I recently played Alien Isolation, and I noticed all of the “hacking” she does on doors and computers are different types of games, like press the button at the right time, or match the images within a timer, etc.
A lot of games have these mini-games, and I was wondering which you think are the best? Or at least, didn’t get old fast?
Gwent!
It suffers the same problem every trading card game does: if you don’t have the best cards, you lose. Skill and strategy and even luck are nothing compared to just having better cards.
IMO pay-to-win mechanics work really well for a game-within-a-game since rather than exploiting the player for money, they are exploiting the player character for effort, which can lead you to go on more epic quests
Personally I found it really annoying that halfway through the game when I decided to give gwent a go, i got absolutely trashed and was basically tole to go back to the beginning of the game and redo a bunch of areas I’d already spent too much time in.
Not to mention none of the gwent quests were epic in the slightest. They were literally “play these people, if you win you get a card”.
I spent more time playing gwent then playing the Witcher.
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That’s a really superficial take. For instance in MTG every format has “must have” cards, like fetchlands or shock lands (or dual lands), but beyond that there’s no “best” cards. There are “meta” cards that go into a specific meta deck and when you have one meta deck playing against another that’s when skill and strategy come into play. And it’s not like you must build a meta deck to play, you can build anti-meta decks or lab out a completely new meta deck. The problem is that such a level of deck building skills go way beyond what 99% of players are capable of doing. Even some of the best players in the world suck at deck building, because is an entirely different skillset to playing the game.
But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. The modern meta looks very different to when I got into MTG 10+ years ago. Some are still around in some form, like regular Tron turned into mono-g tron and burn turned into boros burn. But the bans on Twin and Pod have killed those decks while Jund and Affinity have dropped out of the meta. In those place we have brand new decks like amulet titan or 5c Omnath. Somewhere in that timeframe we also got Eggs that was literally jank cards thrown into a pile of meta-defining solitaire playing, and then it got banned for being too boring.
You can get meta cards to build a meta deck but you can’t explicitly buy “best” cards because a new combination of “bad” cards can create a meta deck and then those become the new “best” cards.
What happens when a person without any good meta cards plays a person who has good meta cards?
The one with the better cards wins.
The one with a better deck wins. If a homebrew deck goes against a meta deck then it’s likely the meta deck wins, but if you homebrew a deck with meta cards vs homebrewing without meta cards it comes down to how well the deck is built. A homebrew with all the meta cards but without any game plan or poor mana source distribution is going to do worse than a homebrew without meta cards, but with a clear plan and cards that support that plan.
People not building their own decks and instead just copying meta decks is another discussion.
I disagree but I understand you… I don’t know why it didn’t click for me as an old Yu-Gi-Oh! Player (that is the only card game I have ever played… And several minutes of a “Duel Master” card game for GBA… Perhaps that one would trigger some old memories for some it was based on an anime too).
It was my first foray into CCG type games. I did try the in game Gwent recently and did not enjoy it as much.
I guess you may feel that way because mature CCG are far better than the Gwent mini game.
God I love gwent, I might have to pick witcher back up just to play.
All of the Yakuza games are basically, collections of well made mini games that turn each beat-em-up campaign into a hundred hours of fun. But among those, the Cabaret Club and Pocket Circuit RC race-car games from Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, are probably my favs.
The photo minigame in Kiwami 2 makes me extremely uncomfortable, I guess it’s commendable that it can make the player feel so strongly about it
Cabaret club is great! I wish they’d put it out as it’s own little mini games for smartphones or something
I have a few.
PGR3, a Xbox360 racing game, contains Geometry Wars 1 and 2 as mini games. YT Link
Celeste contains the entirety of Celeste Classic (PICO-8) as an easter egg in one of its levels. YT Link
Xenogears, a PS1 JRPG game, contains a battle arena minigame, and I spent a few hours on that as a kid. YT Link
Machinarium’s Gomoku/5 in a row minigame is so much fun, I played it with my friends at school when we didn’t want to listen to our teacher :) By the way, I really recommend Machinarium to every fan of old school point-and-click games.
Geometry Wars was the best! And in each Project Gotham the had a new version!
Animal Crossing on the GameCube straight up let you buy little NES consoles with a small variety of titles.
Does it actually let you buy them? I thought they were mostly locked away behind special event codes, or even dummied out.
Really basic ones can be dug up or purchased. You did have to get event codes for some cooler ones.
TIL, thanks!
I also loved that they added some minigames from Amiibo Festival into New Leaf on the 3DS: Puzzle League and Desert Island Escape
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Gwent from Witcher 3
I’m pretty sure I spent more time playing Ghent than the actual game. And I’m still upset that the standalone version sucked.
The standalone just didn’t have that same magic
Which one? The MP game or the SP one?
I remember spending so much time playing Farkle in Kingdom Come Deliverance, betting my money on every game. I think Witcher 1 or 2 have similar dice game that i also very into it, played with every NPC possible whenever i have the chance.
Dice poker was Witcher 1 and 2. Was fun! Then gwent came and I was hooked on that too
Funny that i can’t get into gwent 😂
FFX Blitzball is the mini-game that I sunk the most time into by far (100+ hours), and always had fun.
Gwent from Witcher 3 kind of goes without saying, the framework is so good it’s spawned 3 full games that I can think of.
Best Hacking mini-game goes to the newer Deux Ex games, quick, the right amount of challenge but if you didn’t like it you could basically never do it.
Best lockpicking I’m going to give to Starfield. Literally the only part of the game I actually enjoyed, each is a great little puzzle.
OMG blitzball!! Initially thought it was stupid but once it clicked I was hooked !!!
My roommate in college would play Qwent in Witcher 3 and I would find myself glued to the TV.
As a fan of the LucasArts point-and-click adventure games of the 80s-90s, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Day of the Tentacle, the sequel to Maniac Mansion (their first adventure game ever), actually contains Maniac Mansion as a minigame.
Kinda old school here but I really loved Pokémon Stadium mini games, also the shooter mode from Donkey Kong 64 was a blast, back in the day. Even Banjo Kazzoie/Tooie had some amazing mini games, I really loved those.
Me and my friends played the Pokemon stadium mini games WAY more than the actual battles. They were a lot of fun.
The multiplayer shooter in DK64 was so fun!
In Super Pitfall for the SNES, there was an Easter egg hidden in a temple that would warp you into the original Atari version. If that counts, that’s my favorite “game inside a game.”
Blitzball
Rdr2 fishing has a following…
The host club manager minigame in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2, I don’t even remember their rewards, just that they were very fun. Compared to the real state minigame in 0 that was so boring I only remember the prize at the end, at least it was worth it
spoiler
You got Kyriu’s original fighting style as a 4th one that breaks the game with a fanservice scene that references the cover art of the first game.
I loved that mini game , it had great gameplay and very short and sweet story . I would buy it in a heard beat if it was a standalone game with more in-depth mechanics.
I love that song too. I need to remember to add that to my playlist.
The door hacking in Deus Ex Human Revolution. Each one was unique, could be solved by skill (speed and precision) or with tools (consumable items found throughout the game). It was a mini puzzle game each time you tried to unlock something.
At the time, I loved it so much I tried to build my own version but it never went anywhere.
