The AAA gaming space can often lack innovation, so people usually turn to small indie studios for something fresh. Whether it's for unique gameplay design, b...
The AAA gaming space can often lack innovation, so people usually turn to small indie studios for something fresh. Whether it’s for unique gameplay design, beautiful aesthetics or satisfying combat, these 15 overlooked indie games stood out to me. This is my top 15 list of underrated, hidden indie gems for PC that I enjoy more than any Ubisoft, Activision or EA game.
Whether it’s a classic JRPG like Crosscode, murder mystery Paradise Killer, psychological horror Yuppie Psycho, or cozy RPG Phoenotopia Awakening, I hope that at least one of my handpicked indie game recommendations from this top 15 list piques your interest.
I loved paradise killer. They made such a cool world, and the art is incredible. I kind of enjoy that there’s no set ‘outcome’ as well, just whatever you’re able to deduce with the evidence you’re given
Wow, was surprised to see there was a mention of MO: Astray. I got I as part of a Humble Choice bundle a few years ago and randomly gave it a go. Didn’t look at anything about it, which is not my usual… MO.
ANYWAYS, I absolutely adore this game and highly recommend. Like he says, the game is very clever, never outstays its welcome, and it will surprise you regularly. It has a solid storyline and the way it tells it to you is unique, but I don’t want to give that away.
I’m always trying to find new Let’s Plays of this game, it’s just a satisfying romp.
I love CrossCode so much that, after playing it on GamePass, I bought the Collector’s edition just to give the devs some well deserved money. And then bought it a second time on Xbox, just to have an excuse to play it again from the beginning.
It’s got tons of exploration, puzzles, and cute characters. It’s also, like, MASSIVE. I had about 60 hours on my first playthrough, and 15 more for the DLC. And the thing is, I never got bored with it. Gameplay is snappy and always gives you new tools to try, puzzles are well-thought and actually challenge you, and the platformer/parkour elements were the cherry on top, which easily adds hours and hours of playthrough if you’re like me and want to collect every treasure in all the maps.
And despite being a huge game with tons of skills and craftable gear to choose from, I’ve never felt like the game was forcing me to check guides online or shoehorning me into a very specific build. The game rewards skill more than stats, and level ups are not really important which means that you don’t ever need to farm.
I’m patiently waiting for the next game from the same devs. CrossCode brought me back to when I was a kid and games felt fun and exciting and trusted you to learn how to use the tools at your disposal, instead of the constant hand-holding experience that I always find on modern AAA RPGs.
Thanks for copying the list out; I’m not visiting YouTube either at the moment. I think I probably saw this video a while ago though – at least, that particular set of games looks very familiar…
I’ve played some of them and have some things to say about them:
Paradise Killer: I liked the music in this one. I’d never encountered the vaporwave aesthetic before bumping into this game via a Let’s Play (back when I was still going to YouTube) which probably enhanced the weirdness factor of the game for me. It clearly took inspiration from Danganronpa, so if you liked that game you might want to check it out (or vice versa if you somehow ran into Paradise Killer without having heard of Danganronpa, I guess).
Crosscode: I found this game frustrating. I liked a lot of things the game did – like the interaction with party members (EXCEPT for dungeons) and running around the map searching for secrets – but… the default difficulty seemed to be set to maximize annoyance. I mean, it’s doable. I was very stubborn about not changing the timing setting – probably too much so – and was eventually able to beat the main game, but the way it was tuned definitely reduced my enjoyment. The game claims that adjusting the setting doesn’t matter, but tracks statistics about it (like GTA-style stats) which made me really stubborn about not changing the setting. A lot of the challenges in the game are Zelda-esque timing puzzles – from hell. Like hit the switch then run over and do something before time runs out but with 20 steps instead of the one or two you’d find in a Zelda game. (If you don’t like those sorts of timing puzzles you probably won’t have a good time with this one.) So, of course, the timing is set in such a way that it’s often tricky to actually pull off (particularly with aiming involved) even once you’ve figured out exactly what needs to be done. I did it, but more often than not got pissed off while doing it. The game additionally had the interesting idea of having competitive dungeons. Your party members would challenge you on the overall time to clear dungeons. So, in addition to the time pressure of individual puzzles, there was an overall time pressure to race through the puzzles as fast as possible. I liked the idea of where they were coming from with the party member interactions for dungeons but I’d have preferred to take my time with things frankly. It ultimately doesn’t matter that much whether you win or lose those (I won about half of them), but having the game rub my nose in it for being too slow after getting frustrated at puzzle timing and aiming for an hour or more in each dungeon kind of sucked. The overall plot of the game was interesting enough to go through, and I liked the characters for the most part, but a lot of the gameplay was frustrating. Very mixed feelings on this one.
Phoenotopia Awakening: This game was another mixed bag. I really wanted to like it. There were a lot of parts I did like… but it is very flawed. First is the gameplay. It presents itself as a mostly cute pixel platformer/adventure game, but the developers seemed to be thinking “Dark Souls” with stamina and such and… it really did not work for me. Thankfully, you can turn most of that crap off – and I did so unabashedly. (I beat DS1 before playing it, and since playing it I’ve beaten DS2 – so it’s not like I can’t handle hard games. It just did not feel good to play with those mechanics enabled.) Second is the story. There’s a decent enough hook to get the main adventure going fairly early on, but the game doesn’t deliver on it. You get to the end and the big dramatic question of the game is… still unanswered! That is really not ok! (Instead you get a bunch of unnecessary backstory for the main character that I took as a big “fuck you”; I won’t say more than that in case someone does want to play it and find out for themselves, but the ending was really unsatisfying to me.) The game had a lot going for it – the music’s good (and I still listen to some of the tracks occasionally), and there was a lot of charm in places. Some of the areas were really pretty and there were a bunch of fun little interactions – but I really don’t know what they were thinking with some of it!
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I loved paradise killer. They made such a cool world, and the art is incredible. I kind of enjoy that there’s no set ‘outcome’ as well, just whatever you’re able to deduce with the evidence you’re given
I normally don’t like adventure games without combat but yuppie psycho is absolutely amazing. I love that game.
I love CrossCode, makes me happy to see others point out how wonderful it is
Who’s the deer with the boobs?
I think that that’s a sheep.
EDIT: The top comment on YouTube says “goat mommy is Crimson Acid from Paradise Killer”.
Weird West is another indie game that it definitely worth a shot, even if you aren’t typically a fan of top down games it’s worth a shot.
Glad it will be on ps+ essential next month :)
Wow, was surprised to see there was a mention of MO: Astray. I got I as part of a Humble Choice bundle a few years ago and randomly gave it a go. Didn’t look at anything about it, which is not my usual… MO.
ANYWAYS, I absolutely adore this game and highly recommend. Like he says, the game is very clever, never outstays its welcome, and it will surprise you regularly. It has a solid storyline and the way it tells it to you is unique, but I don’t want to give that away.
I’m always trying to find new Let’s Plays of this game, it’s just a satisfying romp.
I love CrossCode so much that, after playing it on GamePass, I bought the Collector’s edition just to give the devs some well deserved money. And then bought it a second time on Xbox, just to have an excuse to play it again from the beginning.
It’s got tons of exploration, puzzles, and cute characters. It’s also, like, MASSIVE. I had about 60 hours on my first playthrough, and 15 more for the DLC. And the thing is, I never got bored with it. Gameplay is snappy and always gives you new tools to try, puzzles are well-thought and actually challenge you, and the platformer/parkour elements were the cherry on top, which easily adds hours and hours of playthrough if you’re like me and want to collect every treasure in all the maps.
And despite being a huge game with tons of skills and craftable gear to choose from, I’ve never felt like the game was forcing me to check guides online or shoehorning me into a very specific build. The game rewards skill more than stats, and level ups are not really important which means that you don’t ever need to farm.
I’m patiently waiting for the next game from the same devs. CrossCode brought me back to when I was a kid and games felt fun and exciting and trusted you to learn how to use the tools at your disposal, instead of the constant hand-holding experience that I always find on modern AAA RPGs.
Could have been a text list
Dude… is right under the video. 😐
1:48 - Evil Tonight
3:36 - Prodeus
5:30 - Sayonara Wild Hearts
6:54 - Rain World
10:45 - Echo Generation
12:31 - World of Horror
14:16 - Crosscode
16:45 - Huntdown
17:39 - Narita Boy
20:01 - Paradise Killer
23:14 - Mo: Astray
25:08 - Book of Travels
27:59 - Spookware
30:53 - Yuppie Psycho
34:00 - Phoenotopia Awakening
36:31 - Outro
That’s the thing, I don’t want to go to the video.
Thanks for this. I clicked the link, then immediately noped out when I saw it was a video. I was hoping for an article with a numbered list.
Thanks for copying the list out; I’m not visiting YouTube either at the moment. I think I probably saw this video a while ago though – at least, that particular set of games looks very familiar…
I’ve played some of them and have some things to say about them:
It’s so hard to please people eh? gently pat in the back
Thanks for posting this! I too am guilty of not wanting to open the video in the first place, lol.