Originally published on Trevor Trove on January 7, 2017
This time last year, I was playing Final Fantasy VII for the umpteenth time. This year, after wrapping up The Last Guardian, I have moved on to a revisit of Dishonored in the form of the Dishonored Definitive Edition that came with my purchase of Dishonored 2. I had such a good time with the sequel (my 4th favorite game of 2016) that, rather than go out and explore something I missed in 2016 or get back to something like Watch_Dogs 2, I decided to stay in Dunwall a bit longer.
And all of the other stuff that’s potentially drawing my eye away are games I’ve already played as well: the Skyrim Remaster, Stardew Valley, Stories: The Path of Destinies, etc. Comfort games that I really enjoyed and don’t have to focus too terribly on. Even with Dishonored, I deliberately was playing the game with the intent of breezing through and killing anyone who got in my way, not worrying about taking my time with it and attempting a stealthier run. I wanted to revisit the world, play through the great level design, and maybe attempt a second run with a stealthier play style. And that’s what I did. I have also taken a bit of time to start exploring the DLC that I never played with the game on the last generation of consoles. But even at that, I found myself switching away from that to the more familiar base game to attempt the stealth run instead of being expected to follow the (admittedly simple) story of the DLC. It’s just not where my head is at right now.
I think after playing through a dozen or so new games in the last couple months, I’m burnt out. It makes this slight lull before the new stuff starts dropping again nice because I have the time to just replay something entirely for me. I’m excited for a handful of the smaller titles coming out soon. For example, I’ve had an eye on 2064: Read-Only Memories since playing it at PlayStation Experience 2015 (and then got more excited when they added a cool voice cast). That’ll come to PS4 on the 17th and I should be up for “new” by then (since I just don’t play enough on my PC to have jumped into it over there). If not, I can always revisit the PS2-era great Dragon Quest VIII when it comes to 3DS a week and a half later.
I also looked at a couple of the big 2016 games I missed that people think I’d like such as Hitman and Far Cry Primal but both of them are still near enough full price that, even with some Target gift cards left over from Christmas, I’m probably going to wait until they drop a bit or I find them on sale. Not that I don’t want to support the developers, but I know I’ve got another travel-filled year ahead of me and saving a few bucks here and there is probably in my best interest…
Sometimes, it just feels good to curl up with an old friend. What are some of your comfort games worth revisiting? Let me know here or on Twitter!