Gaming

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is the easy answer for me. It hit me at just the right time, in just the right way. It was masterfully crafted. The sound track was, at the time, perhaps the best pairing of a video game and sound track ever made.

The closest is Ghost Trick I guess? But frankly while being another masterpiece, it didn't stick THAT much more than the others, after a month or two even the 10/10 games come to mind only if I think of a related topic.

The most influencial would be Etrian Odyssey IV since it got me into giving JRPGs another go, after years of not being impressed by any of the classics (Final Fantasy 4-5, 6 kept my attention until the endgame, Golden Sun...), and now I basically beat them (mostly Atlus' so far) on a bimonthly basis. I guess EO in general sticks the best, but it's hard to label one game since I quickly went and started playing all of them.

I just finished Outer Wilds a little bit ago and I'm with you. I think about the ending all the time. It was a really, really cool game. Simple story driven exploration games like that can be so impactful.

I finished Persona 5 Royal a few months back as well and it really just launched me fully into being a JRPG Stan. I mean I was kind of one before but I'm fully a believer in their superior RPG style now.

For me it's still Anarchy Online after almost a decade since I played it last. The atmosphere in the game and community was amazing. After that I would say mass effect, rdr2 and the elder scrolls series

its very short, but Trip World is a gameboy game I just cant stop thinking about, its one of the prettiest games on the system with a fun mechanic to it.

Believe it or not, it was a flash game. You can't play it online anymore, though you can find it for download somewhere I'm sure.

It was called "Obliterate Everything 2" - it was just a small game about space battles, with fairly simple mechanics. But the amount of depth it got from that was so absurd. The difficulty curve was a bit wacky, and I remember talking at length to my friends about the various game design principles I'd learned from observing and judging it.

Ports of Call on the Commodore 64. One of the first video games I ever played. Set up a shipping company, buy a ship, buy low and sell high and get better ships. Occasionally you have to take control of the ship (incredibly rudimentary, but it was 1986, give them a break) to dock or leave port, avoid a collision or avoid reefs, but for whatever reason I keep coming back to it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085260/Ports_of_Call_Classic/

To be honest, for me it's got to be the ending to Nier Automata. That was...intense, thankfully I wasn't spoiled even after playing it so late.

My record must be Photopia. 25 years later, I still feel half a tear forming by thinking too much about it.

Eastward is an indie game I got because I saw someone recommend it on Lemmy a couple years ago. The pixel art was amazing, and some of it had a very unique eerieness. The story was heartwarming at times and creepy at other times. The only real complaint I had was that so much of the story remained unexplained after the ending, I really wanted to see all the little pieces of plot tied together.

Interstate '76. I love the whole vibe of it.

Alpha Protocol, cause and effect and replayability just made it one of the best of all time in my opinion.

I received Eternal Darkness for Christmas in 2002. I will NEVER forget the feelings that game inspired in me thanks to the unique "sanity" system and creepy lovecraftian atmosphere.

I remember my brothers and I huddled around the basement TV into the wee hours of the morning over our Christmas holiday totally creeped out but so driven to complete the story that we pressed onward.

What a fantastic game that was and I'm so grateful for those memories with my brothers. I don't think I've ever had such a deep connection with a game since.

Metal Gear Solid. All of them, but especially MGS 4 left me speechless and sad-tisfied. I played it pretty much every year until my PS3 didn't want to exist anymore. I still have times where I recall scenes from the whole saga.

I’ll never forget loading Myst on my performance 5200 and getting lost

Oblivion has lived in my head since the moment I first played it back in 09. Finally started teaching myself how to make mods for it last year and now it takes up even more of my brain!