I’ll be travelling soon and was wondering what are good games for low power-usage and offline?
Previously I enjoyed:
- Into The Breach
- Baba Is You
- Vampire Survivors
- Super Mario All-Stars (SNES)
At the moment I’m planning to set up:
- Lufia 2 (SNES)
- Shadowrun (SNES + Genesis versions)
- Golden Sun (GBA)
- A Link To The Past (SNES)
- Minish Cap (GBA)
- A Link Between Worlds (NDS) - never played it, hopefully the controls map well!
- Fire Emblem: Awakening (NDS) - same as above, never had a NDS
- Oracle Of Ages (GBA)
- Chrono Trigger (SNES)
- Ogre Battle 64 (N64) - not sure how bad the power usage is on the N64 emulators
Maybe the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton series too which I haven’t played. Also GTA1, London and 2 if they work. I love Advance Wars too but I’ve played it too many times already.
Basically anything that is easy to run, low power, and easy to play with just the controls and small screen in a cramped space. Ideally nothing too difficult / stressful like Hollow Knight that could be hard to play without good screen brightness or cramped.
I like a lot of older PC games but unfortunately they’re difficult to play without a mouse and on the small screen - e.g. Ultima VII and Arx Fatalis.
Most of the games I like to play on Deck have to target the 3-4 hours as my “Sweet Spot” so most of these will fall in there:
Dredge is billed as a cosmic horror fishing game, and it is super engaging, and works great with gamepad controls. I played through the entire thing on Steam Deck. I think I lowered some graphics settings to hit the sweet spot but it wasn’t any kind of extreme compromise due to the game’s low poly art style.
You’re a ninja who gets sent on an adventure to defeat the demons who attacked your village. There’s some gameplay and story twists I don’t want to spoil, but even outside of that it’s a fun game with good platforming, new abilities, and boss battles. And it’s got a great sense of humor
I don’t think I’ve played any that don’t offer at least 3+ hours. My go-to is Mario Kart 7, but pretty much anything in Citra is cool. My 3DS battery died out so I can only play tethered to the charger, so it’s nice to have an alternative - plus you can upscale them to 720p and play them in HD. Lots of fun!
I really dislike most roguelike games, to the point that I lose hype now when I hear a cool indie game is one. Hades is one of the handful of exceptions for me. Combat feels very fluid and responsive, the visuals are gorgeous, and it sips battery.
A lot of people say they like the story and characters, though I’m not really clicking with it. But I haven’t finished it yet so maybe I’m just not at the cool story stuff yet? Either way, I’m enjoying myself quite a bit.