Can you recommend a family-friendly ARPG?

Its gonna be a bit hard to find an arpg lighter than torchlight, honestly. The genre is dark almost by default

Maybe its worth looking at other games that also lets you control directly the character?(as in, press and it does something, in opposition to rts for example)

Like, if you dont mind cartoonish violence and feels poe is okay, fighting games like street fighter, tekken and soulcalibur tends to be well received(just stick to arcade mode if you dont want the dark story, street fighter 5 is okay, as the story is very goofy). Even mortal kombat: its so gory that it shoots past didturbing and land into comical(tho you might want to go for older titles on this series as the more recent ones are more serious)

If you can set an emulator or get old classics on consoles, classic platformers made entire franchises with child-friendly titles, games like super mario bros1/2/3(every one was good), super mario world, the genesis-era sonic series are time-proven classics that kids of previous generations adored

Outside retro, many nintendo switch games are notorious high-quality and child-friendly. Bomberman is a super good series(just stay away from act:zero, THAT was just a monstrosity), overcooking also is super good and fun, both are particularly good on multiplayer, if you have more than one kid, you can play with them. Overcooking have cooperative and bomberman is super simple and you wont be bored either as both are games that are exremely simple so kids can play, but deceptively challenging, so adults also enjoy

I agree with feike: I don't think the game you're looking for exists, sorry.

Time to look outside the very, very small Diablo-clone box.

Oh, if your kid can use wasd movement, Bastion is an option.

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Ora9 wrote:

I specifically ruled out Fate and it's ilk because it's a parody and doesn't have a proper inspiring story. I want the kid to have some good-vs-evil glamour, not just "kill stuff for treasure!"

Whoops, sorry! I somehow managed to miss that bit in the OP.

I remember letting my daughter try diablo 2 too,
but she was not particularly attracted to it.
On the contrary, he really liked the Rayman saga, a very nice platformer from Ubisoft, where you go through various levels to destroy many enemies and bosses, discover treasures, save characters and a lot of exploration in very colorful fantasy environments.
Another title that I simply find "masterpiece" of which I too was kidnapped for its beauty is "Ori and the blind forest" and its sequel "Ori and the will of the whisps", a platformer with 2 very beautiful stories.
Ori's character, the environments, the music (beautiful!), the obstacles, the puzzles, the enemies are extremely neat... the progression of his story captivates you, even in the face of the most difficult obstacles, you can't help I am happy to find the solution even after multiple attempts.

But honestly, as a parent, beyond showing them what game you like, let her choose what she likes.....my daughter then played minefcraft a lot, because she found it more creative and less repetitive than to the diablostyle arpgs.
My daughter is now grown up and has other interests, she finds video games a bit of a waste of time....should I blame her?! ^^'
Just to tell you…This was my experience with my daughter, I hope it helps you make your own choices.
Good luck :)

I always think of Magicka 1/2 as a twin stick shooter rather than an ARPG but you're not wrong. It fits. That game was a blast. Literally.

And, now I check, not even a twin stick shooter. Huh.

Thanks for a bunch of interesting suggestions!

Just to clarify without replying to everyone individually - we do definitely play other genres as well. We play a lot of platformers, from Super Mario and Sonic, to some Disney games and some jewels from the 2000s. She likes some HOGs, a bunch of games oriented for little kids (basic maths, dressing up princesses, helping cute critters etc.), she likes Dorfromantik and tries to mess with my Transport Tycoon and Anno, but loses her patience after a while. So, we have a pallette of genres available. I asked specifically about ARPGs because she got into it watching us play, mostly PoE and some LA, and likes it as long as it's simple enough. (She even got us a Divine Orb, so yay! :))

She wouldn't be able to do any WASD/shooter mechanics yet, she only got decent at synchronysing two hands in platformers relatively recently. I think the think-before-you-cast aspect of Magicka would be a bit too much as well for the time being. :)

And her favourite thing in Torchlight so far? Fishing and feeding various fish to our pet (named after our cat) to make her change shape. :)

imo torchlight 2 rly is as close as ur gonna get that im aware of.

i d personally say TLI. just that some characters may have erm... huge melons. tho.

its fast paced.

if you dont mind older games titanquest was a game of my childhood. absolutely love the ancient greek/norse/china setting. might be more complex but i really like the class mix/matching system.