Question Wednesday #2: Therapy Games

[moon_hotel]

Sorry I missed last week, it completely slipped my mind! I'm setting myself reminders to keep up on QWednesdays though. 

This week's icebreaker is kind of a your-mileage-may-vary question, but here goes: do you have any "therapy games?" That is, are there any games/genres that you like to curl up with when you're feeling down, or help you burn off stress? And, as always, what are you playing right now?

Comments

[ektoutie]

I've always found what a friend described as "fish bothering games" very soothing. Aquaria, Endless Ocean, Aquanaut's Holiday and the like. Moreso than "walking simulators" like Proteus etc, I just seem to really enjoy exploring underwater areas and looking at fish milling about.

Outside of those, the opening bits to Chrono Cross (and its soundtrack more generally) have a huge calming effect on me. When I had a long emotional low for a few months in my mid-20s I clung to that game for comfort, and listened to the overworld music separately so much it remains the most-played track in my last.fm history a decade later. I still have a big weak spot for Yasunori Mitsuda's soundtracks just because of that whole thing.

[moon_hotel]

Endless Ocean is really fun! I didn't keep up on it (I should go back to it) but one of my favorite little touches was how you could import your own music to explore to :^) This also reminds me that I recently downloaded Aquanaut's Holiday as well! I'll probably make a post about it when I play it.

Chrono Cross isn't a game I've played, but I did manage to grab the music selection when it came out and I listened to it a lot. It always had a really lovely and mysterious feel to me...I should definitely try it sometime.

[ektoutie]

I've never actually finished Cross though I've started it probably north of a dozen times by now. The opening is just really lovely in its atmosphere... makes me want to just have a nice lie down in the sun somewhere. And at the time, its "What if" take on player choices (which weaves into the story as well) resonated with me big time. I first started thinking about moving away from home back then so there was a lot of hypothetical thinking happening, and somehow Chrono Cross made it feel like it was all going to be okay.

This is the specific piece of music I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU5tQIDMAEw

Aquanaut's Holiday is a little weird, the original actually feels a little creepy in places in its dim lo-fi early PS1 3D and its weirdo ambient soundtrack, but I think it may have been the first non-goal oriented game I played so it has a fond place in my heart. Which one did you get?