Jumping off the stuff you brought up while talking about Tarreytown, music is such a huge part of a place feeling like home. Hearing the opening riff of Timber Hearth from Outer Wilds literally fills me with warmth and memories of the cozy village hidden in a crater. It just evokes a sense of safety, and I love when games use these connections to play around with the player's expectations and feelings.
Thanks for recommending eurothug's channel, @Razbuten . @eurothug4000, this video is just the kind of coziness I needed to unwind from a barrage of deadlines. I didn't even realise how much I missed Tarrey Town (& BOTW) until the music started playing! Will definitely check out more of your videos after a visit to Tarrey Town.
this whole video just hit me with a wave of nostalgia and memories of some of my favorite cozy zones in games. It really can come down to the little things that make me want to return to these places, and you’ve provided some really great insights into what many of those might be!
Ironically, I found the Underworld in Hades to be something like a virtual home, even though the plot was Zagreus trying to escape. This was because I got to know the characters more with each defeat. While the rewards were nice, it felt good speaking with them and giving gifts when I could. It made every defeat sting less.
I thought it was particularly interesting to see the fan response to the far smaller version of Twilight Town found in Kingdom Hearts 3. It was hugely visually improved, there was arguably more stuff to do, but the removal of the side streets we'd explored so much in our youth (especially on the skateboards dotted around the place!) was just unforgivable, haha! Even when home serves no gameplay purpose, we still make such strong connections to it. I recently wrote a poem about the feeling I get from one specific, tiny route in Pokémon Sapphire, where flowers blow in the breeze and there are a couple of ponds and hidden grass patches.
One “home” I really like was one I didn’t expect, Undertale. After your initial (tragic) departure at the start of the game, the home theme is used repeatedly in other songs as you venture throughout the underground. By the time you make it to the duplicate home at the end it feels familiar. Learning what happened as you wander the empty house makes me tear up every time. I really enjoyed this video!
There's not many youtubers talking about subtler elements of video games like vibes, aesthetics and feeling - probably because it's harder to put into words, but you do a fantastic job at it. Here's another perspective you haven't mentioned: While watching this video I felt a sense of nostalgia, but not as a typical warm and cozy, slightly melancholic feeling - but as one of discomfort and sadness. See, I haven't played any of the games you've shown in the video, and I feel like I've missed out on memories that I'll never be able to make again. Memories that only a kid able to get completely sucked into these worlds can make. It's a kind of FOMO, but related to the past instead of future. I'm sad that I've missed out on the opportunity to form a bond with these virtual places that millions of others had, but I'm also scared of stepping into this territory because of it. It's someone else's turf, if that makes sense. MMOs have always made me uncomfortable because of this, and I feel bad that I've never made any friends through WOW like so many people did, but at the same time, I'm not sure I could even if I went back now. This is why I love singleplayer games - they're my own little world.
Games giving you a space that feels like home is always nice, but I especially love when they make use of that attachment in interesting ways during the plot, like in NieR: Automata or Borderlands 2.
A recent game to nail the home aesthetic and play it up as a large theme is Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin. Every day you wake up at home and start your chores in the patties or venture off to fight monsters, but by the end of the day, you exhaustedly make it home to have a meal with your family before turning in.
I think my favorite home is the on in the second generation of Pokemon games. Where you could go back home to talk to your mom and get the money she saved for you. A small thing that made coming back worth it.
The camp from Dragon Age Origins is one of the coziest "homes" I've ever been to in games, as well as the Skyhold castle from DA Inquisition. Breezehome from Skyrim is a personal fave too, and the fictionalized Chicago from the first Watch Dogs game has become a home for me too. It must be because of the pandemic and I don't go outside unless needed, but it has become my safe haven this year.
For me, the feeling of home is the opposite of yours. I grew up in a small town and was always more interested to live in the city. I love Goodsprings, New Bark Town and Tazmily village, but I think the streets of Kamurocho give me a sense of home and excitement no other virtual world can
Dirtmouth was this for me while playing Hollow Knight. Even if I cleared out all the shops by the endgame, I always knew it was a safe place where I could take a breather and say hi to the locals. Giving the town elder that flower in what was probably the first kind gesture he'd received in a long time was just... it made my heart happy, after all the encouragement and advice he had given to me.
I found Dirtmouth's atmosphere to be really special. I didn't know how to describe it but I loved. Sitting on the bench beside Elderbug, listening to the music and ambience was exactly how I think the melancholy of a fading town should feel like.
Excellent video! After I watched this, I started thinking a lot about Night in the Woods. Not only does it capture the beauty and tragedy of returning home, it really captures the routine of being home: seeing friends, visiting familiar shops, exploring the nearby nature. I've moved a lot, so "home" isn't something static to me. Home is where my friends and loved ones are. I think games like Night in the Woods and Undertale really capture the feeling of Home for me because they're both cozy games about friendship. When I load those games up, I'm most excited to see my in-game friends!
Spiral Mountain in Banjo-Kazooie has this feeling for me, even though no one par Banjo lives there. I was sad to see it destroyed in Tooie, and it brought great joy to see it again in Nuts and Bolts.
Other commenters have named most of the cozy places in games, but I wanted to voice my love for your videos. You approach subjects many others do not consider, it's so refreshing. :) Thanks for your insight!
The peaceful aesthetic of botw makes the whole game feel comforting to me, but I especially love purchasing and decorating Links house the most. I put all my favorite weapons in there, and I go back often just to look at them. The picture of the champions you can put in the wall is a nice touch as well.
The Resistance Camp in Nier Automata was great in evoking rest and peace, especially with the variations of the music. That's why it was also troubling when it gets invaded.
After a particularly hard fight in Breath of the Wild, I always come back to Link's house to just take a break, i change my outfit, shop for ingredients, cook everything for the next adventure and sleep on the bed even if I don't need to, it fills me with comfort
one of my favorite homes in games has to be the Wigglytuff guild in PMD: Explorers of Sky. It's got such a fun lighthearted energy to it, to the busy second floor of pokemon adventurers crowded around the job board, to mundanity of the third floor with characters Chatot and Wigglytuff wishing you well before your next exploration. I love how every in-game day ends with the entire guild in the dinning hall partaking in dinner together, it's so sweet and really evokes that fun yet chaotic family dinner I was using to having as a kid.
Hollow Knight definitely gave me the sensation of home, even tho I didn't have a reason to go back; every time I decided to stop playing for the day or after a long mission I went back to the main hub and sit in the chair and close the game, the comfort of knowing I left my character in a safe place that feels like home was something I never though of in any other game
Mabe village from link’s awakening captured that feeling of home so well! It did it so well that animal village felt like visiting extended family, if you know what I mean.
awesome video as always maria reminds me of my fav sections of assassin's creed 3 where you can take a break from conner's want for revenge by building community with the homestead all the friends conner makes and his interactions with them were so wholesome
Ordon Village from Twilight Princess is forever my favorite starting area in a game. As a kid, I would play until the Forest Temple and then restart, doing the beginner quests over and over. I will never forget the shop keeper's cat or the sound of the Hawk Grass.
Thank you for this video! It's such a joy to watch. I played hundreds of hours in Terraria and 7 Days to Die. In Terraria I find it so delightful to create houses for the NPCs and myself in the different biomes, whether it'd be carving rooms out of a hillside or creating a colorful apartment building, each room filled with different stuff I imagined the characters would like. In 7DTD I like fixing up ruined buildings, improving them and then defending them. I would dig secret tunnels and escape routes or just create a roof garden and enjoy the morning sun in the forest or the desert.
I know this is an older video but for me one of the best examples of a video game location that feels like home to me is the party camp in Dragon Age Origins (which is a little funny since its a non permanent structure meant to be packed up at a moments notice). But to me going to camp after a story mission checking on my supplies and just chatting and strengthening my bonds with my companions around the fire with all our mismatched tents sprawled around taking a breather from trying to save the world just feels so cozy to me.
I definitely relate to that relatable gameplay aspect, I just love having little home rituals. I remember in Death Stranding, everytime I woke up in a room, I would play Pop Virus on loop, take a shower, wash my face, play with BB and then, drink 3 Monsters. Or in Outer Worlds, after waking up on Timber Hearth, I always eat three marshmallows before taking off with my spaceship. great vid as always
This video is awesome! I've had really stressful day today and this is exactly what I needed. I love the Terrey Town sidequest especialy the music and it's stages, whenever I don't feel right I just play this theme and suddenly everything feels better.
OMG I'm so glad I came across your video, I really miss the good old days when I played MMORPGs. Especially with the friends I had back then. Nowadays everyone gotten older and moved on to different things. But I still miss those games and the moments we had. The excitement to get online and to play with everyone again! I wish some of my friends would still play these kind of games, it is a bummer when you realize that you do not have any friends left to play these games anymore.. Thank you for the nostalgic feeling your video gave me, I wish I could go back to the simpler times!
I always appreciate dynamic hub worlds. Its very common to abandon areas once you have out leveled or have fully explored them. Which makes a lot of your adventure feel like a checklist. The 'hub' world connects to all of the other areas in the game, so you don't ever leave it behind. (Its usually got the best music because you are there so often too!) This makes it a great place to show reflections of your past adventures. You see new buildings, Characters develop, and everyone has new things to say when you come back. It all helps create attachment to the area, because you put effort into making it the way it is! I think my favorite home is the cottage in Rune Factory Frontier. Its super cozy, the music is peaceful, cute monsters are running your farm, and the best girl delivers your mail every morning. The fact that your kind neighbor from the previous game is there too, helped me settle in quickly. My Time at Portia is quickly growing on me too. As a 'builder' you are directly responsible for the towns development. And there is tons of unique dialogue for all of the post apocalyptic problems you have to solve. Rather than just the literal home area, the whole map feeling like home.
Finally recognising the trees and hills until you spot the roof of your house after being lost in underground caves or in the Nether, fearing death ever more with every treasure you collect, while completely losing orientation. Thats a big part of why Minecraft homes always felt so safe and chill to me. You build them block for block, they protect you from all the mobs and if you start building something else nearby they actually feel lived in: organizing your stuff, running back and forth getting the things out of chests, using them in the oven and your workbench, while day and night change. And then, after you and your friends abandoned the world, one day you return and all the memories of the long hours come back. Thanks for the great video as always, and thanks in particular for the visit to Ordon village. I just love this low rez 3d look of that era thats so detailed despite its limitations.
Awesome video as always! I always loved saving your game in the Monster Hunter games by laying down, taking what looks like the most comfy nap ever, and your little cats curl up next to the bed like my dog does. It reminds me to take a break in real life haha
Oakdale in Fable the lost chapters holds such a sense of home and peace to me. When I really feel stressed just putting the soundtrack of the village in the background makes me feel more at ease. I haven't played video games in years but I'm starting again and as someone who doesn't have a way back "home" irl at home, I'm impressed to see how much my old video games hold that feeling to me.
I used to always head back to Pallet town! Nothing there had ever changed.... But still didn't stop me doing it over and over again! Great video as always.
Hoenn region is home in my heart 💜 It was my first decent videogame ever and it reminds me of those chill and warm days of summer, playing my GBA SP. And the tropical warm weather of Hoenn.
I've been getting a definite sense of home from The Isle of Awakening in Dragon Quest Builders 2 - The game's free build area - in a way that I never got with any area in Dragon Quest Builders 1. Having story moments happen on it during the game while having you return to it to build as much as you like after each chapter and bringing new residents to it, and questlines to build it up via optional challenges and those story moments are what probably contributes to that, where the free build area was isolated and you never came back to any of the places you built in the main campaign - they all had optional things you could do on them, but they were all basically handled in the way games without a defined post-game handle continuing playing them after finishing the game; with the game saving when you leave that town and then having a menu option to revisit them from just before you left. A mixture of Outset Island and Dragon Roost Island (it's the music) in Windwaker, Clock Town in Majora's Mask, Traverse Town in Kingdom Hearts, Delfino Plaza in Sunshine. Maybe Alexandria or Lindblum in Final Fantasy 9, but FF9 feels so sprawling it's hard to get a handle on anywhere that really feels like home to me in that - most Final Fantasy games fall into that for me - My sense of emotional cosiness and safety is more tied up with specific characters in that franchise rather than specific locations. Your room in Gregory Horror Show very much has a sense of home to it, though in that game that's both a positive and a negative - As well as the more conventional feeling of safety from being chased by other guests angry at you for stealing the lost souls they stole from them, being a place you can restore your sanity by sleeping or increase it by reading a book, and being where you can check your journal for the resident's schedules, you also get to hear memories of verbal abuse presumably being flung at you fairly low in the soundtrack - It's got a sense of the home you stumbled across Gregory House while, presumably, running from. (There are NPCs with schedules and a journal that lets you gradually learn those schedules, I have never managed to break past my desire to fill that journal and actually finish that game... Hence, presumably) Weirdly, the closest things to 'home' feeling in Sonic games for me aren't the hub worlds or first levels, but Starlight Zone in Sonic 1 and Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3. Just something about the atmosphere and vibe of the music in those stages just feels so homely to me in a way that Green Hill Zone or Angel Island Zone never did (even before it's set on fire). Maybe it's just due to how often I'd use the level select cheat in Sonic 1 or the level select feature in Sonic 3 to replay those specific zones that caused that - I can't think of any other game where a sense of home for me is created in the 5th out of 6 areas with a linear progression through them all. In a more broad sense, I get a sense of home from some games and franchises - anything in the Dizzy franchise (though Fantastic Dizzy's treehouse village if I had to pick a single area within them), 2d Sonic titles, Flimbo's Quest and in particular the splash screen and corresponding music, Bubble Bobble, to a lesser extent even the simpler versions of Tetris (i.e. NES and Gameboy), and Klax. Games and series that I got into before I was about 10, withstand the test of time, at least for me, and just wrap me up in a sense of cosiness and homecoming to my video game roots.
I have some kind of obsession for starting areas and even just the simple "level 1", even if it's not a liveable place. It's just so nice to go back to your starting point and remember how far you've gone.
As someone who spent a lot their childhood playing Harvest Moon and is now venturing through FF XIV (also started in Gridania!), I can really understand the comfort of having a natural "home" environment one returns to on a consistent basis, and you captured that feeling of comfort exceptionally well in your video. Great work as always!
A soothing voice, hearthy music, and a subject to match. This was a lovely video. For me, home has a warm atmosphere, a fire and food. It is a place to rest your head and relax, but what makes the home special is if you can share it with friends. I remember playing the first Destiny and feeling a great sense of community in the Tower hub. Me and my fireteam would all be there discussing what to do or trying to recruit enough people to go on a raid. The Tower was peaceful with the Traveler always in view, a great distance away yet very close. Cayde, Zavala, and Ikora were all gathered around the meeting table down the stairs in the courtyard underground. Each class would go there for tons of quests, and it felt connected. Though I didn't like the Vanguard characters (except for Cayde), when they stood there at the same table waiting for each player, it made me feel connected; It gave me a slight warm feeling. You are going to be a regular channel I visit from now on, euro. Thank you Raz for sending me.
Going to forge world in Halo Reach today feels like going to an empty childhood home. I had memories where my cousins and I would have forge sessions where we built bases in whatever part of huge map we would stake our claim in. My cousins built neatly crafted castles overlooking the cliffsides over the ocean, but I settled in a shoddy constructed bunker overlooking the caves leading to the gulch with whatever scraps were left. It wasn't much, but it was home
What a great take on a topic that maybe every gamer can relate to but i have never read or watched a video about it. Really good stuff. My favorite starting area in any videogame is "drumroll" the Elwynn Forest where the humans begin their journey in World of Warcraft. The music, the buildings, the landscape, the atmosphere. Arriving in Goldshire and eventually reaching the gates of Stormwind. Seeing all the other players in the streets. Those memories are engraved in my head forever. I haven't played the game in over a decade but i can still see and hear everything.
I've always enjoyed the start of Twilight Princess because of how it grounded Link as just a simple villager. It gave you a community to care about in a way the series hadn't typically done. Bioware camps, home bases, and starships are also big ones for me. The Ebon Hawk of KOTOR and especially all three Normandys. I'm replaying the Mass Effect trilogy for a second time this year and it's such a joy to return after a mission filled with hard choices to a place filled with friends and cozy sci-fi vibes. Also, I can always appreciate a good Rob Zacny piece. One of my favorite writers in games criticism.
This video made me tear up. I no longer have a place I could call home, and the ones from video games I'm attached to - they save me in difficult moments. Thank you so much for the wonderful video!
I love the editing of these videos, something about it is so comforting and chilled out. I've always lingered around places like these in video games because I just feel so connected to them. I can still remember my first minecraft home I had about 10 years ago, that's something special and unique to video games
Great video, as usual; I think homes and safe places in otherwise dangerous worlds are a favourite of mine, evil within's mirrors, resident evil's safehouses and fallout's various settlements come to mind.
I get the feeling you've described strongly from Windurst in FFXI. It was my first MMO, and you spend so much time in your starting city just trying to figure out what's going on, trying to get your grasp on the game mechanics, while slowly falling in love with the inhabitants that help you along the way. Travel in that game was HARD - there weren't readily available teleports, the maps were huge, and even chocobos would abandon you after a set amount of time, so returning home after sometimes weeks of adventuring was a really big deal. Haven't played the game in years, but every time I hear those notes of the music there, I feel like I'm being pulled back to my childhood home. 🥰 This is such a good channel - subscribed!
I loved this video! This topic of home towns I hubs in videogames, how it makes us feel like home and stuff, has always always always attracted me. I remember just wandering around Isle Delfino in Mario Sunshine or in Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life's town, and it was just comforting and pleasing. I'm not sure if it's due to some escapism from my parents' divorce when I was a kid, but just strolling around these places felt great and cozy, and I didn't feel any urge to keep progressing in the game. A different nostalgic feeling was when passing through Pallet Town before heading for the Cinnabar Islands in Pokémon Yellow. It was comforting having the town staying as it was even though I had badges, cool pokémon and having seen the rest of Kanto. I've rarely revisited these games and areas after growing up, but when I did I felt very very VERY emotional. It wasn't just nostalgia, it was more like "saudade" (a word we have in Portuguese which combines longing for something plus some melancholy, it's hard to explain) for the time I visited these places and life was way different. Sorry for the long comment, this topic is very personal to me and I'm very grateful for your channel and especially this video. Cheers from Brazil!
Thanks for the video. My home will always be the log cabin I built in a remote part of a Minecraft server. The vegetable patch, the reeds, the underground library with its entrance hidden in the trunk of a big tree. Nothing has come close to that sense of "I did this myself" homeliness.
I really enjoyed this kinda cosy feeling video talking about something that most people experience but don't talk about nearly often enough. I've been playing FFXIV for quite a while now and there's a few places in there that feel like a home to me. Ul'dah at night is still an incredibly serene experience, like a cool breeze after a long day. Sometimes I'll go to my fc house if I want a more literal experience of home. But the biggest for me has to be Ishgard. It feels lived in, like there's a story behind every brick that we barely know. Seeing people living in this city despite everything that has happened gives it a sense of warmth in the cold, and it's where some of my happiest memories come from.
You always manage to enter that universal shared space in our minds that while personal to each of us, holding a special place in our hearts; gave us the opportunity to share that space with many many others. Doing it with such a comforting warm voice. Although I'm just another fan I greatly appreciate each of your videos. Thank you for exploring this world we all chose to live in once.
I like the hub worlds for the general feeling of safety, knowing I can just idle somewhere and can come and go knowing nothing will go wrong in the meantime. It's a nice sigh of reprieve after a tough encounter or mission that I can sit somewhere and sort of shake the stress off. One of the best feelings in GTA: Online was listening/watching the other players in the session grief each other with jets and choppers from the safety of your apartment window and knowing that they're not an immediate concern and that there's nothing they can do to touch you.
I definitely agree, a home is great to have in a game. Been playing Sakuna recently, it has a real nice home area I think. It's where the NPCs you interact with are, so often you get a cutscene or such when you return. But even if not, it's where you do farming, and have dinner with everyone around the indoor fireplace and such, making it feel quite relaxed.
I think there's something really special about homes in MMOs. In games like FFXIV just being able to get a home of your own is a huge investment of time, money and luck. But it feels so cathartic when you realize that that space is yours to do with and decorate as you please, a small slice of an otherwise MASSIVE world to call yours. Even when you're logged out that home will still be there exactly as you left it for others to come by and see. I'm pretty terrible at decorating myself but seeing the love and passion other people have put into their own places blows me away.
Watching your video, I unexpectedly remembered a moment from Final Fantasy VII , a game I practically used to live in. Most characters in the party have had their homes destroyed and are thrown from one location to another, being denied a chance to settle. The only real cozy home you see in the game belongs to Aerith's mother. It's a cute tiny house so different from the rest of the city slums, surrounded by a lush garden, beautiful and warm outside and inside. Knowing what the story offers next, it breaks my heart to remember this.
Funnily enough a lot of what I consider to make my bedroom "home" is based off things from games and other media. A filled up bookshelf whose aesthetic I've taken from real and virtual libraries I've visited is cozy, so that's home. The gnarled hardwood floors and doors from so many fantasy villages, that my room resembles, is home too. I wonder just how much of my sense of what "home" is, is from games? I'm sure there's even more there in my subconscious I'm unaware of. Great video.
My favorite home space in video games is probably the Blackwagon from Pyre. It is pretty simple at its heart and the shelves it has start somewhat sparse, but over time with visiting different locations and gaining new characters you gain different knickknacks that then populate those shelves. They feel like there there to remind you of who you've been traveling with and the places you've gone together. It's pretty comfortable interacting with the characters in there, even the unexpected guests.
One game that subverts this idea of the home place is Tales of Berseria; you start the game as usual, in a small village. You are a wholesome girl, loved by her neighbors and little brother, you do some work for the people, and suddenly it all goes to hell. After a long journey, you return home just to realize the hellish nightmare goes on, and that there's no coming home for you, ever. Damn! It broke my heart hard. My favorite hub area is, as for many, Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls 1. It's hardly a home place, but it feels like a home. The first time I played it, when I saw some people moving in and making it their own "home", it was awesome!
Love everyone sharing their favorite video game homes! For me my favorite video game home is Leene Square from Chrono Trigger. Not only is it from my favorite video game of all time, but the music is so bright and I always find myself saying "HA!" in tune with the music! I love all the unique mini games you can play before proceeding with the story as well as the many choices/decisions you can make that will impact your trial later on in the game. Going back to Leene Square after finishing Chrono Trigger was a bittersweet feeling.
Mother 3's Tazmily always stood out to me. Seeing it transition from this rustic old school village to a modern psuedo-metropolis mirrored my experience with my mother's hometown. I used to visit it a lot as a kid, but then I spent like 5 years away; when I come back things had changed so much,but the same people i knew were there carrying on just as they were before :)
I love the sense of home I feel in Virgo Vs the Zodiac when you return to the Akasha, the games hub I guess. The music is so calming I can just sit and listen to it as background music for hours. As you progress through the game you get to see and talk to all your new friends you have met on your journey and the seasons change a bit too. Even with the games simple art style it still conveys that sense of returning home after a hard battle. Another great video by the way. I love the angle you assess games on in general. The feelings of the setting and the aesthetic of the environments is such an under represented and underappreciated aspect of gaming.
Coziness in games are sometimes hard to come by if you don't make the time for it. I personally found mine with my castle town in Suikoden 2. Not only is it b/c it's my home base, but it can get bigger and many characters you can recruit will feel lived in as they get settled in your abode. You can recruit a griffin, 2 krakens, and a group of squirrel-like people, and they make themselves at home like they've been in there for ages. But that's just the animal or animal-like companions. I haven't mentioned the allies and friends you make along the way. You can get your own magic shop (rune shop), restaurant, inn, library, etc. Plus, the home base song is so homely for me.
I remember booting up my PS2 long after the PS3 had launched just to mess around in Sandover Village in the first Jak and Daxter games. Like you said, the village itself is warm and secure with lovable NPC’s while the area immediately outside the village becomes darker and dangerous at an increasingly harrowing scale. Great video! Keep it up! First time watching and happily surprised.
The video game place that feels like home to me is Detlas. It's a city in a Minecraft MMORPG server called Wynncraft. I broke my foot when I was 11yo and spent the entire healing process playing Wynncraft alone and with my friend when she got home from school. My main class was mage and I remember just messing around Detlas all day trying to teleport to places I shouldn't be able to go to. I never reached max level after they updated the server, but I have very fond memories of it all and still read the random update logs from the forum when I see them in my email. Another fond memory of the server is when my friend tried to get me to the highest level city while I played a new lvl 1 character. It was kind of hard, but we did it and seeing the confusion of high lvl players talking to me was priceless. I might go and play Wynncraft again now, maybe to just see Detlas and experience the soundtrack again.
I really jive with your aesthetic. The exact same kinds of places feel like home to me. Quiet, natural, idyllic spaces with gardens and food. So good. I always dreamed about owning a cabin in Faron Woods just outside of Ordon. I appreciate Twilight Princess as an example a lot.
I feel like you hit the nail on this topic, having a static environment, amazing music, and the variety of characters you grow to love. One of my very first games I had was pokemon blue and pallet town is intensely nostalgic for me and the in large when I go back to this game the entire region feels like a second home to me.
A place I was literally in love when I was a kid was Rabanastre in Final Fantasy XII. In the game you start as a war orphan (Vaan) and you live in the street. It was not a little town but a vibrant city with rixh merchants street, taverns and guilds and even an underground layer where everyone knows you and considers their big brother. Even though it doesn't change much throughout the main story, Rabanastre feels so alive and vibrant as an hub city so much that (SPOILERS) when in the end you have to fight the Bahamut i was feeling the obligation to protect my hometown from war and invaders.
Firstly, I gotta say that I absolutely love your channel. Not only do I think you clearly convey all the points you make but there's also this sort of cosy and welcoming feeling to all your videos that I really enjoy. There are a lot of locations in games where I have really felt at home. Some of my favourites are Outset island from Windwaker, NLA from Xenoblade Chronicles X and Dirtmouth from Hollow Knight. I don't know if this counts but I also got a similar feeling with the car in FFXV, spending so much time travelling around in it with the main 4 characters made me really familiar with it and I have a lot of nostalgia for the time I spent with that game, even if it was only 4 years ago when I first played it.
If i may pivot a bit and share a little anecdote: I was marathonning MaseaAnela's Ocarina of time master quest let's play, where the game world is mirrored, once i went downstairs to go to the bathroom which is on the right, but i instinctively went left as if my perception of my house is somewhat tied to how the world in Ocarina of Time's is orientated. I mean i played that game a lot so that might explain things a bit.
for me home is where my favorite people are. i dont do much else but play videogames and since your video contains ffxiv you'll know the place im going to talk about: limsa. i spend a lot of time there just talking to people and coming back every day to see the same, familiar faces, asking them how theyre doing or playing the game with them, maybe even just having people around is a very comforting feeling to me. very little mmos give me that feeling and im glad to have found it.
The most interesting case of feeling at home in a game world for me had to be when i first played shin megami tensei IV. when you first drop in to tokyo the tough enemies and confusing street layout make for a very overwhelming first impression. I was constantly chilling in the underground districts (save heavens) and advancing the story without fully exploring the world. Until i eventually bit the bullet and started my huge sidequest backlog that i had collected at this point. After forcing myself out of that confortzone i quickly realised how well designed these quest were. they are vague on purpose without any waypoints on your map. but the discriptions always gave the right amount of info like "north of the ueno region" or "in the streets of shinjuku". al of these were main areas so it was expected that you knew these places. it forces the player to take note of its surroundings instead of just following a line on a minimap. and after you become so acquainted with these streets you memorize other places of note and the layout becomes second nature to you. your existance feels purposefull in the world to the point where even this harsh and unforgiving tokyo feels like home and you truly care for it. it's a beautiful balance of gameplay and ambiant story telling I haven't seen ever matched in any other videogame!
The post office in The Division. It starts as such a mess with people packing halls as they wait for medical supplies or food. You can do a specific missing person side mission that has you hunt down a girl named heather lau, and all she does is play a guitar in the corner that echoes through the main hall.
I think the game home which gets me the most is actually one with a totally different aesthetic than the ones you discussed: Delfino Plaza. Especially since I played the game when I was like literally only 6 and most of the missions were too challenging, Delfino Plaza was the whole game of Super Mario Sunshine to me. In fact I feel like the coziest places in games for me are all from games I played very young...maybe I try to play things too quickly nowadays to build that sort connection with a virtual place. After watching this Ill definitely try to appreciate the cozy places a little more :)
Beautiful video!!! I think my absolute favorite home area in gaming is Majula, in Dark Souls 2. The song is just so soothing and the characters there are so good. I love the way more and more NPCs keep getting there as you progress through the game.
Peculiar. I am thinking about this topic all the time, yet this is the first time I see it being picked up by a UA-camr. I lost my room at my parents' place the day I moved out, but virtual places I loved visiting as a teenager will always stay the same. It's a comforting feeling. Just the other day I installed Gothic (the German 2001 PC game) just to have a stroll through the Old Camp and listen to the outstanding soundtrack. Just discovered your channel an hour ago and already loving your approach. Keep it up!
When I was a teenager I played the MMO Star Wars Galaxies. I was involved in a Roleplaying community that had taken over Mos Entha, one of the cities that didn't get used much by the regular playerbase. It was basically slice of life stuff, characters had jobs with the Security Forces or doctors in the med centre, there were gangs, an Imperial base and a Rebel cell and the most active area was the local bar where characters would just take a drink, chat and relax. When the emulator came out I DL'ed it and made Mo's Entha my first stop. It was super nostalgic as nothing had changed aestheticly, all the NPCs were there, all the sounds took me b back, but none of the people who I played with were there. It was like coming back to a familiar city but all your friends were gone. Sad, but at least I've got the memories from back then.
I've been having a bad day and listening to you talking about the games you love and I love cheered me up. Your videos are very therapeutic and if you ever plan on making hour long video I'll definitely be there. Keep up the good work.
Years ago, I played 'Harvest Moon Magical Melody' on the Wii. I spent hours upon hours, farming and raising animals, got a steady income, got married and had a child. But, during the winter/snowy season I built a small cabin in the mountains and spent the season living there and waking up to snow everyday. I loved it. Years later, I find myself still thinking about that cabin. I miss my cabin in the snow 😔
Hearing the talk of the Palico chefs and the video as a whole, I love the idea of starting a homely cafe that also feels other worldly or at least out of place in a modern city. I would call it "A Place Away From Home" The fact that it's a long name also has a charm to me as nearly every restaurant is one or two words.
this is such a great niche topic to talk about. i feel like i know some places by heart that doent actually exist and places like Balamb garden, Old Orgimmar and the whole of vice city are places that i just know like the back of my hand and they all bring back memories.
As much as I love Tarrey Town & Whiterun, the cosiness of sitting beside a campfire with a half-broken guitar & a bottle of vodka in S.T.A.L.K.E.R is very special to me. Great video, as always.
I remember the summer I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 2 non-stop, the streets of Twilight Town and that sunset melancholy is forever burned into my brain. Pure vibes.
Outset Island from Wind Waker is one of the most memorable starting areas for me, hearing the music from that island just brings be right back to when I was playing the game as a 12-13 year old. Also, I started FFXIV in Dec 2020. The night music from the starting areas bring me right back to when I first started playing; I've never felt nostalgia hit so quickly in a game before. The music is just familiar and welcoming since you return to the areas so often from your grand adventure.
I'm happy to hear your praise of Gridania in FFXIV! I have the same feeling whenever I return to Limsa Lominsa. My character Started from Ul'dah, and I love that city too, but when my adventures took me to Limsa, I knew it was for me. Perhaps where you have an affinity for the forest and gardens, I find the coastal breeze and the flowing sea to make me feel at home... Great video, I loved it!!
I love any game that gives me a home I can come back to, specially one that I can influence over time, customize, or upgrade. It always gives me something to come back to, something I'm fighting to protect or grow, and a way to track progress. Making myself powerful and upgraded is nice, but ultimately I want to see how my actions are making life better for others.
I love homes in video games and my favorite in recent memory is Seliana from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. The winter and snow is one of my favorite things so constantly seeing snow in Seliana combined with loveable music, characters, and the little details makes me miss it so much. The Grammeowster Chef was adorable every time I ordered a meal, with me watching the full cooking animation almost every time. Your house in Seliana was amazing as well since you could customize it's look and have animals you caught in the wild be in it. I miss Seliana so much even though it hasn't been that long since Icebornes release and I think Seliana will go down as my favorite video game home.
Jumping off the stuff you brought up while talking about Tarreytown, music is such a huge part of a place feeling like home. Hearing the opening riff of Timber Hearth from Outer Wilds literally fills me with warmth and memories of the cozy village hidden in a crater. It just evokes a sense of safety, and I love when games use these connections to play around with the player's expectations and feelings.
I still need to play Outer Wilds, but I saw a pic of a campfire and marshmallows and I was IMMEDIATELY sold!
@@eurothug4000 Outer Wilds is just awesome!
@@eurothug4000 Razbuten
sent me! :) he just recommended your channel
Thanks for recommending eurothug's channel, @Razbuten .
@eurothug4000, this video is just the kind of coziness I needed to unwind from a barrage of deadlines.
I didn't even realise how much I missed Tarrey Town (& BOTW) until the music started playing! Will definitely check out more of your videos after a visit to Tarrey Town.
Fancy seeing you here.
There's something simply magical about going back to a home that's static.
this whole video just hit me with a wave of nostalgia and memories of some of my favorite cozy zones in games. It really can come down to the little things that make me want to return to these places, and you’ve provided some really great insights into what many of those might be!
thank you pine!! glad you enjoyed it!
Hey Iron Pineapple! Fun seeing you here!
Ironically, I found the Underworld in Hades to be something like a virtual home, even though the plot was Zagreus trying to escape. This was because I got to know the characters more with each defeat. While the rewards were nice, it felt good speaking with them and giving gifts when I could. It made every defeat sting less.
@@michelottens6083 I know. The first ending definitely hammered that home.
I thought it was particularly interesting to see the fan response to the far smaller version of Twilight Town found in Kingdom Hearts 3. It was hugely visually improved, there was arguably more stuff to do, but the removal of the side streets we'd explored so much in our youth (especially on the skateboards dotted around the place!) was just unforgivable, haha! Even when home serves no gameplay purpose, we still make such strong connections to it. I recently wrote a poem about the feeling I get from one specific, tiny route in Pokémon Sapphire, where flowers blow in the breeze and there are a couple of ponds and hidden grass patches.
I must say, this channel is becoming one of my favorites.
Keep posting! 🙏👊
Thank you so much!
One “home” I really like was one I didn’t expect, Undertale. After your initial (tragic) departure at the start of the game, the home theme is used repeatedly in other songs as you venture throughout the underground. By the time you make it to the duplicate home at the end it feels familiar. Learning what happened as you wander the empty house makes me tear up every time.
I really enjoyed this video!
This is my first time being able to watch a brand new eurothug video. This stuff is like comfort food during intense revision sessions.
thank you so much! hope you enjoy it :)
Same. This is some good content
There's not many youtubers talking about subtler elements of video games like vibes, aesthetics and feeling - probably because it's harder to put into words, but you do a fantastic job at it. Here's another perspective you haven't mentioned: While watching this video I felt a sense of nostalgia, but not as a typical warm and cozy, slightly melancholic feeling - but as one of discomfort and sadness. See, I haven't played any of the games you've shown in the video, and I feel like I've missed out on memories that I'll never be able to make again. Memories that only a kid able to get completely sucked into these worlds can make. It's a kind of FOMO, but related to the past instead of future. I'm sad that I've missed out on the opportunity to form a bond with these virtual places that millions of others had, but I'm also scared of stepping into this territory because of it. It's someone else's turf, if that makes sense. MMOs have always made me uncomfortable because of this, and I feel bad that I've never made any friends through WOW like so many people did, but at the same time, I'm not sure I could even if I went back now. This is why I love singleplayer games - they're my own little world.
Toad Town in Paper Mario N64 always gets me, just feels so liveable. Finding Luigi's secret basement in your house was mind-blowing at the time.
Games giving you a space that feels like home is always nice, but I especially love when they make use of that attachment in interesting ways during the plot, like in NieR: Automata or Borderlands 2.
A recent game to nail the home aesthetic and play it up as a large theme is Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin. Every day you wake up at home and start your chores in the patties or venture off to fight monsters, but by the end of the day, you exhaustedly make it home to have a meal with your family before turning in.
I think my favorite home is the on in the second generation of Pokemon games. Where you could go back home to talk to your mom and get the money she saved for you. A small thing that made coming back worth it.
The camp from Dragon Age Origins is one of the coziest "homes" I've ever been to in games, as well as the Skyhold castle from DA Inquisition. Breezehome from Skyrim is a personal fave too, and the fictionalized Chicago from the first Watch Dogs game has become a home for me too. It must be because of the pandemic and I don't go outside unless needed, but it has become my safe haven this year.
For me, the feeling of home is the opposite of yours. I grew up in a small town and was always more interested to live in the city. I love Goodsprings, New Bark Town and Tazmily village, but I think the streets of Kamurocho give me a sense of home and excitement no other virtual world can
Razbuten wasn't wrong, this shit slaps.
THANK U SO MUCH 🥺
Dirtmouth was this for me while playing Hollow Knight. Even if I cleared out all the shops by the endgame, I always knew it was a safe place where I could take a breather and say hi to the locals. Giving the town elder that flower in what was probably the first kind gesture he'd received in a long time was just... it made my heart happy, after all the encouragement and advice he had given to me.
I found Dirtmouth's atmosphere to be really special. I didn't know how to describe it but I loved. Sitting on the bench beside Elderbug, listening to the music and ambience was exactly how I think the melancholy of a fading town should feel like.
The most underrated channel on UA-cam
Excellent video! After I watched this, I started thinking a lot about Night in the Woods. Not only does it capture the beauty and tragedy of returning home, it really captures the routine of being home: seeing friends, visiting familiar shops, exploring the nearby nature. I've moved a lot, so "home" isn't something static to me. Home is where my friends and loved ones are. I think games like Night in the Woods and Undertale really capture the feeling of Home for me because they're both cozy games about friendship. When I load those games up, I'm most excited to see my in-game friends!
well this is one of the most relaxing videos I've ever seen :)
thank you so much!! :)
Spiral Mountain in Banjo-Kazooie has this feeling for me, even though no one par Banjo lives there. I was sad to see it destroyed in Tooie, and it brought great joy to see it again in Nuts and Bolts.
Other commenters have named most of the cozy places in games, but I wanted to voice my love for your videos. You approach subjects many others do not consider, it's so refreshing. :) Thanks for your insight!
The peaceful aesthetic of botw makes the whole game feel comforting to me, but I especially love purchasing and decorating Links house the most. I put all my favorite weapons in there, and I go back often just to look at them. The picture of the champions you can put in the wall is a nice touch as well.
The Resistance Camp in Nier Automata was great in evoking rest and peace, especially with the variations of the music. That's why it was also troubling when it gets invaded.
After a particularly hard fight in Breath of the Wild, I always come back to Link's house to just take a break, i change my outfit, shop for ingredients, cook everything for the next adventure and sleep on the bed even if I don't need to, it fills me with comfort
one of my favorite homes in games has to be the Wigglytuff guild in PMD: Explorers of Sky. It's got such a fun lighthearted energy to it, to the busy second floor of pokemon adventurers crowded around the job board, to mundanity of the third floor with characters Chatot and Wigglytuff wishing you well before your next exploration. I love how every in-game day ends with the entire guild in the dinning hall partaking in dinner together, it's so sweet and really evokes that fun yet chaotic family dinner I was using to having as a kid.
Building your own personal hub world in virtual reality would be AWESOME....
Ready Player One tells us that you can, and you can fill it with people, but it doesn't necessarily make you happy or feel like home.
@@tylerfoster2814 I know. It would still be cool though.
Hollow Knight definitely gave me the sensation of home, even tho I didn't have a reason to go back; every time I decided to stop playing for the day or after a long mission I went back to the main hub and sit in the chair and close the game, the comfort of knowing I left my character in a safe place that feels like home was something I never though of in any other game
Mabe village from link’s awakening captured that feeling of home so well! It did it so well that animal village felt like visiting extended family, if you know what I mean.
awesome video as always maria reminds me of my fav sections of assassin's creed 3 where you can take a break from conner's want for revenge by building community with the homestead all the friends conner makes and his interactions with them were so wholesome
Ordon Village from Twilight Princess is forever my favorite starting area in a game. As a kid, I would play until the Forest Temple and then restart, doing the beginner quests over and over. I will never forget the shop keeper's cat or the sound of the Hawk Grass.
"Home will always be there to come back to." RIP Teldrasil.
Thank you for this video! It's such a joy to watch.
I played hundreds of hours in Terraria and 7 Days to Die.
In Terraria I find it so delightful to create houses for the NPCs and myself in the different biomes, whether it'd be carving rooms out of a hillside or creating a colorful apartment building, each room filled with different stuff I imagined the characters would like.
In 7DTD I like fixing up ruined buildings, improving them and then defending them. I would dig secret tunnels and escape routes or just create a roof garden and enjoy the morning sun in the forest or the desert.
I know this is an older video but for me one of the best examples of a video game location that feels like home to me is the party camp in Dragon Age Origins (which is a little funny since its a non permanent structure meant to be packed up at a moments notice). But to me going to camp after a story mission checking on my supplies and just chatting and strengthening my bonds with my companions around the fire with all our mismatched tents sprawled around taking a breather from trying to save the world just feels so cozy to me.
I definitely relate to that relatable gameplay aspect, I just love having little home rituals.
I remember in Death Stranding, everytime I woke up in a room, I would play Pop Virus on loop, take a shower, wash my face, play with BB and then, drink 3 Monsters. Or in Outer Worlds, after waking up on Timber Hearth, I always eat three marshmallows before taking off with my spaceship.
great vid as always
This video is awesome! I've had really stressful day today and this is exactly what I needed. I love the Terrey Town sidequest especialy the music and it's stages, whenever I don't feel right I just play this theme and suddenly everything feels better.
OMG I'm so glad I came across your video, I really miss the good old days when I played MMORPGs. Especially with the friends I had back then. Nowadays everyone gotten older and moved on to different things. But I still miss those games and the moments we had. The excitement to get online and to play with everyone again! I wish some of my friends would still play these kind of games, it is a bummer when you realize that you do not have any friends left to play these games anymore..
Thank you for the nostalgic feeling your video gave me, I wish I could go back to the simpler times!
I always appreciate dynamic hub worlds. Its very common to abandon areas once you have out leveled or have fully explored them. Which makes a lot of your adventure feel like a checklist.
The 'hub' world connects to all of the other areas in the game, so you don't ever leave it behind. (Its usually got the best music because you are there so often too!) This makes it a great place to show reflections of your past adventures. You see new buildings, Characters develop, and everyone has new things to say when you come back. It all helps create attachment to the area, because you put effort into making it the way it is!
I think my favorite home is the cottage in Rune Factory Frontier. Its super cozy, the music is peaceful, cute monsters are running your farm, and the best girl delivers your mail every morning. The fact that your kind neighbor from the previous game is there too, helped me settle in quickly.
My Time at Portia is quickly growing on me too. As a 'builder' you are directly responsible for the towns development. And there is tons of unique dialogue for all of the post apocalyptic problems you have to solve. Rather than just the literal home area, the whole map feeling like home.
Finally recognising the trees and hills until you spot the roof of your house after being lost in underground caves or in the Nether, fearing death ever more with every treasure you collect, while completely losing orientation. Thats a big part of why Minecraft homes always felt so safe and chill to me. You build them block for block, they protect you from all the mobs and if you start building something else nearby they actually feel lived in: organizing your stuff, running back and forth getting the things out of chests, using them in the oven and your workbench, while day and night change. And then, after you and your friends abandoned the world, one day you return and all the memories of the long hours come back.
Thanks for the great video as always, and thanks in particular for the visit to Ordon village. I just love this low rez 3d look of that era thats so detailed despite its limitations.
Awesome video as always!
I always loved saving your game in the Monster Hunter games by laying down, taking what looks like the most comfy nap ever, and your little cats curl up next to the bed like my dog does.
It reminds me to take a break in real life haha
Oakdale in Fable the lost chapters holds such a sense of home and peace to me. When I really feel stressed just putting the soundtrack of the village in the background makes me feel more at ease. I haven't played video games in years but I'm starting again and as someone who doesn't have a way back "home" irl at home, I'm impressed to see how much my old video games hold that feeling to me.
I used to always head back to Pallet town! Nothing there had ever changed.... But still didn't stop me doing it over and over again! Great video as always.
Hoenn region is home in my heart 💜 It was my first decent videogame ever and it reminds me of those chill and warm days of summer, playing my GBA SP. And the tropical warm weather of Hoenn.
I've been getting a definite sense of home from The Isle of Awakening in Dragon Quest Builders 2 - The game's free build area - in a way that I never got with any area in Dragon Quest Builders 1. Having story moments happen on it during the game while having you return to it to build as much as you like after each chapter and bringing new residents to it, and questlines to build it up via optional challenges and those story moments are what probably contributes to that, where the free build area was isolated and you never came back to any of the places you built in the main campaign - they all had optional things you could do on them, but they were all basically handled in the way games without a defined post-game handle continuing playing them after finishing the game; with the game saving when you leave that town and then having a menu option to revisit them from just before you left.
A mixture of Outset Island and Dragon Roost Island (it's the music) in Windwaker, Clock Town in Majora's Mask, Traverse Town in Kingdom Hearts, Delfino Plaza in Sunshine. Maybe Alexandria or Lindblum in Final Fantasy 9, but FF9 feels so sprawling it's hard to get a handle on anywhere that really feels like home to me in that - most Final Fantasy games fall into that for me - My sense of emotional cosiness and safety is more tied up with specific characters in that franchise rather than specific locations.
Your room in Gregory Horror Show very much has a sense of home to it, though in that game that's both a positive and a negative - As well as the more conventional feeling of safety from being chased by other guests angry at you for stealing the lost souls they stole from them, being a place you can restore your sanity by sleeping or increase it by reading a book, and being where you can check your journal for the resident's schedules, you also get to hear memories of verbal abuse presumably being flung at you fairly low in the soundtrack - It's got a sense of the home you stumbled across Gregory House while, presumably, running from. (There are NPCs with schedules and a journal that lets you gradually learn those schedules, I have never managed to break past my desire to fill that journal and actually finish that game... Hence, presumably)
Weirdly, the closest things to 'home' feeling in Sonic games for me aren't the hub worlds or first levels, but Starlight Zone in Sonic 1 and Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3. Just something about the atmosphere and vibe of the music in those stages just feels so homely to me in a way that Green Hill Zone or Angel Island Zone never did (even before it's set on fire). Maybe it's just due to how often I'd use the level select cheat in Sonic 1 or the level select feature in Sonic 3 to replay those specific zones that caused that - I can't think of any other game where a sense of home for me is created in the 5th out of 6 areas with a linear progression through them all.
In a more broad sense, I get a sense of home from some games and franchises - anything in the Dizzy franchise (though Fantastic Dizzy's treehouse village if I had to pick a single area within them), 2d Sonic titles, Flimbo's Quest and in particular the splash screen and corresponding music, Bubble Bobble, to a lesser extent even the simpler versions of Tetris (i.e. NES and Gameboy), and Klax. Games and series that I got into before I was about 10, withstand the test of time, at least for me, and just wrap me up in a sense of cosiness and homecoming to my video game roots.
I have some kind of obsession for starting areas and even just the simple "level 1", even if it's not a liveable place.
It's just so nice to go back to your starting point and remember how far you've gone.
As someone who spent a lot their childhood playing Harvest Moon and is now venturing through FF XIV (also started in Gridania!), I can really understand the comfort of having a natural "home" environment one returns to on a consistent basis, and you captured that feeling of comfort exceptionally well in your video. Great work as always!
A soothing voice, hearthy music, and a subject to match. This was a lovely video. For me, home has a warm atmosphere, a fire and food. It is a place to rest your head and relax, but what makes the home special is if you can share it with friends.
I remember playing the first Destiny and feeling a great sense of community in the Tower hub. Me and my fireteam would all be there discussing what to do or trying to recruit enough people to go on a raid. The Tower was peaceful with the Traveler always in view, a great distance away yet very close. Cayde, Zavala, and Ikora were all gathered around the meeting table down the stairs in the courtyard underground. Each class would go there for tons of quests, and it felt connected. Though I didn't like the Vanguard characters (except for Cayde), when they stood there at the same table waiting for each player, it made me feel connected; It gave me a slight warm feeling.
You are going to be a regular channel I visit from now on, euro.
Thank you Raz for sending me.
Going to forge world in Halo Reach today feels like going to an empty childhood home. I had memories where my cousins and I would have forge sessions where we built bases in whatever part of huge map we would stake our claim in. My cousins built neatly crafted castles overlooking the cliffsides over the ocean, but I settled in a shoddy constructed bunker overlooking the caves leading to the gulch with whatever scraps were left. It wasn't much, but it was home
What a great take on a topic that maybe every gamer can relate to but i have never read or watched a video about it. Really good stuff.
My favorite starting area in any videogame is "drumroll" the Elwynn Forest where the humans begin their journey in World of Warcraft. The music, the buildings, the landscape, the atmosphere. Arriving in Goldshire and eventually reaching the gates of Stormwind. Seeing all the other players in the streets. Those memories are engraved in my head forever. I haven't played the game in over a decade but i can still see and hear everything.
Such a good video. I always love to make one last trip back to “home” before I finish a game, feeling very validated after watching this
I've always enjoyed the start of Twilight Princess because of how it grounded Link as just a simple villager. It gave you a community to care about in a way the series hadn't typically done. Bioware camps, home bases, and starships are also big ones for me. The Ebon Hawk of KOTOR and especially all three Normandys. I'm replaying the Mass Effect trilogy for a second time this year and it's such a joy to return after a mission filled with hard choices to a place filled with friends and cozy sci-fi vibes.
Also, I can always appreciate a good Rob Zacny piece. One of my favorite writers in games criticism.
I love this video so much. You constantly put out stellar work!
This video made me tear up. I no longer have a place I could call home, and the ones from video games I'm attached to - they save me in difficult moments. Thank you so much for the wonderful video!
I love the editing of these videos, something about it is so comforting and chilled out. I've always lingered around places like these in video games because I just feel so connected to them. I can still remember my first minecraft home I had about 10 years ago, that's something special and unique to video games
Great video, as usual; I think homes and safe places in otherwise dangerous worlds are a favourite of mine, evil within's mirrors, resident evil's safehouses and fallout's various settlements come to mind.
Ultima 1. Absolute simplicity with maximum possession of my heart. It had altered the way I look at asterisks for life.
I get the feeling you've described strongly from Windurst in FFXI. It was my first MMO, and you spend so much time in your starting city just trying to figure out what's going on, trying to get your grasp on the game mechanics, while slowly falling in love with the inhabitants that help you along the way. Travel in that game was HARD - there weren't readily available teleports, the maps were huge, and even chocobos would abandon you after a set amount of time, so returning home after sometimes weeks of adventuring was a really big deal.
Haven't played the game in years, but every time I hear those notes of the music there, I feel like I'm being pulled back to my childhood home. 🥰 This is such a good channel - subscribed!
I loved this video! This topic of home towns I hubs in videogames, how it makes us feel like home and stuff, has always always always attracted me. I remember just wandering around Isle Delfino in Mario Sunshine or in Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life's town, and it was just comforting and pleasing. I'm not sure if it's due to some escapism from my parents' divorce when I was a kid, but just strolling around these places felt great and cozy, and I didn't feel any urge to keep progressing in the game. A different nostalgic feeling was when passing through Pallet Town before heading for the Cinnabar Islands in Pokémon Yellow. It was comforting having the town staying as it was even though I had badges, cool pokémon and having seen the rest of Kanto.
I've rarely revisited these games and areas after growing up, but when I did I felt very very VERY emotional. It wasn't just nostalgia, it was more like "saudade" (a word we have in Portuguese which combines longing for something plus some melancholy, it's hard to explain) for the time I visited these places and life was way different.
Sorry for the long comment, this topic is very personal to me and I'm very grateful for your channel and especially this video. Cheers from Brazil!
Thanks for the video. My home will always be the log cabin I built in a remote part of a Minecraft server. The vegetable patch, the reeds, the underground library with its entrance hidden in the trunk of a big tree. Nothing has come close to that sense of "I did this myself" homeliness.
I really enjoyed this kinda cosy feeling video talking about something that most people experience but don't talk about nearly often enough.
I've been playing FFXIV for quite a while now and there's a few places in there that feel like a home to me. Ul'dah at night is still an incredibly serene experience, like a cool breeze after a long day. Sometimes I'll go to my fc house if I want a more literal experience of home.
But the biggest for me has to be Ishgard. It feels lived in, like there's a story behind every brick that we barely know. Seeing people living in this city despite everything that has happened gives it a sense of warmth in the cold, and it's where some of my happiest memories come from.
You always manage to enter that universal shared space in our minds that while personal to each of us, holding a special place in our hearts; gave us the opportunity to share that space with many many others. Doing it with such a comforting warm voice. Although I'm just another fan I greatly appreciate each of your videos. Thank you for exploring this world we all chose to live in once.
I like the hub worlds for the general feeling of safety, knowing I can just idle somewhere and can come and go knowing nothing will go wrong in the meantime. It's a nice sigh of reprieve after a tough encounter or mission that I can sit somewhere and sort of shake the stress off.
One of the best feelings in GTA: Online was listening/watching the other players in the session grief each other with jets and choppers from the safety of your apartment window and knowing that they're not an immediate concern and that there's nothing they can do to touch you.
I definitely agree, a home is great to have in a game.
Been playing Sakuna recently, it has a real nice home area I think. It's where the NPCs you interact with are, so often you get a cutscene or such when you return. But even if not, it's where you do farming, and have dinner with everyone around the indoor fireplace and such, making it feel quite relaxed.
I think there's something really special about homes in MMOs. In games like FFXIV just being able to get a home of your own is a huge investment of time, money and luck. But it feels so cathartic when you realize that that space is yours to do with and decorate as you please, a small slice of an otherwise MASSIVE world to call yours. Even when you're logged out that home will still be there exactly as you left it for others to come by and see. I'm pretty terrible at decorating myself but seeing the love and passion other people have put into their own places blows me away.
Watching your video, I unexpectedly remembered a moment from Final Fantasy VII , a game I practically used to live in. Most characters in the party have had their homes destroyed and are thrown from one location to another, being denied a chance to settle. The only real cozy home you see in the game belongs to Aerith's mother. It's a cute tiny house so different from the rest of the city slums, surrounded by a lush garden, beautiful and warm outside and inside. Knowing what the story offers next, it breaks my heart to remember this.
Funnily enough a lot of what I consider to make my bedroom "home" is based off things from games and other media. A filled up bookshelf whose aesthetic I've taken from real and virtual libraries I've visited is cozy, so that's home. The gnarled hardwood floors and doors from so many fantasy villages, that my room resembles, is home too.
I wonder just how much of my sense of what "home" is, is from games? I'm sure there's even more there in my subconscious I'm unaware of. Great video.
My favorite home space in video games is probably the Blackwagon from Pyre. It is pretty simple at its heart and the shelves it has start somewhat sparse, but over time with visiting different locations and gaining new characters you gain different knickknacks that then populate those shelves. They feel like there there to remind you of who you've been traveling with and the places you've gone together. It's pretty comfortable interacting with the characters in there, even the unexpected guests.
One game that subverts this idea of the home place is Tales of Berseria; you start the game as usual, in a small village. You are a wholesome girl, loved by her neighbors and little brother, you do some work for the people, and suddenly it all goes to hell. After a long journey, you return home just to realize the hellish nightmare goes on, and that there's no coming home for you, ever. Damn! It broke my heart hard.
My favorite hub area is, as for many, Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls 1. It's hardly a home place, but it feels like a home. The first time I played it, when I saw some people moving in and making it their own "home", it was awesome!
Love everyone sharing their favorite video game homes! For me my favorite video game home is Leene Square from Chrono Trigger. Not only is it from my favorite video game of all time, but the music is so bright and I always find myself saying "HA!" in tune with the music! I love all the unique mini games you can play before proceeding with the story as well as the many choices/decisions you can make that will impact your trial later on in the game. Going back to Leene Square after finishing Chrono Trigger was a bittersweet feeling.
Simple wood house in Terarria with the theme playing in the background is really comforting and nostalgic.
Mother 3's Tazmily always stood out to me. Seeing it transition from this rustic old school village to a modern psuedo-metropolis mirrored my experience with my mother's hometown. I used to visit it a lot as a kid, but then I spent like 5 years away; when I come back things had changed so much,but the same people i knew were there carrying on just as they were before :)
This might just be my favourite video ever, it made me so nostalgic yet feel very warm, I got a little teary eyed
I love the sense of home I feel in Virgo Vs the Zodiac when you return to the Akasha, the games hub I guess. The music is so calming I can just sit and listen to it as background music for hours. As you progress through the game you get to see and talk to all your new friends you have met on your journey and the seasons change a bit too. Even with the games simple art style it still conveys that sense of returning home after a hard battle.
Another great video by the way. I love the angle you assess games on in general. The feelings of the setting and the aesthetic of the environments is such an under represented and underappreciated aspect of gaming.
Coziness in games are sometimes hard to come by if you don't make the time for it. I personally found mine with my castle town in Suikoden 2. Not only is it b/c it's my home base, but it can get bigger and many characters you can recruit will feel lived in as they get settled in your abode. You can recruit a griffin, 2 krakens, and a group of squirrel-like people, and they make themselves at home like they've been in there for ages. But that's just the animal or animal-like companions. I haven't mentioned the allies and friends you make along the way. You can get your own magic shop (rune shop), restaurant, inn, library, etc. Plus, the home base song is so homely for me.
I remember booting up my PS2 long after the PS3 had launched just to mess around in Sandover Village in the first Jak and Daxter games. Like you said, the village itself is warm and secure with lovable NPC’s while the area immediately outside the village becomes darker and dangerous at an increasingly harrowing scale.
Great video! Keep it up! First time watching and happily surprised.
The video game place that feels like home to me is Detlas. It's a city in a Minecraft MMORPG server called Wynncraft.
I broke my foot when I was 11yo and spent the entire healing process playing Wynncraft alone and with my friend when she got home from school. My main class was mage and I remember just messing around Detlas all day trying to teleport to places I shouldn't be able to go to. I never reached max level after they updated the server, but I have very fond memories of it all and still read the random update logs from the forum when I see them in my email.
Another fond memory of the server is when my friend tried to get me to the highest level city while I played a new lvl 1 character. It was kind of hard, but we did it and seeing the confusion of high lvl players talking to me was priceless.
I might go and play Wynncraft again now, maybe to just see Detlas and experience the soundtrack again.
I really jive with your aesthetic. The exact same kinds of places feel like home to me. Quiet, natural, idyllic spaces with gardens and food. So good.
I always dreamed about owning a cabin in Faron Woods just outside of Ordon. I appreciate Twilight Princess as an example a lot.
I feel like you hit the nail on this topic, having a static environment, amazing music, and the variety of characters you grow to love. One of my very first games I had was pokemon blue and pallet town is intensely nostalgic for me and the in large when I go back to this game the entire region feels like a second home to me.
A place I was literally in love when I was a kid was Rabanastre in Final Fantasy XII.
In the game you start as a war orphan (Vaan) and you live in the street. It was not a little town but a vibrant city with rixh merchants street, taverns and guilds and even an underground layer where everyone knows you and considers their big brother. Even though it doesn't change much throughout the main story, Rabanastre feels so alive and vibrant as an hub city so much that (SPOILERS) when in the end you have to fight the Bahamut i was feeling the obligation to protect my hometown from war and invaders.
I LOVE FFXII, now I'm annoyed I forgot to mention Rabanastre!!!
@@eurothug4000 I think it is one of the best FF town ever created
Firstly, I gotta say that I absolutely love your channel. Not only do I think you clearly convey all the points you make but there's also this sort of cosy and welcoming feeling to all your videos that I really enjoy.
There are a lot of locations in games where I have really felt at home. Some of my favourites are Outset island from Windwaker, NLA from Xenoblade Chronicles X and Dirtmouth from Hollow Knight. I don't know if this counts but I also got a similar feeling with the car in FFXV, spending so much time travelling around in it with the main 4 characters made me really familiar with it and I have a lot of nostalgia for the time I spent with that game, even if it was only 4 years ago when I first played it.
If i may pivot a bit and share a little anecdote:
I was marathonning MaseaAnela's Ocarina of time master quest let's play, where the game world is mirrored, once i went downstairs to go to the bathroom which is on the right, but i instinctively went left as if my perception of my house is somewhat tied to how the world in Ocarina of Time's is orientated. I mean i played that game a lot so that might explain things a bit.
for me home is where my favorite people are. i dont do much else but play videogames and since your video contains ffxiv you'll know the place im going to talk about: limsa. i spend a lot of time there just talking to people and coming back every day to see the same, familiar faces, asking them how theyre doing or playing the game with them, maybe even just having people around is a very comforting feeling to me. very little mmos give me that feeling and im glad to have found it.
The most interesting case of feeling at home in a game world for me had to be when i first played shin megami tensei IV. when you first drop in to tokyo the tough enemies and confusing street layout make for a very overwhelming first impression. I was constantly chilling in the underground districts (save heavens) and advancing the story without fully exploring the world. Until i eventually bit the bullet and started my huge sidequest backlog that i had collected at this point. After forcing myself out of that confortzone i quickly realised how well designed these quest were. they are vague on purpose without any waypoints on your map. but the discriptions always gave the right amount of info like "north of the ueno region" or "in the streets of shinjuku". al of these were main areas so it was expected that you knew these places. it forces the player to take note of its surroundings instead of just following a line on a minimap. and after you become so acquainted with these streets you memorize other places of note and the layout becomes second nature to you. your existance feels purposefull in the world to the point where even this harsh and unforgiving tokyo feels like home and you truly care for it. it's a beautiful balance of gameplay and ambiant story telling I haven't seen ever matched in any other videogame!
The post office in The Division. It starts as such a mess with people packing halls as they wait for medical supplies or food. You can do a specific missing person side mission that has you hunt down a girl named heather lau, and all she does is play a guitar in the corner that echoes through the main hall.
I think I can relate this feeling with Timber Hearth, your natal planet in Outer Wilds
I think the game home which gets me the most is actually one with a totally different aesthetic than the ones you discussed: Delfino Plaza. Especially since I played the game when I was like literally only 6 and most of the missions were too challenging, Delfino Plaza was the whole game of Super Mario Sunshine to me. In fact I feel like the coziest places in games for me are all from games I played very young...maybe I try to play things too quickly nowadays to build that sort connection with a virtual place. After watching this Ill definitely try to appreciate the cozy places a little more :)
Beautiful video!!! I think my absolute favorite home area in gaming is Majula, in Dark Souls 2. The song is just so soothing and the characters there are so good. I love the way more and more NPCs keep getting there as you progress through the game.
Peculiar. I am thinking about this topic all the time, yet this is the first time I see it being picked up by a UA-camr.
I lost my room at my parents' place the day I moved out, but virtual places I loved visiting as a teenager will always stay the same. It's a comforting feeling.
Just the other day I installed Gothic (the German 2001 PC game) just to have a stroll through the Old Camp and listen to the outstanding soundtrack.
Just discovered your channel an hour ago and already loving your approach. Keep it up!
When I was a teenager I played the MMO Star Wars Galaxies. I was involved in a Roleplaying community that had taken over Mos Entha, one of the cities that didn't get used much by the regular playerbase. It was basically slice of life stuff, characters had jobs with the Security Forces or doctors in the med centre, there were gangs, an Imperial base and a Rebel cell and the most active area was the local bar where characters would just take a drink, chat and relax. When the emulator came out I DL'ed it and made Mo's Entha my first stop. It was super nostalgic as nothing had changed aestheticly, all the NPCs were there, all the sounds took me b back, but none of the people who I played with were there. It was like coming back to a familiar city but all your friends were gone. Sad, but at least I've got the memories from back then.
I've been having a bad day and listening to you talking about the games you love and I love cheered me up.
Your videos are very therapeutic and if you ever plan on making hour long video I'll definitely be there.
Keep up the good work.
I love how all your videos are just as cozy and comforting as the game worlds you talk about in this video!
Years ago, I played 'Harvest Moon Magical Melody' on the Wii.
I spent hours upon hours, farming and raising animals, got a steady income, got married and had a child.
But, during the winter/snowy season I built a small cabin in the mountains and spent the season living there and waking up to snow everyday.
I loved it.
Years later, I find myself still thinking about that cabin.
I miss my cabin in the snow 😔
Hearing the talk of the Palico chefs and the video as a whole, I love the idea of starting a homely cafe that also feels other worldly or at least out of place in a modern city. I would call it "A Place Away From Home"
The fact that it's a long name also has a charm to me as nearly every restaurant is one or two words.
this is such a great niche topic to talk about. i feel like i know some places by heart that doent actually exist and places like Balamb garden, Old Orgimmar and the whole of vice city are places that i just know like the back of my hand and they all bring back memories.
As much as I love Tarrey Town & Whiterun, the cosiness of sitting beside a campfire with a half-broken guitar & a bottle of vodka in S.T.A.L.K.E.R is very special to me. Great video, as always.
I remember the summer I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 2 non-stop, the streets of Twilight Town and that sunset melancholy is forever burned into my brain. Pure vibes.
Outset Island from Wind Waker is one of the most memorable starting areas for me, hearing the music from that island just brings be right back to when I was playing the game as a 12-13 year old. Also, I started FFXIV in Dec 2020. The night music from the starting areas bring me right back to when I first started playing; I've never felt nostalgia hit so quickly in a game before. The music is just familiar and welcoming since you return to the areas so often from your grand adventure.
I'm happy to hear your praise of Gridania in FFXIV! I have the same feeling whenever I return to Limsa Lominsa. My character Started from Ul'dah, and I love that city too, but when my adventures took me to Limsa, I knew it was for me. Perhaps where you have an affinity for the forest and gardens, I find the coastal breeze and the flowing sea to make me feel at home... Great video, I loved it!!
I love any game that gives me a home I can come back to, specially one that I can influence over time, customize, or upgrade. It always gives me something to come back to, something I'm fighting to protect or grow, and a way to track progress. Making myself powerful and upgraded is nice, but ultimately I want to see how my actions are making life better for others.
I love homes in video games and my favorite in recent memory is Seliana from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. The winter and snow is one of my favorite things so constantly seeing snow in Seliana combined with loveable music, characters, and the little details makes me miss it so much. The Grammeowster Chef was adorable every time I ordered a meal, with me watching the full cooking animation almost every time. Your house in Seliana was amazing as well since you could customize it's look and have animals you caught in the wild be in it. I miss Seliana so much even though it hasn't been that long since Icebornes release and I think Seliana will go down as my favorite video game home.