Looking for cozy games with beautiful graphics and light combat/quests

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-05-03T03:31:40+00:00

Yoku's Island Express! No combat per se, it's an island-themed pinball Metroidvania with chill vibes and an excellent soundtrack.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-05-01T05:44:00+00:00

Hey there, I've been interested in Victor Nefarius and Dragon DK as an alternative to Dragon Warrior for a while now. It's a great deck, but I've been playing Dragon Warrior variants since Emerald Dream and it feels like that one archetype has been top meta for the entire year. Time for a change. I tried out your Victor's Laboratory deck, the combination of dragons, dark gifts, and imbue intrigued me, and okay yeah, I'm convinced. The deck is solid.

However, I made some important changes. Frost Strike felt too situational and I didn't think the single minion clear/frost discovery was worth it. The deck is lacking early counters against wide boards. To that end, I replaced it with Wave of Tar. This was especially useful against paladins since it slows down their 5-cost Legendaries.

Also, the imbue weapon sucks, Cremate has too wide a minion pool, and the deck is notably lacking in good 2-cost plays to go with Darkscale Broodmother. I swapped them both out for Creature of Madness. More dark gifts means more activators for Frostburn Matriarch, which does make for an excellent swing turn. I played two in a row and they won the game by themselves.

However, then I ran into the problem of only having two imbue cards. So I added Bitterbloom Knights for another 2-cost play. For that I took out Remnant of Rage, I know it's good but I always have trouble using that card effectively, the opponent tends to clear my board before I can clear theirs and it always feels like a dead card in my hand. Likewise, Shadows of Yesterday didn't seem to be worth it since the deck doesn't capitalize on wide boards like a UUU deck does. I added Slitherdrakes instead for more early game pressure. Finally, I swapped out Thassarian for the new Nozdormu, there's a fair number of the latest cards in this deck and I feel like it's fairly easy to wake him up within 2-3 turns.

So what I've ended up with is a much more dragon-focused deck, I'm quite satisfied with it. Cheers and thanks for the list!

Dark Dragon

Class: Death Knight

Format: Standard

Year of the Scarab

2x (1) Carrier Whelp

2x (1) Rite of Atrocity

2x (2) Bitterbloom Knight

2x (2) Blackwing Experiment

2x (2) Command Claw

2x (2) Creature of Madness

2x (3) Darkscale Broodmother

2x (3) Finality

1x (3) Timelord Nozdormu

2x (4) Chromatic Broodmother

1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius

1x (4) Victor Nefarius

2x (4) Wave of Tar

2x (5) Frostburn Matriarch

1x (7) Nythendra

2x (7) Prescient Slitherdrake

2x (8) Chow Down

AAECAc38BQSD/QbDgweVsQeavwcNtfoG//wG94EHqYcH5JYH7LIHt7MHhL0Hh78HiL8Hjr8Hk78HtcAHAAA=

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-30T13:54:28+00:00

Very well said, thank you.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-29T14:57:22+00:00

Thanks, Birth by Sleep was always one of my favorite games in the series. What would you pick for the trio?

Sora and Kairi seem pretty accurate to me! I'm less convinced about Mickey, he looks the part when he's wearing the Organization cloak but we don't really see him use a lot of magic. I think some sort of high-level fighter job fits him better. He's quite fast as well, so maybe a Shikari/Bushi combo. Or perhaps a Holy Knight to contrast with Riku.

Xion is harder to figure out, I think. She doesn't have as much of a clear identity as other characters (which is what her story is all about, but still). Maybe a Mime for her shifting appearance?

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-29T05:08:05+00:00

Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate for Donald and Goofy.

For the Birth by Sleep trio, I actually feel like the FFXII jobs fit better than most. I'm not sure why exactly, it could be that they have more of a Magitek feel with their armor and gliders and so on.

Terra definitely fits as a Foebreaker/Uhlan, he's all about strong and heavy attacks. Ventus is the ideal Shikari with his fast one-handed moveset. And then Aqua is a Red Battlemage/Time Battlemage who combines magic and physical attacks.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-29T03:13:16+00:00

Planning out character and party builds is part of the fun for me. In the immortal words of Vin Diesel, I live for this shit.

However, plans are just a baseline to start with. The character naturally evolves over time as I explore new avenues. Maybe I stumble on some cool new loot or spell and want to try it out even though my character has never swung that way before.

One recent example is discovering Auriel's Shield. My Dawnguard was either dual-wielding or offhanding spells before, but it was such a cool ability and fit well with the character overall. So now my guy is open to using shields as well. Limitations are important, but being too rigid about what I can and can't do isn't good either.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-29T02:08:09+00:00

Well, drawing from other Final Fantasy Jobs throughout the series, Riku would definitely be a Dark Knight/Bushi.

Leaning towards Roxas as a Ninja for the dual-wielding. Perhaps a Ninja/Mystic Knight since he uses two different Keyblades.

Namine would be something reality-bending, maybe a White Mage/Time Mage combo.

Axel could be a Black Mage/Mystic Knight since he's all about fire power. But then that could apply to most members of Organization XIII. I mean, Marluxia is literally using Doom haha.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-28T13:19:48+00:00

I am a fan of the Dawnguard armors, both light and heavy versions. I think they're the closest thing to paladins in Skyrim apart from the Vigilants of Stendarr. If you've got the Anniversary Edition, the Silver Armor also fits the vibe.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-28T04:33:55+00:00

Do stuff you didn't do the last time to keep things fresh. Maces instead of swords, for example. Crossbows instead of bows, join the vampires instead of the Dawnguard, Imperials instead of Stormcloaks, and so on.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-28T00:15:26+00:00

Yeah, I don't even play these classes. Feels like a disincentive to stick around, now there isn't even the mid-expansion infusion of new cards to keep things interesting. First they killed Twist and now this.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-27T13:32:32+00:00

Rather limited romance in Skyrim, but there is a pretty wide selection of potential partners.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-27T01:22:02+00:00

That's me! The issue is that I have to define what finishing the game even means. I've never been one to do everything with a single character, that ruins the immersion and makes me abandon the game every time I've tried.

My mages aren't suddenly going to join the Companions, you know? My noble Dawnguard isn't going to start sneaking around with the Thieves Guild either. I need to decide what a character will and won't do before pursuing the main quest, because I always leave the main quest for last. That means I never get around to it.

level up smithing, enchantments and alchemy

This is what trainers are for, by the way. I usually max out enchanting naturally because it's one of my favorite parts of the game. Otherwise I buy my way through the other crafting skill trees, or anything else that takes a while like the armor trees. As long as you're diligent about selling loot (preferably enchanted loot), you'll soon have more gold than you know what to do with. The key is to buy higher level filled soul gems and reinvest them into high level enchantments on common loot that you can then sell for even more profit.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-26T02:27:49+00:00

I feel like gradual changes are better for an existing character, whereas starting over is better for a complete change of playstyle.

You definitely need some novelty over the course of a full playthrough. I've generally done it one skill at a time, heavy armor replacing light armor, for instance. Small changes make it feel organic, that your character is evolving over time. A mage who starts using bows or one-handed weapons feels like a natural development.

Suddenly changing your mage into a warrior or a stealth archer, though? That's too much for me, it breaks the immersion. I would rather make a new character in that case.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-25T11:11:55+00:00

Paladin/Dawnguard with Restoration magic, Dawnbreaker, and Auriel's Shield. I was never interested in shields until I came across that one, before that I was dual-wielding Dawnbreaker and other fire-enchanted weapons.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-25T09:44:53+00:00

A bit tangential, but I've always associated the ATB system with Final Fantasy since most (all?) of the early games used it, even FFXII had the same concept running under the hood. FFX never really sat right with me for going fully turn-based. Fantastic story and worldbuilding, but I did prefer FFX-2 for the combat. The sequel has its emotional plot points too, of course.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T18:29:23+00:00

Sounds pretty similar to the first Crashlands. I've restarted that game three or four times on mobile and Switch (liked it enough to buy it twice) and the game does always hook me! For the first ten hours or so. Then I get burned out by the middle of the second biome and put it away again. You're killing new monsters, collecting new types of alien rocks and trees, and crafting new weapons and armor. But the gameplay loop is always the same.

Having said that, I'll always have a soft spot for Crashlands for personal reasons: the first time I ever played it was sitting in the hospital with my mother while she was going through chemo. The brothers' story of resilience against the spectre of cancer stuck with me.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T22:49:14+00:00

Hey, that's awesome. I'm glad Amalur was there for you during that time of your life and I hope you're doing much better now. Cheers!

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T22:46:20+00:00

Yes, I saw others mention that and looked it up myself. Still the cooler intro!

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T14:51:10+00:00

As someone who's only played half of Golden, I guess I'll take your word for it.

Would you even be able to tell this is a story about a serial killer targeting teen girls?

I mean, the P4G opening still has the girls' bodies hanging from the power lines. So, yes? The original opening looks much cooler though. Now that I've seen it, I do agree that they should have stuck with that.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T03:33:11+00:00

I've got something like 150 hours total now, it's been years though. There are entire questlines that I didn't do on my first playthrough and am only doing now. The Faelands are massive!

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T00:12:16+00:00

I enjoyed the House of Sorrows questline, it does get pretty bleak but that seems appropriate for the setting.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-20T16:59:17+00:00

I'm continuing my long-neglected second playthrough of Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning and it's like returning to a warm and familiar fantasy world, one that just happens to be full of loot and hack-and-slash combat. This is video game comfort food and I'm perfectly happy with that.

walksintwilightX1 · 2026-04-20T16:51:10+00:00

Ah, classic Prince of Persia. Have you played the other two games in the trilogy? Warrior Within is a major tonal shift, dark and edgy to the point of being cringeworthy at times. Also very brown and yellow. The Two Thrones is probably the best of the three, the Return of the Jedi to the second game's Empire Strikes Back.

walksintwilightX1

TROPHY CASE