Cute and fantastical video games!

March 22, 2020 5:48 PM

Like all of us looking to expand our game collection in these times, specifically rpg, fantasy like. (Expanding on the wholesome games theme!)

Favorite games have been cute like Slime Rancher, Star Dew Valley, or Kirby; or fantasy adventure with great story line like Ni No Kuni 1, Zelda BotW, The Gaurdian, Dragon Quest 11, Final Fantasy, King's Quest 2015. This is our favorite with lot's of detailed fantasy villages and flowers, magic and cut scenes.

Most of these are very brightly colored and fun and often even the "bad guys" are cute or cartooney. Specifically fantasy with magic and colorful comforting images and places (ok fighting a bit of dystopia given that there's something to fight). We like some of the more cartoony games like Skylanders, Donky Kong, Raymand Legends, and Mario Odyssey. And finally some of those goofy games like octodad, TABS, and human fall flat.

Avoiding the hypersexualized ladies outfits in a lot of RPG's if possible (even the old Final Fantasies and Dragon Quest 11 was pushing it for my taste).

That's like, all the games our family likes--- what are the colorful, fun and joy inducing games in your life?? DO SHARE!!! The world is in a disaster, let's at least role play fixing it to get in gear for real things we'll do as we can enter the world again! What are you excited about coming up? What can I add to our game collection!?

posted by xarnop to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (19 answers total)

Dragon Quest Builders 1 & 2 are charming, chibi games with a Minecraft vibe of building things out of blocks and without so much of that sorta ehhhh gender trope vibe of some of the DQ11 stuff.
posted by cortex at 5:56 PM on March 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

You might enjoy the Trine series.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is outstanding and far more than the sum of its parts, though there is some of the sexualized women stuff, but it's extremely hopeful and cute over all.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker was an underappreciated game that got a great Switch rerelease, very cute.
posted by Mizu at 5:59 PM on March 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Costume Quest is a classic retro turn-based RPG in a cute kid wrapper.

Cat Quest is a classic action RPG/diablolike with a cute cat wrapper. The sequel has two player co-op.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:09 PM on March 22, 2020

I recently played New Super Lucky's Tale and Sparklite and enjoyed both.
posted by Crystalinne at 6:10 PM on March 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

This is the third time I’ve recommended this in the last week, and by god I shall keep recommending it even after this crisis has passed!

Katamari Damacy, if you have the right hardware.
posted by ejs at 6:15 PM on March 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

The "Tales of" series is a popular, long-running series of JRPGs with a real-time combat system that supports co-op multiplayer. I've only played Symphonia myself, but I quite liked it. Unfortunately, the camera in Symphonia stubbornly focuses on the first character in the party, so I've found the multiplayer to be too frustrating. I can't speak from experience for the rest of the games.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 6:19 PM on March 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a work of art. The developers said they were inspired by Miyazaki's art, and the coming of age stories of Lion King and Iron Giant. Though now thinking about it I would classify it as hauntingly beautiful rather than joyful. But running and jumping and flying through the levels (it's a platformer) is definitely joyful.
posted by xdvesper at 6:21 PM on March 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Well if you like cuteness and games in the Mario universe you could do a lot worse than Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
posted by mmascolino at 6:30 PM on March 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Not sure if it's cutesy enough, but I loved playing Eastshade. Set in a lush fantasy world, you play an artist whose task it is to explore and paint pictures of the glorious scenery while solving quests. There's no death or combat, just leisurely adventure.
posted by all the light we cannot see at 10:17 PM on March 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

Gorogoa is an absolute delight. There was a little bit of friction for me at the very beginning while I was figuring out how it worked, but after that I was in crazy love with it all the way to the end.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:35 PM on March 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

Skies of Arcadia if you have a Dreamcast or a GameCube/Wii (or emulate).

How the hell hasn't this been remastered for PS4/Switch yet? SEGA you cowards
posted by Bangaioh at 2:36 AM on March 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

Wandersong! I mentioned it in that other thread. It's a mix of adventure, music-based action, and some light puzzles. But it's just really good, the writing and music especially.

My main regret from playing it is that I played it by myself and couldn't share all the joy in it.
posted by ropeladder at 5:45 AM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Animal Crossing just came out for the switch and it's adorable. It does have a major issue though, where only the first person who plays the game gets to do everything, and the subsequent characters need to wait on the first to move forward the storyline/unlock tools. You can't have multiple islands on a single switch, so you all need to share the first island.

I am also a huge fan of the Tales of Games - I highly recommend Tales of Vesperia which is being remastered for the PS4, or you can play the original on Xbox 360.

"In IGN's Best of 2008 awards, Vesperia was nominated for Best RPG and Best Original Score in the Xbox 360 category.[68][69] In GameSpot's own similar awards, it was nominated for awards in the "Special Achievement - Best Story" and "Special Achievement - Best Graphics, Artistic" categories.[70][71] The year after its release, Technology Tell cited it as one of the best Tales games to have come overseas.[72]"
posted by valoius at 8:26 AM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Maybe Moonlighter or Recettear, if you like the cartoony, sweet vibe? Both are a combination of going into dungeons and village/shop upgrades; Moonlighter is more action oriented and Recettear’s more shop-based.
posted by tautological at 8:29 AM on March 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm really enjoying Okami right now. It's bad guys are super neat.
posted by Gor-ella at 8:48 AM on March 23, 2020

Hmm. Have you played Chrono Trigger? Its storyline is a little melancholy, but I think if you can handle BotW, which I thought was terribly sad, you could take it.

Earthbound is a VERY silly cult hit from the Super Nintendo days, and one of my favorite games in the world. The end was a bit scary to me as a kid, so maybe check in with your littlies afterward if you have them.

Secret/Legend of Mana is very bright and colorful. There are some sexualized character designs, but it varies from game to game.

I also second Ori, which had me enthralled for months. I recommend a controller if you play it on PC. It takes a lot of the frustration out of the game and the joyful feeling of jumping around and exploring shines through. It's also explicitly about fixing the world.

Glad to see you've experienced Ni no Kuni already. There's nothing else like it.
posted by the liquid oxygen at 10:43 AM on March 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

I award a +1 to Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, both Ori games, and Captain Toad. Actually, a +10 to Chrono Trigger. My favorite game of all time.

I also recommend Undertale, which is very fun to play in a group with people reading the dialog out loud (so, good for a family).
posted by gmonkeylouie at 4:37 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: This is so great and I thank you all for the responses!
posted by xarnop at 8:31 AM on April 24, 2020

Based on the few hours I've played so far the first Grandia (RPG, available for Switch in a bundle with the sequel) seems like a worthy contender.
posted by Bangaioh at 2:24 PM on August 11, 2020