Inspired by today's news of LinkedIn adding minigames to its platform, we thought we'd ask you all: what are the best minigames in normal-sized video games?
There's an art to designing a good one, after all. Compact, compelling, coherent with the surrounding game so that it enhances the setting, and easy to learn. Reply with your favourites, add images, and be sure to upvote anyone who's made a good case for theirs so that we can crown a winner!
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It depends how 'mini' qualifies as a minigame. The obvious (and correct) answer is Gwent... but I reckon that's a DQ, as it's a full game stuffed inside another full game.
Clearly not the best, but my mind first went to the Bioshock pipe puzzler.
Gwent is incredible. I have two official, physical card decks!
Can I nominate two? I think I played as much Gwent as I did the main game in The Witcher 3. What a brilliantly designed DCCG! It was the first game that led me to explore the genre and I'm sure it's why I still have a mild Marvel Snap addiction.
However, I also can't answer this without mentioning the one and only Blitzball. A triumph of game design and an unlikely but glorious hybrid of beachball and quidditch.
I'm playing Final Fantasy VIII Remastered right now and have been reminded of the genius of Triple Triad:
https://youtu.be/264wi-_Yxmw?si=mKghHtyrGGEUQoM9&t=8
Final Fantasy had had minigames before - little sequences in FF7 that wound up as arcade machines in the Gold Saucer, for instance - but Triple Triad was different.
It was a constant presence through the game, for one. It was immediately intuitive, addictive, and with its unforgettable music, iconic - when Shuffle or Boogie hits, even an assassination attempt on an evil sorceress can be postponed. With Quezacotl's Card Mod ability you can turn cards into items and, frankly, break the game - not a good thing in every respect, but obscure enough to not cause issues in a first-time playthrough, appealingly barmy, and it further cemented Triple Triad into the wider game.
For all these reasons it felt like an inflection point for minigames in RPGs generally, and suddenly there was a tide of imitators. FF9's Tetra Master was the first, but it was clearly worse, which just burnished Triple Triad's brilliance. Gwent is the only imitator that comes close, and it likely owes its existence to Triple Triad. All hail the OG.
Wait until you try Queen's Blood. Oh my.... It's a completely different experience and I love it.
Just watched a quick video explainer - looks great!
Triple Triad is still amazing and like you said other popular card games wouldn't exist without it. I didn't know what to expect from Queen's Blood but it turned out to be amazing and really addictive. I sat down for "just one match" and was there for 2 hrs...
Another shout for Gwent here - loved it in The Witcher 3, but fell off it quite quickly when it was released as a full game.
My nomination is for Caravan from Fallout New Vegas though, as I think I'm one of the only people in the world who genuinely enjoys it. Spent ages playing it against various NCR folk, and it's not too tricky to play once you get the hang of it! Despite the common complaint it's too difficult.
Also, shoutout Fort Condor from the FF7 Remake, which was excellent and super addictive:
All the mini games in it takes two are fun and allows you to be competitive with your partner/whoever you are playing with, since the whole premise of the main game is cooperation.. sometimes I just want to be competitive!!!
Those games are GREAT. And a great way to fallout with friends/significant others lmao
I'm going through this game with my partner right now! However she always groans whenever I find a mini-game since she's not the best gamer. BUT the best mini-game in that game is the snowball fight. We spent at least 30 minutes just pelting each other with snowballs - it was just like we were in a winter wonderland doing so!
Not sure if it counts as a mini-game but in Wolfenstein: The New Order you can choose to go to sleep and have a nightmare which results in you playing the DOS classic Wolfenstein 3D.
Also, shout out to Starfield's lock picking game which is a nice evolution of the Fallout pins & screwdriver mechanism IMO
I like the Pet Battles in World Of Warcraft truth be told and imo it contributes as a mini-game, simple fact that it moves to a scene you control etc. So yeah, pet battles in WoW.
Proper game-centric mini game, I’d say NOTHING beats the emergent gameplay mini game of arranging your attache case in Resident Evil 4
I love that this is such a thing that someone made a steam game based sorely on this concept
They made TWO! I streamed the first one which is based on inventory and the second one is based on combining treasure and crafting ammo as the merchant. I'll be streaming that one next time I want a chill, horror-adjascent time.
It has to be the mini-games in Yakuza series, specifically the extremely popular Cabaret Club:
I'm not sure if this really counts as a mini game as it could really be considered as a game all on it's own. But fishing in Red Dead Redemption 2, is just the most chill thing you can do in any video game and there's a surprising variety of fish and bait too, even if you're not after legendary fish it's still one of the most relaxing side-activities I've done in any game.
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