I’ll be travelling soon and was wondering what are good games for low power-usage and offline?
Previously I enjoyed:
- Into The Breach
- Baba Is You
- Vampire Survivors
- Super Mario All-Stars (SNES)
At the moment I’m planning to set up:
- Lufia 2 (SNES)
- Shadowrun (SNES + Genesis versions)
- Golden Sun (GBA)
- A Link To The Past (SNES)
- Minish Cap (GBA)
- A Link Between Worlds (NDS) - never played it, hopefully the controls map well!
- Fire Emblem: Awakening (NDS) - same as above, never had a NDS
- Oracle Of Ages (GBA)
- Chrono Trigger (SNES)
- Ogre Battle 64 (N64) - not sure how bad the power usage is on the N64 emulators
Maybe the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton series too which I haven’t played. Also GTA1, London and 2 if they work. I love Advance Wars too but I’ve played it too many times already.
Basically anything that is easy to run, low power, and easy to play with just the controls and small screen in a cramped space. Ideally nothing too difficult / stressful like Hollow Knight that could be hard to play without good screen brightness or cramped.
I like a lot of older PC games but unfortunately they’re difficult to play without a mouse and on the small screen - e.g. Ultima VII and Arx Fatalis.
Coming from a weirdo who didn’t like Vampire Survivors but couldn’t get enough of Halls of Torment:
You can aim and fire manually, with toggles for auto aim and fire if you wish. Every character starts with a unique weapon that fires in the direction they aim. When you level up, you select from one of four randomly chosen stat buffs. There’s some RNG involved here, but it’s much more restrained than in VS. No matter what you get, you’re always getting a good build. You can get new weapons and equipment by defeating bosses, and these are extremely helpful (without feeling like your build depends on getting the right abilities.) I didn’t like Vampire Survivors because it felt too uninteractive and luck-dependant, which I know is not the case and I’m just bad at the game, but it just wasn’t fun for me. In Halls of Torment, every character is good, most builds are good, and no matter what RNG I get I feel like I’m on a good run. I feel like I’m immediately rewarded for my skill, whereas VS makes me feel like my skill is far less important than my upgrades and RNG. (Again, I know VS takes skill, it’s just how it made me feel personally. I’m not saying VS is bad, it just didn’t mesh with me.)
I’d also add that by the time you reach 30 minutes in VS, you’re having to basically vaporized everything on the screen at once and then Death just one-shots me…I guess there is a way to beat that end-boss for a level? The difference is that the first time I made it to the 30 minute mark in HoT (which took comparatively much less time…maybe because I’m just more familiar with the style of game?), I at least had a fighting chance against the 1st map’s boss, and your end-level builds seem leave more room for exploration. The quests or achievements I prefer to VS, and I also prefer the way items work (including the well) generally. VS is a fun game, but HoT really improves on it in many different ways, including the visuals/tone (which is very much Diablo-esque).
Agreed, there’s so much I prefer about HoT over VS.
But in a quick defense of VS, I don’t think the player is really supposed to beat Death at first. He’s supposed to be the end of your run. You can defeat him, but I think you have to grind out a bunch of upgrades to be able to do it. The end-of-run Lords in HoT are meant to be normal bosses that you defeat. That part is less of a balance issue and more of a different design philosophy. Death is supposed to be insanely hard, the Lords in HoT are meant to be fair.
I’ve never made it to the end of a run in VS, but I got there decently quickly in HoT. If there’s one complaint I can make about the game, it’s that it’s a smidge too easy.