Cozy games continue to broaden our gaming horizons with their focus on relaxation and player expression. But as tropes blend together and fatigue sets in, cozy game fans looking for a change of pace might want to consider looking to the past.
The truth is, many of the genres that now fall under the cozy games umbrella were around for decades before they broke into the mainstream. There’s a whole world of retro-cozy games out there, and some have even more to offer gamers than their modern iterations.
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These ten titles were trailblazers back when they released, but they defy age simply because they still stand out, even now that their genres are commonplace. Of course, we’re looking for mechanically deep games with minimal retro jank, but boldness is the name of the game here.
10Animal Crossing
Can’t Beat The Classics
Animal Crossing
Living in a post-New Horizons world, it’s easy to forget that Animal Crossing used to be niche. But anyone who’s been playing since the GameCube original can tell you that some depth was lost in Animal Crossing’s transition to A-list franchise status.
Unlike New Horizons, O.G. Animal Crossing drops you into its world with little direction. Your neighbors might not even like you at first, hilariously roasting you or tricking you into one-sided item trades. I’m looking at you, Puddles the frog.
But once you earn their trust, you’ll discover a deeper chore system, smarter dialogue, and a much stronger sense of virtual community than modern Animal Crossing fans have come to expect. And hey, less timestuck in crafting menusdoesn’t hurt either!
9Noby Noby Boy
Finding The Fun
Noby Noby Boy
Designed by Keita Takahashiof Katamari fame, Noby Noby Boy is a funky sandbox game starring a little pink critter named Boy, who can grow and stretch out into a worm as he eats random objects and NPCs. There’s technically a goal, but the true experience only surfaces when you ditch the completionist mindset and let yourself goof around with Boy’s elasticity physics.
Noby Noby Boy felt pointless back in 2009, but in a gaming landscape where even the coziest titles are filled with objectives and checklists, its open playground format is a breath of fresh air. Every time I play it, I feel like I’m reconnecting with my inner child.
8Legend Of The River King 2
Got To Be Reel
If you’ve ever enjoyeda fishing minigame, you owe it to yourself to check out the River King series. Legend Of The River King 2 takes the first game’s simple fishing adventure concept and sets it in a surprisingly open world full of dangerous wildlife, collectible bugs, and a fully explorable ocean.
Far from the obligatory, tacked-on fishing found in many contemporary cozy titles, River King defies expectations with a fishing system robust enough to carry a whole RPG. A wide variety of rods and lures keeps things varied, but never stressful.
7Harvest Moon: Back To Nature
Less Is More
Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
Before Stardew Valley, there was Harvest Moon. Released in 1999, Harvest Moon: Back To Nature is the quintessential retro farming sim, with all the crop variety, mining, and cute animals a gamer could possibly hope for.
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Back To Nature was cutting-edge at the time, but on a revisit it plays like a quaint return to form. If you’re able to live without modern quality of life features, retro farming sims offer a more laid-back pace that forces closer engagement with the game’s systems.
And yes, frequent upgrades and mini-rewards are nice. But Back To Nature will have you cheering because you unlocked a random character’s fondue recipe, and I think that’s beautiful.
6Tomodachi Life
Meme, Myself, And I
Tomodachi Life
Originally a Japan-exclusive DS game, Tomodachi Life is a cross between The Sims and Animal Crossing where you populate an island with Mii characters modeled on friends or celebrities and watch them act out silly soap opera scenarios. Very little comedy from 2013 holds up to scrutiny in our irony-poisoned present, but Tomodachi Life’s bizarre sight gags and dialogue somehow pull it off. Even today, the meme potential is off the charts — if the 3DS had just had better connectivity options, social media could have been dominated by clips of Dr. Phil serenading Homer Simpson.
5Kirby’s Epic Yarn
Artisan-Crafted Platforming
Kirby’s Epic Yarn
The beginner-friendly Kirby series rightfully dominates the conversation around cozy platformers, but 2010’s Kirby’s Epic Yarn takes the cake. When was the last time you played a 2D platformer with no health bar, no game-over screen, and zero punishment for falling off a ledge?
Beyond accessibility, Epic Yarn is noteworthy for itsageless craft-themed visuals. Despite debuting on a standard definition console, its crocheted platforms and simple linework characters look like they could have been animated yesterday.
4Endless Ocean
A Surprisingly Deep Dive
Endless Ocean
For years, I only thought of Endless Ocean as the ultimate bargain bin game, a relic of Wii-era casual fluff. But when a friend finally bought it for me as a joke, the game took me by surprise with its varied mechanics.
Endless Ocean presented an engaging, fish cataloguing scuba simulator, decades before Dave The Diver was even a glimmer in the indie hivemind. It represents the best of casual gaming, when alternative games would try to hook you on relaxing gameplay instead of sucking you into addictive feedback loops.
3Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life
A Life Worth Living
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life revamped its series with a new focus on character relationships and the passage of time. As the seasons pass, residents of your town age, your child grows up, and you end the game as an old person.
In a genre space that’s become so fixated on comforting and empowering the player, there’s something quietly powerful about a game that asks you to accept change. Your emotional connection to A Wonderful Life’s game world strengthens with every loss and every birth, and by the time the credits roll you’ll know Forget-Me-Not Village as intimately as if you’d grown up there.
2Wii Sports Resort
More Than A Sequel
Wii Sports Resort
Maybe it’s inevitable that a game as iconic as Wii Sports would overshadow its sequel. But it’s still a shame, because Wii Sports Resort improves on every aspect of the original.
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The idea of a cozy sports game might sound strange, but Wii Sports Resort has a secret weapon: its setting. Different sporting activities take place at different points of interest across Wuhu Island, and there’s a wonderful illusion of continuity when you spot a different activity’s location in the middle of a bike race or table tennis match.
Island flyover mode even lets the player explore the island freely in a biplane, completing the illusion and elevating it over Nintendo’smore recent sports offerings.
1The Sims 2
The Devil’s In The Details
The Sims 2
Why is it that after four mainline entries released over a quarter-century, many fans of The Sims still favor the second game?
It’s all about attention to detail. The Sims 2 had a limited enough development scale that its designers were able to stuff its life management gameplay to the brim with dynamic character animations and complex virtual genetics.
The realistic character chemistry system in particular was mind-bogglingly ahead of its time in 2004, making the neighborhood (and there aresome fascinating families to start with) feel as narratively rich as a real suburb. The Sims 2 set a benchmark for next-gen design that many modern games, cozy or otherwise, still fail to reach.
