Looking for a new speed game
3 years ago
Texas, USA

Been itching to get into a new speed game for a while now but I'm not sure where to start. Part of my problem is I've learned that I prefer doing runs where, at least starting out, I don't necessarily have to do a lot of individual practice. I prefer when I'm able to just finish my casual playthrough of the game, and then just keep on playing and getting better and better. I played a lot of Wind Waker Randomizer that felt like that for the most part, and I also enjoyed doing this with Celeste ILs (running the full game ended up feeling too stressful for me lol). Whereas when I've tried to play games like Megaman, I feel like I have to keep grinding to get each room perfectly because I usually die when I mess up (as opposed to say Celeste, where deaths aren't very punishing), and then I just end up getting tilted very quickly whenever I try to do full runs.

So yeah, if anyone has any recommendations for stuff like this I'd love to hear some ideas. Other randomizers could be cool, although I'm not sure what other kinds of games have randomizers and I'm not super interested in other Zelda games, Metroid, Castlevania, or Pokemon. Also I tend to like a lot of different kinds of games, but especially platformers.

Brazil
GFM
He/Him, They/Them
3 years ago

Looking at the games that I run (since those are the runs I'm most familiar with), I have a metroidvania suggestion and a weird one.

My first suggestion is Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, a 2D metroidvania. You play as the priestess Kaho, who's tasked with dispelling a curse, or something, with a maple leaf and a Bow. Also, she eventually becomes a cat! I really liked the game casually (I think my first playthrough took me around 4 hours), and eventually decided to try to learn the any% run to take part of a tournament. There's some RNG in the bosses, but the run is mostly based on execution. Sub-30 minutes times aren't that hard with some practice, and although you do need to beat every boss without taking any damage to get a really good time, there are pretty reliable strategies for most bosses, and I think you lose at most 10 minutes by failing that on every boss. I've since stopped running this game, but I still find it quite fun to play, and will do occasional "casual runs". Oh, and there's quite an active discord for the series.

Now, for the weird suggestion... Have you heard about Catherine? It's a puzzle game about climbing a tower by pushing/pulling blocks to make stairs. The main game is interesting, but I don't enjoy the story that much... However, there's an extra mode called Babel, in which you have to climb a pseudo-random tower, either solo or in pairs. Most of the runs are done in the pairs mode (which is surprisingly easier than solo; and I heard there was a bug in the solo mode), and played in 1p2c fashion. I pretty much learned this run by playing the game a lot, after watching some marathon runs. Also, the ILs are way more active than full game, so there's also that. This game can be quite stressful at times (so yeah, maybe a bad pick), but there's something about learning its patterns and getting better at climbing that I really enjoy about it. The PC version (Catherine Classic) is kinda easier for 1p2c since you can remap the controls in the version, mapping one character to a half of the controller and the other to the other half. There's also a newer version of the game on the PS4.

That's about it from me. Youyou Kengeki Musou (another game I run, a top-down Touhou action platformer) is quite fun, but I don't know if it fits the description you asked. It's kinda short and really fun to play, though... So maybe check that out.

Good luck looking for speed games! :)

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