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Your Favorite Minigames: Saving the World Can Wait; Let's Play Cards

U

ubercheez

Member
As I near the end of this replay of Xenosaga 1, I realize I've spent a good third of my time on the minigames the game offers. Notably, Xenocard! It's a surprisingly well-made card game with several possible deck varieties that offer choices beyond "Fill deck with high-powered cards."

maxresdefault.jpg
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It's really fun and easy to learn, but the game doesn't bother making you play it. Honestly, the game barely even reminds you that it's there -- none of the NPCs ever suggest playing, and the game mode is kind of just buried in your items menu. But if you give it a shot, it's pretty easy to lose a bunch of hours building a deck and playing. I wish they'd brought it back for XS2 and XS3!


Of course, no minigame discussion would be complete without FF VIII's Triple Triad, which was so good that SE brought it back for FF XIV. It was a fun game just on its own merits, and also a quick way to break the game if you knew which cards to convert into spells to junction. Anybody who played this learned to fear the Plus rule.


But there's more than just card games! FFX has blitzball and the traumatic ultimate weapon unlocks. FFX-2 has an absolute smorgasbord of weird minis (my favorite was the Frogger-inspired Reptile Run). And Tekken Tag Tournament had a frickin' bowling game built into it.

What are your favorites, GAF?
 
T

TheBowen

Sat alone in a boggy marsh
Every minigame in the yakuza games

Pazaak in Kotor, despite the fact i have zero idea how to play

Gwent

Texas Hold Em in red dead. Spent more hours in this then the game
 
D

darkmark1987

Member
Triple triad in ff8, love the card game. My other ones are fishing or blade in cold steel or snowboarding in ff7 and cold steel . They are all quick mini games that offer something to do if u just want to mess around in the game, without feeling like ur wasting time e.g. like blitzball which takes 10 minutes each game,
 
Shotpun

Shotpun

Member
Wak-A-Rat in Sam & Max Hit the Road
MaxBonked.jpg


Must also have a game or two of Car Bomb in the same game, which is Sam & Max's version of Battleship.
 
L

LunarKnite

Member
Blitzball is definitely one of my favorites. By the end, I got so good, nothing stood a chance, I just played to see how many points I could score before time was up.

I usually very much enjoy casino stuff in games like Pokemon and Dragon Quest, but my absolute favorite from those two series has to be Voltorb Flip. A mix of minesweeper and Picross, it's such a great mini game. It made me sad that they didn't include it in any future iterations.
 
U

ubercheez

Member
LunarKnite said:
Blitzball is definitely one of my favorites. By the end, I got so good, nothing stood a chance, I just played to see how many points I could score before time was up.

I usually very much enjoy casino stuff in games like Pokemon and Dragon Quest, but my absolute favorite from those two series has to be Voltorb Flip. A mix of minesweeper and Picross, it's such a great mini game. It made me sad that they didn't include it in any future iterations.
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Yeah, some people hated blitzball, and I think it's because they force you to play that game early on where your team is woefully outmatched. That one game in particular sucks, especially if you're stubborn and want to get the win out of it.

But once recruiting opens up and you can start building your own team and learning techs? Way more fun. Nap tackles for days.
 
A

adj_noun

Member
OP stole mine: Xenocard. It broke my heart when they didn't have it in Xenosaga 2/3.

I loved it 'cause it was basically a full fledged CCG in my RPG; it was a bit closer to something like Magic than Gwent/Hearthstone.

Nowadays you'd probably buy packs with microtransactions or something. >_>

I had a sick Gnosis deck. Maaaan. I miss Xenocard.
 
H

Hippopuncher12

Member
Gwent (Witcher 3)
Triple Triad (FF8)

I hated Blitzball the first time I played FFX, but the next time I tried it I enjoyed it. Still not one of my favorites however.
 
J

JinjoUnchained

Member
Since no one else will mention it, I really liked finding all of the hidden bunnies in Spirit Tracks. I'll now go back to the rock I was hiding under.
 
U

ubercheez

Member
adj_noun said:
OP stole mine: Xenocard. It broke my heart when they didn't have it in Xenosaga 2/3.

I loved it 'cause it was basically a full fledged CCG in my RPG; it was a bit closer to something like Magic than Gwent/Hearthstone.

Nowadays you'd probably buy packs with microtransactions or something. >_>

I had a sick Gnosis deck. Maaaan. I miss Xenocard.
Click to expand...

I know, right? You actually had to buy or win booster packs to expand your card library! Totally taking a page out of the MtG book.


SatoAilDarko said:
I never played that. I did feel like I spent 5 hours purely in the casino of Episode I.
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Haha, yeah, I definitely did that too. Fun fact! If you max out your casino coins, any further winnings overflow back into your in-game gold with an 8x multiplier. You have to hit the slot jackpot a few times to do it, but it's totally doable if you have good timing. The regular game is really stingy with gold, so doing this lets you buy all the expensive AGWS upgrades that would require stupid amounts of grinding to get normally.
 
A

Alex Anderson

Member
Billiards minigame from Virtua Tennis 2009. It's the weakest VT I've played but that minigame is the greatest.

Very relaxing to play because the billiard balls kinda take a while to settle after you've made your serve. Making it slow paced and it gives you all the time you need to line up your next serve. A good game can be kept going for hours.
 
C

CHC

Member
CarbonatedFalcon said:
Gwent?

(Witcher 3)
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I took about 150 hours to beat The Witcher III and its DLC the first time I played, all the while NEVER trying Gwent other than blasting through the quick tutorial in White Orchard.

Second playthrough I'm already like 80 hours in and not even back at Kaer Morehn yet. I'm mercilessly hunting down every goddamn Gwent card I can find. Such a fun game - there's actually a decent amount of strategy involved and those skin-of-your-teeth wins feel so beautiful when you're up against a high-end opponent.
 
P

Poppy

Member
i like mahjong so much since i first really played it in yakuza 0 that my time playing mahjong has probably surpassed my time playing the rest of yakuza by a lot

then again i play it on my phone and computer a lot now too. and would in person if i knew anyone

also it made me watch the entirety of Akagi

mahjong fuckin rules
 
J

Jezan

Member
zeemumu said:
New Super Mario Bros Poker

The Daxter dream sequence Minigames


The Chao Garden in SA2
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The Chao Garden is a game on it's own, I'm surprised Sega never did a game focusing on it only.

Once you finished the main adventure the only thing to do was get animals for the Chao garden.
 
U

ubercheez

Member
Necron said:
I played so much poker in this game.

Love Tetra Master in FF IX and Gwent in Witcher 3. Managed to get all the cards in both.
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Man, Tetra Master was so weird. The fact that your cards could fail to capture enemy cards due to RNG made it hard to plan strategically.
 
X

XxSlasherMcGirkxX

Member
The Minigames on Super Mario 64 DS were worth the purchase alone. A lot of variety and a great showing of the DS's capabilities at launch. Plus you get a unique version of Mario 64.
 
Z

Zubz

Banned
I know there are better examples, but I think I sunk too much time into Dr. Wario to ignore it.

WWMinigame_DrWario.png


I mean, WarioWare's all about micro games, so the mini-games are usually more involved, anyway. I'd also include Pyoro if I didn't click until after I got it as an individual DSiWare game.

pyoro.png


XxSlasherMcGirkxX said:
The Minigames on Super Mario 64 DS were worth the purchase alone. A lot of variety and a great showing of the DS's capabilities at launch. Plus you get a unique version of Mario 64.
Click to expand...

I think I spent more time on the mini-games than on the Mario 64 remake itself.
 
C

cryptosporidium

Member
Super Mario 64 DS is sooooo good.

Poker Luigi was so much fun for me as a kid though i wish you could bet more. I get why they wouldnt allow that tho
 
S

Shadowman16

Member
The Yakuza series as a whole is the perfect example of this for me. Instead of continuing on with the story I'm probably doing one of the following:

Modding a pocket circuit car to compete in the pocket circuit championship

Romancing a hostess, running a hostess club, or working as a host

Fighting in a shady underground fighting arena against the worlds most dangerous martial artists, criminals, and wild animals

Hunting a golden deer and gigantic killer bear in the Japanese mountains

Working as a taxi driver, getting people to where they need to go and listening to their issues, while also street racing against a dangerous gang of speed freaks

Singing karaoke

Spending tons of hours learning how to play Mahjong properly. Then spending a ton more hours as I'm now hopelessly addicted to Mahjong.

Gambling my lifesavings away in a variety of Casino and Japanese gambling games.

Learning all there is to know about a wide variety of alcoholic beverages while going for a quick drink in one of the games many bars.

Managing and competing in a small baseball team. Not to mention honing my skills in the batting cages.

Catching a wide variety of fish, everything from eels to huge sharks. And when that became boring, diving under the sea to fight fish in a lightgun styled spear gun mini game (Kiryu Vs Giant Octopus!)

Lastly, visiting the arcades and playing everything from addictive crane games, Outrun, Space Harrier, Virtua Fighter 2 and 5 FS, Boxilicious, Puyo Puyo and Virtual On.

Oh, and there is a Rock/Paper/Scissors Cat Fighting arena mini game. But that sucks. Don't play that.

That's ignoring a ton of other awesome side activities you can do in the series, which is one of the big reasons I love playing them so much. But it seriously does destroy any sense of story progression at times where I spend 10's of hours just doing side stuff!
 
S

SchrodingerC

Member
It's more DLC than mini game, but I thought the game of 21 from RE7 was really fun. The special cards added a whole new layer of fun to 21.
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
I'm a sucker for gambling in open world games. I dont like gambling with real money, but getting currency you can actually use in a game is the next best thing.

Off the top of my head I remember Hold Em in Far Cry 3, and Roulette and Blackjack in Fallout: New Vegas.

Also it was fun that Dead or Alive 3 had roulette if only because of amazing Let's Play reactions to Gambling Wins from Maximilian Dood and Game Grumps.

And of course, Gwent is awesome, but special mention goes to the optional fist fighting tournaments in every region.
 
S

Sparrowhawk

Member
Gurnlei said:
The jousting in Mabinogi.



It plays like a more in-depth Rock, Paper, Scissors where the loser of each bout takes damage. It takes place in real time and you can watch from the stands.
Click to expand...

This is really cool, why don't more MMOs have something like this?
 
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