What are some good games with zero replayability?

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨SorteKanin@feddit.dk⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

I want to try and play some more games. That feels more fulfilling if you play games that you can finish and be done with.

So what are some good games that have zero (or close to zero perhaps) replayability? I’ll start with my own suggestions:

Return of the Obra Dinn: Amazing mystery/detective game. However once you’ve played it, you basically can’t play it again as you remember the solution already and the challenge of the game is trivialized.
Chants of Sennaar: Really great game about deciphering languages. However, once again, by playing the game once, you’ll remember the languages and the game has no challenge any more.
Outer Wilds: Mystery adventure game. There is some replayability as there are perhaps areas that you can still explore, but largely once you figure out the mystery and complete the game, there’s not much more to experience. Some people speedrun the game though.

All of the above games I value extremely highly even though I only played them ~8-10 hours.

Do you have any others?

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nawa@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Deathloop’s story basically means that >!you’re replaying the game because you failed your previous attempt at escaping!<. You can play it more than once, the game encourages you to, and I kinda want to, but I never did because I already won.

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- swordsmanluke@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Also… A big part of playing Death Loop was figuring out the proper order to kill everybody. … and sadly, there’s only one order that will work. So once you know the order, a big part of the challenge is eliminated.
  
  It would have been really cool if the game selected a random ordering for your character at new game start and each target’s vulnerable timing changes accordingly. Something similar to how some of Dishonored’s missions could have multiple solutions.
  
  … but I get why they didn’t. Dishonored had mission variants just switch up some text which is relatively cheap compared to having fully different behaviors and speech and so on that would need to be created just for the tiny set of players that not only finish but replay a game.
  
  As someone who played through Dishonored 1,2 and all their respective DLCs multiple times, I was sad that Death Loop didn’t have the same level of repayablity baked into the overarching structure, but I still quite enjoyed the game itself. I just finished it once and moved on.
  
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  - nawa@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t mind that there’s only one winning order too much. Could be cool to have more options but I’m okay with that design choice. Like you said, it’s a lot of effort for not a lot of players. I could still vary the gameplay during the missions and that’s good enough. Besides, I enjoyed the world and the characters more than in any other Arkane game, maybe on par with Prey, can’t put one above the other.
    
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FrostKing@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Some people might disagree with me, but Celeste.

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- PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’d argue it’s not even worth playing once.
  
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DarkThoughts@fedia.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
For me pretty much every single linear / story type game. Even great ones I sometimes attempted to have another run but would immediately get bored and ended up quitting. They just don't really offer anything to me to make it worth it. Even a lot of New Game Plus modes aren't cutting it, because they're typically just some extra items or abilities.

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- FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Agreed. I feel the same of most story games. My favs such as: The last of us, God of War, Spiderman, Midnight Suns, FF7R, FF16, Like a Dragon, Days Gone, new Ratchet and Clank. The games don’t really offer anything new upon replay so I consider them one-and-dones.
  
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- SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  every single linear / story type game
  
  Which ones are your favourites among those? :)
  
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  - PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Tales of Arise
    
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  - DarkThoughts@fedia.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hmm, tough question since a lot of them I played personally years ago as I eventually began EA & Ubisoft, which have some of the more commonly known franchises here and the feelings I have towards them unfortunately also tainted their games and the experiences I had with them. And I also generally got much more into more open ended / non linear type of genres like sandbox, open world or 4X games.
    I guess I enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn quite a bit, I also love TLoU Part 1 & 2, even though Part 2 is probably the heaviest story game I've seen (not played since there's no PC port yet but I watched stupid amounts of Let's Plays at this point), a little underdog / hidden gem is probably CrossCode, which was a complete surprise hit for me and one of those games that I will always try to sell whenever I can get the opportunity for it.
    
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Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
OneShot is very much based on its story and immersion. Contrary to the title’s implication, there’s not so much potential for risk during play, even if it’s themed that way, but it does feel like any efforts to repeat the game would ruin some of the immersive thoughts present.

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- RamenDame@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think in its original form, browser based I think, you just had OneShot. But I really enjoyed it. Great to see it mentioned.
  
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TheWinged7@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
13 sentinels: aegis rim

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De_Narm@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They don’t exactly fit with your theme of short mystery and puzzle games, but based on your initial question most JRPGs and most story-focused games came to mind. Let’s go over a few of them I’d recommend to everyone interested in those games:

Persona 5 Royal: It’s about a 100h and very story-heavy. There are some twists and turns which keep you engaged and you built relationships with a wide cast of characters. Besides the story and actual combat, there’s a ton of side activities, all of which you only do a few times. It’s probably my favorite game I’ll never replay, because all these things are an absolute slog to play again. The same goes for Persona 4 and maybe 3, haven’t played that one.

every Etrian Odyssey: They are old-school dungeon crawlers originally released on the 3/DS and got remakes on steam and the Switch. You draw you own maps of every layer the dungeon has, which is a large puzzle in itself. However, once you know the dungeon, there is literally no point in exploring it again. You know every trap, every worthwhile detour and of course the path to take.

Like a dragon 7/8: They combine an open world with lots of mini-games, funny and/or touching side stories and an epic overarching main story to follow. There are tons of interactions with your companions, all of them interesting. It’s just, similarly to Persona 5, all these mini-games and interactions only carry themselves for the short burst you get them in and while they are fresh. Replaying them? It’s an absolute slog. You know every punchline, you have optimized most mini-games and probably remember most of the great backstories each character has - you’d be skipping most of the content and the non-optional combat system isn’t fun enough to carry itself on its own.
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- yamanii@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Can’t you have fun in dungeon crawlers by trying other party compositions? Or is EO badly balanced where you can only succeed with an specific composition?
  
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  - De_Narm@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You absolutely can! There are classes, subclasses and equipable skills depending on the game. All with different builds. You can win with all of them and swapping around can be fun. However, you can also do this within a single playthrough. At least in my opinion, the dungeon is the main draw here - but of course, as with all games here, there are certainly people who like to replay them.
    
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  - Phelpssan@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’d argue it’s the opposite, EO games have so many interesting builds to try that they’re among the most replayable dungeon crawler games.
    
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- cafuneandchill@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I love Etrian Odyssey V (especially the music), but I suck at it lol
  
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Zstom6IP@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
the desolate hope. its a very unique robot themed game, but you only really need to play it once.

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AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I personally think the main series Danganronpa games alongside Despair Girls have enough of a play through the main story mode (don’t know if there are any other modes for Despair Girls) and then you don’t replay almost ever type of gameplay since they’re visual novels, technically. (I don’t consider them visual novels because I consider those to be just images/animations and a text box on screen with no control over a character).

The 3rd game even has a mode you unlock at the end that has replayability, though, so I don’t know if that would disqualify it.

Also, another game I like with pretty much no replayability besides watching your favorite scenes play out would be the point and click adventure game Beyond the Edge of Owlsgarde. It’s a game that, if you know what you’re doing, can be completed in 2 hours. My first playthrough took a lot longer though, since I didn’t know what I was doing. Also, it only has 2 endings and if you miss the good ending, you’ll get a hint at the end of the bad ending which will guide you to the good ending.

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- Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I went so hard on Danganronpa. And I hate visual storybook games.
  
  But the incredibly well written scenarios, the intrigue, and the overall wackiness really pulls you in.
  
  I think about the series a lot.
  
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Gabadabs@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Danganronpa, honestly any of them. Once you know the story, who the killers are, and the twists, it quickly loses it’s charm. The only way afterwards is to watch other people play it for the first time.

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CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Midnight Suns was like that for me. The tactical combat was interesting and could have had replay value, but all the chores and conversations you have to do to progress the story made this a “no way” for a second playthrough. Absolutely worth it to go through once though, if you are into turn based combat games and marvel characters.

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- jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I stalled out on playing this. I loved the combat aspect, but the chores and conversations feel too much like… well, chores. I just wanna fuck up some bad guys, not watch my character watch a movie with a Marvel character!
  
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  - CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah I almost gave up too, it did become a bit of a slog in the middle with all the back and forth collecting shit and chatting everyone up. Definitely has some pacing issues.
    
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RandomStickman@kbin.run ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Brothers: A tale of two sons maybe.

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- jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They recently released an updated version of Brothers with new graphics. But the game is exactly the same. So it’s not really a must buy for me. Especially since the original had pretty good graphics anyway.
  
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- AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There are actually speedruns of Brothers, so someone is replaying it.
  
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  - SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They are speedruns of Elmos letter adventure, Clash of clan, Club Penguin and baking an actual real life pizza. So I don’t really think speedruns should dictate replayability.
    
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viking@infosec.pub ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Breathedge - SciFi game where you are stranded in a small shuttle after your main ship exploded, you’ll need to fly around in a space suit with limited air apply, gather stuff, examine objects to identify possible devices you can cobble together from random space trash, and eventually build and upgrade your equipment to the point that you can progress to another area, and so on.

Once you know how specific items are built, the solution is near identical, just some components might be drifting in another part of the screen.

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sunbunman@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Would you count NG+ as replayability? I know for Nier Automata and Armored Core 6, it’s basically part of the story and you haven’t finished until you’ve unlocked all of the main paths. There is enough new stuff each playthrough for it to be unique though.

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Cringe2793@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I feel like the yakuza series is fucking fantastic, but not that replayable. Usually it’s because I seek out all the substories and stuff on my first run, so it takes fucking ages to finish, but I’ve never got the urge to play it again after I’ve completed the stories.

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- msage@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But I want to replay 0 so much… I’ve played through 4 but the story just doesn’t hit as much.
  
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KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Observation and Deliver us the Moon

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ackthxbye@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I absolutely loved Recursive Ruin and I’m still waiting to forget the solutions.

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blackluster117@possumpat.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I would say Stillness of the Wind definitely falls into this category. A beautiful game about life and loss.

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ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This game, One Chance, even goes beyond to try and make sure you only play it once

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iheartneopets@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you liked chants of shenaar, check out heaven’s vault. I think it does what chants of shenaar does, but better, and it did it years before. It was a bit strange to me to see chants of shenaar get so much hype, but have heaven’s vault stay slept on.

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- SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I considered it as well, but this review made me reconsider. Would you say it is as bad as that review makes it seem?
  
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  - iheartneopets@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Funnily enough, what that review said is basically what I said in my review about chants of shenaar, except without the glowing praise. Lots of tedious running across maps and very surface level language-puzzling, whereas I don’t remember any tedium with heaven’s vault at all. I guess different strokes for different folks?
    
    I would say, it’s such a unique and well-executes concept that I would give it a play yourself to see what you think. It’s one of those games I haven’t found a replacement for, even with chants of shenaar.
    
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  - swordsmanluke@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well - I played both and I quite enjoyed Heaven’s Vault as well.
    
    I played HV through twice - once for the story and then a second time to see how far I could alter that story with different choices. My wife even played a third time to try for a really particular set of events.
    
    The translation game in HV goes much harder than Chants’. After the first playthrough, you get longer and more challenging texts to decipher.
    
    Also - there’s no backtracking really required. The game is pretty strict about telling you where you can and cannot go and reacting to what you found or didn’t find. You can cut whole plot lines in HV and it’s no problem.
    
    Which makes it one of the better games for replayablity in my mind.
    
    It is - for sure - slow paced. Almost meditative.
    
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kuneho@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
as much I like the genre, but most single player 3D action/adventure platformer games that are based around a story OR fully arcade-y.

both aspect looses their point if you 100% the game.

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FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There is a game from the MS-DOS age of 1996 called Realms of the Haunting where you traverse large open areas for hours searching for items and interactables needed to progress.

You might clear it a second time just to make the experience seem like a linear cohesive string of events but I can’t imagine you would want to clear it any more than that.

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RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Darkspore.

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Scrof@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Walking Sims, point and clicks, puzzles.

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What are some good games with *zero* replayability?

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What are some good games with zero replayability?