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.
Persona 4 as it was my first. the concept of having to choose how to spend your time, split between training in the dungeons, fostering relationships with friends, or studying and working part time was affecting for me, and its characters and stories are very good.
By extension Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney for showing childhood me that I liked visual novels, before I even knew what that was.
Monster Hunter. I learned to play MH purely because of its reputation as an obtuse game, I thought if I can learn to play and maybe even enjoy MH, that the other parts of my life I wasn't happy with couldn't be that much harder to figure out. Years later and I still adore this series, and don't think it's actually that complex, it's just hard to teach.
Dark Souls. Really taught me that games are more than just games. They're worlds, concepts, feelings. I'm sure I have more games than this that were formative to me, but these are what came to mind.
Which Monster Hunter game did you start with? I like listening to old players gripe about how MH:W ruined the series for them. I haven't played any others but it was an awesome game for me.
I started with Freedom Unite on a PSP as an early teen, but had no idea what the fuck was happening, just that it all looked awesome.
Then in my early 20s I resolved to learn Generations Ultimate. I slightly gripe about how almost all non hunting quests have disappeared in World & Rise, because it takes away your ability to change the pacing of the game without putting it down for a more relaxing game.
However, what World did to MH's weapon movesets in its expansion and... sleekening is incredible, and the move to open levels with no load zones along with the interactions of multiple monsters does an incredible amount to the atmosphere and experience.
So I love GU and I love World. And I love Rise. It's a series I pre-order because I know that even if it might be different, I know the developers gave a huge fat shit about the game as they made it and it shows.
That seems like a really healthy opinion, lol. My most used weapon is sword and shield, and watching the gameplay change from base World->Iceborne->Rise has been like going from a Penny Farthing to a modern racing bike. I'm not super happy with how dominant the wire bugs are for armoring through moves and ignoring attacks but I'm optimistic that Wilds will do something different with them.
What kind of quests have disappeared from the new games?
Has it been confirmed that wirebugs will return in Wilds?
I don't believe they will, the team who made World is making Wilds. But I speculate that the "super move on a timer" style of attacks might make a return.
I'm hoping to see some switch skills anyway. Rage slash was so much fun.