Stress vs De-stress

[GPX | 1,370]

This thread is all about the stress factor, ranging from 0-10. By stress, I mean general anxiety symptoms: fast heart rate, sweating, muscle tension, palpitation, rising blood pressure etc. 

A. Which game(s) caused your stress score to reach its peak? 
B. Which game(s) helped you most to de-escalate your stress?

Would be interesting to see if someone’s answer to A is another one’s answer to B, and vice versa!

[GPX | 1,370]

Feeling kinda stressed just to come up with some answers.

A. This is actually quite hard to answer, so I’ll just pick what first comes to mind. Interestingly, I recall a short challenge in either Mario Galaxy 1 or 2. Where you had to collect 100 colored coins to get a star in 2-3 minutes. The platforms underneath the coins would be flipping sporadically, and a miss-timed jump means you fall into space and die. I became obsessed with that challenge for days until I had finally completed it. Funny on thinking back, once you overcome a huge stress period in gaming, it becomes a huge kick of euphoria!

B. Nintendogs on DS? It was definitely a unique feeling when playing it for the first time. I can see now the novelty factor and almost the stress-free nature of it all. 

(Might have to come back to edit if I can think of more later on.)

[Aguy | 773]

I'm a pretty lax person to begin with, so the Souls-like games (Elden Ring and more recently Wo Long) are the only kind of games that stress me out as I'm not the best at them. 

Grinding in an RPG (DQ is my favorite) is the best way to de-stress for me. It's pretty mindless but still leads to overall progress. Vampire Survivor is another mindless but engaging enough game too.

[phart010 | 1,707]

I’m usually pretty good at Mario games. There was one star in Mario Odyssey that made me put the game down and since then I never picked the game back up again. I tried it so many times and got me so frustrated I noticed I was gasping 

[koifish | 556]

My two favorites for stress relief are Endless Ocean: Blue World, and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Both games have their stressful moments, but are overall designed for a relaxing experience.

Meanwhile, Splatoon was a serious ragefest. Getting BS sniped by laggy e-liters on moray towers made me want to throw my Wii U off a bridge.

[DarkTone | 986]

A is any call of duty. Never thrown a controller but my anxiety and blood pressure does increase. 

B is easily animal crossing. Go at my own pace to do what ever I want. Only anxiety I get is missing events and that never bothered me. 

[AirVillain | 490]

This is funny because I've been playing Monster Lair on Turbo CD and it's definitely anxiety inducing. 

But it's so fun that I keep going back. It's painful.... but I enjoy parts of it. 

I thought about playing it the other day and I was like "Oof, I don't have the energy" and felt like playing SMB3 instead. 

So I'll answer with this:

A) Monster Lair (as of today)

B) Super Mario Bros. 3, always!

[DarkTone | 986]

[Reed Rothchild | 9,548]

Any tough game where I get a tough boss and I get him/her down to their very last hit, but then they keep evading that last hit and I start pressing harder and harder and caution and subtlety start to go out the window and I stop trying to evade because I just need one hit to land amidst their attacks, just that one last hit, I just need it to connect and WHY WONT YOU DIE YOU MOTHER FUCKER

[JamesRobot | 5,806]

Metroid Dread was super stressful.  The EMMI encounters really lived up to the title. 

[SuperJimtendo | 1,123]

I really can't handle anything that's modern and "souls style" I mean sure we all died a thousand times on mario bros and that's just how it was but games being hard for the sake of hard instead of fun just don't do it for me. 

 

To unwind though I could always pick up portal and play through it in about 45 minutes, get the song at the end and be fully satisfied and content. 

[GPX | 1,370]

Just trying to think of the most stressful game as a potential answer - maybe a horror game and you get stuck in a segment of the game? Being in suspense and frustrated would be pretty stressful?!

 

[cj_robot | 543]

17 hours ago, GPX said:

Just trying to think of the most stressful game as a potential answer - maybe a horror game and you get stuck in a segment of the game? Being in suspense and frustrated would be pretty stressful?!

 

I immediately thought of Resident Evil as my stress-inducing experience. Not necessarily because of the horror theme, but moreso because the opportunities to save were so scarce combined with the fact that around every corner there could be a surprise attack waiting to end your game.

Also,any game with underwater segments where you need to get to the surface to breathe push my anxiety to the max (Sonic, Ecco the Dolphin, Tomb Raider, SM64, etc.)

For stress-relief, I usually go for a beat-em-ups that I can just beat the crap out of for awhile, preferably Streets of Rage 2 or Turtles in Time.

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

For me, the big stress inducer is usually timed segments.  It's not a big deal when the time is more than enough like in 2D Mario games, but when a timer is introduced with a deliberately short amount of time, I tend to stress out more than I should.  As a kid, Sonic underwater used to stress me out big time.  Some games introduce time trials of levels as bonus items after completing the game, and I tend to find those much less fun than the original game.  

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

When there is something roaming in a game that's out to get you is a good mechanic that typically makes me a little anxious, especially if you're actively being chased. Resident Evil (Mr.X), Clock Tower, Dead Space, Silent Hill, Alien, etc.

Oddly, Sonic with the air bubbles and that panic music always got me when I was younger playing in the water sections of S2.

Stress free? Hmmm... I can say that Breath of the Wild was the first game in a long time that I thoroughly enjoyed just farting around and the atmosphere was often quite pleasant with the rain/music on the more secluded parts of the map. You could play for a while without seeing any real threats and that was fine with how the game is designed.

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

A. Any game where I die on a boss/level 50 times and then I finally get reaaallllly close to beating it... I am basically the anti-clutch in those situations.

B. Zelda LttP, except for Blind and sometimes Moldorm (just because it's annoying to fall off the edge and start over).

[Jynx | 140]

Stressful games are fun when you know going in that they're stressful. Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire's Battle Tower is very fun and exciting, and you know going in that it will be stressful in a good way.

What stresses me out is when a game of normal difficulty suddenly gets hard and unfair for one segment. Sparkster on Super Nintendo was very fun until the boss of stage seven, which was a boxing robot match I've never been able to finish. I want to love SNES Sparkster, but ever since being a kid I've never finished it as I don't know how to fight that boss. There are no helpful Youtube videos either, as the only playthroughs online obviously use save states and don't show a strategy for the fight.

For relaxing games, I enjoy playing games I'm very experienced at. Games that may seem tough on a first time for other people are games I play to unwind as I'm so familiar with them. Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge on Game Boy is something I play when I've had a rough trip or bad day, and my worries go away as I cruise through the game. After a day of not being in control of things, playing a game where I have full control of a situation helps me relax and feel better.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

High level Rocket League gets me pretty sweaty, but that's what makes it fun.

For relaxation, I feel like any single player linear game is pretty solid. Puzzle based stuff without a time limit is even better.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

I can't think of any games that I find extremely stressful, but SimCity for the SNES is my go to game for relaxing. I've always found the soundtrack to be really peaceful.

[AirVillain | 490]

12 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I can't think of any games that I find extremely stressful, but SimCity for the SNES is my go to game for relaxing. I've always found the soundtrack to be really peaceful.

SImCity is super chill. Agreed about the soundtrack.

I used to play it while working overnights. Perfect pace and I could leave it anytime.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

56 minutes ago, AirVillain said:

SImCity is super chill. Agreed about the soundtrack.

I used to play it while working overnights. Perfect pace and I could leave it anytime.

Yeah, I remember one time I played it all night until the next morning without even realizing it until the sun started coming up.

[AirVillain | 490]

32 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

Yeah, I remember one time I played it all night until the next morning without even realizing it until the sun started coming up.

Haha... it's been like 20 years in SimCity time.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

1 hour ago, AirVillain said:

Haha... it's been like 20 years in SimCity time.

I think it was actually more since I had the speed set on fast. I started out with an open area of land and had a Megalopolis by sunrise!

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

Most stressful moments in a game had to be the god damned crying baby Mario in Yoshi's Island. Not only is it somehow the most accurately produced baby cry in the history of video games. Add a 10 second timer to the mix and it has to be the most stressful sequence in a video game for me.

For relaxing, I got to give it to BOTW. Roaming the country side, exploring towns and ruins never really got old for me. Its still easy to burn an hour by a beach or on a mountain while being completely immersed in the game.

[mbd39 | 2,025]

4 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I can't think of any games that I find extremely stressful, but SimCity for the SNES is my go to game for relaxing. I've always found the soundtrack to be really peaceful.

Battletoads?