Have you ever played a game you loved so much, that once you finished it you wanted to jump right back in all over again? Of course you have, but starting with nothing can sometimes feel like a bit of a slog. That’s where New Game Plus comes in!
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But sometimes that’s not enough. In fact, a lot of the time it can even make you feel overpowered. And that’s where the much less common New Game Minus comes in, adding extra layers of difficulty to the experience. It’s actually so uncommon that most games use idiosyncratic phrasing for such modes.
6Final Fantasy 12
The game that seems to have started the modern usage of New Game Minus,Final Fantasy 12had the new mode added in its Zodiac Age version, alongside a more standard New Game Plus mode as well. Final Fantasy 12 is one of the more unique entries in the series, and these modes only serve to prove it.
New Game Minus, only unlocked after finishing the game’s Trial Mode, doesn’t actually carry over any progress into the new game. Instead, it sets every character at a specific level, between one and three, and doesn’t let you level up. It’s an absurdly punishing task, one that many would claim is next to impossible without the perfect party set-up and game knowledge.
5Journey To The Savage Planet
In a similar vein to games like Outer Worlds and Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Journey to the Savage Planet has you play as the poor employee who has to chart a, well, savage planet. Every step of the way has you risking your life to enrich your company, but at least you get to run from creatures no one has ever seen before.
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Within the game, you’ll probably die a whole bunch to the uncharted life you’re cataloguing, just to be gracefully 3D printed back to life on a whim. If absolute immortality isn’t for you though, Old Game Minus might be. Cutting your lives down to just three, you have to complete the game or die trying, with your save file being deleted no matter what. It also adds a timer to the mix, though there’s no penalty to it other than feeling a little competitive. It’s not a corporate venture without vapid competition, after all.
4Batman Arkham Knight
While Rocksteady’s latest venture with the Suicide Squadmight not impress people, it thankfully doesn’t take from the excellence of theirArkham trilogyof games. Redefining how many games handled combat, the Arkham games are the perfect blend of combat, puzzle-solving, and stealth, helping you live out the fantasy of playing as Batman, as cliché as it sounds.
Arkham Knight is definitely the most divisive entry in the series, though it’s still a noteworthy game. On top of the meticulously detailed Batmobile and gorgeous rain-soaked city, its New Game Plus mode is a bit more restrictive than many other games. You can carry over all your gadgets and upgrades, but everything else is given a sheer difficulty increase. Enemy locations are changed, the game is locked to the highest difficulty, and other challenge maps even have entirely changed parameters. It’s a whole new, gruelling experience.
3Dragon’s Dogma
Dragon’s Dogmais a game quite unlike any other in many,manyregards. On top of the immense freedom granted to you in wonderfully creative combat, seemingly everything has an effect. Your character’s height and weight determine if you may squeeze through gaps or how fast you run, recruiting other players' pawns can offer invaluable information, and important characters can be revised with Wakestones whenever you want for whatever reason. Hell, you can even forge more of them if you want. It’s a hilarious degree of control over the world.
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In keeping with the odd freedom you are granted, Dragon’s Dogma has a Speedrun Mode that functions as something of a challenge run. It imports any save of yours, bringing over all your current items and level, and tasks you with completing the game with only one life. A permadeath mode already, the mode also comes with an extra caveat. You need to complete the game in a single sitting, too. The game does not save, and quitting at any point deletes the save. It’s an over-the-top challenge, so you’ll need all those items carried over.
2Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Heartsis a series quite unlike any other. Aside from the already hilarious notion of Disney characters like Donald Duck walking up to Final Fantasy’s Sephiroth and making fun of them, the gameplay is joyous and experimental in a way that is both dated and incredibly expressive in a creative way. Plusthe naming convention of the serieswill always have you guessing what the newest game could possibly be titled.
In a game already defined by odd choices, it’s only fair it would have an odd game mode. Critical Mode, featured in most Kingdom Hearts games, typically dramatically alters how the game functions. Some games let you pick it from the beginning, while others only allow it after completion of the game. Typically, it doubles the damage you deal but also what you receive, making everyone a bit of a glass cannon. On top of that, it usually comes with unique abilities and different rewards for levelling up, from reduced gains to different skills. It’s an entirely different experience from the base game.
1Devil May Cry
Character Action games are already known as difficult games, both in terms of pure difficulty and also the depth of their mechanics that can be a little difficult to grasp on your initial playthrough. Typically being level-based, it’s at least quite simple in games likeDevil May Cryto simply go through earlier missions with new weapons and abilities to hone your skills.
That said, New Game Minus as a concept isn’t strictly what occurs here since everything carries over across levels anyway. Instead, new modes unlock upon completion of every level on a lower one. The mainstay of the series is Dante Must Die, amping up the difficulty massively and giving enemies their own Devil Trigger. Later games even add the Heaven and Hell mode, making everyone die in a single hit. For the true masochists out there, there’s the Hell and Hell mode, making you die in a single hit, but enemies as strong as the Son of Sparda difficulty, only a step below Dante Must Die.
