Hear me out for a second: Steam Big Picture is great. Really, I mean it! Sadly that's not the whole story, though.
The analysis
The last two and a half years have been a wild, wild ride for Linux enthusiasts who want to play games on their favourite distros.
We went from hoping our favourite games will run inside a manually configured Wineprefix (using that slowwwww WineD3D translation layer) to having Valve treating us with Steam Play and Proton, effectively cutting out a lot of the pain that was once daily routine. While this is certainly great, and people who have their games library on Steam for the most part benefit a lot from this, this isn't true for everyone.
That's where the open source community really shines. Thanks to awesome developers, we have masterpieces like Lutris, PlayOnLinux and GameHub readily available to us to manage and install games from other storefronts.
This is actually fine for everyone but some categories of people:
- People who want a way to just launch their games from just one place and within a reasonable amount of time.GameHub already tries to solve this problem and it even has controller support, but it still lacks compatibility with some well known storefronts/wrappers;
- Console players trying to migrate to PC for their gaming needs;
- People who just prefer to sit on a couch and play games with their controller.
The new struggle
This is Bob. Bob is a Linux user with a decent computer and a gamepad. He wants to get his hands on {insert a well supported triple-A title name here}. Bob knows that getting the game on Steam would be ideal, since it will just run fine under Proton and ProtonDB rankings are good enough. However, there's a flash sale for the same game over at GOG. Bob is now conflicted: will he save some bucks and get the game on GOG or just go the safe way and buy it for the full price on Steam?
A: Bob chooses to buy the game on Steam; he values his time and he just wants to enjoy the game, after all.
B: Bob chooses to buy the game on GOG; he values his pocket money more than his time. He will, then, spend his time trying to get his game installed either manually or via Lutris/GameHub. However, he may lose some days before he gets his gamepad set up just about right.
Case B is where the pitfalls of current day Linux gaming really show themselves; and if you, like Bob, enjoy couch gaming or any kind of gaming that doesn't rely on a standard mouse and keyboard configuration, you're easily screwed if you don't own the game on Steam.
To compare it to Cyberpunk 2077's environment, Steam Play is Night City, and life's painfully hard outside of it.
(And that's basically what Valve wants IMHO) (To be totally fair, every reference to GOG is casual and actually it applies to other storefronts as well)
(No I am not hinting at Cyberpunk 2077 when I said {insert a well supported triple-A title name here})
"Oh but that's not a problem, you can..."
- "...drop your controller shilling and just use keyboard and mouse like every PC gamer should do! PC MASTER RACE YEEEEAH"or
- "...just buy an Xbox controller, which is supported everywhere and it always shows you the correct button prompts"
I shouldn't have to say this, but this is really not a solution. People have preferences, and I wouldn't ever switch from my DualShock 4 and my DualSense, not even for all the money in the world tbf.
- "...add your game to your Steam library and leverage both Steam Big Picture and Steam Input's controller remapper"
Valid use case, however, I would need to make another paragraph just to discuss Big Picture. Get ready, here it is.
Steam Big Picture is just not that great
Sure, with time we learned that it's just plain better to spam game launchers/wrappers' devs basically the same feature request: "please add a command or URI handle to launch games from Steam Big Picture".
This is fine, but I always got a bit nervous about that: why should Steam always be at the core of my Linux gaming experience? Besides, it's not that Big Picture is especially cool either.
It just sat there, with its blue shades and plain old UI/UX since years now. It takes you a lot of time to jump into the action from the "main menu" of Big Picture. Heck, the Xbox 360 "Metro" dashboard was quicker and it actually offered a way better user experience; and mind you it launched before Big Picture was available to the general public.
Adding non-Steam games to the library makes the entire library look messy after a while, with missing banners, icons, inaccurate titles and so on and so forth. Besides, we won't get news and achievements history, and the playtime won't be as accurate. That's quite the disappointment.
The disappointment in Big Picture doesn't really end here either: in my experience, I always saw it lagging behind when I were to navigate through menus and launch games. This alone makes me want to ditch it and stay away from it, but that's not even the whole story; it freezed and crashed on me multiple times (even on Windows tbf). I wonder why Valve's devs are still putting that much effort into maintaining it without realizing the bad design and crappy UX they're basically giving to users. (I mean, not that they seem to be willing to bite the bullet and fix it either; the Friends tab is just the mouse-friendly desktop version but fullscreen. Awful).
The final nail in the coffin is Steam Input, really. Don't get me wrong, Steam Input's legacy is totally respectable, but it doesn't work as well on Linux as it does on Windows; not in my experience, at least.
For those who don't know, the logic applied here is the same as it is on Windows: if the game is owned on Steam and if it uses Steam Input API, then the controller is basically handled by that API and the game will also display correct button prompts for whichever game you're playing.
The problem manifests itself when playing games which don't use Steam Input API. For those games, developers can still make official controller mappings that will remap your controller to an Xbox one internally but still show the accurate prompts to you. A quick example would be the entire Yakuza franchise. However, this does not work on Linux. I imagine this is some kind of limitation that I hope will get fixed at some point, but this basically makes every game which would support accurate button prompts on Windows look bad on Linux under the same conditions (also, anyone besides me gets confused when seeing Xbox's X button and its resemblance in shape and color to PS' Cross button? Yeah that made me miss multiple quick time events on Yakuza 0. I hate it).
Finally, non-Steam games and Steam games without official controller mappings will just assign a "default" mapping to your favourite controller, which could be either fine or horrendously wrong. And still, Xbox prompts.
It doesn't have to be this way
I believe in the Linux gaming community, and I am looking forward to bring something new to the table. Enter my idea which doesn't even have a name for now.
But wait a moment, who am I again? I am the same girl who took
unixporn by storm on April 2020 with the Glasscord project (for those who missed it, it was Discord/VSCode + transparent, blurry background).
I am trying to plan out and make an entire console-like dashboard for Linux desktops (and maybe Windows, though that's not a priority for now).
Hold on a second, cowboy! From here on we're talking hypothetical stuff!
The goal is really just making a modern TV- and gamepad-friendly dashboard (and game overlay) that really unifies all of your games (installable and installed) and makes you get into the action in seconds, just like it is on consoles.
I don't want to just make another game launcher like Lutris or another attempt at GameHub but TV-sized. Instead, I want to take advantage of those projects to build what is, essentially, a GUI frontend to them.
As I am imagining it, the dashboard should be fully modular. Plugins for Steam, RetroArch, Lutris, Legendary, Itch, GameHub, et cetera, can then be made to add games into the dashboard. Other plugins for ProtonDB, IGDB and Metacritic could also provide useful information regarding game plot, game ratings and Proton compatibility ratings.
Finally, plugins for Discord or Mumble could add party chat support to the dashboard so that you don't really have to alt-tab out of the game you're playing to switch voice channels or send screenshots or a quick message to a friend.
Essentially, everything is a plugin and every plugin provides useful features to the dashboard.
On the topic of controller remapping
The dashboard should natively support as many controllers as possible. In the long run, I plan on kickstarting a controller remapper that can actually remap from and to a reasonable variety of controllers (for example, remapping a DualSense to a DualShock 4); and that would obviously get a plugin for the dashboard in the long run.
Keyboard and mouse, please?
If the idea actually catches up, I might also make a desktop suited GUI for keyboard and mouse people. Though, that's not the main focus for now and I doubt that'll be needed anyway.
Feedback is welcome!
As it stands, I am still not touching any code. I will probably outline the theoretical functionality of every core component and make some concept UI/UX designs before doing so.
Also, I am looking for people willing to help with this idea. If you're a developer or UI/UX designer and you want to make Linux (couch) gaming better, you're invited to join me in this crazy adventure.
I will read each and every comment about this idea here (and in
my Discord server) and reply as soon as possible.
(Note for the moderators: Please forgive me if I'm using the wrong flair, maybe I am) EDIT: Up for brainstorming, I made a whiteboard that you can view
here and get the link to edit on my Discord server.
EDIT 2: It could look like
this.
submitted by A couple of years ago,
I took a quick look at top review scores in the genre (RIP GameRankings). Perspectives from outside this subreddit are always important, so I took another look around, this time from a general user score perspective. I built lists from GameFAQs, IMDb, Grouvee, and Metacritic. This comes with the usual caveats on user ratings with regards to astroturfing, review bombing, fan brigading, etc.
A few notes here, first. The actual genre classification was the biggest sticking point. I cast a wide net, based on subreddit mood over the past few years. Generally speaking, if there has been any sort of substantial controversy here that a game should be included, I included it. NieR, Undertale, Yakuza, and some mobiles are among these, for example. Zelda, Metroidvanias, Monster Hunter, South Park, and Soulsborne games were not included.
Games with very few ratings compared to the larger pool were also omitted (there weren't many of these).
I included some duplicate ports/re-releases depending on how the site listed games. These are denoted with asterisks. In those cases, I pulled extras from further down the list (hence, the "25ish"). One exception here is the Kingdom Hearts series; I did not include every single re-release and remaster, as they would have unduly cluttered the IMDb and Grouvee lists.
If there are any obvious databases I missed with datasets of this size (or there are corrections in general), let me know and I'll edit them in. I already passed over Giant Bomb, MobyGames, and VGChartz due to small datasets.
GameFAQs
Starting in 1995 as a site for guides and other game information, GameFAQs added personal game collections and ratings several years ago. Overall, I would expect ratings from such a site to lean positively toward longer games such as RPGs versus other games, but I'm not sure what kind of bias would be within the genre. Scores are out of five stars.
Rank | Game | Score | Number of ratings |
1 | Persona 4 Golden | 4.59 | 6845 |
2 | Chrono Trigger (NDS) | 4.58 | 5619 |
* | Chrono Trigger (SNES) | 4.57 | 6968 |
3 | Xenoblade Chronicles | 4.55 | 4881 |
4 | Final Fantasy VI (SNES) | 4.54 | 6294 |
5 | Persona 5 | 4.54 | 5706 |
* | Persona 4 | 4.54 | 6611 |
6 | Suikoden II | 4.53 | 2854 |
7 | Mother 3 | 4.52 | 1807 |
* | Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition | 4.49 | 474 |
8 | Final Fantasy VII | 4.49 | 13599 |
9 | The World Ends With You | 4.48 | 4770 |
10 | Lunar: Eternal Blue | 4.48 | 594 |
11 | Tales of Symphonia | 4.47 | 4691 |
12 | Rune Factory 4 | 4.46 | 2397 |
13 | Skies of Arcadia | 4.46 | 748 |
14 | Panzer Dragoon Saga | 4.46 | 761 |
15 | Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars | 4.45 | 5136 |
16 | Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition | 4.45 | 640 |
17 | Persona 3 FES | 4.45 | 5540 |
18 | Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door | 4.45 | 4520 |
* | Final Fantasy VI Advance | 4.43 | 2657 |
19 | Tales of Vesperia (PS3) | 4.43 | 712 |
* | Chrono Trigger (Final Fantasy Chronicles) | 4.43 | 1125 |
20 | Kingdom Hearts II | 4.43 | 8789 |
21 | Golden Sun: The Lost Age | 4.42 | 2678 |
* | Tales of Vesperia (X360) | 4.42 | 3858 |
22 | Pokémon SoulSilver | 4.41 | 6252 |
23 | NieR: Automata | 4.41 | 2378 |
* | Xenoblade Chronicles 3D | 4.41 | 996 |
24 | Pokémon X | 4.41 | 15957 |
25 | Fantasy Life | 4.40 | 3165 |
IMDb
The well-known movie database has the second largest pool of ratings in this post. I don't know how long ratings have been around (or how far back video game pages go), but the database itself went to the web in 1993. Users are likely movie fans, which possibly gives Kingdom Hearts and Ni no Kuni a boost. Ratings are out of 10 stars.
Rank | Game | Score | Number of ratings |
1 | Persona 5 Royal | 9.5 | 244 |
2 | Chrono Trigger | 9.5 | 2526 |
3 | Final Fantasy VII | 9.5 | 8676 |
4 | Persona 4 Golden | 9.4 | 652 |
5 | Kingdom Hearts II | 9.4 | 6518 |
6 | Final Fantasy VII Remake | 9.3 | 1541 |
* | Persona 5 | 9.3 | 1747 |
* | Persona 4 | 9.3 | 780 |
7 | Suikoden II | 9.3 | 342 |
8 | Kingdom Hearts | 9.2 | 6555 |
9 | Xenoblade Chronicles | 9.1 | 476 |
10 | Persona 3 FES | 9.1 | 449 |
11 | Final Fantasy X | 9.1 | 6424 |
12 | Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force | 9.0 | 82 |
13 | NieR: Automata | 9.0 | 1669 |
14 | Yakuza 0 | 9.0 | 709 |
* | Fairy Fencer F | 9.0 | 83 |
15 | Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep | 9.0 | 1345 |
* | Persona 3 | 9.0 | 650 |
16 | Mother 3 | 9.0 | 308 |
17 | Terranigma | 9.0 | 170 |
18 | Final Fantasy VI | 9.0 | 2100 |
19 | EarthBound | 9.0 | 760 |
20 | Yakuza Kiwami 2 | 8.9 | 252 |
21 | Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age | 8.9 | 286 |
22 | Undertale | 8.9 | 1876 |
23 | Fire Emblem: Awakening | 8.9 | 776 |
24 | Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch | 8.9 | 686 |
25 | Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door | 8.9 | 699 |
Grouvee
A video game collection tracking/backlogging site going back to 2011, Grouvee uses the Giant Bomb wiki API. If there is any overlap with the backlogging fiends over at /patientgamers, this might be a similarly older crowd. Grouvee does not see as much traffic as Backloggery, but Backloggery does not appear have a database for user ratings. Ratings are out of five stars. This list required a minimum of 100 ratings, as per the site's sorting.
Rank | Game | Score | Number of ratings |
1 | Persona 5 Royal | 4.79 | 153 |
2 | Mother 3 | 4.63 | 386 |
3 | Chrono Trigger | 4.60 | 2475 |
4 | Persona 4 Golden | 4.60 | 1118 |
* | Persona 5 | 4.56 | 1777 |
5 | Final Fantasy VI | 4.54 | 1840 |
6 | Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix | 4.54 | 401 |
7 | Trails in the Sky SC | 4.51 | 143 |
* | Persona 4 | 4.50 | 969 |
8 | Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door | 4.47 | 1243 |
9 | Suikoden II | 4.46 | 323 |
10 | Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver | 4.45 | 2325 |
11 | Final Fantasy VII Remake | 4.45 | 468 |
12 | Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward | 4.43 | 230 |
13 | Persona 3 FES | 4.42 | 917 |
14 | Pokémon Gold/Silver | 4.42 | 3991 |
* | Persona 3 Portable | 4.42 | 623 |
15 | Final Fantasy VII | 4.42 | 3514 |
16 | Final Fantasy IX | 4.41 | 2122 |
17 | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | 4.41 | 629 |
18 | Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix | 4.40 | 243 |
19 | NieR: Automata | 4.39 | 1829 |
* | Pokémon Crystal | 4.39 | 1551 |
20 | EarthBound | 4.38 | 1074 |
* | Persona 3 | 4.38 | 303 |
21 | Skies of Arcadia | 4.38 | 116 |
* | Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster | 4.38 | 756 |
22 | Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age | 4.37 | 329 |
23 | Yakuza 0 | 4.36 | 816 |
24 | Rune Factory 4 | 4.34 | 196 |
25 | Final Fantasy Tactics | 4.31 | 945 |
Metacritic
Rounding out this list of lists is the smallest pool, Metacritic. This critics' review aggregator launched in 1999. Metacritic weights their review scores, but I do not suspect the site user ratings to be anything more than a straight average. Scores are out of 10.
Rank | Game | Score | Number of ratings |
1 | Crystar | 9.6 | 1243 |
2 | Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger VS Darkdeath Evilman | 9.6 | 283 |
3 | Xenoblade Chronicles | 9.2 | 1326 |
4 | Pokémon SoulSilver | 9.2 | 830 |
5 | Xenogears | 9.2 | 309 |
6 | Final Fantasy VII | 9.1 | 2083 |
7 | Xenoblade Chronicles X | 9.1 | 1715 |
* | Pokémon HeartGold | 9.1 | 849 |
8 | Chrono Trigger (NDS) | 9.1 | 634 |
9 | Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door | 9.1 | 524 |
10 | Paper Mario | 9.1 | 411 |
11 | Suikoden II | 9.1 | 265 |
12 | Tales of Symphonia | 9.1 | 229 |
13 | Vagrant Story | 9.1 | 199 |
* | Final Fantasy Chronicles | 9.1 | 183 |
14 | Kingdom Hearts II | 9.0 | 1260 |
15 | Final Fantasy IX | 9.0 | 1253 |
* | Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition | 9.0 | 819 |
16 | Pokémon Platinum | 9.0 | 783 |
17 | Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers | 9.0 | 611 |
18 | NieR: Automata - Become as Gods Edition | 9.0 | 475 |
* | Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX | 9.0 | 449 |
19 | The Legend of Dragoon | 9.0 | 326 |
20 | Golden Sun | 9.0 | 282 |
21 | Golden Sun: The Lost Age | 9.0 | 191 |
22 | Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius | 9.0 | 113 |
23 | Final Fantasy Record Keeper | 9.0 | 111 |
* | NieR: Automata | 8.9 | 3676 |
24 | Final Fantasy X | 8.9 | 1645 |
25 | Kingdom Hearts | 8.9 | 1054 |
submitted by I was a PC gamer but was overwhelmed by my steam library (500+ games). More of a Indie and niche player. So I bought a PS4 Pro because in my head there weren't as many games I could choose from.
I started with Destiny 2 but lost interest quite easily after finishing the main story line. Then there was inFAMOUS which was okay but also didn't really catch me. So I restarted my old habit of hoarding games.
Now I'm in the same place as before. When I start my PS4 I can choose between Persona 5, Bloodborne, Yakuza 0, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 1-4, Zero Escape, Final Fantasy 12 (the only game I played so far from this list), Wolfenstein, Doom, MGS5, Nier Automata. And then I get overwhelmed, which leads to me starting the youtube app instead or play a few rounds of Marvel vs Capcom 3 or Crypt of the Necro Dancer.
I did create lists with metacritic and time to value scores. I watched several review videos to get a ranking. It's really frustrating.
Recommendations what to play first?
submitted by Best Yakuza games ranked (Image credit: SEGA) While reviews of any game are entirely subjective, we’ve listed the best Yakuza games based on their Metacritic rating. We would strongly recommend ... RELATED: 10 Best Open-World Games Of 2020, Ranked According To Metacritic Score. After that, players get to channel their inner godfathers and do some management as the second half of the gameplay revolves around city-building and managing whichever territory your gangsters conquered. No one said it was easy being a gangster so get to work. 13 Best Yakuza Games, According To Metacritic. The Yakuza game series is beloved the world over, spawning various sequels and remakes, and here are the best entries according to Metacritic. 7 Yakuza 4 - Metacritic Score: 78 Yakuza 4 was the second title in the franchise to release for PlayStation 3, with it hitting western shores in 2011. It was the first Yakuza title that Daisuke... And while the games have been big in Japan for years, newer audiences are starting to discover some of the best Yakuza games with some of the latest releases. From the first few Yakuza games to 2019’s Judgement to 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon, this list ranks all the Yakuza games from greatest to worst. Look through the list of games below ... Yakuza games are very story-based, with a lot of cutscenes and dialogue. Every game in the main series (so far) features Kazuma Kiryu -- a beast of a man who always manages to find himself wrapped ... Metacritic Reports Notable Video Game Releases: New and Upcoming. Find release dates, trailers, and scores for major upcoming and recent videogame releases for all platforms, updated weekly. Also: Free (& Subscription) Games for All Platforms: New & Upcoming; Metacritic Users Pick the Best of 2020; Coming Soon. All; DLC; Retail; Watch This Space. One Shell Straight to Hell. Head AS Code. Evade ... Highly regarded as the best Yakuza game is 2015's Yakuza 0. Set in the 1980s, the prequel chronicles Kiryu's rise to prominence among the Dojima Clan, as well as Goro Majima's tragic collapse into a maniacal Joker-like hitman. The game updated the engine that had been relatively the same since the series' inception. Yakuza 2 was already a fantastic title, but this remake with tons of additional content is the definitive way to experience one of the best games in the series. Additionally, those rightfully using Yakuza 0 as a starting point for the series will appreciate the “Majima Saga” sub-story that helps tie both the Yakuza Kiwami titles and the prequel together in a satisfying and organic way. So without further ado, here’s the Yakuza games ranked from worst to best. 11. Streets of Kamurocho. Bit of an unfair pick as it’s just a free mini-game released on Steam as part of the Sega ...