Talking Point: What Is Your Video Game Palate Cleanser?

I kind of have a weird one but it's the Ace Attorney series. These games are just super refreshing for me to play in between larger games.

Usually my go-to is playing a few rounds of Smash Bros. However, lately it's been Tetris 99.

My main palate cleanser is some modded Minecraft, I know the vanilla gameplay loop inside and out and modded is just more interesting to me.

I like to take a bit of a break between "meaty" games, so it's usually something quick and fun where I don't need to invest too much concentration or worry about losing/dying.
It helps to wash away the muscle-memory from something I've devoted a lot of time to.
Stuff like a frenetic driving game or twin-stick shooter are usually good. Failing that, a few frames of snooker on Pure Pool 8 can be a nice low-key distraction.

Super Mario Bros. 2; It’s fun, short, and usually different enough from whatever game comes next.

I find myself frequently feeling burn out from Pokemon games especially.. I mean we got rapid releases from Game Freak and I needed a break so.. I asked "Why do I love this series" so I went back and played some of the older games In the series and that was a way to refresh myself to get back In to modern Pokemon as weird as that sounds

Anything zelda related is always a pallette cleanser

I'm currently cleansing with the NSO. (Love this sentence! 😂)

Mario 64 was so much fun to play after all these years! I really enjoy the 100 coins star at the moment, which my 10 year old self would've found insane!

My go-to for "palette cleansing" is usually Rocket League, Grid Autosport, or Fast RMX. Currently playing Grid in between TotK and XC3: Future Redeemed.

My palate cleansers tend to be the latest version of Picross, replays of retro titles or anything that’s ideal for short bursts of play.

IDK why but I play Splatoon 3!

The Sims is usually my go to. It's a nice, happy disconnect and is not in the normal realm of games that I keep in rotation.

Defence grid for me. Been playing it for a long time but there is always another medal on another mode or map to upgrade. Perfect short burst type game between other games.

I generally lean towards story-driven games or other single-player titles with objectives, and between or parallel to those I'm usually playing a fighting or racing game.

For me it varies between games I can quickly dispose of within days, be they action games and visual novel/walking sims/point and clicks, to evergreen titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and (now) F-Zero 99. I also have a habit of dropping into retro in a heartbeat whether it's on NSO, Arcade Archives, compilations, or other re-releases.

I just play some Mario Maker 2. If you like 2D Mario, you can pretty much play it forever, and it’s especially fun to test your skills (and patience) on a super expert level.
I also go through bouts of Smash and Mario Kart online every once in a while, until I get bored of getting walloped in every game.

It’s varied over the years but for me recently it’s been Dicey Dungeons

I mainly play SRPGs and JRPGs, but when I wanna take a break from some of the ludicrously long winded JRPGs I'll bounce to playing platformers for a bit.

Like some others said. The next game, as I rarely replay games.
But my palette cleansers used to be xtreme legends dynasty warriors 8, stardew valley and minecraft.

These days it’s usually rhythm games, in particular hatsune miku: project diva future tone and theatrhythm.

I have a few, but old school/simpler sports games were always good for ne. Baseball advance/greatest nine/super baseball, tecmo super bowl, mario tennis etc. Anything with a tournament/season mode

On Switch, mine is definitely Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It's nothing competitive like online, it's just me doing a few circuits.

On my phone it's either Marvel Puzzle Quest or Magic the Gathering Arena.

I usually go for comp games like MK8D and more recently, F-Zero 99. I'll replay games too, I finished replaying Owlboy, and I'm on to Paper Mario Origami King. Also been playing Fire Emblem on and off with Gameboy online. It's gonna get pretty busy what with wonder, thousand year door, and luigis mansion. I'm all for it though haha

I have a huge backlog of games but whenever I just need a break from keeping up with modern releases, I always find myself going back to new Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 save files.

There's something about the Galaxies that just feels right. They give you a lot of options of which levels to play, but the easy, calm, floaty space game is what I go back to often. (Still waiting on Galaxy 2 on Switch)

NES, SNES Mario games, retro madden, TMNT in time and Shredders Revenge and fifa games from the xbox 360/PS3 era. Oh and lots of wine to cleanse my pallet! PS and now Antstream as well

Warioware is a big palate cleanser for me. Not any in particular, just whatever is closer, which at this point, tends to be Get It Together!

Apple Arcade has plenty of palate cleansers. The two biggest ones for me is Sp!ng and Garden Tails. Both have hundreds of levels. One is more based on reflexes, while the other is a polished, but pretty standard, Match 3 type.

Super Mario World. It’s easily my all-time favorite game, infinitely replayable, and available on every bit of Nintendo hardware

Turning on the GameCube to play old favorites is always a good way to get to the next new release, but any console will do, from the Wii U VC to the 3DS.
Sometimes I'll buy a month of GamePass and churn through a couple of curiosities.
But typically I'm back to Polarium, Lumines Remastered, or Grindstone for some quick play sessions.

i mean, im never too far from a sonic game! So i guess that my palate cleanser game is the sonic series (the good ones at least)

@Kyloctopus what the golf is on apple arcade and is great yet goofy fun if you havent gotten around to it yet

oh and wind waker on the wiiu, switch version in 2024??!!

Smash, ACNH, MK8D….

I guess building plamo kits is my current palate cleanser these days. Those cute mecha girls ain't gonna build themselves!

I always have "big game" and a, we'll call it a palette cleanser game which I play concurrently, I'll switch back and fourth. At the moment it's gran turismo 7 and raindrop sprinters.

When I'm close to clearing out my backlog, I'll usually burn $20-50 on a bunch of heavily discounted indie games, and use a couple of them as a buffer between bigger titles. Other than that, I might go back to Sky for a few days and catch up on whatever the new season has added.

Usually a fan of a small game to cleanse my palate like a short horror or narrative game. I think my most recent one was a indie horror called the bunny graveyard

Sometimes it seems like every other game I play is a replay of either a Dark Souls, a Pikmin, or Hollow Knight. Guess those are my palate cleansers?

Platformers. I can always fall back on a platformer as a palette cleaner. Super Mario 64, Celeste, Super Mario Bros., and A Hat in Time are my go-to games.

@Fizza @Axecon Tetris Effect for me! T99 is great, but a little stressful. 😉

The ones I usually go back to are Cities: Skylines and Starbound, though it's been a while since I played the latter. Both of those games are comforting. I get the feeling that Starfield is going to fill that niche as well with how much I'm still enjoying it.

@Logicfire Same! I did answer puzzle games, but I do like returning to a comfort platformer that I don’t have to think much on, like SMB1 or SMB2.

Which version of SMB2 is your favorite (NES, SNES, GBA)?

Weirdly enough, I keep going back to big strategy games after beating a new game: Civ VI, Crusader Kings 3, Stellaris… Of course, there’s the odd Zelda/Metroid replay here and there.

I’ve found that between big games (or at the same time to give me a break for a day or two) I’ll return to old games from the 90s (Mega Drive in particular) especially something arcade like that I can play in short bursts. Columns or Sonic the Hedgehog are good just for an hour or so.

I'll generally play platformers like the Azure Striker Gunvolt series or play a few rounds of Smash Bros Ultimate after I go through another lengthy JRPG.

@DwaynesGames The NES version will always be my favorite and I play it on the NES Classic Edition. But it's sometimes very tempting to hit up the SNES version on NSO. (Especially in handheld mode!)

Games like original Doom do the trick in-between epic JRPGs for me.

Simple, pick up and play fun in short bursts.

Rocket League and Splatoon

Usually in the middle of playing multiple games at a time... usually a few big ones like right now its Zelda Totk and Starfield....been replaying God of War on PC... I hop back into Persona 5 Royal on switch, also I'll jump back into Call of Duty... in the meantime my PC usually has a few games at a time...may reinstall cyberpunk and try that again, been dying to replay Control, I love replaying thru the Uncharted games, Spider-Man is something i jump in and out of easily, I also keep some indies on hand like Katana Zero, Dead Cells and Death Road to Canada, recently been trying to play some older games on my modded 3ds as well, been also been trying to forever play mgs5. Gamepass has me on some games I've been meaning to check out and been meaning to play all the pokemon games I've missed since yellow...which is all of them up to sword and shield.... looking to still play elden ring, jedi survivor, The hogwarts game and mw3 still this year.... on switch it will be all about remakes and ports once batman and mgs hit it .. still need to pick up metroid remastered and red dead 1 but i definitely have my hands full here...not to mention the dozens of other games on retainer right now too... as far as a pallette cleanser probably a few rounds of Cod usually when i wanna play something mindless and effortless

It used to be Smash Bros, but I don't really play Smash any more. Smash has been replaced by Puyo Puyo nowadays.
But when I'm playing lots of big RPGs, I do use smaller RPGs as a palette-cleanser too. After playing Lacrimosa of Dana, I decided to finally get around to the Xenoblade 3 DLC campaign, which is really short compared to the next game on my to-play list, Monstrum Nox.

Resident Evil games (some of them at least); it's my favorite games series and what made me a true gamer in the first place.

OG RE2 was an almost "divine revelation" for me, as it simply blew me away like no other game (and that includes all the rest RE games) ever just by watching someone else play it.

In a way it was all I had dreamed of during my ZX Spectrum days. Actually reading more Crash and Sinclair User and dreaming about what games could become than actually playing the games.

It was also very cumbersome loading the games with a tape recorder those days and then the games rarely held my attention for more than 15 minutes before I moved on to the next one (I was quite a bit of a pirate those days also, I admit ).

Funny thing is I'm done with RE2 by now, as it's just gotten to old imo. These days I prefer the "action" RE games (4, 5, Mercenaries 3D, Revelations, 6, Village and 4 remake).

Thing is when I finally started to "dig" OG RE4 back in late 2008, it changed me into an action game gamer primarily. In a way it felt like going back to my time as an arcade gamer in the early 80's, where it was all about fun and challenging yet simple game play.

If the game play isn't fun at a very fundamental level it's rarely something I will revisit these days. I don't even really bother reading the files in RE games anymore, as it just feels like more of the same lol.

@Maddie47 yeah, same — I tend to flit between long games and shorter games, with a throughline of farming and puzzle games that I'll regularly dip into

I spent the end of 2022 and first part of this year playing short games exclusively. Got through more than a dozen games between Bayonetta 3 and Tears of the Kingdom. I’ve been playing nothing but Tears since launch and am nowhere near tired of it. When I feel like putting it down, I’ll go back to more short games. Anyone have any recommendations? I wish reviews for games had a spot for game length that was easy to find/reference.

In the past, I’d go to some SNES favorites. Contra 3, Super Mario World, Star Fox and Axelay.

Idk if I have the time for a palate cleanser. At some point in your life, you start making every second count.

It's exhausting, but the only alternative is regret

Splatoon 3 is my usual palette cleanser, whenever I’m not playing something different I usually play it everyday. Right now I’m currently occupied with Prime Remastered so it’ll be a bit before I go back to it. On my 3DS I like replaying Rhythm Heaven and Warioware from time to time

I keep coming back to Sky: Children of the Light. Recently some Splatoon too, but not often enough to make it count as my go-to.

If I'm ever bored, don't have a game to play. or anything like that...
Pikmin.
Pikmin 1 specifically.
I can beat the game in under 5 hours and it's always a blast playing it over a weekend.

Oh and of course F-Zero 99 but that just came out so...

Sorry but I know not what you speak. The only thing I'm playing next is the next game on my list. In fact I make a point to avoid "simple" or "relaxing" type games altogether because I feel like they just slow me down.

It doesn't need to be anything set but I do want to play something different coming from another game, coming from a hard game requiring concentration I'd rather play something easy, coming from a turn based RPG I'd rather play something shorter and/or different genre etc.

I just cannot play too much of the same thing.

Rythm games for me.
Love the variety and content of this genre on the Switch btw.
I'm deep within Hatsune Miku, and playing some Lyrica as well. Played the first Taiko a lot, Voez, Deemo, Thumper, Aviicii Inv., Aaero, Musical Story, ..
Think the only one that disappointed me gameplay wise was Cadence of Hyrule, still have the DLC map to beat actually. Music is great though.

Tetris also does the trick, either 99, or Effect.
MK8D too.

I think that's it

I don't see games as 'big' or as some sort of event. I just play what I want so I have no concept of a palete cleanser (seriously, wtf?) Hey, I'm a simple man.

i replay severals games i own, before my next games i intent to own, right now i replaying Tears of the Kingdom when i wait to buy Super Mario Bros Wonder

Is what NSO is for.

Currently my go to is spider solitaire in 51 Worldwide Games. I've ~240 Hours according to my play activity and I can say the majority has been spent on spider solitaire itself. 🙃

I switch between Fortnite and Rocket League

Sometime I play Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival when I have no motivation to play long games.

Tetris 99. Easy to pick up and play for a month before the next big release.
MARIO WONDER HYPE

Whenever I’m feeling lost in life or in gaming I either play Zelda II through the island palace or get all 96 levels in super Mario world

Great article! For me it’s Rocket League, picross, travel mosaics (another nonagram).

Others in the past: part time ufo, townscaper, quell.

It’s kind of a hard question to answer consistently. Between big releases, I kinda just play what I feel like. In fact, I often break from big games to play small ones. Could be a Kirby game, the DKC trilogy, Super Mario Sunshine, Wild Guns Reloaded, Cuphead, Picross e, or something else.

I replay classic favourites for the most part. Could be Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario All-Stars, Kirby Super Star, etc. NSO is my usual go-to but Animal Crossing and Mario Maker are frequent as well. I'm eager to work through Kirby & the Amazing Mirror in the lead up to the new Mario.

Simple RPGs for me, not too long but the type I can speed run in 3 hours. Medium to no action .

@Jimmy Fleck Elechead is a fantastic short game (real short; think 1-3 hours).

I know I know but Fortnite is my main palate cleanser. But also Rocket League, Tetris 99 and Roguelites such as Dead Cells.
I also used as palate cleansers both Hades and Super Smash but sadly due to how trashy #$@&$ the Joycons are, I no longer play those in fear of drifting my third pair sadly (no, here in my country we don't have the free Nintendo support to fix them and sending them to another repair is annoying at this point)

I can always go back for some Civ 6 whenever I'm stumped on something to play.

While playing huge titles like Tears of the Kingdom or Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I dive into a few Fortnite matches. In between big games, I like short indies like Hades, Dead Cells, or Shovel Knight.

It was New Horizons at one point. But I’ve since turned the island over to my kids and really only boot up my profile to say hi to my residents.

Right now? This will probably be triggering to some folks. But it’s Pokémon. Specifically Pokémon Scarlet. I’ve completed the Pokédex. I eventually caved on the DLC. That story was fun. Right now, I’ll go to Pokémon to shiny hunt. Never was one to do so in the past. But SV has made it easier and accessible. I try not to Google what a shiny looks like just so I can be surprised when I encounter one. So yeah. Pokémon is my palate cleanser between bigger or much more serious games

I love to do a run on Mega Man 2,3,4 or X, but just ripping through Ducktales on NES always has me ready for next.

Good ol' Picross is my go-to oprion. Now F-ZERO 99 and Sonic Origins Plus can join it.

Number one for me is Doom (and all of it's thousands of wads and megawads).

Spelunky, Isaac, Diablo 3 are always on rotation. It's more that I play these games regularly, and other releases are the palette cleansers.

I (unwisely) favor RPGs, so I'm usually working a 60+ hour game. I do like to break up with short indies that end up in my backlog due to sales, like Gris, What Remains of Edith Finch, Inscryption, or something similar. It really breaks up the time commitments and keeps gaming from feeling like a job 😅

Usuallly some indie thing, lie,dave the daver now.. rocket league i also return too always, and sometimes some slitherlink or picross and mario kaer/splatoon i guess

I only have one rule:
After a big game with double digit hours playtime, I always play something light and short to rest myself.

I don't have one of these cleansing things you mention, I literally obsessively play one game, eventually find an end, then start obsessively playing another one.

My opinion is Nintendo has only put out 1 new triple A game this year that being TOTK and everything else has been double A

Rocket League is the perfect palate cleanser. Fire it up, then it's 5-minute bouts of don't-think-just-act for as long as you have the time.
Ooh, and Descenders - it has a similar "joy of movement" to it except it's a comfy single-player game.

Games where I can do a few runs or rounds, like Hades, Enter the Gungeon, Mario Kart, Civ 6, Fast RMX etc (often games I’ll probably never ‘beat’ but enjoy playing for a while). Sometimes a short story based game, like an indie I’ve picked up on sale.

I also went through a phase of continuing my Skyrim play through for a week or two between other games but not sure I can be bothered to go back to it now. I may get No Mans Sky and do the same with that - play until I get a bit bored then put it down and revisit between other games.