Some games ask you to keep track of a lot: spells, powers, recipes, and what you were in the middle of last time. After a day at work, that's the part I don't have the energy for. I call them spreadsheet games, and a spreadsheet game isn't a weeknight game.
How much a game asks you to remember
Every review of ours gives a game an Effort score from 1 to 5. It says how much you have to learn and remember to play it: 1 means almost nothing and 5 means a lot.
A high Effort doesn't mean a bad game. Across our 17 published reviews, the average score is about 8 whether the Effort is 1, 2, 3 or 4. Tears of the Kingdom is Effort 4 and is tied for the highest score we've given, 9.5. The only Effort 5 is EA Sports FC 25, and it scored 2.0.
What does go up with Effort is the time a game needs. Every game at Effort 1 to 3 is worth starting in 30 minutes or less. The two at Effort 4, Hogwarts Legacy and Tears of the Kingdom, need an hour. A game that asks you to remember a lot also asks for a long block of time, and a weeknight rarely has both.
What you have to keep track of
There are three things a game can ask you to hold in your head: where to go, what you did last time, and how the controls and powers work. Most good games help with the first two. The map in Hogwarts Legacy points me wherever I need to go, and in Tears of the Kingdom the goal is still clear after a week away.
Nothing helps with the third. You have to remember it yourself. Hogwarts has its spells and systems. Tears of the Kingdom has Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend and Recall, and they mix in a lot of ways, so after a week away the tricks take a minute to come back.
How many things there are matters less than how they fit together. Airport Hero Haneda asks for four decisions per plane, which are the runway, the landing, the taxi route and the gate, and it's still Effort 1. They come in the same order every time, and nothing carries over between stages. Four powers that you have to combine on the spot are a different job.
| Game | Effort | Shortest session worth starting | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hogwarts Legacy | 4 | 60 minutes | Fail |
| EA Sports FC 25 | 5 | 30 minutes | Fail |
| Tears of the Kingdom | 4 | 60 minutes | Fail at first, pass later |
| No Man's Sky | 3 | 30 minutes | Your call |
| Road 96 | 1 | 30 minutes | Pass |
| Airport Hero Haneda | 1 | 15 minutes | Pass |
The ones that fail
Hogwarts Legacy: fail
I scored it 7.0. The early quests are easy and the game tells me where to go, but there are a lot of spells and systems to remember, and coming back after a break is where it gets tricky. If I stop for a while, it's hard to get back on the horse. The potions menu alone lists recipes, ingredients and brewing times.
EA Sports FC 25: fail
It's the only game here where what you have to remember sits in your hands. Our review points to timing your tackles, finding the right pass and defending as a team, and none of that can be written down. It scored 2.0 mostly for lag, bugs and unreliable controls, and the steep learning curve comes on top of that.
Tears of the Kingdom: fail at first, pass later
Four new powers arrive at once, along with three layers of map and plenty of ways to combine things. The first evenings feel a bit like homework with a glider. Building something that flies can take twenty minutes of trying, which is the best part of the evening or the worst, depending on how tired you are.
Then the powers become automatic and the memory moves from your head to your thumbs. It's the one game here where the effort pays off, and from that point it's a toybox where nothing is asked of you except curiosity. The review says to give it a few evenings.
The one you set yourself
No Man's Sky: your call
It's the only game on the list where the player decides how much to keep track of. The settings have modes and the difficulty can be customized. One evening can be crafting, base building or a freighter raid, and the next can be flying between planets and taking screenshots. The review adds that the first time needs some time set aside to learn it, so the cost is paid once and then it's yours.
The ones that pass
Road 96: pass
This is the cleanest pass. You walk, talk and make choices, with a small mini-game now and then, so the game keeps track of where you are and what happened, and there's no list of controls to learn. Each trip is a short chapter, and when a story ends you start again with different characters and no game-over screen. The only real work is reading, and a very tired evening might want less of it.
Airport Hero Haneda: pass
It's also hard. The Challenge is 3, a stage can run up to two hours, and losing near the end hurts. None of that affects the test, because nothing carries over between stages and two weeks away costs nothing. Two of our 17 reviews pair Effort 1 with Challenge 3, this one and NES Nintendo Classics, so how hard a game is and how much it asks you to remember are separate questions.
Road 96, Airport Hero Haneda and No Man's Sky are all in the top five of best games to play after work.
