. This is all reliant on stuff also being interesting, which the Souls games have managed for me at least.
Yeah the teaching lore through item descripttions thing is a fun feature.
Far Cry 3 is one of the only games I ever got to the end of and wanted more, so I went to the options and reset all the enemy bases so I could knife hunt them again.
Most games I play though don’t really have game conditions I would even regard as “end” or “complete,” or if they do I ignore them, like the rocket in Rimworld or Factorio. In Minecraft my self-appointed win condition is typically using whatever modpack I’m playing to make all materials completely infinite and post scarcity rather than exploration. I kinda resent when a modpack forces too much exploration, honestly.
Yeah I tend to cheat for post-scarcity with Minecraft these days too so I can just dig and/or build (but Im not good enough of a builder to build really). Or when I did multiplayer servers I let other people build the farms and do the end exploration.
I don’t mean that I cheat for postscarcity, I mean that my main form of gameplay is to build vast caverns full of inscrutable blocks of machinery which generate infinite quantities of every item in the pack and grumble when I realize that one part of the block of machinery I need to build requires going to the end, or start editing config files if I realize that the modpack is arranged such that I would have to go to the end twice. I also always play with mobgriefing off and never play vanilla.
I almost always play vanilla lol havent messed with more than just QOL mods personally but I do agree with mobgriefing off (but with mods so villagers can still farm preferably) and I also always do keepinv. I hate losing my shit lol. Autistically unacceptable for me lol.
Last time I played minecraft vanilla was before 1.0. I exclusively play elaborate tech modpacks now. Most big modpacks at this point seem to have a gravestone mod that keeps all your shit in a block instead of spreading it over the ground and a map mod that marks your death point so it’s easy to collect again. Makes it low friction enough that I haven’t felt the need to completely disable dropping items on death.
Yoshi’s Island is way more fun to 100% than any other way to play it imo
Being that you are Hexbear user videogame, I will take this as the highest recommendation.
Normal Tunic:
100% Tunic:
Thank you for reminding me to grab this
A friend recomended me Tunic recently. I want to check it out, but the fact that its a Zeldalike thats more focused on combat than puzzles is a bit of a put off for me? Or at least I was told thats what its like lol. Im more into Zeldas for puzzles.
I don’t think that’s true, at least if you are going for completion it’s really heavy on the puzzles.
Binding of Isaac, if you like roguelikes! Unlocking all the achievements is the true goal of the game, and every time you unlock one, it adds something to the game (even if it’s just something small, like a possible item drop)
Ooo nice. Sometimes when I try Roguelikes I feel like its impossible to really experience everything which takes me out of it a lot. But I do really like Death Road to Canada in spite of that. The achievement unlocking being the goal sounds fun.
Maybe Death Stranding, but only if the game appeals to you. There was something satisfying to me completing all the missions and maxing out all of the delivery locations to get all the little stars on your uniform.
IDK, I did this in 2020 and it really worked for me then. Haven’t touched the Director’s Cut content, and I don’t plan on it tbh
Metal Gear Solid 5 is the opposite and seems like a nightmare to do a completionist run.
I did a completionist run. My advice is to beat the game first, unlock all the cool gadgets and shit, and then do it. It’s pretty fun that way
I still dont know how I’d feel about Death Stranding in practice. Like I look at it and I just cannot sus out how itd feel to play so I’m going to just have to try it some day.
I think I’d actually like completeing MGS5 but i know what you mean
I like Death Stranding but I think it would be better if it were even more of a walking simulator.
Yeah, I totally agree on Death Stranding being a difficult sell. The exploration and indirect cooperative play just really worked in a unique way for my tastes lol. I think it has come up as an EGS freebie before, so that (having it come up for free again) might be a way to get it for free without disabling the online components. I think the Director’s Cut version has more elements to make it more MGSV-ey, but I never played that version so IDK for sure.
I liked death stranding a lot more than I expected to. Its really satisfying delivering boxes.
Disco Elysium.
Dragon Age Origins (I will find all nugs)
Hollow knight? Though some of the challenges were awful difficult
Assassin’s Creed black flag is sort of an inverse of what you’re describing. Only the side content is good.
Sid Meier’s pirates! Is great fun and there’s a lot of side content there tooDisco Elysium.
Been wondering about this because I still havent tried it. About how many playthroughs would it take to experiance everything?
There’s quests specific to political ideologies and failing doesn’t mean you hit a dead end, but you’ll probably feel like you’ve seen almost everything after 2-3 playthroughs. I used console to make my harry a 10 in everything on one playthrough, which was honestly quite funny
Just remember to pirate it!
I think I got it in a humble bundle lol.
Hades is a joy to seek out new content in.
I am pretty sure I’ve seen literally 100% of dragon age origins, one of the best rpgs ever.
Roomed with a guy who owned Origins and I played all the uh… Origins. Barely got started with the main story though. But it was very fun and I’ll get around to it.
Whats your favourite origin?
Damn, I had like five attempts at a follow up I deleted lol. Thanks for taking the effort.
It’s hard to go into without spoiling, but replaying as a leftist the city elf origin is very cathartic (starting out being oppressed and getting to right at least some of those wrongs). dwarven noble gets very much into power politics, the dwarf city gets very much into the dynamics of elective feudalism which can be interesting from a Marxist POV. The human noble ties most into the main story. Wood elf is kinda the vibe of “venturing forth into a hostile and alien society and seeing your people must be freed”. Mage ties the most into the trilogy, but I genuinely don’t recommend any of the other games.
If I had to choose a favorite, it was dwarf underclass. It has it all. I won’t spoil why because saying the dwarf act has major political drama is enough of a spoiler already.
I love the dwarf city! I love the question of who you should support, because there isn’t a good answer.
I just played thru as a city elf, which was fantastic. Just being a lithe babe with a big ass sword chopping down everyone. First time I also decided against diplomacy whenever I could (and my opponents were humans).It’s awesome! It’s as close to going John brown mode as a game has allowed me as of yet.
If you decide to get the dlc, it has tons of dwarf content. So if that’s a factor in your decision, the fact you also enjoy the dwarf politics would lead me to recommend either of the dwarf origins for a completion run.
Oh I’ve played thru the game tons of times already (with dlc) I was just asking because it’s a bit old and it’s rare I get to talk with someone about it. Shale rocks
Shale is so cool, I really liked how her personal quest involved figuring out her identity. First game to introduce identity related concepts that I played.
What are your thoughts on how the dlc with Morrigan handled the ritual ending? I was legit upset the sequel didn’t follow up at all.
Yeah I was really surprised about that on my latest play through! I had completely forgotten it, and it’s handled very gracefully. I also love Sten, who feels like ND representation.
I actually just had a discussion about Morrigan just recently, but we didn’t really touch on the dlc. She felt like some writers OC self-insert in a way and I feel like the dlc really cemented that. I think there wasn’t really a way to follow up on her story while still trying to do the “your choices matter” shtick that they want to do, so it makes sense it was kind of dropped.
Animal Well! There’s some incredibly obscure and esoteric puzzles in that game. Many of them are completely optional, but they’re so intriguing that I wanted to figure everything out anyway. I don’t think I’m anywhere near “done” yet, even though I beat the last boss already. You can unlock the ability draw on the map as well, so you can keep track of things.
Also maybe Noita? Completing a run and beating the last boss is basically just the tutorial, that game goes deep. There is an in-game achievement tracker for completing some unbelievably convoluted puzzles and challenges.
I thought I hadnt heard of these but it turns out they were already wishlisted lol. Noita’s actually got a good sale going right now so Ill pick it up. Thanks.
Running Remnant 2 multiple times to unlock everything is always a good time
Especially unlocking the Archon archetype which took the playerbase data mining the game to figure out exactly how to do it
Hadn’t heard of this game. I’ll check it out.
I’m not really an achievement hunter, but I did 100% Spiderman and Sunset Overdrive just because they were fun enough for me to want to do everything the games offered. Traveling around the map in both of those games is just so much fun.
Sunset Overdrive
Its on sale so I’m going to pick this up right now thanks!
While Mario Odyssey is a little tedious to 100%, the other Mario games are awesome for that. The secret levels and puzzles are usually the most interesting and challenging.
The other mainline 3D Mario games have 120 stars is a classic “easy” 100% to get. The Mario 3D Land games and New Super Mario Bros games usually have explicit stats on each level about how many secrets you’ve missed. Mario 3 and Mario World have more esoteric secrets, but everything is telegraphed if you pay attention to the levels.
I’ve heard that the Sunshine 100% is a bit tedious but I think I could manage it. Unfortunately with 64 I set up an arbitrarily difficult goal for myself of all coining every level lol. Not just the 100 coin star thats obvious, getin every unique coin. Thats the way my silly brain works.
Any chance you could set rules for yourself and try to just see credit screens or something? I sorta’ get stuck in similar situations but to a much lesser degree. I was trying to beat all the 150 and 200cc ghosts for the MK8DX DLC tracks and gave up halfway through when I realized I wasn’t enjoying it and was only doing it because of the completionist urge that’s never benefited me.
I’m not sure I could with like the No Man’ Sky example but I could maybe in some other games that arent sandbox open world stuff. But its a hard habit to break lol.
