Fun Let's Plays and Let's Play channels

[FelixSH]

I don't think we have a thread for interesting/fun/cool Let's Plays? If so, feel free to merge them. Elsewise, please link LPs that you enjoyed. Or just whole Youtube channels, if you like a specific LPer.

For a long time now, I have watched LPs from the Youtube channel of Alex Diener. He mostly does puzzles, but also stuff like Zeldas, FFs or Celeste. What I like about him is that he talks in this calm, sympathetic way, while solving puzzles, or whatever he is doing. Like, he shares his thoughts with his audience. I find his channel very relaxing, and there is a ton of stuff on there.

I also found a bunch of interesting puzzle games through his channel. And yes, you will lose out on part of solving the puzzle (honestly, I watched Sokoban: Bunny Tales and now play it myself, and I have to solve everything on my own - no idea if it's me, but I forget these solutions most of the time), but if you don't care too much about puzzle games, maybe watching him play them might be relaxing for you, too?

There is a ton of content on this channel, and he updates every day, often more than one video.

 

[JBear]

I pretty much just watch MTG content on Youtube these days, and I'm not sure if these count, but the only LP-ish content I've watched in recent years are Trial By Fieri, where Griffin McElroy plays through Link to the Past Randomizer with one-hit kills turned on and a Guy Fieri model for Link (when he dies, he turns into a hot dog), followed by doing the same for Ocarina of Time when a fan finally modded Guy into the game for him. They're a very fun time.

I'm also enjoying Super McElroy Brothers, where all 3 McElboys are (badly) playing through Super Mario World with each of the three of them controlling a subset of Mario's functionality with lag over parsec. So Griffin can only hit the jump button, while one of his brothers can only hit the D-pad and another handles only throwing and running. (The playlist I linked starts at "Super McElroy Brothers III", but that's the first one, where they first stumble into the "bit" that they then carry forward.)

 

[Voncaster]

I'll recommend Iconoclast187. It is unfortunately inactive; but I really like his style of playing and commenting on games. I also think his selection of game is interesting.

When Retronauts did their survival horror episode (Way back in the 1up days) I was fascinated by Shane's description of Haunting Ground. I watched a Iconocast's Lets Play of the game because Haunting Ground was ludicrously expensive on the secondary market at the time (it eventually came to PS3).

Horror games that I will not play due to old systems or high cost are my jam for Lets play channels.

 

[Mogri]

I'm just gonna drop a couple links here

 

[Patrick]

I'm also enjoying Super McElroy Brothers, where all 3 McElboys are (badly) playing through Super Mario World with each of the three of them controlling a subset of Mario's functionality with lag over parsec. So Griffin can only hit the jump button, while one of his brothers can only hit the D-pad and another handles only throwing and running. (The playlist I linked starts at "Super McElroy Brothers III", but that's the first one, where they first stumble into the "bit" that they then carry forward.)

Yeah, that series is a lot of fun.

 

[gogglebob]

I'm just gonna drop a couple links here

No... It's cool... I'll be the only one updating our Let's Play forum for 2023... It's... it's already July?... I'm sure... huff huff... I'm sure someone else will... will do something.. phew... I just need to lay down for a minute...

 

[Torzelbaum]

I don't think we have a thread for interesting/fun/cool Let's Plays? If so, feel free to merge them. Elsewise, please link LPs that you enjoyed. Or just whole Youtube channels, if you like a specific LPer.

Are you only looking for LPs or are you also interested in streamers who play games?

 

[FelixSH]

Are you only looking for LPs or are you also interested in streamers who play games?

Both seem pretty similar to me, so feel free to suggest streamers, or specific streams of games that are especially interesting, too.

 

[DANoWAR]

I

I don't think we have a thread for interesting/fun/cool Let's Plays? If so, feel free to merge them. Elsewise, please link LPs that you enjoyed. Or just whole Youtube channels, if you like a specific LPer.

For a long time now, I have watched LPs from the Youtube channel of Alex Diener. He mostly does puzzles, but also stuff like Zeldas, FFs or Celeste. What I like about him is that he talks in this calm, sympathetic way, while solving puzzles, or whatever he is doing. Like, he shares his thoughts with his audience. I find his channel very relaxing, and there is a ton of stuff on there.

I also found a bunch of interesting puzzle games through his channel. And yes, you will lose out on part of solving the puzzle (honestly, I watched Sokoban: Bunny Tales and now play it myself, and I have to solve everything on my own - no idea if it's me, but I forget these solutions most of the time), but if you don't care too much about puzzle games, maybe watching him play them might be relaxing for you, too?

There is a ton of content on this channel, and he updates every day, often more than one video.

You would probably be interested in Electron Dance and associated content if you like puzzle games:

Electron Dance – Words on Games

www.electrondance.com

https://youtube.com/@thinkygames

 

[Beowulf]

No... It's cool... I'll be the only one updating our Let's Play forum for 2023... It's... it's already July?... I'm sure... huff huff... I'm sure someone else will... will do something.. phew... I just need to lay down for a minute...

I keep getting distracted by my other projects and threads. I swear I'll get back there eventually!

 

[SpoonyBard]

I feel I would be remiss if I didn't highlight raocow (no capitalization). Back in the day he almost exclusively did SMW romhacks and Mario fangames but has been branching out in recent years. He also LPed the Super Talking Time Bros games and was largely responsible for the extra attention they received, and most of the modern SMBX hacking and updating community are members of his forum.

raocow's LPs are generally always good vibes, he's a really positive person and when he does get frustrated he's not the sort of LPer to fly into a rage of expletives. Well, not english ones anyway. He's from Quebec so he will often shout classic Quebecois curses (like Tabernack!) but you needn't worry about f-bombs here. He's just a good, chill dude LPing hacks and fangames and oddities and the occasional indie hit (several years late) and he's known for bursts of uproarious laughter at the most innocuous things. He often tries to find the good in even the most jank games he's playing.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Both seem pretty similar to me, so feel free to suggest streamers, or specific streams of games that are especially interesting, too.

Do you care about my pet peeves related to specific LPers / streamers or should I just keep them to myself?

 

[Purple]

I was thinking as I opened this "well obviously everyone here knows Super Great Friend" but then I remembered that no he actually has shockingly few regular viewers for how long he's been doing this for. He's about 50/50 on standard blind let's plays and "I did some serious homework and I am just going to be spouting off trivia while showing off every inch of this game. Particularly recommend this Deadly Premonition run and the deeply obscure MODE.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I would feel remiss to not mention Talking Time's very own "speedrun" channel (which is sadly defunct / on hiatus for now):
https://www.youtube.com/@LetsRacingTimeStreams

Voice actor and living national treasure SungWon "ProZD" Cho plays games (and sometimes voice acts the dialogue) with various co-hosts. Tends to do full playthroughs except for some occasional one-offs.
https://www.youtube.com/@prozdplaysgames

Hutts plays lots of roguelikes but mostly focuses on Binding of Isaac. The first channel is edited down videos while the second one is longer replays from his Twitch streams.
Note: Occasional strong language.
https://www.youtube.com/@Hutts
https://www.youtube.com/@Hutts2

Dangerously Funny is a guy with a voice that makes you think of Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers while he tries to do crazy, coffee-fueled stuff in games. Tends to play a lot of repetitive / grindy games but his videos are edited down so you don't have to see a lot of that stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/@DangerouslyFunny

Retromation / Reto is a pretty chill guy (he is part of what is called Wholesomeverse). He focuses mostly on indie roguelike games of various genres.
https://www.youtube.com/@Retromation

These two mostly focus on fighting games but also cover beat 'em ups and other fighting adjacent genres. (You will sometimes get some strong language from Max.)
https://www.youtube.com/@jwonggg
https://www.youtube.com/@Maximilian_Dood

Tool-Assisted Speedrun (TAS) channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@dwangoAC
https://www.youtube.com/@TASVideosChannel

Channels that focus on randomizer races and tournaments for Final Fantasy 1 and 4 (respectively).
https://www.youtube.com/@FinalFantasyRandomizer
https://www.youtube.com/@FreeEnterprise

Speedrun channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@gamesdonequick
https://www.youtube.com/@RPGLimitBreak
https://www.youtube.com/@SpeedGamingChannel

 

[Peklo]

Amiya Aranha is a goofy spider girl who marches to the beat of her own drum as far as game picks; most of the time you won't see her playing anything less than twenty years old, and the vintage isn't the only factor, but the diversity of what she's interested in. She frequently makes her own streaming accessories according to theme and is generally a very fun entertainer.

 

[FelixSH]

Do you care about my pet peeves related to specific LPers / streamers or should I just keep them to myself?

Sorry, forgot to answer. Feel free to talk about what you dislike about them, just don't be mean. I like to know about potential stuff that might irritate me.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Sorry, forgot to answer. Feel free to talk about what you dislike about them, just don't be mean. I like to know about potential stuff that might irritate me.

Hutts2 : Since this 2nd channel is recordings of live streams there are sometimes periods where he isn't playing the game and is doing other stuff. But sometimes that stuff is him petting his girlfriend's cat. Occassionally he will rant about mechanics or whatnot in games that he doesn't like.

Retromation: He can be yelpy when playing certain genres (action games). Now this next part could just me being a backseat gamer but sometimes I feel like he dithers over in-game decisions too much. And then there other times I think he gets too tunnel vision with his execution and makes misplays. He also has a thing for getting "beeg numbers" in games so he sometimes makes less than optimal decisions.

Randomizer, speedrun and TAS channels: Now this doesn't really even bother me all that much but there can be some pervasive jargon, memes or in-jokes that maybe don't make much sense to an outsider. But that tends to only be a very small part of the content.

Justin Wong / jwonggg : Videos can get repetitive at times since he will often play the same characters in the same games and use the same combos. But he tends to space videos with the same character out or play against different opponents so that might not be too big of a deal. Also, there are a couple of sound effects that I feel that his editor overuses - which really annoys me.

Maximilian Dood: Maybe I've just became more sensitive to this as time goes by but he did often use some questionable language but seems to have mellowed out on that in recent months / years. He usually gets pretty hype about things which can make him feel loud and abrasive but YMMV. (I have become very sensitive about this. It feels to me like there is omnipresent yelling in ads and videos nowadays).

 

[balder the brave]

Gameplay and Talk is a channel I've watched for a long time. Austin is very good at retro games and can clear them without many deaths and can explain how to play certain parts and maintain an interesting enough commentary for the duration. It's more fun to watch retro game let's plays because you get a video with a beginning, middle, and end, and some drama in just 45 minutes. And it's more fun to watch a skilled player.

Do you want multiple Let's Plays of every Castlevania, Mega Man, 16 bit shooter, etc.? Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/@GameplayandTalk/videos

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I was thinking about this thread and it occurred to me that many of you probably haven't seen one of my favorite video LPs of all time: Nextlander (and Abby Russell) play Gabriel Knight 2

If you've never heard of Gabriel Knight 2, it's the FMV sequel to (more traditional PC adventure game) Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. FMV is generally a recipe for a good time, and this game brings everything you could ask for to the table...and more. The acting is weird and bad, the story is surprisingly odd, there's awful CG and the game makes some super weird choices that will elicit a few head scratches from even the most jaded viewers. And of course, the hosts themselves are great - adding Abby to the mix basically turns this into a Giant Bomb East reunion, which makes me extremely happy. Give it a look!