Games that helped you mentally

[goldman2786]

Mine is much more recent. Back in 2021 I was in a pretty awful place in my life. I had a home with my parents, but I was going to married soon(and forced to live at home due to American house prices) had no job, struggling to get a degree that I really was not sure I wanted, and just had severe back surgery with a estimated recovery period of 6 months.

In that time, I had a choice to get a newer game off steam. I dodged a bullet and avoided Cyberpunk 2077, which I would learn was a good descision. Instead, I got LAD, or Yakuza: Like a dragon.

The MC of LAD spoke to me soo hard. I wasn't homless, but Ichiban talks about feeling useless and being at the bottom. In the game, Ichiban has an impressively positive outlook on life. I remember that he would sometimes say "not a loser" before a battle, or talking about getting a job as "leveling up".
Not long, I tried my best to keep that positive mindset.

Now I am in my own place with my wife with a job I truly enjoy, and though I don't know if I will every be affluent, I can safely say that I am "not a loser".

 

[C.Endfield]

I consider Falcom games, to be specific, Ys series to be my comfort games that help with depression stress and other things. And things where i can just turn off my brain and kill stuff and watch stats rise like Diablo 2, 3, Grim Dawn really help when things get too stressful, arpgs are just great stress relievers in general.

Morbidly curious but which Ys did that for you? Had a similar experience with I & II: Chronicles and it still feels like a fever dream when I finished both games.

 

[ciro64]

Visual Novel games I found on itch.io, such as A Year of Springs, Tomato Clinic and Nomnomnami games. They're just too wholesome, but also brought me clarity and made me try to appreciate life more.

Playing retro games, sometimes on a crt, can be a therapeutic experience for me too when it has a nice balance between challenge and fun. Magical Pop'n was one of those.

 

[Erebus]

Morbidly curious but which Ys did that for you? Had a similar experience with I & II: Chronicles and it still feels like a fever dream when I finished both games.

Ys Seven, i discovered Falcom thanks to it in the first place and i always find myself going back to it when depression hits and the like, hell it even helps me when i get the gaming burnout and lose motivation to play anything without fail. The Ys X affected me pretty hard recently too, it honestly has a great story.

 

[DevilBusterAkemi]

Games that made you happier, helped you through times, helped you through depression or anxiety, helped you overcome hardship or just games that you feel generally provided you support you needed that you felt you couldn’t get anywhere else.

Discuss.

Skies of Arcadia has helped keep me positive for my entire life. life gets you down quite a bit it seems, but an infectiously optimistic game like this has always helped me out.

 

[C.Endfield]

Ys Seven, i discovered Falcom thanks to it in the first place and i always find myself going back to it when depression hits and the like, hell it even helps me when i get the gaming burnout and lose motivation to play anything without fail. The Ys X affected me pretty hard recently too, it honestly has a great story.

Stellar choice, first Ys game for me and by god, the music holds up too well.

 

[sunofpearl89]

PowerSlave on Sega Saturn kept me distracted during that awkward period between breaking up with an ex and her moving out.

 

[Bonkers225]

PSO on the Dreamcast
WKC2 on the PS3
UNO on the PS3
UFC Undisputed 3 on the PS3
Peggle on various

 

[SeisShooter]

Hmm, well, I've got a bit of a list but I'll try to keep it short. Of all time, probably Yoshi's Island back on the snes, it was the first game and to this day is one of my comfort games. A couple years later, I learned to read to play Final Fantasy Tactics on my own and the story of Ramza Beolve is still means a lot to me.
And then there was the first Dark Souls. I was going through a lot at the time. But playing Dark Souls really helped me through it, especially once I got to Ornstein and Smough. Once I beat them I just sat in front of the boss door and slapped down my summon sign. For days I would boot up the game, put down my summon sign and just fight Ornstein and Smough for randoms I'd never met, it just felt cathartic to help folks through one of the game's bottle necks.

 

[SkunkyBeaumont]

Hmm, well, I've got a bit of a list but I'll try to keep it short. Of all time, probably Yoshi's Island back on the snes, it was the first game and to this day is one of my comfort games. A couple years later, I learned to read to play Final Fantasy Tactics on my own and the story of Ramza Beolve is still means a lot to me.
And then there was the first Dark Souls. I was going through a lot at the time. But playing Dark Souls really helped me through it, especially once I got to Ornstein and Smough. Once I beat them I just sat in front of the boss door and slapped down my summon sign. For days I would boot up the game, put down my summon sign and just fight Ornstein and Smough for randoms I'd never met, it just felt cathartic to help folks through one of the game's bottle necks.

I had too learn to read to play the original Final Fantasy.

 

[99nereids]

the elder scrolls series specifically daggerfall, morrowind & skyrim

strangely missed out on the hype of skyrims release (tho tbf i was 12) so i was introduced to daggerfall by a video review from LGR sometime after & was instantly hooked.

i love watching numbers go up & getting incrementally better at something lol. also modding skyrim was kinda the only thing i did in high school. now the only thing i do is mod morrowind... hmm

 

[RandomHajile]

It's been said to death by many different people, all for different reasons, but seeing as it is the relevant season, I have to mention Dark Souls 3 and the impact it had on me. I was 18 when my mom and stepfather split up. This was something that hit her hard, and this chain of events would ultimately be what ended up souring our bond. It was about 2 weeks out from Christmas when everything happened, and I was left completely to myself during this time. That's when one of my friends gifted me Dark Souls 3 and suggested we play through it at the same time. It's hard to put into words what it was about the game that captured me as much as it did and in such a time, but it felt like the perfect game for me to be playing in that moment. Since then it's become a tradition for me to play Dark Souls 3 every December.

Sweet story. I can sympathize with those feelings, sort of. I was close to my grandfather and he died right before Christmas of 1998. Around that time, Baldur's Gate 1 came out (that christmas eve, in fact) and I was very depressed over his death, since it was very sudden too (stroke). I stayed up playing BG1 christmas eve all alone in my room and while it didn't make me forget about his death, I didn't cry about it that night. It helped me escape. To this day, every christmas eve night, just like in 1998, I stay up for a bit and play BG1.

 

[eev]

The Ace Attorney series has been consistently in my mind since my teenage years, and the connection I have to it has helped me gain perspective on things that went on in my life.

Most recently, I've been struggling to keep my spirits up as I make little progress in my life. My job is kinda fun, but I don't make enough to be living super well soon, I get stuck in my work when something gives me trouble as I overthink all possible solutions, I've become a slower learner in general, and I've been having problems maintaining my interpersonal relationships due to many concerns that I will not be talking about here. For many reasons, I've never felt adequate for anything in my life, and I've never felt like I was good enough for those around me.

I still don't, really, but I have been getting better at living through it. Slowly, but surely, I'm becoming less shy around others and more attentive to social situations, and I was hit with a brick by Ace Attorney Investigations 2 after the Investigations Collection came out in September. I got to play through it last month, and Sebastian/Eustace is a character I needed to be reminded of. He's a pathetic loser, constantly on the verge of tears when things confuse him or don't go his way, and he's being helped by others out of pity. People around him consider him a nuisance constantly, as he can't find a good foot into his work without the extra, and reluctant, help.

To not go spoiling it too much, Eustace goes through the worst day of his life during one of the final chapters, and ends up completely lost. However, despite all the pain he's caused for him, Miles decides to help him pick up through a dialogue/gameplay sequence that's impressively representative of someone going through a tough mental episode like I used to often. The way Eustace picks himself up, still in tears and running away for a while after this, but still doing his best to find out how he can actually give back the help he's received and take initiative is a thing I needed to see again. I can learn from him and his failures just like he did, and come into my own over time. I am really underselling how well this is portrayed, and I know it sounds cliche, but it's a very real struggle that I'm sure many people have and just getting the right message at the right time can help point you forwards, I've gone through instances like this many times as I played and played through the Ace Attorney series time and time again, and so it's almost like a friend that's there for me to reflect with sometimes.

 

[OnTarget]

Katamari Damacy usually makes me feel better if I'm depressed. It's just so silly and the game mechanics are simple but fun.

 

[moonbits]

Sekiro right now is helping.
"Hesitation is Defeat"

 

[Boo Man]

FF Anthology (IV & V)

 

[ObscureJigglypuff]

Journey and Flower, both helped me to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Katwa shoujo, Hotel Dusk and Thirty flights of loving.

 

[Happppppp]

Morrowind. It's a sort of "Comfort Game" For me. The game was there for me during my lowest lows. I'm talking massive depressive falls, I'd just boot up Morrowind, and lose myself within Vvardenfell again, it's not my favorite game ever, but it's a game that was there for me when it needed to be.

 

[philthyweeb]

Getting Over It by Bennett Foddy taught me perseverance and to control my emotions

Post automatically merged: Dec 23, 2024

after i beat it once, it didnt feel frustating anymore, it felt...calming now....And slowly became a comfort game for me.
Whenever i had something downloading in the background or just needed to kill time fsr I'd boot up the game and play a little

 

[Somnia]

Final Fantasy X is my favorite piece of art of all time. It was the last game I played with my dad before he passed away when I was 7 and I've replayed it at least a dozen times since then. Over the years I've found more and more parallels to Tidus and Jecht's relationship, with the arc that Tidus goes on over the course of the game as far as his feelings and memories of his father being pretty close to what I've gone through in my own life. Won't get too detailed but he was a complicated and sort of pathetic man in many ways.

When he passed I just sort of socially shut down and stopped talking to people without even realizing it. Parents tried to get me into therapy and nothin really stuck. The one thing that helped me grow to understand myself and open up again was playing that game and slowly realizing why it resonated with me so much. It helped me save my relationship with my mom and work through trauma regarding my dad and stepdad, for that I'm eternally grateful.

Another game would be Sonic Colors, oddly enough. This one is more lighthearted though as when I in my final year of high school I found myself sort of losing passion for a lot of my hobbies for various reasons known and unknown. Couldn't play most games for long periods of time, couldn't write anymore, couldn't get myself to do much of anything. Randomly got Sonic Colors on a clearance rack at Walmart and something about it just clicked with my perfectly. I had become so wrapped up in playing multiplayer games - specifically FPS - with friends that I think I was just getting bored of the monotony of console gaming without even realizing it. This was such a blast of creativity and fresh air compared to most of what I was on at the time that it just sparked that passion for video games all over again. I've beaten it like 100 times at this point cause its so short and for the backhalf of highschool I'd beat it once or twice almost everyday lol