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Nier Automata blew me away with its ending structure. At first I was a little confused as to why the game essentially restarted but I went with it. Then it became clear that it wasn't the same. After that, it continued on and then kept going. And going. And going and oh it was just so good. I ended up getting every ending (yes, even ending Y)
@@Exel3nce Endings A and B are the same story shown from different perspectives. Ending C is a continuation of ending A/B. Ending D is a divergent of the end of ending C. Finally, ending E is basically the 'true' ending.
@@Exel3nce What are you talking about, B has a different character with alternative scenes and C is like a completely different second half of the game.
"God Mode" may trivialize the game, but in this case, I don't see that being an issue. You already had a normal run through the game. Now it's time to goof around. Like in the NES version of Super Mario 3. Beat the game once, and you can replay with an inventory full of P-Wings. That was a fun reward, and I kinda wish they had brought it back for rerelases.
Also quite important for Persona as it would be really dumb to just replay a 80+hr game to just find the few goodies you missed, potentially missing them again without a guide. The maxed out social is also really fun because it lets you do choices that are technically impossible at that point, like standing your ground against certain people or asking a girl for her number without an excuse. I really adore the NG+ mode of the Legend of Heroes series as it gives you multiple options on what you want that you can unlock with these new game+ points which you get like 6 or so per ending but need a total of 10+ for everything. You can spend them to carry over items and stats, unlock all the social events which you otherwise had to choose only a few each time, special outfits and a variety of other things. Sometimes you just want to replay the game with some additional fluff and you can do that instead of starting with nothing, or you can just blaze through everything with endgame gear.
The prototype games really handled this the best imo, you start with everything you had in your last game, and then you can build up yourself up even more, get new attacks, more upgrades, stuff like that, real fun games, sad we're never gonna see a third one.
I loved how Ratchet & Clank 2 (And the other games, sure) did this. Work your way to the end of the game, and come into the next mode feeling slightly over powered, and with a new slew of weapons to upgrade. As you go along the game, even if you do the side content, the game'll become harder, until around the halfway-75% point you're facing a tougher challenge than the regular game.
Something to add for Devil May Cry: bosses actually get new moves on higher difficulties. So not only do they have more health and deal more damage, they also make you learn completely new moves to deal with
Zero Escape 999 is basically incomprehensible with only one run. It encourages players to take different routes each time, with a bit of information in each route, but not enough to really understand, until you beat the true route, and man. I won't spoil it for anyone but what a twist! Also there are other games in the serie that are apparently similar in structure, but I haven't played them yet.
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about 999!! It definitely deserved to be in the video, as it stands as the top of that "meta NG+" category. You absolutely have to play the game at least two times in order to get the whole picture, and the fact that this is justified in game is incredible! The other games in the series, Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma, also do this to an extent and are absolutely worth playing as well if you haven't yet. They're my favorite game series!
Definitely! Some endings (knife specially) you end up scrambling to figure out what happened and its great. Whats also great is that the true ending is imposible to accidently get from the start
Yeah, I came to the comments to make sure 999 was mentioned. The Nonary Games rerelease on Steam weakens the New Game + aspect by letting you skip to choices you've already made in a flowchart rather than starting you at the beginning again to play through the puzzles you've already beaten and fast-forward through the familiar dialogue. Virtue's Last Reward is designed around having the flowchart available - there are well defined decision points where the story branches and you can return to any previous decision on any branch without being expected to have played through the initial escape sequence yet again. And Zero Time Dilemma is even further from the New Game Plus concept, with the game broken into separate fragments, and no way to get from one fragment to another except by jumping - there's no real NG+ there because there's no real old game - no coherent timeline that you play through to provide the baseline. The games are well worth checking out, but only 999 can claim a NG+ aspect. And even there, it's akin to arguing that Majora's Mask offers a New Game Plus mode every time you go around the Groundhog Day loop...
I like the nonary games but... somehow I guess I don't "see" it as a NG+ so much because it's a visual novel, and at least to my mind it's pretty standard or expected to play through all the "routes" in a VN even if you're retreading part of the same path rather than it being an extra thing. I guess it is a type of NG+ though.
I have to disagree on P5's New Game Plus simply trivializing everything because of what carries over. I agree with your point that time management is important in the game, but the issue is you can't see/do everything without a guide because it's impossible to plan everything without meta knowledge on what days you'll be prevented from doing things due to events, what days are exceptions for people's schedules, and the like. In addition, while you do have access to all your old personas and equipment, you never have to use them if you wish to play as normal. Joker's stats are reset, so the only way to boost them is with a stronger Persona. My original play-through was something like 100 hours. My second, when I wanted to see the social links I didn't experience fully, and play around with strong Personas, was about 70. For a game filled with this much content, I don't think that's an issue.
In a similar way, this was something that also happened with P5's predecessors. Persona 3 had a new Block available on a NG+, which made leveling Personas / Characters a lot easier, and added a new boss.. and that's not even getting into what the Portable Remake added into the game. Persona 4 did restrict what items carried over (can't bring Reaper-gained items), but it also had its own Secret Boss. And of course, P4 Golden added two new Social Links and extra time to finish out any you still needed to do.
Also, the thing about Social level checks is the whole fun of Persona 4 NG+. Things that your character was too much of a pussy to do before (e.g. asking for Yukiko's phone number with no given reason) offer an entertaining event when your NG+ character does it without a second thought.
linkmastr001 Kind of disagree because discovering everything on your own without a guide feels a little bit rewarding, and knowing what to go through next time, thanks to getting better social stats, and better equipment makes the second playthrough a breeze. Worrying about who I should socialize with now is one of the most suspenseful thoughts I had in this game. And if you max confidants, you keep certain perks in the next playthrough. When I found that out, it meant a more interesting experience. It’s a worthwhile experience hanging out with newer people. Though, I spent Royal with the new guys first. I had to see what they had to bring. Maruki is a must.
@@dannyhargreaves1326 Oh, I agree I prefer playing without a guide, which is what gives me my perspective. My point was that while time management is important, you need a guide or some outside knowledge to get 100% on your first play through. Compare time management in Persona 5 to the first Pikmin. In that game you have 30 days to collect 30 ship parts, across 5 areas, and you can only visit 1 area each day. You know in advance if you average about 1 part a day, you can beat the game. Nothing in the game will arbitrarily say "On day 21, you aren't allowed to go to these any area, and you sit in your ship all day", while in Persona 5, certain things can happen in the game that eat up both of your "time slots" each day. I wrote that before playing Royal and managed to get max Confidants before the end of December in Royal due to some extra time they give you. My point might apply less to Royal, but I also had knowledge of when stuff would happen and prevent me from doing activities (aside from new Royal events), so I still had some meta knowledge (and the Temperance confidant early).
I also agree, but I think there's another important thing that gets skipped over in P5 and P5R's New Game+, the achievements. A lot of the achievements, especially in P5R, are built to require multiple play throughs and the carried over perks of New Game+. So, if you're an achievement hunter and want to 100% the game, the "god mode" is almost required, and certain new features are required (extra boss, personas, etc.).
There is seriously loads of untapped randomizer potential in many games, but I guess we'll just leave that to the modding community, and in less common instances, self-imposed challenges and glitches.
This is exactly why I’ve always thought it would be cool to make a procedurally generated RPG, where the characters, world, and story to a large extent, is all randomly generated. If done right, it would provide insane replayability. I actually just heard about a game that seems to be kinda like this, called Wildermyth. I plan on checking it out when I get a chance.
One NG+-like thing I enjoy is that the entire Nier series is a direct continuation from the esoteric ending D from Drakengard 3 where you...play a dragon-based rhythm game in actual Tokyo.
The hades pact of punishment is a really good way to do a new game +. You continue to earn rewards and progress the vast amount of stuff there is to upgrade or buy while maintaining the challenge and ramping it up at a perfect pace letting you decide the heat level you choose and not giving additional rewards for drastically increasing the heat. It encourages you to raise the level one heat at a time and so by the time you clear 1 heat you're thinking "two heat won't be that bad", and so on.
I've always loved OneShot for how it makes NG+ manditory for the plot, and even built up towards it before it released. Niko is taken away from his world, placed inside of this game world, and you need to help him return the Sun so he can go home. You play through the game, return the sun, and learn that nothing was actually fixed. the world is still broken, and so Niko might not have been sent home. On release it took a few months for the Solstice run to be released, where you offically learn that no, Niko never get sent home, and now you need to fix things for real, and actually send him home. All throughout the game there are things that show that your first playthrough didnt fix anything, and there were deeper underlying problems that needed solving, and you couldn't solve them until you found the Solstice run, which requires using an item that you get in the first playthrough, but did nothing at that time. Once he is actually sent home for real this time, if you ever want to play the game again, Niko isn't there. He is already back in his own world, so instead you "play" as a simulated hologram of Niko, because dragging a real living person back to this world just for your amusement would be cruel.
I kinda wished the game wasn't, well, a game. That world and everything on it... It was like it was for nothing, but to make Niko pass for all this trouble.
You should've put a major spoiler warning, you just revealed the whole plot. But i agree One Shot deserves so much more love, the relationship you build with Niko is so strong, and so far it's the only game that has made me cry
Final Fantasy X had the secret language that you unlock one letter at the time by finding hidden items, so on your next play through you get more context as to what some of the characters are saying.
For the people who liked Undertale's approach, I want to recommend OneShot. It takes the fourth-wall stuff from Undertale and turns it up to 11. Spoilers ahead. Basically, the character you control is her own person, who has been transported from her home to an unfamiliar, desolate world. But she finds she can talk to you, the player, directly (though multiple choice dialogue, of course.) At this point, I've been chastised for spoiling the ending, and decided I can't say why this is a recommendation for those who enjoyed Undertale without spoiling the heck out of the ending, so I've deleted the rest of my explanation. Go get the game, it's good.
@@ExcalibeonSwordofEeveelutions You're right, and I'm sorry to everyone I spoiled. It's probably too little, too late, but I basically gutted the original comment and just removed the spoilers entirely.
I really like the new game plus in Heaven's Vault, which retains your library of translated words in the Ancient script and makes the phrases you're asked to translate this time around more complex. This means you'll have to put in as much, if not more, into understanding the language and completing the challenges, but also gaining more insight into this lost culture. The story has enough branching choices to support several playthroughs
Even more. Everything in heaven's vault is the player's guess. I was completely overwhelmed when I was discussing in a forum how certain character died, and no one agreed with me. But I had evidence! So did everyone there. I mean, the game isn't built around the story, instead, around what you think the story is. There is even a storyline of the history of the nebula, where you can pass through all history which you found out about the world. Yet, most will be false on the first playthrough. When you choose a remark over something that the others characters said (most the robot called 'six') or over something you found out (mostly a new translation) then the beliefs and dialogue, the story changes, since the game (and the protagonist) will now think that it is true. I opened a youtube video and even got spoilers in a part near the beginning of the game just now (attempting to find an example to make a point here), detail: I already finished the game twice. Some people played the game 5 to 6 times to finally uncover the truth, and they are not even sure yet if there is a truth, and it's even more appealing because it tries to encourage our sense of curiosity towards that ancient civilization (which is on contrary of expectations extremely advanced with teleportation tools and robots that "live" a thousand years without withering). That is also a thing that the game "80 days" does. It's a thing of the inkle studios, the powerful and amazing ink engine. That's a reason why I buy most of their games.
@@Exel3nce Why though? It has very positive steam reviews at least. As for me, i didnt like some specific design decisions (puzzle dungeon length) but it was definitely a very nostalgic and refreshing experience in the modern era. Its more than worth its price. Also, Chrono Cross footage
@@Exel3nce What's that supposed to mean? There's plenty of great hidden gems out there that most people haven't heard of. You should know that considering you have a Rad Shiba PFP.
@@1llum1nate well, most games have good reviews and we have plenty of those pixel games nowadays, thats thats also nothing unique. so yeah, i still have my doubts^^
@@_-Lx-_ i am talking about it being a masterpiece but yeah ik that there are plenty of such overlooked gems. one game that comes to mind (which is also my no.2 or 1 game ) is outer wilds, but va11halla also kinda fits^^
Devil Survivor is a pretty important example, I think. It's very similar to Persona in the types of progression you carry over, but how much you can bring is itself locked behind achievements and challenges. It gives you an entirely new side of the game to consider as you clear out the other storyline paths, much like how roguelikes let you slowly build up a base powerlevel with every reset. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter had nice ideas with their newgame+, but was sadly not enough to make the game accessible to most people.
I always like how Trails of Cold Steel did NG+ For every time you complete the story, you unlock points you can use to carry over things from the playthrough. So you have to decide if you want your gear, money, character notes, sepith and pretty much everything the game gives you, outside of your levels... The most expensive option is to get unlimited bonding points, so you don't have to miss out on a partymembers complete story, letting you hang out with everyone at every occasion!
Pretty sure it gives you an option to take levels as thats like the main thing you need to get the full transfer bonus to CS2. I think it wants you to be level 140 which is really tough without multiple runs through the endgame stuff or grinding the dlc shining poms multiple times.
“Persona 5’s New Game Plus isn’t the best” Me: *agreeing, but also knowing full well I finished a NG+ run of regular P5, and will almost certainly do another once I finish Royal.*
I think I did 3 separate NG+ playthroughs of vanilla P5, because I prefer not having to worry about leveling my Social Stats, making the time limit a *bit* less strict on me.
@@MxPokirby Yeah definitely! Plus then you can focus on maxing out confidants and trying for achievements. I didn’t get all achievements but I did get the batting one and a couple others that way.
One game with a very interesting use of NG+ is Bravely Second, mainly because, like Automata, it's actually essential to complete the story. But not in a 'ending after the ending' kinda way, more in a 'the game won't actually end until you figure out what to do' way. It uses NG+ as the answer to an in-game puzzle.
Yeah, there is also the meta way how it plays again with the game title as End Layer is displayed early on, further giving clues to how to progress and solve the current puzzle
Yeah I played through the first half twice before I realized what I needed to do lmao. On the plus side I was able to get all the jobs before the second half lol
I didn't notice the differences between Mario and Luigi, and I'm telling you that I finished that game at 100%, both regular and green stars only with Luigi, once finished the main quest I just changed to Luigi because I love him, and then, well, just collect everything by my own (with some exceptions, not every green star is fair to find)
@@juanrodriguez9971 Luigi has a difference I played him as soon as I could too. I got crushed by a thwomp once because I stopped a little late and slide under him
You claim to love Luigi but you don't notice the subtleties in his gameplay behavior. Try looking closer next playthrough and maybe you'll appreciate his differences even more. The Luigi changes started way before the galaxy games btw.
Astro Boy: Omega Factor always stood out to me as having a great New Game Plus. Astro keeps his memories of the previous playthrough and as early as the replayed tutorial starts asking questions about things he shouldn't know yet that end up totally changing the plot up. It was mostly story-related, but some unique boss fights came out of it. Great game on top of that too!
It's worth mentioning Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment's and King of Card's new game +: SoT: -Game turns your Will (health) and your Darkness to one entity as Will/Darkness and it drains by time. -Unlike original game, your enemies became desparate resource with risk rather than obstacles while being cautious about using items. KoC: -Your vigor (mana) gets replaced by Gold. You spend Gold while using items. -Your character gets Gold multiplier if you kill enemies without taking damage. (x2 / x5) All campaigns: -You take more damage, there's less checkpoint and major healing item gets replaced with traps.
I still had stuff I wanted to do as my normal character but went to new game+ without knowing how different it would be so I just stopped playing after that
I really love xenoblade 2's new game plus. You get a choise between god mode, 2nd challenge, and skill ramp. This is due to the level down mechanic and the brutal difficulty. If you want god mode then keep your level and equipment and blaze through the game. If you want to get a skill ramp then level down to level 1 and since a new skill tree was unlocked use that. If you want a challenge put the difficulty of the bringer of chaos mode that is designed to use end game gear and strategies. I really love how they did the combat in this game so I liked using my new strategies and skills in new game plus.
Not necessarily a “traditional” New Game+ or even a New Game+ for that matter, but I really love the post-game of Dragon Quest XI. Just throwing it out there.
GE7 IDK what to call the second half of Dragon Quest XI. You reach the mid point thinking it’s the end and then the game basically starts over with a new quest. 40+ hours in? Do it again. Loved it, but wow it took a long time to fully beat that game.
@@thethingsisee13 Ikr, I beat DQXI and was like "whew, finally did it, only took 70 hours", and then I saw the teaser in the credits and figured I may as well check it out, then the game kept going, and going, and going... it was really weird but cool
Glad to see Tales represented at least a little (in this case, Vesperia). I think the Grade Shop is definitely something that should be touched on more as a NG+ device. Vesperia's NG+ alone allows you to (realistically) achieve higher levels, win "unwinnable" fights, take more shots at completing your compendiums, unlock higher difficulties, alter the game's balance... there is a lot to unpack, and it's up to the player to design how their next run will go! It's really something great.
Symphonia's great too, with a number of choices and routes you can take to go through the game, as well as differentiated scenes depending on who you got close to and items and costumes that you can't get 100% without at least three playthroughs. Oh, plus the Devil's Arms weapons getting stronger the more kills the corresponding character has, which means that with enough playthroughs, even dedicated casters will become formidable in close combat!
I loved being able to play as different dogs after beating Okami! I also tried to play through the game's story as quickly as possible, so not only did I get to play as different dogs (each with different barks) but I also found more collectibles, weapons, I never found all of the fish or animals, but it was fun to find more, I also found more brush styles from exploring the areas more! It was in general the most fun game to beat 100% I've ever played!
Hearing and seeing Ratchet and Clank gave me nostalgia flashbacks. _Help_ Incredibly interesting as always,particularly in some of the games put on display,i wasn't aware even back then Link had a new game +. _And this let's me take a peek at games i'd look forward to play,like CrossCode._
Final Fantasy X-2 had a good use of NG+, allowing you to keep unlocked classes and character progressions in those classes, as well as equipment, but not levels. But more interesting is the narrative used, with each area of the game having missions you can pass or fail (or skip altogether), and some storylines that intersect with others. And there's also a major choice you make about a third of the way into the game that affects how a lot of people in the story see and interact with you for the rest of the game.
I always loved new game + it gives a whole new experience depending on the game. Since games are expensive these days if i can get replay value & enjoy it a second time then it's worth it
OneShot's new game plus is great in that the story starts the same way, but gradually deviates into an entirely new direction. It's a great way for the wonderful story to end, too.
Might as well mention Fire Emblem Three Houses! New Game + there is quite nice, as it gives you a lot of flexibility in how much you want to use/abuse certain abilities for a playthrough. Want a run to still be challenging, but have more options for who you can field? No problem. Want to make Byleth hyper-competent so you can teach your students how to kill way faster? Got it. Want to play the game by making everyone an armor knight? Totally possible. That, and the 4 total routes make it a game that’s disgustingly easy to replay.
The first NG+ I did was Persona 5. Imo a good NG+ is a little more difficulty (since you're more leveled and skilled) some exclusive content like a secret boss or 2. Love your videos btw
Sorry but i didnt like P5 NG+ at all. I like the game, but the Palaces are just boring in your second play. The enemies now die in one hit cause of your overpowered Personas and outside from enemies, the Palaces don't have anithing to do. The puzzles are super easy. Sooo... I started NG+ just to do the extra challenges and do all confidants, and all of this is really fun, but everytime i started a Palace, i have a bad time...
NG+ in Persona is pretty good, since you can max out confidants you wasn't able to on your first playthrough, and also you can fuse one new endgame persona, but i still think they could've done more.
Fire Emblem : Three Houses is another game that does narrative new game + well. Each of your playthrought feels like a different game where you explore each faction, but the are all tied together in the same story
I agree for the most part. I think the narrative way it does new game+ is great. But also pre-timeskip stuff gameplay wise feels pretty slow on a second playthrough. I know it has extra stuff you unlock but I think a second playthrough kind of highlights the problem in the lack of variety in the mission objectives. Then again I haven’t gotten around to doing black eagles yet.
Not to mention carrying over your professor level and renown, letting you unlock previously obtained skill and support levels, making the early game easier, or to let you recruit your favourite characters right away
@@gayshaymin3712 In terms of PURELY the new game+ feature (not counting cost, or game quality), I think Fates did it better. You don't carry anything over, but they let you skip the beginning part to get to the new content right away. That's more of what I care about in FE games.
I'm just a bit surprised he didn't mention it. I think it's a good compromise, letting the player decide how they want to re-experience the game. I'm currently redoing the game using NG+ before doing the DLC as a refresher and love how I could adapt it to my taste.
The new game plus mechanics in The Messenger are an interesting mix of the godmode and secondary challenge categories. For a game with such exacting platforming, a speedruning community is inevitable. And the devs knew this. For each run of the game you complete, you get to choose one of three items chosen at random to keep, as well as keeping all of your unlocked movement abilities. And these upgrades stack. And as you repeat playthroughs, you'll get faster and faster as you realize you can skip and sequence break with your items. For those interested in the game, I HIGHLY ADVISE playing it yourself and not looking things up. There are quite a few massive twists that the developers were quiet about during development and marketing. Additionally, I tried to keep spoiler free here, so know there's a little more nuance in the new game plus.
Bravely Second is my favorite use of NG+, considering the first time it happens, it's not _really_ NG+, but the term being used for the characters to take a second chance to beat the bad guy, since they totally failed the first time. The second time is a standard real NG+ option once you beat the game.
Persona NG+ after about 3 times through should be the moment you decide "I like this low level persona, but I don't like that it's low level" then you make it OP.
Tales games always had a interesting new game plus; having a massive load of options either to make things easier or create a new challenge. The GRADE system created a limit on the options you had based on how well you performed in battles.
i agree but unfortunatelly the storytelling in the serie is very poor. If they could balance the quality of the gameplay with the narrative Tales would be on top with the best.
@@Ice-Climber I'm a big Tales fan but I think story telling is a low point of the serie. It's one of the most inconsistent point throughout the games and you never know if it's going to be good or not. I still think the strong character interaction, the very lovable casts and the great combat systems make up for it.
@@kappamiye so in your opinion there are some with a good story? wich ones and why? Tales is a long running series and they got their gameplay formula right but the storytelling is not great and the style is not my thing. The influences of anime/manga are always very present and that is both good and bad.
For NG+ the one good example I can think of is OneShot. The game kinda hints you about where the story isn't complete, and when you start NG+ a carried over item enables a new route that's completely different. The game also talked about "multiverse" so that's some extra bit of content. I think the design shines because it's not triggered automatically, you need to solve extra puzzle in order to get into the new route.
Yeah, Nier and Automata are narrative masterpieces. They are two of my most favourite games of all time, and with a remake of Nier now on its way, I've not been more excited since 2017.
Atlus games overall sometimes have some unique rewards for NG+ routes, aside from also several of them having several different endings. SMT Nocturne has tombstones in its optional dungeon where you can rematch old bosses, which is usually fast but the gimmick is that you have to beat them in a specific time. Do that for all the bosses and on NG+ you can obtain an extra turn, which is always fun in a turn-based game. Strange Journey Redux not only has some content that you can only access on NG+, but on most difficulties, you can choose what things you can transfer. You can for example transfer all your map progress which is super handy for a dungeon crawler, but not your level and stats so you can still be challenged.
I had some ideas for a new game plus for the game im currently makeing, you could save characters that normaly die in the first playthrough and your character will get more and more self aware
I have to say that I admire the simplicity new game plus in Nier. It's simply turns on subtitles and shows you what the bosses were doing before you came in. Flips the entire narrative on its head. What is so surprising is how much sense the story makes both times while being so radically different with such a small change
Speaking of Nier, Drakengard is also a good example of NG+ but then again because it's the same director. Also, I really like NG+ when characters recognize that this aren't their first time with these events like in Shadow of Memories but it's a shame that IIRC you have to play through all 4 endings to reach that.
Drakengard had a lot of backtracking through old chapters, whew, but I liked how in the routes past the A route for Drakengard 3 accord would openly acknowledge that she was viewing different timelines.
Hollow Knight's Steel Soul is more of a challenge NG+. But instead of changing the enemies life or damage, it only change is in your character, adding permadeath. In first glance doesn't look special enought, or just too difficult for some players, but HK game design change completely players opinion if they just give it a try. Now that you understand the world and the map, you not just understand in a different way the early game dialog if you is paying atention to the lore in you first playthrough, but you can complately change the order of the things you get and do in the game. HK map have so much freedom to do the things and strange orders, HK map is Open World much earlier than you first notice, and when you already know the intire map, you can plam yourself to get the items in the order that you want, trying to avoid areas that you are afraid to die in early games, and soon the game mode that you would think that you needed to just do everything again without dieing, becomes a totaaly different experience
@@brocolyrics4331 Typing error, probably my celphone being dumb and correcting what isn't wrong. I normally speaks in other language so the corrector gets crazy in English
The most fun I ever have from NG+'s are god modes. I already beat the game, tearing through it after is a blast. Let me trivialize all those challenges I went through before. I love it
@@Kumo_tk It really depends on the game. If it was a breeze to go through initially, a pseudo god mode won't do much for it. But if you fought your way through, slowly improving your character, it can be a thrill to face those old challenges with ease. I don't consider it lazy design, just another tool that can make for an engaging experience if used properly
Chrono Trigger is still my favorite NG+. On top of the godmode stuff, the game becomes a completely different, almost puzzle-like challenge, going from "Can I beat this game?" to "What happens if I beat the game and end the story NOW (before/after x happens)?".
thinking back to Bartle's taxonomy of gamers, I feel like the concept of new game + carries the most appeal for explorers. Explorers find most of the appeal in the games they play within the story, variety, and possibilities of a game, rather than the inherent challenge. On a mechanical level, a new game + is an opportunity for them to enjoy what they've already collected and sort of "play with all the toys" a game has to offer
One of the most interesting takes on a story based New Game + was having all the dialogue from other characters in your first playthrough be in a language your character doesn't speak, then the second playthrough giving you a translator device. There were enough context cues that you can figure out the general plot of the story and your part in it the first time around, but the second added a lot more context. ...did I ever actually finish the second run? ...might be time to go back XD
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon has to be my favorite NG+ system I've seen so far. After getting the "good" ending on a normal run, you unlock Nightmare mode, which as one would expect is (mostly) a replay of the game with added difficulty and tougher enemies. But it is also a required playthrough if you wanna progress the story of the game, and see the real ending. The twist comes from the fact that- *SPOILERS* in the previous ending, the protagonist essentially gets lost to the void, and thus the remaining characters have to rescue him. This means you will have to progress through an harder version of the game with one man down. The final twist comes in the form of the last stage of the game being entirely replaced with a new, secret level that is unique to this game mode, where your party must finally confront their fallen comrade. Alternatively, the game's normal mode offers many different endings based on which characters you choose to recruit, ignore or straight-up kill. Killing potential party members buffs up your main character with new abilities, but these abilities are nothing spectacular on their own, and in no way make up for losing an extra character with its own health bar and skillset, something that the game itself constantly reminds you of. So by playing around with these routes, you can also up the challenge by choosing to play with less party members than you would on your normal first playthrough. In fact, the route where you kill off every character and obtain the worst possible ending as a result, is a pre-requisite in order to unlock the game's final Ultimate mode, where you play through Nightmare difficulty, but the main character starts out with all extra abilities already unlocked.
One I enjoy is Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I’ve been playing it off and on for four years and just saw a new ending for it this week. Without NG+ I wouldn’t have beaten it multiple times in multiple ways.
My favorite game of all time that utilizes New Game Plus is Fire Emblem: Three Houses. With the game being designed around playing the game a minimum of three times (four for the secret route) to understand the whole of Fodlan's history, and the ability to decide what my characters have access to (I.E. costumes, weapon proficiencies, etc.) practically whenever I want, I always have a blast replaying the game each time to experience the World in different ways, even after over 775 hours of overall playtime.
The one area I think Three Houses misses the mark in that NG+ replayability would be in the massive amount of overlap between all the routes for the first two-thirds of the game. At least the player is given the option to skip the vast majority of that and spend renown to get their units up to speed.
FE3 houses was one of the only new game + I’ve started, and it was a terrible experience for me. The progress that was brought over made the game so easy that it wasn’t fun, and you can’t increase the difficulty midway through. I wish the game let me know before I was too far in to restart :(
hmmm, remind me to return to this when I've finished Nier Automata Edit: There we go, I'm here again. Good video. Also, such a bloody good game, time to play the original I guess.
I love how the Kirby series has done new game plus post Super Star. Most of the time, you play through a harder version of the same main game, sometimes as a new, slightly more powerful character, and sometimes with new bosses! Then, you have the option to take on those harder bosses in a gauntlet as Kirby, with only your skill and the knowledge of your encounters in the new game plus to help you beat them, and even then a new surprise or two gets thrown in at the very end! Finally, through all this, you're able to learn new things about the characters and the world around them, mostly through pause screen text, but sometimes its through encounters, dialogue, and visual similarities, that most of the time reference previous games in the series, rewarding veteran fans with the satisfaction of not only completing the challenge, but also with the excitement of learning more about a series they follow!
I don't know if Oneshot fits this category, but after your first play through, you also get a change of narrative of the story and the game gives you your "happy" ending, the game is really meta as well
I enjoy a new game plus when there's a good handful of new content you can't access in the first playthrough. Not just a new boss or a ten floor dungeon. But extra content such as unlockable items, access to areas that weren't accessible before.
As a game designer at a big company, I keep watching your videos and sharing them with my colleagues, because of its simple yet important contents and the way you present them to the audience. They’re not just for the curious or design/game students. Congrats! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Radiata stories is one of my favorite games offering new game plus. It has a story split in the middle that you can explore the second time around, characters that can only join your party on one branch or the other, and gives you some carryover for items and skills, but not completely.
I love Sekiro's NG+ it puts up the difficulty but now knowing how to play game also reduces the difficulty. It's fun to see just how much you remember and how different it is not dying so much. A much more enjoyable experience because you're the one that grew more so than any stats.
@@Senumunu backlog just means an accumulation of something. It's commonly used in an abstract sense to describe a list of tasks yet to be completed. In that sense, I wouldn't need to actually own a game to say it's on my backlog.
@@dontstealmydiamondsv3156 weird. but ok. when i hear backlog from friends they always mean steam library of games they have not played yet but plan to play.
I loved the game loop of Onimusha Warlords on ps2, and even after years of not playing it, I found more secret game modes and costumes with finding all the fluorite or playing under a certain time limit. This helps a game with replayability and surprises with content never before seen on later playthroughs
83K views in 2 days? Glad to see your channel finally getting the recognition it deserves, “Design Doc” (aka warbot 😏). Been enjoying the quality content for years. Keep up the awesome work! :)
6:52 Don't forget that the NG+ in the Ratchet and Clank series usually had a bolt multiplier that went up as you defeated enemies while taking no damage, and reset to 1x when you took any damage. Gives you an incentive to play more skillfully to unlock some of the more expensive stuff. NG+ probably served as a more natural way to level up all those weapons that didn't involve just grinding for XP in the last few areas. If the map-o-matic carried over, it might also put you on a more natural route to obtaining the gold/platinum/titanium bolts.
I found that Dragon Quest XI had a great way of expanding the story after the last boss. Time travel and the real baddy which was foreshadowed in the main campaign
As a man who loves video game soundtracks, I appreciate how you played music corresponding to the game you were talking about in a very seamless manner. Couple of them took me back down memory lane.
Admittedly, despite the endings of NieR:Automata, I felt that after that, there was nothing else to do, which sucked. The Colosseum DLC was okay, but there's too much of a level gap between every challenge for each character, and even then, I didn't like it all that much. There was a score attack mode that was seemingly thrown together with Popsicle sticks and bandaids that was demonstrated at a certain game convention, and it still exists in the debug build, but it never reached the final game and never got fleshed out. You think a boss rush would be fun, going into chapter select and i.e. beating Adam again and having some fun with a new challenge, but the bosses always remain the same level, so it's just incredibly sad how easy things are. Sucks even more, because the enemies outside of bosses always scale with your level. But Adam remains level 25 and Simone remains level 15, and you can kill Adam in 30 seconds after reaching endgame levels and gear. I'd like to note that the reason I'm sad is because there isnt much to do after you finish all quests and get all endings, and it's questionable why there isnt much to this considering MGR and Bayonetta had grading systems that kept you coming back for more, and you were always on somewhat equal ground with the bosses depending on your gear(even with the wig, some bosses can be difficult).
What is F-Zero Anymore 2: Electric Boogaloo Bayonetta and MGR aren't RPGs, so it's all based on your skill: if you're good, then you'll get a good score. Nier Automata, even though it's a platinum's game and can boast their classic action gameplay, has some broken rpg mechanics that weren't really balanced, and even adjusting enemies level to yours, you'll still be stronger because you can equip some chips that make you a god. Unless you play on hard... which is broken on enemies' favour.
@@omniB Yeah, fair enough on the RPG aspect, but it's not like they couldn't have made something. Again, the enemies always scale with you, but the bosses don't.
@@CJWproductions I guess I get that? But I still wish I could get more out of the combat, especially considering they programmed a lot of endgame stuff in TLDR: There just isnt enough replay value outside of the first 5 endings, which kinda sucks.
@@whatisfzeroanymore2nd I mean, the last ending is basically designed around erasing your save so I don't think they really intended you to keep playing beyong that point?
While maybe not technically considered as a full on NG+, I love how Celeste allows you, once you've beaten the main story, to go back and complete harder B-Side versions of levels to practice and enhance your skills even more. Then it takes it another step with the shorter, yet still even more difficult C-Sides of the levels. AND THEN it adds in the collectable golden strawberries where you have to complete the entire level without dieing to collect, not only for the A-Sides, but also the B and C-Sides too! And don't even get me started on farewell!
In all honesty, my favourite of those 4 is the Godmode NG+. It is just so amazing to run through a game time and time again being overpowered as heck! Then again, a nice little change to it is never wrong of course. Like more story to explore, new outfits and items to unlock, etc
Breath of Fire 5: Dragon Quarter does new game + quite differently. The game is set on a strict timer, depending on how fast you clear the game you gain a certain D-Ratio (kinda like social standing in-universe) which can unlock doors in previous areas giving new items, new ennemies, new challenges. You also get to see new cutscenes fleshing out the characters. The whole game is made on the idea of limited time and ressources, where you have to be strict with certain stuff, else you'll end up in an unwinnable situation and you'll have to "restart" the game (either previous save or the beginning) with a few stuff you had that could help you to progress faster/better. It's sometimes super stressful, since there's a kind of timer running out through almost the whole game, and certain overpowered abilities makes it go way faster.
Transistor's NG+ is worth looking into. Most of the map has been consumed by the "evil" during the 2nd playthrough. It does the whole "add late game enemies to the start" thing (along with slightly changing boss patterns), but it's soundtrack is where it is unusual. They remixed most of the soundtrack down to a broken, electronic shell of what it was. It produces an air of unease. The game's narrator also has unique dialogue, commenting on the slight differences. You keep all of your abilities as well (as most games do) but it allows you to unlock them again. Due to how Transistor's combat system and "skills" function, this allows you to make some neat combinations that aren't attainable during the first playthrough. And the challenge levels take the DMC5 approach, giving you too many to reasonably complete in a single run. I'd also like to mention that Dark Souls 2 and 3 add upgraded rings during subsequent playthroughs. DS3 even has upgraded rings up through NG++ (though they ended up making that irrelevant by including the strongest rings in the DLC [good job, guys. haha]). And one last thing, I'm surprised you didn't mention procedurally generated games! Those are all technically "NG+" games, though I suppose they're drastically different than most of games you mentioned (and don't quite fit into the discussion), but they have some interesting NG+ concepts to ponder. Unlocking new characters (Enter the Gungeon, Binding of Issac), more upgrades and skill trees (Hades, Risk of Rain 2), and sometimes entirely new game modes (Death Road to Canada). Fantastic video. It's super neat to see all of these concepts in a single video. Really gets the creative juices flowing. Looking forward to seeing more in the future!
I like the Tales series New Game + because it allows you to pick and choose what bonuses you want. You can do things like keep all your money and skills, but still have your characters set back to level 1, making the game easier while still making it fun, cause in my opinion just mowing through any enemy in your path just leaves you with walking from point A to point B till you can maybe get an actual challenge
Ff7R was an almost perfect second challenge with hard mode, that’s exactly how it should be imo. Hard mode early game scaling to normal mode and game is next level planning
I swear this channel really knows how to inform me. I did not see or understand the point of new game + modes in video games, but now I see the benefits of them. I like the idea of Narrative + Skill-based new game + modes a lot too. I think too many games rely on "replay the exact same game because you love it!" and not enough focus on emphasizing growth in a player's skills. Good video!
it gives God Mode and allows you to get more of the narrative of a game with a ton of narrative. just playing the game standardly, without NG+, would take forever if you want to see every ending. NG+ giving you God Mode, even though its really only for Byleth, is good enough to let you power through missions quickly, but not brainlessly. if you were struggling on the first run, the second run could still kill you, but its not nearly as stressful.
In this case, it pretty much only ends up being God Mode if you go out of your way to grind for it. It's great for exploring all of the main story routes that the whole game is based around while cracking the customization options for your team wide open. Then there's Maddening difficulty, which works without, but gives a strong vibe of being tuned to a NG+ environment.
Late by about a month or so, but I want to give my piece still. I felt pretty teased by the glimpse of Kirby games! They're my personally favorite series, honestly. Ever since the Extra Modes starting in Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, they've gotten much better as time went on (Meta Knightmare Ultra was a great improvement compared to Meta Knightmare), to the proper Extra Mode variation setting in with Return to Dreamland, staying and changing in a few ways with each entry. Whether or not the EX mode starts you off with less health, play as another character or something along the lines, I always find them enjoyable due to what they do, specifically with Return to Dreamland and onward. You're playing the same worlds again, but with some differences. Either lower health, enemies with different sizes, enemy rushes being added around certain rooms, skip travels that let you skip ahead and get a better time when the EX mode has a timer... However, past those differences, what I like the most is the EX version of bosses in all they bring to the table, and even more so bosses that weren't in the Main Story mode. New looks, different patterns, new attacks, new everything to some degree when it comes to them. I'm also a sucker for the Kirby Lore, and I absolutely love the usage of Pause Descriptions now that I've gotten used to checking them out (not really intuitive at first though, which is a flaw), and I love it when I see new snippets of information or lore when I check the descriptions, possibly planting seeds for something that'll come in the future. Of course, this doesn't undervalue the good examples given in the video!
@@RicochetForce With how much sanity 9S lost, it makes sense that he'd be the final boss. (Though I guess A2 is the final boss too.) Honestly a really climactic area though overall! I loved that gigantic Portal Core looking machine you fight near the end!
@@Exel3nce I think hacking is a fun minigame that has a lot of gameplay elements overlapping with the standard combat system, with the standard combat system having bullet hell elements and all. I can see some people getting bugged by the hacking, but I'm glad the game almost never forces the player to do difficult hacking sections for most boss fights, allowing the player to often choose what combat style they like to use.
Old school, but in Wild Arms and Tales games, the game allows you to purchase NG+ goodies such as carrying over money or items, or you can forgo them and just unlock the art, illustration, or movie galleries. The currency are items or score points you accumulate throughout the entire game so how much you can purchase depends on how you did.
omg Hatoful Boyfriend! Bad Boys Love route definitely wasn't what I was expecting from a parody bird dating sim. I went from ironically enjoying it and laughing to 100% unironically just straight up enjoying it.
Not sure if it counts as a NG+, but replaying Windwaker has always been incredibly fun and satisfying. Starting the game with the pictobox gives you the chance to get models of earlier enemies/bosses and complete your gallery. Plus it’s fun beating Ganon in your jammies.
Xenoblade one new game plus wasn't very good. You could get 100 percent of it done in one playthrough without new game plus. I like Xenoblade 2's newgame plus a lot though.
never wanted to get into xenoblade 1's NG+, I would find it incredibly boring to steamroll the game, plus having that op weapon would trivialize the superbosses so much. that's why i did my 100% file on a regular NG
Final Fantasy Type-0 had an interesting combination of the skill ramp and narrative types. As you go through the game you'll come across sections with effectively a forced loss, but on replays you actually can overcome those challenges, as well as bonus objectives that just weren't there before. And those new avenues to explore contain more narrative content to keep the story going and look for the true conclusion. Also, well known but worth mentioning. I really like the Tales Of games grade shop concept, where you can make the game easier, harder, or just different on future play throughs. But the degree to which you can tamper with your next run depends on how much grade you've built up already.
Actually, you can beat the combat challenges and ALMOST all boss battles the 1st time around, but considering you have to be: really good playing, determined to finish them underleveled or grind for ages or using exploits, i'd say the New Game Pluses are still worth it.
I felt Type-0 had too much of its content locked behind NG+, I didn't really mind the extra story in NG+, but I did mind how much of the gameplay was locked until NG+. It also didn't help that NG+ stuff (like expert trails, areas and bosses) were almost rubbed in your face, making the player feel annoyed that they have to skip such content on their first playthrough.
@@onyxowl70 Not gonna lie, i saw a streamer doing a blind playthrough of Type-0 and just doing the expert trials underleveled and brute forcing the "unwinnable" boss fights of the 1st playthrough via kill-sighs.
@@julioc.3158 yeah but at that point the game is just frantic and stressful, knowing you can die at any moment from gunfire or certain bullshit enemies (*cough* raged supersoliders *cough*), making you have to spam dodge. Killsight timing can be really unreliable and unreasonable sometimes. It is all preference based, but I'm more of a turnbased RPG guy so I usually expect methodical strategy, however I do have a soft spot for action games, so I do enjoy/love games like Bloodborne, Darksouls, Tales Of... etc. However type-0, just feels all a bit too quick for me :/
Same, I ain't got time to just redo the same thing again just a bit faster/harder. If new game+ is how they tell the full story, though, I gotta do it.
I'd almost say same, but I do sometimes play unlocked hard modes and the like if I still want to spend time with a game after finishing. And, of course, games like the 2d Sonic games where the lack of NG+ barely matters for wanting to replay them. Or specific levels in them.
Quiet Man is what happens when you get excited about making a new game + that completely changes what you thought was happening, but forget to make a game people will want to finish in the first place.
Mark of the Ninja has an interesting combination of Godmode and Secondary Challenge. You keep all your upgrades/equipment, but the game removes sound indicators and gives your character a line of sight, not letting you look behind you without actually turning around. Since the upgrades in that game are generally less "make your stronger" and more "give you more options" going through the game again, while it tests your knowledge of enemy behaviors and your creativity with your varied arsenal, is very enjoyable. There's also Hollow Knight and it's Steel Soul mode. Virtually the exact same game... But you don't respawn. It can certainly be frustrating at times, but I think it works really well. Using your knowledge of the map from your first playthrough and memory of where you found all your upgrades lets you plan out a path to get everything quickly and easily. Plus, there's several different routes you can go to get different items and go to different areas in a different order, so having to start over is just an opportunity to reflect on your strategy and maybe try a different approach. It's not about playing a harder or totally different game like your usual second challenge; it's about perfecting your skill and knowledge to the point of total mastery. Recent Kirby games have had great NG+'s, as well. Time attack modes where you go through a harder, but much shorter, streamlined version of the main game, as different characters. King Dedede in Triple Deluxe, Meta Knight in Planet Robobot, and in Star Allies... Sweet Halcandra, Star Allies... Also, you fight remixed bosses with new pauses screen descriptions that give extra information on them and the story, and even have totally new bosses at the end of the game. Plus, it leads to the unlocking of the games greatest challenge... Oh... And then there's Fire Emblem: Three Houses. How did you now bring this up? It's a completely different story every time. A lot like NieR. And also like NieR, I almost don't even consider it a "New Game Plus". If you don't experience every route, you're kind of cheating yourself out of the whole experience. NG+ should be optional, and while this technically is, it feels wrong to call it that. ADDENDUM: Oh, and FE3H also just has a really good NG+ that cuts out most of the tedium and lets you focus on customizing your students however you want. Seriously, the amount of freedom you have in that game with what classes you make students and what strategies you employ is amazing. Really helps people stomach the idea of the thousand hour experience you're encouraged to go through.
I absolutely agree with what you said about Mark of The Ninja, their New Game + really shows new game and not just gives more health to enemies. It actually changes how you play and what decisions you have. It's nice contrast with base game where you're in control all the time nad you know everything.
I really love the new game + in Shovel Knight; specifically Spector of Torment. You start off with all your gear from the last playthrough (except your healing item,) but now your magic and life are fused, and is constantly draining. If you aren’t continuously collect more soul from enemies, or if you’re using your items too much, you’ll be at higher risk of dying much more easily. The fact that even if you don’t want to use your items, since they’re not necessary to beat the game, you can still have a challenging run; with draining health and less checkpoints throughout each level.
People rag on it for other reasons, but I found FFX-2's New Game + mode very satisfying as a way to return and chill. In their case it's part god mode (because you keep endgame equipment, which can be stupid powerful), a little speck of narrative (there are endings near-impossible to achieve without the second run, and you have the option to see the alternate branch of a major branching narrative), and theoretically some skill scaling, though one can just as easily do that in their first run if they want; The grind isn't that different one way or the other. But personally I find it fun to pick 2-5 classes to play as and swap between them, and then in my next playthrough try out 2-5 totally different classes for each character. This makes it so the progression for that class is roughly in line with where it should be in the game. While the game empowers you to absolutely demolish its content without difficulty, it also gives you the tools to enjoy your second run as much as the first, just by virtue of the fact that it gives you more bars to fill than you're likely to want to on your first run, and then gives you reason to perform that second run.
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@@divinkitty9452 That's a pretty douche thing to do, ty for the headsup. Didn't plan on checking it out but I'm sure it saves a couple other people.
@@TeaquestSagas yeah I found out the hard way, contacted customer service and explained what happened, and they still just said "nope, no refunds."
Hey, what are your thoughts on the Xenoblade Chronics new Ui?
kinda sad you didn't mention GodHand the game :(
Nier Automata blew me away with its ending structure. At first I was a little confused as to why the game essentially restarted but I went with it. Then it became clear that it wasn't the same. After that, it continued on and then kept going. And going. And going and oh it was just so good. I ended up getting every ending (yes, even ending Y)
Its the Same Game tho
@@Exel3nce Endings A and B are the same story shown from different perspectives. Ending C is a continuation of ending A/B. Ending D is a divergent of the end of ending C. Finally, ending E is basically the 'true' ending.
@@Exel3nce
What are you talking about, B has a different character with alternative scenes and C is like a completely different second half of the game.
@@_-Lx-_ i am talking about ng+, not the routes
@@Exel3nce ng+ is the way to get new routes...
"God Mode" may trivialize the game, but in this case, I don't see that being an issue. You already had a normal run through the game. Now it's time to goof around.
Like in the NES version of Super Mario 3. Beat the game once, and you can replay with an inventory full of P-Wings. That was a fun reward, and I kinda wish they had brought it back for rerelases.
Erika Fuzzbottom yeah, instead of just leaving the game after beating it, you can be overpowered and just have fun
Also quite important for Persona as it would be really dumb to just replay a 80+hr game to just find the few goodies you missed, potentially missing them again without a guide.
The maxed out social is also really fun because it lets you do choices that are technically impossible at that point, like standing your ground against certain people or asking a girl for her number without an excuse.
I really adore the NG+ mode of the Legend of Heroes series as it gives you multiple options on what you want that you can unlock with these new game+ points which you get like 6 or so per ending but need a total of 10+ for everything. You can spend them to carry over items and stats, unlock all the social events which you otherwise had to choose only a few each time, special outfits and a variety of other things.
Sometimes you just want to replay the game with some additional fluff and you can do that instead of starting with nothing, or you can just blaze through everything with endgame gear.
The prototype games really handled this the best imo, you start with everything you had in your last game, and then you can build up yourself up even more, get new attacks, more upgrades, stuff like that, real fun games, sad we're never gonna see a third one.
I loved how Ratchet & Clank 2 (And the other games, sure) did this. Work your way to the end of the game, and come into the next mode feeling slightly over powered, and with a new slew of weapons to upgrade. As you go along the game, even if you do the side content, the game'll become harder, until around the halfway-75% point you're facing a tougher challenge than the regular game.
@@hunterkeps9058 i have amazing memories replaying ratchet gladiator for the third time with my brother
Something to add for Devil May Cry: bosses actually get new moves on higher difficulties.
So not only do they have more health and deal more damage, they also make you learn completely new moves to deal with
Exactly what devil may crys take on bosses is perfect for gaming as a whole
Bloodborne kind of does that. I thought NG+ was a Souls thing this whole time.
@@davidnichol4735 It does? What new attacks get added in NG+?
Terraria is another example of this.
I never noticed that somehow- 💀
Zero Escape 999 is basically incomprehensible with only one run. It encourages players to take different routes each time, with a bit of information in each route, but not enough to really understand, until you beat the true route, and man. I won't spoil it for anyone but what a twist! Also there are other games in the serie that are apparently similar in structure, but I haven't played them yet.
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about 999!! It definitely deserved to be in the video, as it stands as the top of that "meta NG+" category. You absolutely have to play the game at least two times in order to get the whole picture, and the fact that this is justified in game is incredible!
The other games in the series, Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma, also do this to an extent and are absolutely worth playing as well if you haven't yet. They're my favorite game series!
Definitely! Some endings (knife specially) you end up scrambling to figure out what happened and its great. Whats also great is that the true ending is imposible to accidently get from the start
Yeah, I came to the comments to make sure 999 was mentioned.
The Nonary Games rerelease on Steam weakens the New Game + aspect by letting you skip to choices you've already made in a flowchart rather than starting you at the beginning again to play through the puzzles you've already beaten and fast-forward through the familiar dialogue.
Virtue's Last Reward is designed around having the flowchart available - there are well defined decision points where the story branches and you can return to any previous decision on any branch without being expected to have played through the initial escape sequence yet again.
And Zero Time Dilemma is even further from the New Game Plus concept, with the game broken into separate fragments, and no way to get from one fragment to another except by jumping - there's no real NG+ there because there's no real old game - no coherent timeline that you play through to provide the baseline.
The games are well worth checking out, but only 999 can claim a NG+ aspect. And even there, it's akin to arguing that Majora's Mask offers a New Game Plus mode every time you go around the Groundhog Day loop...
That was the weakest Part of 999 tho
I like the nonary games but... somehow I guess I don't "see" it as a NG+ so much because it's a visual novel, and at least to my mind it's pretty standard or expected to play through all the "routes" in a VN even if you're retreading part of the same path rather than it being an extra thing. I guess it is a type of NG+ though.
I have to disagree on P5's New Game Plus simply trivializing everything because of what carries over. I agree with your point that time management is important in the game, but the issue is you can't see/do everything without a guide because it's impossible to plan everything without meta knowledge on what days you'll be prevented from doing things due to events, what days are exceptions for people's schedules, and the like.
In addition, while you do have access to all your old personas and equipment, you never have to use them if you wish to play as normal. Joker's stats are reset, so the only way to boost them is with a stronger Persona.
My original play-through was something like 100 hours. My second, when I wanted to see the social links I didn't experience fully, and play around with strong Personas, was about 70. For a game filled with this much content, I don't think that's an issue.
In a similar way, this was something that also happened with P5's predecessors.
Persona 3 had a new Block available on a NG+, which made leveling Personas / Characters a lot easier, and added a new boss.. and that's not even getting into what the Portable Remake added into the game. Persona 4 did restrict what items carried over (can't bring Reaper-gained items), but it also had its own Secret Boss. And of course, P4 Golden added two new Social Links and extra time to finish out any you still needed to do.
Also, the thing about Social level checks is the whole fun of Persona 4 NG+. Things that your character was too much of a pussy to do before (e.g. asking for Yukiko's phone number with no given reason) offer an entertaining event when your NG+ character does it without a second thought.
linkmastr001 Kind of disagree because discovering everything on your own without a guide feels a little bit rewarding, and knowing what to go through next time, thanks to getting better social stats, and better equipment makes the second playthrough a breeze. Worrying about who I should socialize with now is one of the most suspenseful thoughts I had in this game.
And if you max confidants, you keep certain perks in the next playthrough. When I found that out, it meant a more interesting experience. It’s a worthwhile experience hanging out with newer people.
Though, I spent Royal with the new guys first. I had to see what they had to bring. Maruki is a must.
@@dannyhargreaves1326 Oh, I agree I prefer playing without a guide, which is what gives me my perspective. My point was that while time management is important, you need a guide or some outside knowledge to get 100% on your first play through. Compare time management in Persona 5 to the first Pikmin. In that game you have 30 days to collect 30 ship parts, across 5 areas, and you can only visit 1 area each day. You know in advance if you average about 1 part a day, you can beat the game. Nothing in the game will arbitrarily say "On day 21, you aren't allowed to go to these any area, and you sit in your ship all day", while in Persona 5, certain things can happen in the game that eat up both of your "time slots" each day.
I wrote that before playing Royal and managed to get max Confidants before the end of December in Royal due to some extra time they give you. My point might apply less to Royal, but I also had knowledge of when stuff would happen and prevent me from doing activities (aside from new Royal events), so I still had some meta knowledge (and the Temperance confidant early).
I also agree, but I think there's another important thing that gets skipped over in P5 and P5R's New Game+, the achievements. A lot of the achievements, especially in P5R, are built to require multiple play throughs and the carried over perks of New Game+. So, if you're an achievement hunter and want to 100% the game, the "god mode" is almost required, and certain new features are required (extra boss, personas, etc.).
Randomizers are also a cool way to extend a game but underused by developers.
There is seriously loads of untapped randomizer potential in many games, but I guess we'll just leave that to the modding community, and in less common instances, self-imposed challenges and glitches.
This is exactly why I’ve always thought it would be cool to make a procedurally generated RPG, where the characters, world, and story to a large extent, is all randomly generated. If done right, it would provide insane replayability.
I actually just heard about a game that seems to be kinda like this, called Wildermyth. I plan on checking it out when I get a chance.
@@Road_to_Dawn Yeah that game is amazing
@@Road_to_Dawn Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode? Maybe that is similar to what your saying here?
@@10gamer64 TBH I know next to nothing about Dwarf Fortress, and didn't know there was an adventure mode lol
One NG+-like thing I enjoy is that the entire Nier series is a direct continuation from the esoteric ending D from Drakengard 3 where you...play a dragon-based rhythm game in actual Tokyo.
Ending E in Drakengard 1 actually. Drakengard 3 takes place before Drakengard 1
Yeah, and we don't talk about Drakengard 2...
@@HenshinFanatic it's not canon anyways
The hades pact of punishment is a really good way to do a new game +. You continue to earn rewards and progress the vast amount of stuff there is to upgrade or buy while maintaining the challenge and ramping it up at a perfect pace letting you decide the heat level you choose and not giving additional rewards for drastically increasing the heat. It encourages you to raise the level one heat at a time and so by the time you clear 1 heat you're thinking "two heat won't be that bad", and so on.
I've always loved OneShot for how it makes NG+ manditory for the plot, and even built up towards it before it released. Niko is taken away from his world, placed inside of this game world, and you need to help him return the Sun so he can go home. You play through the game, return the sun, and learn that nothing was actually fixed. the world is still broken, and so Niko might not have been sent home. On release it took a few months for the Solstice run to be released, where you offically learn that no, Niko never get sent home, and now you need to fix things for real, and actually send him home. All throughout the game there are things that show that your first playthrough didnt fix anything, and there were deeper underlying problems that needed solving, and you couldn't solve them until you found the Solstice run, which requires using an item that you get in the first playthrough, but did nothing at that time.
Once he is actually sent home for real this time, if you ever want to play the game again, Niko isn't there. He is already back in his own world, so instead you "play" as a simulated hologram of Niko, because dragging a real living person back to this world just for your amusement would be cruel.
OneShot is definitely my favorite game when it comes to NG+
I kinda wished the game wasn't, well, a game. That world and everything on it... It was like it was for nothing, but to make Niko pass for all this trouble.
Wait, what? I just played through the game once and thought it had a shitty ending.
Better start Solstice then! ⊙﹏⊙
You should've put a major spoiler warning, you just revealed the whole plot. But i agree One Shot deserves so much more love, the relationship you build with Niko is so strong, and so far it's the only game that has made me cry
Final Fantasy X had the secret language that you unlock one letter at the time by finding hidden items, so on your next play through you get more context as to what some of the characters are saying.
For the people who liked Undertale's approach, I want to recommend OneShot. It takes the fourth-wall stuff from Undertale and turns it up to 11. Spoilers ahead.
Basically, the character you control is her own person, who has been transported from her home to an unfamiliar, desolate world. But she finds she can talk to you, the player, directly (though multiple choice dialogue, of course.)
At this point, I've been chastised for spoiling the ending, and decided I can't say why this is a recommendation for those who enjoyed Undertale without spoiling the heck out of the ending, so I've deleted the rest of my explanation. Go get the game, it's good.
I can not recommend this game enough. This is my favorite game out of anything I played.
Wish I hadn’t read this whole thing lol. Rip. Genuinely thought you were just explaining the premise and it quickly turned into the main ending 😂
wait isn't niko a he ?
Wanna put a spoiler warning on this comment?
How are you going to attract people to a game while blurting out one of the game's biggest plot twist?
@@ExcalibeonSwordofEeveelutions You're right, and I'm sorry to everyone I spoiled. It's probably too little, too late, but I basically gutted the original comment and just removed the spoilers entirely.
I really like the new game plus in Heaven's Vault, which retains your library of translated words in the Ancient script and makes the phrases you're asked to translate this time around more complex. This means you'll have to put in as much, if not more, into understanding the language and completing the challenges, but also gaining more insight into this lost culture. The story has enough branching choices to support several playthroughs
FInal fantasy 10 does that with al behd langage too
Even more. Everything in heaven's vault is the player's guess. I was completely overwhelmed when I was discussing in a forum how certain character died, and no one agreed with me. But I had evidence! So did everyone there. I mean, the game isn't built around the story, instead, around what you think the story is. There is even a storyline of the history of the nebula, where you can pass through all history which you found out about the world. Yet, most will be false on the first playthrough.
When you choose a remark over something that the others characters said (most the robot called 'six') or over something you found out (mostly a new translation) then the beliefs and dialogue, the story changes, since the game (and the protagonist) will now think that it is true. I opened a youtube video and even got spoilers in a part near the beginning of the game just now (attempting to find an example to make a point here), detail: I already finished the game twice.
Some people played the game 5 to 6 times to finally uncover the truth, and they are not even sure yet if there is a truth, and it's even more appealing because it tries to encourage our sense of curiosity towards that ancient civilization (which is on contrary of expectations extremely advanced with teleportation tools and robots that "live" a thousand years without withering).
That is also a thing that the game "80 days" does. It's a thing of the inkle studios, the powerful and amazing ink engine. That's a reason why I buy most of their games.
Heaven's Vault is a true masterpiece
Man I need to find time to replay that game.
The fact that you used CrossCode footage (a little masterpiece only few know) makes me really happy
Why do i have some doubts
@@Exel3nce Why though? It has very positive steam reviews at least. As for me, i didnt like some specific design decisions (puzzle dungeon length) but it was definitely a very nostalgic and refreshing experience in the modern era. Its more than worth its price.
Also, Chrono Cross footage
@@Exel3nce
What's that supposed to mean?
There's plenty of great hidden gems out there that most people haven't heard of.
You should know that considering you have a Rad Shiba PFP.
@@1llum1nate well, most games have good reviews and we have plenty of those pixel games nowadays, thats thats also nothing unique. so yeah, i still have my doubts^^
@@_-Lx-_ i am talking about it being a masterpiece but yeah ik that there are plenty of such overlooked gems.
one game that comes to mind (which is also my no.2 or 1 game ) is outer wilds, but va11halla also kinda fits^^
Devil Survivor is a pretty important example, I think. It's very similar to Persona in the types of progression you carry over, but how much you can bring is itself locked behind achievements and challenges. It gives you an entirely new side of the game to consider as you clear out the other storyline paths, much like how roguelikes let you slowly build up a base powerlevel with every reset.
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter had nice ideas with their newgame+, but was sadly not enough to make the game accessible to most people.
I always like how Trails of Cold Steel did NG+
For every time you complete the story, you unlock points you can use to carry over things from the playthrough. So you have to decide if you want your gear, money, character notes, sepith and pretty much everything the game gives you, outside of your levels...
The most expensive option is to get unlimited bonding points, so you don't have to miss out on a partymembers complete story, letting you hang out with everyone at every occasion!
Pretty sure it gives you an option to take levels as thats like the main thing you need to get the full transfer bonus to CS2. I think it wants you to be level 140 which is really tough without multiple runs through the endgame stuff or grinding the dlc shining poms multiple times.
“Persona 5’s New Game Plus isn’t the best”
Me: *agreeing, but also knowing full well I finished a NG+ run of regular P5, and will almost certainly do another once I finish Royal.*
I think I did 3 separate NG+ playthroughs of vanilla P5, because I prefer not having to worry about leveling my Social Stats, making the time limit a *bit* less strict on me.
@@MxPokirby Yeah definitely! Plus then you can focus on maxing out confidants and trying for achievements. I didn’t get all achievements but I did get the batting one and a couple others that way.
So much spare time on my hands I got Yusuke's Persona to 99 stats at like level 45 in Royal
One game with a very interesting use of NG+ is Bravely Second, mainly because, like Automata, it's actually essential to complete the story. But not in a 'ending after the ending' kinda way, more in a 'the game won't actually end until you figure out what to do' way. It uses NG+ as the answer to an in-game puzzle.
Completely agree. I was absolutely blown away by how NG+ worked in Bravely Second.
Yeah, there is also the meta way how it plays again with the game title as End Layer is displayed early on, further giving clues to how to progress and solve the current puzzle
Yeah I played through the first half twice before I realized what I needed to do lmao. On the plus side I was able to get all the jobs before the second half lol
I didn't notice the differences between Mario and Luigi, and I'm telling you that I finished that game at 100%, both regular and green stars only with Luigi, once finished the main quest I just changed to Luigi because I love him, and then, well, just collect everything by my own (with some exceptions, not every green star is fair to find)
The green star quest is from Galaxy 2. In Galaxy 1, Luigi mode is treated as a separate campaign rather than a character you can switch to any time.
@@EarthboundBenjy Oooh, that explains a lot, maybe in SMG2 there is no difference and that is why I didn't notice any difference.
@@juanrodriguez9971 SMG2 definitely still has the traction difference
@@juanrodriguez9971 Luigi has a difference I played him as soon as I could too. I got crushed by a thwomp once because I stopped a little late and slide under him
You claim to love Luigi but you don't notice the subtleties in his gameplay behavior. Try looking closer next playthrough and maybe you'll appreciate his differences even more. The Luigi changes started way before the galaxy games btw.
Astro Boy: Omega Factor always stood out to me as having a great New Game Plus. Astro keeps his memories of the previous playthrough and as early as the replayed tutorial starts asking questions about things he shouldn't know yet that end up totally changing the plot up. It was mostly story-related, but some unique boss fights came out of it. Great game on top of that too!
B- Squared Remember the mid-air joust boas battle against the blue knight that you only get on your NG+ run? I love that game
It's a brilliant classic. Honestly, that was my first experience with a new game plus. As a kid, I was pretty confused by the ending.
It's worth mentioning Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment's and King of Card's new game +:
SoT:
-Game turns your Will (health) and your Darkness to one entity as Will/Darkness and it drains by time.
-Unlike original game, your enemies became desparate resource with risk rather than obstacles while being cautious about using items.
KoC:
-Your vigor (mana) gets replaced by Gold. You spend Gold while using items.
-Your character gets Gold multiplier if you kill enemies without taking damage. (x2 / x5)
All campaigns:
-You take more damage, there's less checkpoint and major healing item gets replaced with traps.
I still had stuff I wanted to do as my normal character but went to new game+ without knowing how different it would be so I just stopped playing after that
I really love xenoblade 2's new game plus. You get a choise between god mode, 2nd challenge, and skill ramp. This is due to the level down mechanic and the brutal difficulty. If you want god mode then keep your level and equipment and blaze through the game. If you want to get a skill ramp then level down to level 1 and since a new skill tree was unlocked use that. If you want a challenge put the difficulty of the bringer of chaos mode that is designed to use end game gear and strategies. I really love how they did the combat in this game so I liked using my new strategies and skills in new game plus.
Not necessarily a “traditional” New Game+ or even a New Game+ for that matter, but I really love the post-game of Dragon Quest XI. Just throwing it out there.
GE7 IDK what to call the second half of Dragon Quest XI. You reach the mid point thinking it’s the end and then the game basically starts over with a new quest. 40+ hours in? Do it again. Loved it, but wow it took a long time to fully beat that game.
@@thethingsisee13 Ikr, I beat DQXI and was like "whew, finally did it, only took 70 hours", and then I saw the teaser in the credits and figured I may as well check it out, then the game kept going, and going, and going... it was really weird but cool
Glad to see Tales represented at least a little (in this case, Vesperia). I think the Grade Shop is definitely something that should be touched on more as a NG+ device. Vesperia's NG+ alone allows you to (realistically) achieve higher levels, win "unwinnable" fights, take more shots at completing your compendiums, unlock higher difficulties, alter the game's balance... there is a lot to unpack, and it's up to the player to design how their next run will go! It's really something great.
Symphonia's great too, with a number of choices and routes you can take to go through the game, as well as differentiated scenes depending on who you got close to and items and costumes that you can't get 100% without at least three playthroughs. Oh, plus the Devil's Arms weapons getting stronger the more kills the corresponding character has, which means that with enough playthroughs, even dedicated casters will become formidable in close combat!
kingdom hearts chain of memories had my favorite new game plus mode where you played as Riku
That's not really ng+ it's just second campaign.
That's by far my favorite instance of post-game content ever
YES!
I loved being able to play as different dogs after beating Okami! I also tried to play through the game's story as quickly as possible, so not only did I get to play as different dogs (each with different barks) but I also found more collectibles, weapons, I never found all of the fish or animals, but it was fun to find more, I also found more brush styles from exploring the areas more! It was in general the most fun game to beat 100% I've ever played!
Hearing and seeing Ratchet and Clank gave me nostalgia flashbacks.
_Help_
Incredibly interesting as always,particularly in some of the games put on display,i wasn't aware even back then Link had a new game +.
_And this let's me take a peek at games i'd look forward to play,like CrossCode._
as soon as i heard R&C's music i headed down to the comments to see who else noticed :D such great, nostalgic games
Heard the music before the game popped up or was mentione, started to get confused if I was hearing things
Final Fantasy X-2 had a good use of NG+, allowing you to keep unlocked classes and character progressions in those classes, as well as equipment, but not levels. But more interesting is the narrative used, with each area of the game having missions you can pass or fail (or skip altogether), and some storylines that intersect with others. And there's also a major choice you make about a third of the way into the game that affects how a lot of people in the story see and interact with you for the rest of the game.
I always loved new game + it gives a whole new experience depending on the game. Since games are expensive these days if i can get replay value & enjoy it a second time then it's worth it
I’d rather spend my time playing new games but I get what you mean. I gotta get trophies in new game+ sometimes so I gotta do it anyway.
"Games are expensive these days" they are actually cheaper than they have ever been
Nyx true but remember that games are more expensive to make now than ever as well. Not that it matters in this conversation but just remember that.
Nyx Really..? So $100 is a cheap game? Because it's not the standard $59'99 in my country
Isaac The Last N7 where do you live? I’ve heard games are more expensive in some countries but that sounds awful.
OneShot's new game plus is great in that the story starts the same way, but gradually deviates into an entirely new direction. It's a great way for the wonderful story to end, too.
Might as well mention Fire Emblem Three Houses!
New Game + there is quite nice, as it gives you a lot of flexibility in how much you want to use/abuse certain abilities for a playthrough. Want a run to still be challenging, but have more options for who you can field? No problem. Want to make Byleth hyper-competent so you can teach your students how to kill way faster? Got it. Want to play the game by making everyone an armor knight? Totally possible.
That, and the 4 total routes make it a game that’s disgustingly easy to replay.
100% agreed
It is fun to see your progress and to use it as a challenges
The first NG+ I did was Persona 5. Imo a good NG+ is a little more difficulty (since you're more leveled and skilled) some exclusive content like a secret boss or 2. Love your videos btw
Sorry but i didnt like P5 NG+ at all. I like the game, but the Palaces are just boring in your second play. The enemies now die in one hit cause of your overpowered Personas and outside from enemies, the Palaces don't have anithing to do. The puzzles are super easy.
Sooo... I started NG+ just to do the extra challenges and do all confidants, and all of this is really fun, but everytime i started a Palace, i have a bad time...
P5 the First time was rather ok the longer it went but ng+ seems Like a pointless thing to do
@@adv78 True which is why I said it should be a little harder on NG+ even if you did the same difficulty.
NG+ in Persona is pretty good, since you can max out confidants you wasn't able to on your first playthrough, and also you can fuse one new endgame persona, but i still think they could've done more.
@@adv78 if you're doing NG+ you don't do it for the challenge you do it for a stress free run where you can pretty much do what you want.
Fire Emblem : Three Houses is another game that does narrative new game + well. Each of your playthrought feels like a different game where you explore each faction, but the are all tied together in the same story
I agree for the most part. I think the narrative way it does new game+ is great.
But also pre-timeskip stuff gameplay wise feels pretty slow on a second playthrough. I know it has extra stuff you unlock but I think a second playthrough kind of highlights the problem in the lack of variety in the mission objectives.
Then again I haven’t gotten around to doing black eagles yet.
then again it’s way better than how fates did it for sure
Not to mention carrying over your professor level and renown, letting you unlock previously obtained skill and support levels, making the early game easier, or to let you recruit your favourite characters right away
Shame about the early game being almost identical each time
@@gayshaymin3712 In terms of PURELY the new game+ feature (not counting cost, or game quality), I think Fates did it better. You don't carry anything over, but they let you skip the beginning part to get to the new content right away. That's more of what I care about in FE games.
I apreciate a lot the love of Crosscode in this video.
CrossCode deserves all the love it can get, but we both know that. :P
Thank you! Was trying to figure out what the game at 0:28 was and this was close to the top of the comments, so made my search fast. Thanks!
I'm just a bit surprised he didn't mention it. I think it's a good compromise, letting the player decide how they want to re-experience the game. I'm currently redoing the game using NG+ before doing the DLC as a refresher and love how I could adapt it to my taste.
The new game plus mechanics in The Messenger are an interesting mix of the godmode and secondary challenge categories. For a game with such exacting platforming, a speedruning community is inevitable. And the devs knew this. For each run of the game you complete, you get to choose one of three items chosen at random to keep, as well as keeping all of your unlocked movement abilities. And these upgrades stack. And as you repeat playthroughs, you'll get faster and faster as you realize you can skip and sequence break with your items.
For those interested in the game, I HIGHLY ADVISE playing it yourself and not looking things up. There are quite a few massive twists that the developers were quiet about during development and marketing. Additionally, I tried to keep spoiler free here, so know there's a little more nuance in the new game plus.
Bravely Second is my favorite use of NG+, considering the first time it happens, it's not _really_ NG+, but the term being used for the characters to take a second chance to beat the bad guy, since they totally failed the first time. The second time is a standard real NG+ option once you beat the game.
"it's not really NG+"
Well, it is if you fail to figure out what you need to do in the first fight.
Persona NG+ after about 3 times through should be the moment you decide "I like this low level persona, but I don't like that it's low level" then you make it OP.
the "make arsene immune to every element and able to spam instant kill megidolaons" playthrough
Tales games always had a interesting new game plus; having a massive load of options either to make things easier or create a new challenge. The GRADE system created a limit on the options you had based on how well you performed in battles.
i agree but unfortunatelly the storytelling in the serie is very poor. If they could balance the quality of the gameplay with the narrative Tales would be on top with the best.
@@goncaloferreira6429 Really? I don't see how not drowning in angst is poor storytelling...
@@Ice-Climber I'm a big Tales fan but I think story telling is a low point of the serie. It's one of the most inconsistent point throughout the games and you never know if it's going to be good or not.
I still think the strong character interaction, the very lovable casts and the great combat systems make up for it.
@@Ice-Climber i dont follow
@@kappamiye so in your opinion there are some with a good story? wich ones and why?
Tales is a long running series and they got their gameplay formula right but the storytelling is not great and the style is not my thing. The influences of anime/manga are always very present and that is both good and bad.
For NG+ the one good example I can think of is OneShot. The game kinda hints you about where the story isn't complete, and when you start NG+ a carried over item enables a new route that's completely different. The game also talked about "multiverse" so that's some extra bit of content.
I think the design shines because it's not triggered automatically, you need to solve extra puzzle in order to get into the new route.
Yeah, Nier and Automata are narrative masterpieces. They are two of my most favourite games of all time, and with a remake of Nier now on its way, I've not been more excited since 2017.
Nier yes but automata a little lesa
I'm so ridiculously excited for Replicant's remaster!
Atlus games overall sometimes have some unique rewards for NG+ routes, aside from also several of them having several different endings.
SMT Nocturne has tombstones in its optional dungeon where you can rematch old bosses, which is usually fast but the gimmick is that you have to beat them in a specific time. Do that for all the bosses and on NG+ you can obtain an extra turn, which is always fun in a turn-based game.
Strange Journey Redux not only has some content that you can only access on NG+, but on most difficulties, you can choose what things you can transfer. You can for example transfer all your map progress which is super handy for a dungeon crawler, but not your level and stats so you can still be challenged.
I had some ideas for a new game plus for the game im currently makeing, you could save characters that normaly die in the first playthrough and your character will get more and more self aware
I have to say that I admire the simplicity new game plus in Nier. It's simply turns on subtitles and shows you what the bosses were doing before you came in. Flips the entire narrative on its head. What is so surprising is how much sense the story makes both times while being so radically different with such a small change
Speaking of Nier, Drakengard is also a good example of NG+ but then again because it's the same director.
Also, I really like NG+ when characters recognize that this aren't their first time with these events like in Shadow of Memories but it's a shame that IIRC you have to play through all 4 endings to reach that.
Drakengard had a lot of backtracking through old chapters, whew, but I liked how in the routes past the A route for Drakengard 3 accord would openly acknowledge that she was viewing different timelines.
5:39 that's the worst name I've ever heard.
...
He made it so people won’t get spoiled
Hollow Knight's Steel Soul is more of a challenge NG+. But instead of changing the enemies life or damage, it only change is in your character, adding permadeath.
In first glance doesn't look special enought, or just too difficult for some players, but HK game design change completely players opinion if they just give it a try. Now that you understand the world and the map, you not just understand in a different way the early game dialog if you is paying atention to the lore in you first playthrough, but you can complately change the order of the things you get and do in the game. HK map have so much freedom to do the things and strange orders, HK map is Open World much earlier than you first notice, and when you already know the intire map, you can plam yourself to get the items in the order that you want, trying to avoid areas that you are afraid to die in early games, and soon the game mode that you would think that you needed to just do everything again without dieing, becomes a totaaly different experience
It's Steel Soul and not Steal Soul, but yeah, that thing does steal your soul
@@brocolyrics4331 Typing error, probably my celphone being dumb and correcting what isn't wrong. I normally speaks in other language so the corrector gets crazy in English
@@adv78 Yeah no don't worry, as a French person I understand your struggle! I just wanted to point that out to make the joke
The most fun I ever have from NG+'s are god modes. I already beat the game, tearing through it after is a blast. Let me trivialize all those challenges I went through before. I love it
Agreed. I don't play a game to lose.
To my opinion, those kind of NG+ are the most boring ones. They are very lazy by design and brings nothing new.
@@Kumo_tk It really depends on the game. If it was a breeze to go through initially, a pseudo god mode won't do much for it. But if you fought your way through, slowly improving your character, it can be a thrill to face those old challenges with ease. I don't consider it lazy design, just another tool that can make for an engaging experience if used properly
Chrono Trigger is still my favorite NG+.
On top of the godmode stuff, the game becomes a completely different, almost puzzle-like challenge, going from
"Can I beat this game?" to
"What happens if I beat the game and end the story NOW (before/after x happens)?".
thinking back to Bartle's taxonomy of gamers, I feel like the concept of new game + carries the most appeal for explorers.
Explorers find most of the appeal in the games they play within the story, variety, and possibilities of a game, rather than the inherent challenge. On a mechanical level, a new game + is an opportunity for them to enjoy what they've already collected and sort of "play with all the toys" a game has to offer
I see NieR: Automata in the thumbnail, I click.
Glory
To mankind
@@Ramsey276one Glory...
to mankind.
Glory to mankind.
Glory to Machine Lifeforms!
Same 😛
One of the most interesting takes on a story based New Game + was having all the dialogue from other characters in your first playthrough be in a language your character doesn't speak, then the second playthrough giving you a translator device.
There were enough context cues that you can figure out the general plot of the story and your part in it the first time around, but the second added a lot more context.
...did I ever actually finish the second run? ...might be time to go back XD
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon has to be my favorite NG+ system I've seen so far. After getting the "good" ending on a normal run, you unlock Nightmare mode, which as one would expect is (mostly) a replay of the game with added difficulty and tougher enemies. But it is also a required playthrough if you wanna progress the story of the game, and see the real ending. The twist comes from the fact that-
*SPOILERS*
in the previous ending, the protagonist essentially gets lost to the void, and thus the remaining characters have to rescue him. This means you will have to progress through an harder version of the game with one man down. The final twist comes in the form of the last stage of the game being entirely replaced with a new, secret level that is unique to this game mode, where your party must finally confront their fallen comrade.
Alternatively, the game's normal mode offers many different endings based on which characters you choose to recruit, ignore or straight-up kill. Killing potential party members buffs up your main character with new abilities, but these abilities are nothing spectacular on their own, and in no way make up for losing an extra character with its own health bar and skillset, something that the game itself constantly reminds you of. So by playing around with these routes, you can also up the challenge by choosing to play with less party members than you would on your normal first playthrough. In fact, the route where you kill off every character and obtain the worst possible ending as a result, is a pre-requisite in order to unlock the game's final Ultimate mode, where you play through Nightmare difficulty, but the main character starts out with all extra abilities already unlocked.
One I enjoy is Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I’ve been playing it off and on for four years and just saw a new ending for it this week. Without NG+ I wouldn’t have beaten it multiple times in multiple ways.
My favorite game of all time that utilizes New Game Plus is Fire Emblem: Three Houses. With the game being designed around playing the game a minimum of three times (four for the secret route) to understand the whole of Fodlan's history, and the ability to decide what my characters have access to (I.E. costumes, weapon proficiencies, etc.) practically whenever I want, I always have a blast replaying the game each time to experience the World in different ways, even after over 775 hours of overall playtime.
The one area I think Three Houses misses the mark in that NG+ replayability would be in the massive amount of overlap between all the routes for the first two-thirds of the game.
At least the player is given the option to skip the vast majority of that and spend renown to get their units up to speed.
FE3 houses was one of the only new game + I’ve started, and it was a terrible experience for me. The progress that was brought over made the game so easy that it wasn’t fun, and you can’t increase the difficulty midway through. I wish the game let me know before I was too far in to restart :(
hmmm, remind me to return to this when I've finished Nier Automata
Edit: There we go, I'm here again. Good video.
Also, such a bloody good game, time to play the original I guess.
You want to
Don't you?
@@Ramsey276one I guess so, yeah
I wish you best of luck in your playthrough.
... you're not ready my friend😂
@@yannispirou101 Oh? Does the third playthrough really make things that much more difficult/depressing?
Oxenfree had my favourite new game + I've encountered. I think I finished it five or six times until I was satisfied!
I love how the Kirby series has done new game plus post Super Star. Most of the time, you play through a harder version of the same main game, sometimes as a new, slightly more powerful character, and sometimes with new bosses!
Then, you have the option to take on those harder bosses in a gauntlet as Kirby, with only your skill and the knowledge of your encounters in the new game plus to help you beat them, and even then a new surprise or two gets thrown in at the very end!
Finally, through all this, you're able to learn new things about the characters and the world around them, mostly through pause screen text, but sometimes its through encounters, dialogue, and visual similarities, that most of the time reference previous games in the series, rewarding veteran fans with the satisfaction of not only completing the challenge, but also with the excitement of learning more about a series they follow!
Vagrant Story has probably one of my favorite New Game+ mechanics. And I know you know about CrossCode since visuals and music came up in the video.
I don't know if Oneshot fits this category, but after your first play through, you also get a change of narrative of the story and the game gives you your "happy" ending, the game is really meta as well
*Sees CrossCode
*Intense Happiness noises*
I enjoy a new game plus when there's a good handful of new content you can't access in the first playthrough.
Not just a new boss or a ten floor dungeon. But extra content such as unlockable items, access to areas that weren't accessible before.
As a game designer at a big company, I keep watching your videos and sharing them with my colleagues, because of its simple yet important contents and the way you present them to the audience. They’re not just for the curious or design/game students. Congrats! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Radiata stories is one of my favorite games offering new game plus. It has a story split in the middle that you can explore the second time around, characters that can only join your party on one branch or the other, and gives you some carryover for items and skills, but not completely.
I saved right before the split, and skipped playing the first half of the game twice. ;p
I love Sekiro's NG+ it puts up the difficulty but now knowing how to play game also reduces the difficulty. It's fun to see just how much you remember and how different it is not dying so much. A much more enjoyable experience because you're the one that grew more so than any stats.
Every time I watch these kinds of videos I'm reminded of my monstrosity of a backlog
a backlog literally makes 0 sense. why would you stash games in a backlog ? just play and focus on what interests you the most in the moment.
@@Senumunu backlog just means an accumulation of something. It's commonly used in an abstract sense to describe a list of tasks yet to be completed. In that sense, I wouldn't need to actually own a game to say it's on my backlog.
@@dontstealmydiamondsv3156 weird. but ok. when i hear backlog from friends they always mean steam library of games they have not played yet but plan to play.
I loved the game loop of Onimusha Warlords on ps2, and even after years of not playing it, I found more secret game modes and costumes with finding all the fluorite or playing under a certain time limit. This helps a game with replayability and surprises with content never before seen on later playthroughs
83K views in 2 days? Glad to see your channel finally getting the recognition it deserves, “Design Doc” (aka warbot 😏).
Been enjoying the quality content for years. Keep up the awesome work! :)
6:52 Don't forget that the NG+ in the Ratchet and Clank series usually had a bolt multiplier that went up as you defeated enemies while taking no damage, and reset to 1x when you took any damage. Gives you an incentive to play more skillfully to unlock some of the more expensive stuff. NG+ probably served as a more natural way to level up all those weapons that didn't involve just grinding for XP in the last few areas. If the map-o-matic carried over, it might also put you on a more natural route to obtaining the gold/platinum/titanium bolts.
I found that Dragon Quest XI had a great way of expanding the story after the last boss. Time travel and the real baddy which was foreshadowed in the main campaign
As a man who loves video game soundtracks, I appreciate how you played music corresponding to the game you were talking about in a very seamless manner. Couple of them took me back down memory lane.
Analog: A Hate Story and Hate+ have a fairly interesting and very in-genre new game plus mode, worth exploring if you're in the visual novel space.
Wow, I think this is the first time I've seen anyone mention these games in all the years since their release. :o
why this kind of channel is rarely get noticed?
1.quality content
2.thorough explanation
3.well made
Admittedly, despite the endings of NieR:Automata, I felt that after that, there was nothing else to do, which sucked. The Colosseum DLC was okay, but there's too much of a level gap between every challenge for each character, and even then, I didn't like it all that much.
There was a score attack mode that was seemingly thrown together with Popsicle sticks and bandaids that was demonstrated at a certain game convention, and it still exists in the debug build, but it never reached the final game and never got fleshed out.
You think a boss rush would be fun, going into chapter select and i.e. beating Adam again and having some fun with a new challenge, but the bosses always remain the same level, so it's just incredibly sad how easy things are. Sucks even more, because the enemies outside of bosses always scale with your level. But Adam remains level 25 and Simone remains level 15, and you can kill Adam in 30 seconds after reaching endgame levels and gear.
I'd like to note that the reason I'm sad is because there isnt much to do after you finish all quests and get all endings, and it's questionable why there isnt much to this considering MGR and Bayonetta had grading systems that kept you coming back for more, and you were always on somewhat equal ground with the bosses depending on your gear(even with the wig, some bosses can be difficult).
I mean, a game has to end at some point, right? Maybe not if it's a rogue-like or something, but a narrative-driven game like Automata does.
What is F-Zero Anymore 2: Electric Boogaloo Bayonetta and MGR aren't RPGs, so it's all based on your skill: if you're good, then you'll get a good score. Nier Automata, even though it's a platinum's game and can boast their classic action gameplay, has some broken rpg mechanics that weren't really balanced, and even adjusting enemies level to yours, you'll still be stronger because you can equip some chips that make you a god. Unless you play on hard... which is broken on enemies' favour.
@@omniB Yeah, fair enough on the RPG aspect, but it's not like they couldn't have made something. Again, the enemies always scale with you, but the bosses don't.
@@CJWproductions I guess I get that? But I still wish I could get more out of the combat, especially considering they programmed a lot of endgame stuff in
TLDR: There just isnt enough replay value outside of the first 5 endings, which kinda sucks.
@@whatisfzeroanymore2nd I mean, the last ending is basically designed around erasing your save so I don't think they really intended you to keep playing beyong that point?
While maybe not technically considered as a full on NG+, I love how Celeste allows you, once you've beaten the main story, to go back and complete harder B-Side versions of levels to practice and enhance your skills even more.
Then it takes it another step with the shorter, yet still even more difficult C-Sides of the levels.
AND THEN it adds in the collectable golden strawberries where you have to complete the entire level without dieing to collect, not only for the A-Sides, but also the B and C-Sides too!
And don't even get me started on farewell!
Celeste good.
The best way to do a new game plus is to replace all squishable mushroom creatures with fireproof shelled creatures
In all honesty, my favourite of those 4 is the Godmode NG+. It is just so amazing to run through a game time and time again being overpowered as heck!
Then again, a nice little change to it is never wrong of course. Like more story to explore, new outfits and items to unlock, etc
Breath of Fire 5: Dragon Quarter does new game + quite differently. The game is set on a strict timer, depending on how fast you clear the game you gain a certain D-Ratio (kinda like social standing in-universe) which can unlock doors in previous areas giving new items, new ennemies, new challenges. You also get to see new cutscenes fleshing out the characters.
The whole game is made on the idea of limited time and ressources, where you have to be strict with certain stuff, else you'll end up in an unwinnable situation and you'll have to "restart" the game (either previous save or the beginning) with a few stuff you had that could help you to progress faster/better. It's sometimes super stressful, since there's a kind of timer running out through almost the whole game, and certain overpowered abilities makes it go way faster.
I made it to dragon 1/65th but really lost patience for it eventually...
Speedruns make this game both amazing and ridiculous.
Transistor's NG+ is worth looking into. Most of the map has been consumed by the "evil" during the 2nd playthrough. It does the whole "add late game enemies to the start" thing (along with slightly changing boss patterns), but it's soundtrack is where it is unusual. They remixed most of the soundtrack down to a broken, electronic shell of what it was. It produces an air of unease. The game's narrator also has unique dialogue, commenting on the slight differences.
You keep all of your abilities as well (as most games do) but it allows you to unlock them again. Due to how Transistor's combat system and "skills" function, this allows you to make some neat combinations that aren't attainable during the first playthrough. And the challenge levels take the DMC5 approach, giving you too many to reasonably complete in a single run.
I'd also like to mention that Dark Souls 2 and 3 add upgraded rings during subsequent playthroughs. DS3 even has upgraded rings up through NG++ (though they ended up making that irrelevant by including the strongest rings in the DLC [good job, guys. haha]).
And one last thing, I'm surprised you didn't mention procedurally generated games! Those are all technically "NG+" games, though I suppose they're drastically different than most of games you mentioned (and don't quite fit into the discussion), but they have some interesting NG+ concepts to ponder. Unlocking new characters (Enter the Gungeon, Binding of Issac), more upgrades and skill trees (Hades, Risk of Rain 2), and sometimes entirely new game modes (Death Road to Canada).
Fantastic video.
It's super neat to see all of these concepts in a single video. Really gets the creative juices flowing.
Looking forward to seeing more in the future!
> Sees "New Game Plus" and NieR on the Thumbnail
Ah, brilliant.
I like the Tales series New Game + because it allows you to pick and choose what bonuses you want. You can do things like keep all your money and skills, but still have your characters set back to level 1, making the game easier while still making it fun, cause in my opinion just mowing through any enemy in your path just leaves you with walking from point A to point B till you can maybe get an actual challenge
Ff7R was an almost perfect second challenge with hard mode, that’s exactly how it should be imo. Hard mode early game scaling to normal mode and game is next level planning
I swear this channel really knows how to inform me. I did not see or understand the point of new game + modes in video games, but now I see the benefits of them. I like the idea of Narrative + Skill-based new game + modes a lot too. I think too many games rely on "replay the exact same game because you love it!" and not enough focus on emphasizing growth in a player's skills. Good video!
NG+ in Fire Emblem Three Houses does it well IMO.
it gives God Mode and allows you to get more of the narrative of a game with a ton of narrative.
just playing the game standardly, without NG+, would take forever if you want to see every ending. NG+ giving you God Mode, even though its really only for Byleth, is good enough to let you power through missions quickly, but not brainlessly. if you were struggling on the first run, the second run could still kill you, but its not nearly as stressful.
@@steveh1474 Nah, you can also up your student's skill levels.
My Marianne is a force of nature thanks to that.
Especially because part 1 can be a really bore having to play it 4 times, but NG+ allows you to go through it faster
In this case, it pretty much only ends up being God Mode if you go out of your way to grind for it. It's great for exploring all of the main story routes that the whole game is based around while cracking the customization options for your team wide open.
Then there's Maddening difficulty, which works without, but gives a strong vibe of being tuned to a NG+ environment.
Late by about a month or so, but I want to give my piece still.
I felt pretty teased by the glimpse of Kirby games! They're my personally favorite series, honestly.
Ever since the Extra Modes starting in Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, they've gotten much better as time went on (Meta Knightmare Ultra was a great improvement compared to Meta Knightmare), to the proper Extra Mode variation setting in with Return to Dreamland, staying and changing in a few ways with each entry.
Whether or not the EX mode starts you off with less health, play as another character or something along the lines, I always find them enjoyable due to what they do, specifically with Return to Dreamland and onward. You're playing the same worlds again, but with some differences. Either lower health, enemies with different sizes, enemy rushes being added around certain rooms, skip travels that let you skip ahead and get a better time when the EX mode has a timer...
However, past those differences, what I like the most is the EX version of bosses in all they bring to the table, and even more so bosses that weren't in the Main Story mode. New looks, different patterns, new attacks, new everything to some degree when it comes to them.
I'm also a sucker for the Kirby Lore, and I absolutely love the usage of Pause Descriptions now that I've gotten used to checking them out (not really intuitive at first though, which is a flaw), and I love it when I see new snippets of information or lore when I check the descriptions, possibly planting seeds for something that'll come in the future.
Of course, this doesn't undervalue the good examples given in the video!
Nier Automata is a haven for amazing design, honestly. That hacking section against the final boss alone is top tier.
That entire final location and the build up and execution was just perfect.
@@RicochetForce With how much sanity 9S lost, it makes sense that he'd be the final boss. (Though I guess A2 is the final boss too.) Honestly a really climactic area though overall! I loved that gigantic Portal Core looking machine you fight near the end!
Unfortinatly the hacking is quite overused and annoying but you are sti right
@@Exel3nce I think hacking is a fun minigame that has a lot of gameplay elements overlapping with the standard combat system, with the standard combat system having bullet hell elements and all. I can see some people getting bugged by the hacking, but I'm glad the game almost never forces the player to do difficult hacking sections for most boss fights, allowing the player to often choose what combat style they like to use.
@@dailydelphox most people hated the hating after a time and it was unfortuantly the only option to do big dmg
Old school, but in Wild Arms and Tales games, the game allows you to purchase NG+ goodies such as carrying over money or items, or you can forgo them and just unlock the art, illustration, or movie galleries. The currency are items or score points you accumulate throughout the entire game so how much you can purchase depends on how you did.
"and we can't talk about new game plus design without talking about at least one yoko taro ruse cruise"
I want to add the devil survivor series, zero's escape and dragon quest ix to the list! Also hatoful boyfriend xD
omg Hatoful Boyfriend! Bad Boys Love route definitely wasn't what I was expecting from a parody bird dating sim. I went from ironically enjoying it and laughing to 100% unironically just straight up enjoying it.
SuperDevilSurvivor Dragon quest 11s one isn’t a new game plus though. The story just continues after the credits 🤔
@@ROT695 hmm i guess thats true🤔
Not sure if it counts as a NG+, but replaying Windwaker has always been incredibly fun and satisfying. Starting the game with the pictobox gives you the chance to get models of earlier enemies/bosses and complete your gallery. Plus it’s fun beating Ganon in your jammies.
Xenoblade for story reasons,bravely second.
Bravely second's is amazing and very unique!
Xenoblade one new game plus wasn't very good. You could get 100 percent of it done in one playthrough without new game plus. I like Xenoblade 2's newgame plus a lot though.
never wanted to get into xenoblade 1's NG+, I would find it incredibly boring to steamroll the game, plus having that op weapon would trivialize the superbosses so much. that's why i did my 100% file on a regular NG
Final Fantasy Type-0 had an interesting combination of the skill ramp and narrative types. As you go through the game you'll come across sections with effectively a forced loss, but on replays you actually can overcome those challenges, as well as bonus objectives that just weren't there before. And those new avenues to explore contain more narrative content to keep the story going and look for the true conclusion.
Also, well known but worth mentioning. I really like the Tales Of games grade shop concept, where you can make the game easier, harder, or just different on future play throughs. But the degree to which you can tamper with your next run depends on how much grade you've built up already.
Actually, you can beat the combat challenges and ALMOST all boss battles the 1st time around, but considering you have to be: really good playing, determined to finish them underleveled or grind for ages or using exploits, i'd say the New Game Pluses are still worth it.
I felt Type-0 had too much of its content locked behind NG+, I didn't really mind the extra story in NG+, but I did mind how much of the gameplay was locked until NG+.
It also didn't help that NG+ stuff (like expert trails, areas and bosses) were almost rubbed in your face, making the player feel annoyed that they have to skip such content on their first playthrough.
@@onyxowl70 Not gonna lie, i saw a streamer doing a blind playthrough of Type-0 and just doing the expert trials underleveled and brute forcing the "unwinnable" boss fights of the 1st playthrough via kill-sighs.
@@julioc.3158 yeah but at that point the game is just frantic and stressful, knowing you can die at any moment from gunfire or certain bullshit enemies (*cough* raged supersoliders *cough*), making you have to spam dodge. Killsight timing can be really unreliable and unreasonable sometimes. It is all preference based, but I'm more of a turnbased RPG guy so I usually expect methodical strategy, however I do have a soft spot for action games, so I do enjoy/love games like Bloodborne, Darksouls, Tales Of... etc. However type-0, just feels all a bit too quick for me :/
@@onyxowl70 I get you, the game is either lightning fast or slowing down to a crawl, RTS Missions, seriusly why are they part of the game.
The only way a game can convince me to go trough new game + is if it has any narrative impact/information.
Same, I ain't got time to just redo the same thing again just a bit faster/harder. If new game+ is how they tell the full story, though, I gotta do it.
Then the original Nier is right up your alley. I think you need to beat it five or six times for the entire narrative and all endings.
@@chironthecuddley6144 I think I should give the game a try :)
@@fantasygaming8718 Just know the combat isn't as tight as Automata, but it is still a really good game. I hope you enjoy it!
I'd almost say same, but I do sometimes play unlocked hard modes and the like if I still want to spend time with a game after finishing. And, of course, games like the 2d Sonic games where the lack of NG+ barely matters for wanting to replay them. Or specific levels in them.
I loved the new-game-plus in Specter of Torment. It really flipped the mechanics on their head.
Quiet Man is what happens when you get excited about making a new game + that completely changes what you thought was happening, but forget to make a game people will want to finish in the first place.
Mark of the Ninja has an interesting combination of Godmode and Secondary Challenge. You keep all your upgrades/equipment, but the game removes sound indicators and gives your character a line of sight, not letting you look behind you without actually turning around. Since the upgrades in that game are generally less "make your stronger" and more "give you more options" going through the game again, while it tests your knowledge of enemy behaviors and your creativity with your varied arsenal, is very enjoyable.
There's also Hollow Knight and it's Steel Soul mode. Virtually the exact same game... But you don't respawn. It can certainly be frustrating at times, but I think it works really well. Using your knowledge of the map from your first playthrough and memory of where you found all your upgrades lets you plan out a path to get everything quickly and easily. Plus, there's several different routes you can go to get different items and go to different areas in a different order, so having to start over is just an opportunity to reflect on your strategy and maybe try a different approach. It's not about playing a harder or totally different game like your usual second challenge; it's about perfecting your skill and knowledge to the point of total mastery.
Recent Kirby games have had great NG+'s, as well. Time attack modes where you go through a harder, but much shorter, streamlined version of the main game, as different characters. King Dedede in Triple Deluxe, Meta Knight in Planet Robobot, and in Star Allies... Sweet Halcandra, Star Allies... Also, you fight remixed bosses with new pauses screen descriptions that give extra information on them and the story, and even have totally new bosses at the end of the game. Plus, it leads to the unlocking of the games greatest challenge...
Oh... And then there's Fire Emblem: Three Houses. How did you now bring this up? It's a completely different story every time. A lot like NieR. And also like NieR, I almost don't even consider it a "New Game Plus". If you don't experience every route, you're kind of cheating yourself out of the whole experience. NG+ should be optional, and while this technically is, it feels wrong to call it that.
ADDENDUM: Oh, and FE3H also just has a really good NG+ that cuts out most of the tedium and lets you focus on customizing your students however you want. Seriously, the amount of freedom you have in that game with what classes you make students and what strategies you employ is amazing. Really helps people stomach the idea of the thousand hour experience you're encouraged to go through.
I absolutely agree with what you said about Mark of The Ninja, their New Game + really shows new game and not just gives more health to enemies. It actually changes how you play and what decisions you have. It's nice contrast with base game where you're in control all the time nad you know everything.
"I managed to keep spoilers out of this video!"
>shows Nero in DT
bruh
I really love the new game + in Shovel Knight; specifically Spector of Torment.
You start off with all your gear from the last playthrough (except your healing item,) but now your magic and life are fused, and is constantly draining. If you aren’t continuously collect more soul from enemies, or if you’re using your items too much, you’ll be at higher risk of dying much more easily. The fact that even if you don’t want to use your items, since they’re not necessary to beat the game, you can still have a challenging run; with draining health and less checkpoints throughout each level.
I heard that dragon god and thought my phone was ringing for a sec lol
People rag on it for other reasons, but I found FFX-2's New Game + mode very satisfying as a way to return and chill. In their case it's part god mode (because you keep endgame equipment, which can be stupid powerful), a little speck of narrative (there are endings near-impossible to achieve without the second run, and you have the option to see the alternate branch of a major branching narrative), and theoretically some skill scaling, though one can just as easily do that in their first run if they want; The grind isn't that different one way or the other.
But personally I find it fun to pick 2-5 classes to play as and swap between them, and then in my next playthrough try out 2-5 totally different classes for each character. This makes it so the progression for that class is roughly in line with where it should be in the game. While the game empowers you to absolutely demolish its content without difficulty, it also gives you the tools to enjoy your second run as much as the first, just by virtue of the fact that it gives you more bars to fill than you're likely to want to on your first run, and then gives you reason to perform that second run.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is an infinite game than never ends.