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@GeekFTW Duck Hunt and Zelda A Link to the Past on SNES. Core childhood memories with family.

Probably Dark Souls for me, the replay value and the many different ways to take on challenges in the game haven't really been replicated, even after many attempt. If not that, then Alpha Protocol. I think they did choice and consequences the best in a game. I'll also throw Dwarf fortress in there too, since people need to play it.

Chrono Trigger! Great plot, and it swaps the slow burn that brings a lot of JRPGs down for a shorter story with a ton of replayability. Gameplay and characters are also great!

I’m probably weird when I say Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn. At first a failed game that became a labor of love by the people that took it over. It took multiple years and expansions for it to come to a “conclusion” and the once i finished it, I was very satisfied.

To me it’s similar to the Marvel project up until the conclusion of the Thanos arc. I’m not the biggest marvel fan or much of a Disney fan. I do really respect the courage it takes to throw that many years at a project and trust it almost all the way.

FFXIV feels like that. It has that final fantasy marriage of interesting yet somewhat complex story with a message that makes you think. Its an MMO but honestly you can enjoy it up until the conclusion of End Walker with a couple of friends and some queuing up for the story fights. You shouldn’t have to do any terribly difficult encounters to progress the story and experience the game unless you choose to. The. Every so often you run into a song and get blown away. The game does a great job of usually having each expansion have a visual and music theme and sticking with that without making it feel like repetitive copy paste job.

I almost never like replaying a game or heck rereading the same book. But this game is the one exception where if a friend finds interest, I’ll resub and level yet another job with them and totally enjoy all over again.

This is a hard call, and after a lot of self-deliberation...It must be Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the updated 3DS version. It's a moody, dark, and interesting title within the Zelda game series! The deadline before the world ends pushes the player to figure out the most efficient way to make progress to save the world. The updated Bomber Journal makes this experience so tight and compelling!

Mario Kart 64

probably Forza horizon 5. closing in in 500 hours

best memories are from Minecraft for sure tho

Pokemon Sapphire

Is it even possible to pick just one?

Several of my favorite gaming experiences are one-time, non-repeatable. Solving the Return of the Obra Dinn is up there, but it couldn't possibly be my favorite game because I can never experience it again.

Playing Dark Souls for the first time is the same thing. Discovering the world, finding the intricacies of the interconnected map, struggling with and overcoming challenging areas and bosses. The relief of unlocking shortcuts and the amazement at the maps connectivity. It was the first game of it's type I played, and it was phenomenal, but coming back to it never matches that first playthrough. And let's be honest, the bosses feel downright mundane after having played the later releases.

Disco Elysium affected me in a way no other game has. Its themes are so relevant to me that it struck me on a very personal level and it was an incredibly cathartic experience that will stay with me forever the way any great book would. I actually found it more enjoyable the second playthrough too, however, is it really even a game?

Stardew valley was a really fun game to play with my wife

Interesting. No love for city builders and strategy games (RTS and TBS). Here are several, in no particular order:

• SimCity (4th is probably my favorite). Cities Skylines is the modern spiritual successor.
• Civilization series (arguably all versions were excellent for their own time)
• Starcraft (both are great)
• W40K Gladius (underappreciated gem)
• Kohan (nobody knows about that game. Kohan 2 was OK)
• Age of Wonders (3 and 4)
• Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War (the first one)
• Warlock - Master of the Arcane (honestly, I had more fun with that than with AoW)
• Majesty (the first one, very unique, "indirect" strategy)

The list can go on, and there were so many fantastic strategy games over the years...

Star Control 2. My son and I just started another playthrough.

Either Super Mario World or FF7

Definitely Dark Souls. I have played DS 1, 2, 3, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Sekiro. I only have completed DS 1 and 2 out of them (mostly due to time, with the exception of 3 which I just don't like).

I know the DS1 map like the back of my hand, the mechanics feel natural to me, I feel like I'm being treated fairly and have the skill to complete challenges, and it genuinely feels rewarding for me. I feel good after playing Dark Souls for a bit. Even when struggling with a boss, 95% of the time it felt like I had made a mistake which could be fixed next time.

Last of Us for story.

Original Modern Warfare 1 & 2 for all the memories I had of playing that in college.

Hard to choose one, but maybe I'd say Kerbal Space Program 1. It had a really profound impact on the way I understood the world, space, physics, and gave me one of the best feelings of pure exploration. It was amazing to drop into progressively lower orbits around a new planet or moon before finally landing and walking around.

considers

I think that it'd have to be something with a lot of replayability, which doesn't lose value to me after one playthrough.

Also, it can't be a genre where the game was limited by technology. I mean, I remember Wolfenstein 3D being amazing when it came out relative to other games of the time -- walking around in a 3D world was so mind-blowing -- but the novelty of that technology has long-since worn off, and there are many more-impressive 3D games today.

I guess roguelikes are probably about the top of the heap there, and my favorite is probably Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I still regularly play that, which seems to me to be a good test of whether it's still at the top of my list.

System Shock 2

Many games come close for me... Mass Effect, Zelda Link to the Past,, Factorio and Homeworld would round out my top 5 for instance. But System Shock 2 was my first immersive sim game. It started a love affair with the genre that I'm still trying to scratch 25 years later.

There were many spiritual successors, with Arkane's Prey being the closest approximation I've found. Nightdive just released the original System Shock's remake a month back, so the wait for them to announce they're giving SS2 the remake treatment is torture.

Undertale still holds a special place in my heart after all these years.

It made me care about its characters in a way that no game had ever done before, and few have since. The cool and replayable story, along with a great soundtrack are other things that I like. Only criticism I really have of the game is the questionable graphics, but I've never been the type to care too much about graphics anyways.

The King of Fighters, the whole franchise, it's just that special to me since my childhood

That Dr. Mario vs Tetris game. My mom would bust it out and we’d have competitions way past bedtime because she was addicted. So some good childhood memories attached to a fun little game.

It might sound dumb, but Guardian Tales. It's a gacha game on mobile and Switch, but I really love it. The story is great, it's fun to play, and the devs are very generous. I've played it multiple times on different accounts just because I have so much fun with it.

I've played a lot of the games on this thread and more that haven't been mentioned which deserve to be recognized, but for my experience The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth goes at the top.

There are others more nostalgic, others with more acclaim, but I always come back to Isaac. The RNG, art, humor, and item combos made that game stick to me like nothing else. It has just a little hit of inspirational game design that speaks to me.

Asteroids. I shudder to think how many quarters I spent playing that game. Sometime I’ll have to see if there is some retro arcade out there where I could go play it again.

Duke Nukem 3D

What a tough question to answer, stretching all the way back to Atari 2600 for me.

I think I'll pick No Mercy/Virtual Wrestling Pro 2 on the N64. Possibly thousands of hours both solo and competitive at a friends with some incredible round robin tournaments with up to five participants. Just amazing Create A Wrestler and one of my handful of favorite gameplay mechanics ever. Also we were paying during the exciting days of pro wrestling so we had that enthusing us as well.

Holiday Island. And Transport Tycoon Deluxe...

Tecmo Super Bowl

Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Had no idea what I was getting into and have been chasing that same experience ever sense.

There’s too many to list but Zelda 2 was the first game I finished. It was a collaborative effort, using a book, but my friend Frosty and I stayed up all night (this was in junior high so this was a big deal) and finished it. Fond memories.

I'm pretty old so have a lot of games I feel terribly nostalgic about, but I'm going to pick a relatively recent one in Deep Rock Galactic.

It just feels like such an absolute triumph of game design in so many ways. I've always had a soft spot for Co-op PvE, and it's just done right. Having a dedicated key to rock and stone (cheer on your teammates) is an absolute genius move for promoting positivity and cutting down on toxicity. Gunplay is good and varied. The feeling of exploration is AMAZING! Probably the game that's kept me going 'wow' when I go to a new place the most consistently after hundreds of hours.

So much respect for the devs who are continuing to absolutely nail it!

ICO

For myself: Illusion of Gaia (SNES).

I hear a lot of people talk about Soul Blazer and Terranigma when talking about this trilogy but IoG was always my favourite. I still have the soundtrack on my phone after all these years.

THPS2 and a close one is F.E.A.R.

Enteral Darkness. Greatest game of all time!