Shuhei Yoshida, the former PlayStation Studios president and current Sony indies evangelist, has picked a bunch of must-play PlayStation 5 and PS4 titles for the New Year. There are a bunch of expected inclusions here: Hades, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and Death’s Door. However, the iconic executive also highlighted a handful of titles you may not have tried, like Chicory: A Colorful Tale and Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights.
“This beautiful yet oppressive Japanese explorative platformer has an interesting approach to combat: discover downed knights and cleanse their souls to have them fight for you, while defeating certain enemies allows you to adopt their abilities for your own use,” he said of the latter.
Yoshida’s ongoing love of PSVR also comes through, as he spotlighted 3D jigsaw title Puzzling Places and the immersive survival game Song in the Smoke. “A PSVR game set in a prehistoric era in which staying alive hinges on your ability to craft, hunt, and fight,” he explained of the 17-Bit release. “Encounter fearsome creatures and soak in the sights of this atmospheric survival sim.”
You can check out his full list of recommended indie games through the link. Are you going to try any of these?
[source blog.playstation.com]
Comments 15
Thanks for the post @get2sammyb, just looked up a trailer and bought Ender Lilies looks pretty good!
A person responsible for handling playstation indies giving advice on great indie games is a good move.
@KayOL77 Haha, indeed!
Has anyone played Ender Lilies? I do like the graphics but I'm not sure about the other aspects like difficulty or the feeling of the combat.
Just so happens I’ve picked all of these up over the year (apart from the PSVR ones)… and now I’m even more excited to play all of them!
Ender Lilies! What a game, the graphics, the music, gameplay all incredible. Kena, Chicory, Death's Door, F.I.S.T all top picks
I've been dying to play Song in the Smoke. From what I've seen and heard it's a VR masterpiece. Apparently, they are trying to make a physical release work but no updates yet. That's why I've been holding off but I might as well just double dip, lol.
Is the Ender Lilies link supposed to go to the Steam store?
Ender Lilies looks decent, but the genre its in is SO oversaturated these days. I can't go five steps without tripping over another indie metroidvania. Also, like Salt & Sanctuary, I just find the "dark fantasy" aesthetic it's going for to be sort of boring.
Chicory... eh. I don't see the appeal of a game that functions as a digital coloring book. Just not my sort of thing. Sorry.
Shu is a gamer's gamer. He doesn't just play the AAA stuff that you'd expect everyone to play, he actually gets his hands dirty and finds the more obscure stuff too. Lots of respect for him.
@JAMes-BroWWWn
I bought it, I'm enjoying it so far, but I'm only a few hours in. I've beaten two bosses so far.
Combat is closer to a 2D Souls-like, I guess more like Blasphemous than most Metroidvania’s. Parrying is a main mechanic, and your attacks are basically spirits attacking for you. They feel fine, and combat isn't too difficult.
You have limited health restoration, I believe 3 uses at the start, but it can be upgraded. My one irritation so far is the dodge mechanic. Your character just falls forward like she tripped. It feels very weird and it's not as useful as most backdashes or rolls. However, I've read it gets upgraded to a forward dash at some point in the game.
Most importantly, you lose nothing on death but having to return to the nearest checkpoint. So it has some soulslike ideas, but none of the things I generally dislike about those games, like loss of valuable resources.
@Ralizah
It's funny, I complain about the overuse of Souls-like games and roguelikes, but I never tire of Metroidvanias.
@Ralizah It’s a shame that your description of Chicory is how the game is widely seen.
The main story focuses on mental health and self esteem quite a lot (although, for me, it does get a bit sickly sweet with it) so it’s not really a kids game.
Other than the optional Art School, you don’t have to be creative with the paintbrush and it’s used to make quite a clever platformer with some good puzzles. And the boss “fights” are stylishly done too. A really good little game!
@Thrillho I might give it another look at some point, but all of the media I've seen about the game made it look like the coloring was 90% of the gameplay. I'm not saying there's no nuance to that mechanic, but every game I've ever played that heavily featured a painting element has been worse for including it, IMO, so the idea of a game structured around that doesn't seem appealing.
Of course, sometimes a game has to be experienced for the player to get a sense for whether they like it or not. Sometimes one has to realign expectations. Maybe this is a gem I'll regret not playing at some point in the future.
I know my post sounded dismissive, and... it was. If I'm being unfair, I do appreciate you letting me know.
@Ralizah Fair enough and not dismissive at all. It’s just like some people dismissing Disco Elysium for being “pretentious”, I wouldn’t dismiss this for the “gimmicky” mechanic and cartoony art style.
It wasn’t on my radar initially but Kidfried’s thoughts on it in the forum made me give it a go and I enjoyed it more that I thought I would (except the overly difficult hunt for the final collectibles to get the platinum!)
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...