In essence, what game do you play when you are feeling down, under the weather, or depressed, and what does it do for you?
Mine would be Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. It is one of the first games I have beaten as a kid, and is probably the game I have completed the most amount of times. Everytime I play it, it brings me back to important or comfortable times in my life. It’s also one of those games that I just wish I could live in, and everytime I return to this game is liking visiting an old home, or visiting old friends, which I guess is fitting and somewhat comforting given the nature of the game. I grew up with the DX version, but I’ll play the original and the Switch remake as well for a slightly different experience. They all have their own way of making the experience feel different or fresh, like the different glitches between the original and the GBC versions, the attention to detail put into the remake, and the feeling of playing the OG version in a Super Gameboy if I’m feeling really old school. It’s one of those games where no matter which version I play, it will always take me to a place of comfort.
Lord of the Rings Online.
I’ve been “playing” it since 2011, and never got past about level 40-something (I believe the current cap is 140, to put that into perspective). It’s just such a lovingly built world, and all I want to do in it is farm, do fun seasonal events, and smoke pipe-weed on the roof of my hobbit house. In all that time I’ve done a grand total of one group instance, and it actually went really well and everyone was lovely! But I went back to smoking on my roof afterwards 😄