Games where the situ. / characters are not so grim or crummy

I'm going back and forth between The Last of Us and Far Cry 4, and as much as the mechanics are good..... Most of the main characters in FC4 are crummy people (back before I got a free download code for it, I watched the Amita and Sabal endings, so I know they're both schmucks in their own special ways), and with TLOU, it's just the whole situation they're in.

I could really use a cleanser here; are there any games (PS4, or PC) with a story that doesn't get to the end and just hammer on the fact that you're kind of a terrible person, and the people you've been working for/with are also kind of terrible people? I was considering AC:Unity the other day, does that at least still have the clarity of purpose the earlier games did, where you generally feel like you're one of the Good Guys?

Wolfenstein is one I can think of, though the story can get pretty grim. Most of the characters are not despicable assholes nor are completely depressive, but there is still some heavy stuff (I'll avoid spoilers for now).

@fear_the_booboo said:

I rented that at one point when it came out. I got to a point where you were smuggling (yourself?) in the back of a pickup truck, and had to fight through some base/checkpoint. Do you remember roughly how far into the game that might have been? Not time-wise, since I tend to play pretty slowly, but as far as the story progression. Just thinking if that's half way through or something, I'm not sure I'd want to buy it now, just to play the back half of the game.

That's very early. Maybe a quarter of the game at most. It's got a pretty lengthy single player campaign.

@sarahsdad: Ironically, Grim Fandango! You play as a skeletal travel agent from the wrong side of the tracks trying to unravel a great mystery in the land of the dead.

@thatpinguino said:

Games with puzzle solving are always a little dicey for me. I usually reach a ceiling with logic puzzles where unless I can map it out on paper, my brain just cannot seem to take the next step, and I either lean hard into an FAQ, or just put it down. And if it's the "put the pulley in the rubber chicken" style, it's a similar problem. Aside from brute force where I just try everything with everything else, I seem to have a hard time making the intuitive leaps required.

Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed? You play an otaku running around with other otaku beating the clothes off of man-made vampire people. I can't in good conscience recommend it to most others at full price though. I really like those sorta B- and C-tier Japanese games so I was fine with it, but I can see how other people would have problems with the way it plays and whatnot.

@sarahsdad: You're not far into it at all.

Again, it's not the most happy game, but I tried to find a game that had similar gameplay to Far Cry 4 or Last of Us.

I you're into indie games at all (or platformers) and haven't played it yet, Rogue Legacy might also be a good choice.

I presume you're after something along the same lines? If not you have plenty of options, whether it's OlliOlli2, Chariot, Hohokum, Spelunky, Teslagrad, Final Fantasy XIV, Rogue Legacy, Dragon Age Inquisition, Diablo III (there's evil, but it's lighthearted cartoony evil), or even Borderlands (though that does have its moments, but it also plays things a lot less grim).

If you're after something more shooty then Borderlands probably fits that best. As you mentioned Unity, if you haven't played it Black Flag is probably cheaper and definitely better. I will say that I didn't feel as though FC4 gave me any feelings of being kinda terrible until into the post-game sequences. When the credits rolled I was pretty happy with how everything turned out and most people seemed to be in a better place.

Milwaukee Brewers games. Oh, you said games where the situations and characters are NOT grim or crummy.

What systems do you play?

@kcin said:

Primarily PS4. I recently built a PC, but was on a budget, so it's a Core i3 with only integrated graphics at the moment. It plays Hearthstone like a bat out of hell, but beyond that, it's mostly just some old Steam games.

The Nazi's winning the war & being stuck for a decade paralysed isn't a grim situation?
@sarahsdad There's not too many games since grim situations & characters with shady morals usually make for good games.

@hone_mcbone: It is but the tone of it is not as much of a downer than Last of Us and the characters are not assholes like in Far Cry 4.

I said that the game is not happy-go-lucky at all, but it has a lot positive moments that are rare in videogames.

Still, it might be a stretch, but I don't feel that game is emotionally exhaustive like the Last of Us is.

The games you're using as examples are only AAA titles. Are you interested in indie titles?

@kcin: I don't have anything against them inherently. I've played both Trine games, Bastion, Counter-spy and Transistor (although I think the thread started here by @mikelemmer digs into the problems I had with the game better than I could).

I tried, but couldn't really seem to get into a few others: Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, Dust, and The Swapper.

FWIW, I tend to like 3rd person games where there's more than one right way to accomplish a task. RPGs have historically been a good go-to for this reason.

If that sparks some ideas, I'd be glad to hear 'em.

saints row 4 is pretty great, and doesnt take itself seriously at all.

infamous ps4 isnt too grim either, just a pretty good superhero game.

@hone_mcbone said:

Yeah, It's making me realize now that one of the things I never really thought about in the Ezio era of Assassin's creed was that he was pretty much *always* killing bad guys, or their henchmen. As much as the Templars had something to say in their dying breath, I could sort of shrug and think "that's a noble goal, too bad you went about it in such a pupped-up way."

And not to say killing on its own doesn't have some moral issues. At the end of those games though, I always felt justified that what the Templars were up to would have been infinitely worse for the vast population, if it had come to pass.

Whereas, when I'm running around FC4, blowing up red-shirts....they're just idiots following orders. The way the game is written, I get the impression that if Pagan Min announced he was marrying Amita and the war was over, the red-shirts and most of the Golden Path would head to the same bar and all get drunk together.

That's cool. Hadn't really thought of Saints Row.

Also, yeah...Infamous was a good time. Also had fun with that spinoff, First Light.

How about the camp protagonist of Final Fantasy XII? When the chips are down he says, "gosh darn it" and rolls up those sleeves he never has.

I agree that a lot of game's go for this totally edgy feel and just end up feeling cringy (far cry 3 and 4). As someone else mentioned the saints row games are pretty great.

Dragon Age Inquisition?

@believer258: You'd think so, right? I loved the first one, had a pretty good time with the second one, and bought Inquisition as a digital download on PSN. At some point the game mechanics I didn't like sort of overwhelmed the rest of the experience though. Pinging for resources, too many loading screens, enemies who reacted to damage only as a point value, friendly AI not being too bright. I might go back in a few months to start a new play through,and try a different style.

Had a happy accident Friday night though. I was poking around on Steam, and noticed that Skyrim (plus some add-ons) was on sale. The last time I played that was on the 360, and the only thing that made me stop really was the obscene loading times, so I picked up the game plus DLCs for cheap. Really looking forward to running around, dragon-shouting things off of cliffs again :)

Xenoblade Chronicles is fairly straightforward with this stuff: The heroes are mostly good people, the bad guys are mostly dirtbags.

Ni no Kuni is another great RPG that's (mostly) lighthearted.

AC4: Black Flag's protagonist isn't an especially good person, but spends most of the game not giving a fuck, so that's refreshing.

@nophilip: Thanks for the suggestions. My TV doesn't have enough HDMI ports for the PS3 at the moment, so it's gathering dust, but I'll add Ni no Kuni to my 'someday' list.

Also, Black Flag was a pretty good time. I didn't Platinum, but still feel I pretty much wrung that dry. I kind of enjoyed the devil-may-care attitude, after how self-serious ACIII was.

Shovel Knight is a good game

The Borderlands Handsome Collection is chock full of bad people, but it's mostly all lighthearted and in good fun. Though the series tends to rub some people the wrong way in terms of the comedic value.

You mean you don't like shades of gray in your games? But the narratives are so real!

Have you played Valkyria Chronicles?

Saints Row, Persona, Fire Emblem, Mass Effect? Things can get a little grim in that last one but there's still some fun with the characters.

@sunbrozak: BL 1 and 2 are some of the few FPS games I've played all the way through; I do love me some leveling mechanics.

@reverendk: Now that I've got a reasonable PC again, I'll add Valkyria Chronicles to my list. I seem to recall that I was really disappointed when it didn't come out on anything portable back in the day.

@donutfever: You're the 2nd or 3rd person to suggest Saint's Row. I remember renting one of them when it came out, but not sure which. I'll have to add 3 and 4 to my 'to-play' list as well.

The overall story of the Mass Effect series is pretty dark but they've always been pretty great about making the characters a little goofy, especially in 3. The Citadel DLC is pretty much a Mass Effect Christmas Special.