I watched a YouTube video about this topic today and thought it was the perfect idea for a post here. It’s pretty straightforward, it’s games you played in the past that you’re still stuck thinking about, or games that taught you a lesson that you’ve held on to.
I’m going to start. For me, the two games that perfectly exemplify the idea of a game that sticks with you are Sekiro and BioShock. I have a feeling Dark Souls will be a popular choice but I think Sekiro did it more for me personally.
Starting with Sekiro, I honestly think it’s the closest to perfect I’ve ever seen in a video game, at least for a first playthrough. It’s fun, challenging, rewarding, thoughtfully made, beautiful to look at, it’s got great voice acting, memorable characters, and I honestly can only think of two mini bosses that bring the whole game very slightly down. Every other aspect is a 10/10 from me. Not to mention the combat is the best combat of any game I’ve ever played. Personally, this game is the purist example of a game that forces you to get good at it, and does the best job at teaching perseverance. In the rest of the Souls games, you can upgrade your weapon, get a new weapon, use buffs, summon NPCs or another player to help, if you’re getting stuck. With Sekiro on the other hand, you need to get good. Above any other game, this one showed me just how well hard work can pay off. I feel about this game the same way video essayists feel about Dark Souls. If you know, you know.
Moving on to BioShock, this one really taught me the value of a good story, and showed me that video games truly are art. It helped that the game itself is a ton of fun to play, but on top of that the writing is just phenomenal. I’m assuming most people on here have played this one so I won’t get too into it, and in case you haven’t, most of what I’d be gushing about would spoil the whole game anyway, so I’m just leaving it short, but yeah. This game is the finest example of video games being an art form.
What about you guys? What has stuck with you the hardest? I’ve got more games I could talk about but I’d love to see discussion from you.
No game has ever affected me as much as Outer Wilds. Out of every life changing piece of art I’ve ever experienced, whether it be film, television, music, literature, or videogames, this is the first and only time I’ve ever gotten chills by the end.
The story isn’t super deep and it isn’t necessarily profound – it’s not really a belief-changer, outside of, perhaps, your idea of what a videogame is – but the experience itself is beautiful and rewarding and I’m not sure it can be recaptured.
SOMA. Duplicating consciousness across multiple bodies and the branching off of one particular conscious mind to carry the narrative while the others were left behind was a fascinating concept for a game to engage with. Plus the atmosphere was a sublime nightmare.
This game has lived rent-free in my brain ever since playing it. Not always in a good way either, it’s some genuine existential horror.
The ethical explorations are interesting too, such as the implications of repeatedly booting up a personality to extract information from it.
That’s what I came here to say as well. It’s so well done and it hits in such a profound way.
Have you read any of the short stories on the game’s website? I highly recommend it. Catherine’s is so sad and it really gives a ton of insight into what she went through.
For me its Subnautica because the progression works so well. I’ve tried lots of survival games and sandbox games with similar progression afterwards, but none of them had the same impact on me. It’s also because of the genre - Sci-fi on an alien planet, discovering what actually happened, and all that baked into some real satisfying gaming loop. Also, without spoilers, the end sequence always makes me emotional, regardless of how many times I’ve played it. It just speaks to me on a personal level.
There was so much thought put into that game. While I couldn’t work it out for myself, with the help of guides I worked it out. The sense of peril and discovery was wonderful.
I will forever rave about CrossCode, an indy game I found on gamejolt in 2016. It’s a top-down JRPG with great action, a cool parkour mechanic, and really pretty pixel art. It officially released in 2018, and it’s one of my favorite games of all time.
Added. This looks like it would be fun on the Deck and checks out at ProtonDB
It’s on sale right now, I’ve added it to my cart. Looks really interesting
I love this game. Number 1 game I’ve ever played. Sooooo good. I love thr characters so much
Some games have already been posted, so I’ll share two games that really stuck with me:
- Life is Strange
- Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
I could mention Persona 5 Royal, but it’s such a hugely popular game so there’s no need to elaborate.
Life is Strange took me on a mystery journey, and I felt such nostalgia for my early days as a teenager. It’s an old game, but I won’t spoil it here. I’ll give a small plot. You’re Max Caufield, and you’ve returned to Arcadia Bay and see your old best friend, Chloe Price, whom you haven’t spoken to in years. She gets into some crazy stuff and Chloe is about to be shot by another student, but Max intervenes and discovers she has the power to rewind time, allowing her to save Chloe’s life. There’s an underlying mystery in Arcadia Bay where another young girl mysteriously disappeared, and Max and Chloe team up to try to find her.
Hellblade allowed me to experience what psychosis is like, through the lens of the main character, Senua. This game is unforgettable. Senua needs to save her lover, without letting the rot that’s festering inside her to consume her. That’s all I’ll say about this gem.
I really gotta play Life Is Strange. I started playing it a looong time ago but didn’t get very far into it at all before I put it down- I don’t honestly remember why.
Seeing Max again in the new life is strange game brought me back to High School as a teenager. I don’t think seeing a game trailer has done something like that for me ever.
Life is Strange’s writing is trope-y and often not that great, and my neurospicy ass doesn’t even relate with pretty much any of the nostalgic tropes about teenagehood (as far as I’m concerned these were the worst years of my life, by far, and any piece of media that wants to make me relive them is very unlikely to make its way onto my computer).
However the game manages to more than make up for all of that with an enthralling story that fully immerses the player with compelling gameplay, meaningful choice-based storytelling, great artistic vision, and ground-breaking character acting. The whole thing is expertly calibrated to deliver emotional gut-punch after emotional gut-punch.
Hellblade is just straight-up amazing and the Melinda Juergens’ character acting is hauntingly raw and poignant.
- Limbo
- The Long Dark
- What remains of Edith Finch
- Subnautica
- Ape Out
- Fire Watch
- Prey
- Hitman 1,2,3
There’s nothing like a great story married to good gameplay and simple yet beautiful and effecting visuals. I guess also a small but skilled team of developers with common focus.
I’m so glad someone mentioned Limbo. Have you played Inside? It’s my preference between the two. They’re both A+ games though in my books
Yes inside is… something more than limbo, a story without words but you can tell exactly what’s going on. So sad too.
What is it about the Long Dark that’s stuck with you?
The art style is good especially the varying weather and sky effects, and changes in music to accompany it. So many different areas and places to explore. The challenges are punishing but amazing when you succeed - something about being on the edge of death and pulling yourself back at the last second.
I’m waiting for the last episode of the story mode to release.
Another vote for outer wilds. Its weird how often it pops into my head.
Nier Automata
The Last of Us
Undertale
Prey 2017
My game time is limited so I play what I hope to be most impactful. My list is chock full of unforgettable experiences:
- Control
- RDR2
- Uncharted
- Dead Space
- God of War
- Ori and The Will of the Wisps
- Disco Elysium
- The Artful Escape
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Gris
The first three I’d say there was life before and then life after. The rest, I wouldn’t want to miss if I had a redo in life.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 both could’ve made it for me too, but for the sake of the post I only wanted to do two games so other people could suggest some. I absolutely agree with your picks
I have many choices but here’s a few that really stand out to me
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The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine If you’ve played just the base game of Witcher 3, you’ve missed out. I decided after playing the base game and waiting for a couple years that I’d go back for the DLC. I spent upwards of 100+ hours with this game on the hardest difficulty and the story in the base game is long, engrossing, and whimsical. But at the end you aren’t really completely satisfied despite several moving moments. Enter the DLC of Blood and Wine though and now you’re basically in The Witcher 3 part 2. This is where you leave the baggage of the main game behind and play out the best ending to any character I’ve ever seen. It’s full of adventure and new sights to see, its full of interesting characters to meet, and it captures the sense of love that Geralt has for the other characters. I legitimately cried at the end of the epic adventure when you sit down next to Ciri and just… realize that its over. Every good book I’ve ever read makes you really feel an empty heart to see the last page and read the final words on it. It felt just like that and I was sad to leave that world behind.
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Kingdom Hearts Series Just an incredible game series that appears almost made for children but turns into a very convoluted and at times extremely beautiful story. Whats so wild about it is that the story is somewhat complex but the emotions throughout are so simple, pure, and understandable. It gets to the core of what we all feel and makes cartoons of our emotions and never leaves that space. And the music matched with those emotions is just the purest art.
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To The Moon Its short, its sweet, it has great music, go play it and bring tissues. Its a sad tale with very simple gameplay but I listen to the soundtrack once in a while to this day and I never stop thinking about the themes of this game. What exists in this game is so thoughtful, thought provoking, understandable, and most importantly human. I can’t discuss the story at all without spoiling it but just go play it. It takes a few hours and I recommend never leaving your seat for the whole thing. You can probably even just watch it be played on youtube without commentary and get 95% of the experience.
Blood and Wine was especially tragic; I sympathized with Dettlaff and his pain, and Syanna was a terrible person. But preventing Detlaff from killing Syanna for using him leads to him attacking Geralt, who has to defend himself. Regis understands why you had to kill Dettlaff, but he still loved him like a brother; the death of Dettlaff leaves him feeling terribly alone. There isn’t any way to end the bloodshed; everyone is hell-bent on destroying themselves.
That’s what I really love about the Witcher and its writing, there aren’t very many characters that I can think of that don’t have many dimensions to them. And every decision you make isn’t good or bad, just different. Even the love interest you can completely turn your back on and for understandable reasons. It’s just phenomenal writing that doesn’t exist in any other game of its caliber imo
Do you need to play the first two Witcher games to play the third one? I want to play the Witcher 3 but I can’t seem to get into the first one. I’ve got about 6-7 hours put into it on steam and I haven’t had any desire to come back since
I actually haven’t played the other two since they’re both very old games at this point but I do plan to try them out. Witcher 3 seems like it mostly stands on its own and you won’t be missing anything too huge when it comes to the story and characters from the other games. That being said, its a situation where knowing the prior games helps and you’ll understand the relationships better. If you bounced off of the first one though, my recommendation is just to at least read up on the characters and major events of the first two. Maybe watch a game movie if you can find one. I went in completely blind into the third game and it turned out fine so really you can’t go wrong, don’t let the prep for playing the game stop you from actually playing it.
I appreciate it. Thank you!
Absolutely not- you can just play TW2 which is significantly less dated than TW1, or just skip directly to TW3. Maybe watch a recap of the first two games if you do that, though.
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Heres a weirder one no one else has mentioned yet: I’ve heard art described as a way to express and emotion, and I really felt that with Hotline Miami. Its not done through the story or setting (in fact, the intentional ignorance there adds to it) but rather the contrest between the hyper-violent trance as you play through a level, and then the sudden cut of the music as you quietly walk past the mountains of bloodied corpses back to your car. I feel that shift, when you first notice it, really emphasises the pointless brutally of it far more so than many much more heavy-handed attempts in other games.
Games that play with metanarratives stick with me:
- Beginner’s Guide
- The Stanley Parable (Ultra Deluxe especially)
- Break The Game really stuck with me the ending especially.
Damn! Your list made me remember that I missed Superliminal.
Which led me to Stanley’s Parable, which I hated. I maintain that I totally missed something despite a few playthroughs to “the end” but it seems to have just gone over my head.
*Break the Game is $2 during the Summer Sale. Definitely trying it.
I’m really surprised that nobody’s mentioned The Last of Us yet. It really used the uncommon technique of changing POV to really suck me in to its storyline. Right from the start when Joel’s daughter dies in the tutorial it was a gut punch as I had ‘been’ her just a few minutes ago. But the whole story was so immersive I found by the end I was really engaged with the characters and their stories. Spoilers for the end of The Last of Us if you’ve not played or watched the series. In the last big action piece in the Fireflies Hospital on my first play through I shot both the nurses in cold blood because I was so upset about what was happening. I like to think of myself as a ok person, at least better then the kind of guy who’d do that but in the heat of the moment I was so angry I totally empathise with Joel and his desire to kill everyone threatening Elly.
A lot of games try to open with a character death and fail because they don’t really give you a reason to care about the character. The perspective swap in The Last Of Us’s intro is absolutely amazing for that exact reason- it’s hard not to empathize with someone when you’ve literally been in their shoes for a bit.
I think Final Fantasy 7 and 10. the worlds were so well build. And in current times of terror, climate crisis, wars, so many topics were in the games.
As other games i mention Limbo, Ori and Hollow Knight. The have a really great athmosphere. Just thinking about these games, makes me remember of the feeling playing them.
And the biggest game in my list is Elden Ring. So many wow things in there. And the shear amount of content … Just blew my mind.
Rollercoaster Tycoon. What was a silly little game which we got for free out of a cereal box is now a main stay on any computer I own. Runs on everything and has aged incredibility well.
Shoutout to OpenRCT2 for modernizing it, even if the original games run fine as is
