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.
All three Dark Souls have very easy 100% achievements that boil down to seeing everything in the game more so than completing difficult challenges. There are one or two that are, admittedly, annoying. But it’s not something stupid like “Finish the game in 10 hours!” or “kill every boss while staying level 1”.
There are recognitions for finishing a playthrough without dying or using a bonfire in DS2, but that’s for the crazy people. And aren’t achievements in the traditional sense.
Brütal Legend
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.
This is a tough one for me. I used to platinum games on ps4 for fun but after I moved back to pc gaming I don’t really go for achievements.
I tend to enjoy beating games in general. Especially harder games or at least games that are more obtuse and such. Going back to beat jrpgs on the nes and other emulation I’ve had a load of fun with. I also enjoy the grind which a lot of people tend to dislike I tend to 100% if I feel it is well implemented and doesnt feel like a chore then i’ll go for it. Circle of the moon I 100% in recent memory. Several playthroughs to get the 100℅ depends on the game tbh.I had a lot of fun completing Celeste!
I felt extremely accomplished when I finished the main story of the game with enough strawberries to get the 2nd best ending. So I planned to see if I could go back and get 'em all, and also work my way through the daunting b-sides. But when I found out there were still even far more difficult c-sides I am sad to admit, I kinda gave up hope of ever truly completing the game.
C-Sides are usually easier than B-Sides IMO due to their short length.
Checked out the Steam Summer sale only to be quiet shocked I didnt already own Celeste lol. I havent played it on anything to be clear, Im just used to big names like that laready being in my library because Im addicted to collecting on steam.
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
God of war (PC) was the last one that I 100% and horizon zero dawn before that. Both were rewarding and didn’t feel like a slog. I used to want to 100% everything also, but I’ve gradually moved to only doing as much completionist stuff as I can before i beat the main story. I’ll delay doing main quests until I’ve finished everything else up to a point but if it starts feeling like a chore then I go back to the story and once that’s done I’m usually over the game for a while.
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
Stardew Valley. You could argue the game’s "story end’ is completing the community center but there’s literally a “Perfection” post game ending
Oh I’ve played a fair amount of SDV on multiplayer with friends. I do want to do a completionist run at some point on my own to do perfection. Though it bothers me that theres no in game modless way to see all the spouses 14 heart events :( . Ill probably be adding the polyamory mod just so I can do that. (or doing it hardway and marrying and then divorcing all of them just for the meaningless bragging rights lol)
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.
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.
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!
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.
If you liked A Link Between Worlds then Zelda: Majora’s Mask would be a good pick I’d say. Fantastic game with excellent atmosphere that still holds up today, and it is heavily weighted towards side quests and stuff in the overworld rather than dungeons like other Zelda games. The game runs on a time based system so each character has a unique schedule, and while it is not necessary completing every character’s side stories is very rewarding.
Second pick since you liked Spyro would be A Hat in Time. It’s a level based 3D platformer with adorable characters and cell shaded graphics. It’s pretty short and not overly stuffed with collectibles. I think its maybe the only game I have ever gotten 100% achievements on because it’s so cute and fun to play, while not suffering from issues say DK64 has of having just too much stuff to collect.
When I played Majora’s Mask as a kid, my slow ploding exploration style in games made the 3 day system difficult for me, but I think I could handle it today so I might set up an attempt to replay it soon. Im decently familiar with the Mask related sidequests because of PBG’s collection series of those, but the dungeons are still mostly a mystery to me!
I’ve definitly been meaning to play A Hat in Time and the fact that its fun to 100% is good to know.
Totally get what you mean I struggled with it as a kid for the same reason. I never even played it properly until it came out on the Wii virtual console. I’d say its the type of game that is totally worth playing with a walkthrough just so you don’t miss stuff, which also makes the time aspect pretty trivial. Not sure what your stance is on playing games with guides but I like it for the sort of game where it is easy to miss stuff, but I’m also not the sort that likes to replay games typically.
Cannot recommend A Hat in Time enough for any 3D platformer or overall cute game fans its just fantastic. Probably the only kickstarter sorta thing I have paid for and been super happy with.
Hat in Time has a dedicated button for the player character to blow you a smooch how could anyone hate it.
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.
I feel this so hard. I really enjoyed Subnautica, but I think I spent more than half of my playtime farming a giant locker full of every single material because I thought I might need them later, but it turns out that you barely need anything to complete the game and there isn’t an endgame to speak of. Whoops. It could have been justified if I were into basebuilding, I guess, but that’s not my thing.
Another issue I run into is overoptimization–just figuring out the cheese strat or collecting so much that the game becomes trivial. I think that’s why I enjoy Resident Evil so much, since survival horror games are designed for you to be a compulsive loot goblin and therefore don’t fall apart even when you collect every last bit of ammo.
Speaking of Resident Evil: with Resident Evil: Village, I didn’t get true 100% because I don’t like the arcade submode The Mercenaries, but I had tons of fun doing a bunch of NG+ runs to max out all the weapons and get all the unlockable collectibles through the main campaign. I find the process of fighting through the first run with the intense experience of not knowing anything and then continuously getting more experienced and more powerful until you’re sprinting through and headshotting enemies with your infinite ammo revolver on the highest difficulty by run six.
Others have mentioned SM64 and Super Mario Galaxy, and I’d also add Super Mario Wonder. The final secret level (unlocked after you complete everything else in the game) is a bit frustrating due to the sparse checkpoints, and there’s one or two treasure hunt levels where I had to look up a location or two, but I appreciate that otherwise I could 100% the game just using my platform skill and natural loot goblin instincts. I did my whole run through on Ryujinx and it ran perfectly, too!
One that I wouldn’t recommend for this is Control, even though I enjoyed the game and it’s got a very cool atmosphere. They have this very unfortunate system where they offer four randomly generated generic missions (Kill X of Y enemy [in Z location] or get X kills with Y weapon/ability) and each mission awards a random selection from a tier and an equippable skill/weapon enhancement. You can see both the exact mission as well as the tier and category of reward before accepting a mission (of which you can have three active) and there’s no penalty for dropping a mission. This led me to sitting at the assignment board endlessly regenerating missions until I would get a full loadout of missions with the highest tier rewards and reasonably achievable objectives, after which I’d go do those missions, rinse, and repeat. I would not be surprised if I spent twice as much time doing this than actually playing the game normally, and I sank a good 60+ hours into the game. Oh, the worst part is that the rewards aren’t unique and there’s unspecified variability within tiers (so a tier VI shotgun enhancement could be like +35% damage, but then you get a +36% damage enhancement and are like, “wait, how high does it go?”). And also, you can only see the broadest category type, so the odds are high that you’ll get an enhancement that you don’t even want. It’s funny–I suspect the devs made the system flexible to avoid forcing people to do missions they don’t want to, but it created a perfect trap for people like me.