Submitted 9 hours ago by Abraxas@feddit.uk to games@lemmy.world
for me mine are 1. Elden Ring, 2. RDR2 3. BOTW, all because they genuinely blew my mind when playing them for the first time and changed how I saw and played video games.
Oh, cheeky 4th one: Magicraft (best bite-sized PoE/arpg ever)
Planetside 2 used to be my no.1 game, but I haven’t played in a couple years and do not believe I’ll ever return.
Descent for the movement. Unreal tournament for getting ten PC’s on a token ring for PvP lan. Warcraft 2 because it’s rad and a pirated copy got me a job at the trading card shop.
Probably:
Fallout 2 isn't as refined and tight as Fallout but I personally enjoy it more. It's arguably far too big but as I've played it so many times (unusual for me - I'm usually a one-and-done person when it comes to time sink RPGs) that isn't a bad thing. I enjoy the writing, mechanics, and atmosphere. Also I voice a robot dog in a mod for it.
Red Alert 2 is the best C&C game ever. I do not care for any of the 3D ones and Red Alert 1 is rather too difficult for me. However RA2 I have finished on hardest difficulty several times. I've never really bothered with the multiplayer for it outside of co-op because I don't play to be competitive. I tend to take my time and like it that way.
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is maybe my favourite point and click RPG. I go back to it every few years and it always sucks me in. I know most of the puzzles off by heart but I'm more there for the sense of escapism and gentle humour. There's other amazing point and click games but for whatever reason this one really speaks to me. It's not even a nostalgia thing - I've only ever played the 2009 director's cut! I'm old enough to have played the '90s version but never did.
Honourable mentions:
*Startopia
*The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
*Theme Hospital
*What Remains of Edith Finch
Startopia's music, humour, and gameplay are all top notch. Runs on a potato, makes me laugh, and features my old pal, Arona.
BoI:R is great. I've put a ridiculous number of hours into it. The latest DLC has made it a bit too big for my tastes but in general I enjoy it a great deal.
Theme Hospital is like Two Point Hospital but tighter, funnier, and prettier. Lots of fun.
What Remains of Edith Finch is art. It's funny, moving, tragic, and beautiful. I encourage everyone to play through it. It won't take that long - a few hours. Such a fantastic experience. Gone Home is pretty damn good too.
My parents wouldn’t buy me Diablo II for Christmas because it was too evil for the season.
…they did buy me Dimmu Borgir’s “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”, though!
Chrono Trigger
Link to the Past
Super Mario RPG
Someone like the SNES.
Probably he is a Nintendo hater /j (but not entirely, it happens).
I’ve probably got some weird takes, but let’s go:
Chrono Trigger is at the way top. The greatest game of all time hasn’t been bested in 30 years. Telling the best narrative I’ve heard in my life, and packing it into 20 short hours, with timeless art and amazing music, and into FOUR GODDAMN MEGABYTES, this is one many try to beat, and none have succeeded. Not even Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Cross code comes right behind it. This game is much longer, but that’s okay. It’s essentially a single-player MMO with all the trappings of life within. A wonderfully smooth action combat system, more amazing music, and some of the most memorable facial expressions I’ve seen.
Zachtronics Solitaire Collection. Going purely by hours played and wins scored, this is on my favorites whether I like it or not. Every solitaire game from every Zachtronics title, right there. Special shout-out to Fortune’s Foundation.
Honorable mentions: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for the worldbuilding and music, Final Fantasy XIII for exactly the same reasons, The Talos Principle 2 for simply giving its NPCs the agency to say “nah, I don’t wanna go back, I’m staying home,” and Chaos Rings 2 for creating one of the most high-stakes yet viscerally unpleasant stories I’ve witnessed, wherein to proceed through the game, the protagonist ritually sacrifices his ever-shrinking party of people.
I gave Chrono Trigger a fair whack and just got bored. I suspect JRPGs just aren't for me.
It’s why we got so many games!
- Chrono Trigger is at the way top. The greatest game of all time hasn’t been bested in 30 years. Telling the best narrative I’ve heard in my life, and packing it into 20 short hours, with timeless art and amazing music, and into FOUR GODDAMN MEGABYTES, this is one many try to beat, and none have succeeded. Not even Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
I would lose the count of how many times I have read praises (well deserved) for Chrono Trigger, and it only makes me feel bad with myself because I left it unfinished (I am close to the 1st ending… I think) because I was lost all the damn time and needed a guide to move forward, something that I really don’t enjoy, and I didn’t have too many gaps while playing it to be fair.
I enjoy RPGs and jRPGs, even when they are not my favorite genres, but I don’t like to feel lost all the time.
Now, it should be obvious that I didn’t play this game back in its day, my last game session was about a year ago in my DSi XL (arguably the best way to experience it) so I have 0 nostalgia googles about it, although I am a Toriyama fan and I loved the art style, graphics and music, it is only the pace and the narrative that didn’t caught me completely…
I know I shouldn’t force myself to finish it as gaming is a hobby after all, but damn, I really want to complete it, at least one playthrough lol (I don’t like to leave stuff unfinished).
If anyone has tips to not feel lost all the damn time (aside of not stop playing for a brief time) I am all ears.
You’re not the only one. I’ve beaten The 7th Saga more times than Chrono Trigger lol.
Unfortunately it’s a thing when going back to older games after being living in the map marker era for so long. This is a big part of why games back then came with annotated maps so you’d at least have a reference for all the locations.
I’d say at the minimum, don’t be afraid to pull up maps and take notes.
I didn’t expect FFXIII to get a mention in here. Respect.
Final Fantasy XIII and Detroit Become Human hit me so hard they both permanently altered my wardrobe and aesthetic.
Updoting for Chronotrigger. Always at the top of my list. Every list.
Except worst lists.
+1 for a Chrono Trigger ranking. For as popular as it still is in retrospect, I think people still don’t quite give it the full recognition it’s due for smashing pretty much every dreary console RPG convention that the genre had been persistently saddled with up until that point, while still remaining a console RPG. Believe it or not the developers had plans to make it even more ambitious at the beginning but they weren’t able to pull it off in the time allotted.
There are a lot of subsequent RPG titles (like even Final Fantasy goddamned Seven, not to mention Pokémon) that should have learned a bevvy of lessons from Chrono Trigger, but still didn’t. It was well ahead of its time.
CrossCode feels so much like chrono trigger to me (which is also my fav) I can’t even explain how, it’s a game on its own right with completely different gameplay but the chrono trigger essence is right there
Lea!
I wish I liked Crosscode more. I really enjoyed the writing and loved the puzzles, but the combat just didn’t feel that good to me. Ended up dropping it in the second dungeon and never picked it up again.
Betrayal at Krondor. A huge world for exploring, at a time when that didn’t exist.
Chrono Trigger. The replay value is so high.
Wolf 3D or Doom or Doom 2 or Quake 3, for similar reasons.
StarCraft, at a time when BattleNet was small and the ladder rankings and fights were all global.
My best friend and I used to spend summer afternoons trying to figure out the answers to all the riddles on the chests. We sucked at it but when we finally managed to crack one, the feeling was euphoric.
The music was awesome. I used to listen to the CD while I slept.
I like you!
Witcher 3 was one of the first “big games” I got to experience. I still think of the characters occasionally and it has some very memorable quests. It’s been on my “to replay” list for a while to see if it still holds up against my memories of it.
This is another early “big game” I played, though I didn’t finish it then. I won’t spoil it, but at some point I was up against a boss, way under levelled and didn’t feel like grinding. However I started a new playthrough this year, got further along and it’s still very good. The story telling and world building are simply excellent, combat is fun (except a certain section I won’t spoil) and I really want to see what else happens in my current play through. My only gripe is that keyboard & mouse sucks without an overhaul mode, which unfortunately doesn’t work on Linux.
I couldn’t think of a third game, so here’s a list of other good games that don’t quite make it.
My top 3 choices are (in no particular order)
I know these are very bland choices, but these games had a huge impact on me. I’ve only played disco Elysium recently, but it truly is a masterpiece. FNV gives me warm memories of [the good parts, at least.] of my childhood, and outer wilds… I don’t even really know how to describe it.
Some extras, didn’t have such a huge impact (well, besides Minecraft; but I couldn’t fit that in 3 c:)
All the metro games, especially exodus; A hat in time, boneworks, HL/portal series, outer worlds. And the Witcher 3, too :)
I adored Disco Elysium while playing it, but the ending felt kinda rushed/soured for me so it didn't quite hit top 3. However, the book Sacred And Terrible Air by Robert Kurvitz that was fan translated to English semi recently helped a great deal with unanswered questions about the world the game takes place in that I had which really helped brighten my overall opinion of the game in retrospect.
The book isn't very approachable I think with almost zero exposition, so it actually helps to have played the game first.
Minecraft and Factorio are definitely my top 2, after that it gets difficult. Probably Mario Kart (not necessarily a specific one, but if you’d ask me to nail it down it’d be Double Dash (for the nostalgia) and 8 Deluxe (currently best imo) at the top).
These are the only games I have consistently played for over a decade and that I keep coming back to in one way or another because I enjoy them so much. And that to me is the most important aspect of a game: my actual enjoyment of it
Civilization (the OG dos version)
Planetside 2
Warframe
PS2 does rule <3
Not that they’re the best games, but they’re definitely my favorites. Though if I’m being honest there’s a large gap between number one and number two, and anything other than Satisfactory feels like it could move in the top 10 depending on my mood.
So I guess if I’m being honest with myself it’s more like
Not gonna rank them because I can't.
Age of Empires II I've played since release and still do occasionally.
Everhood 1 everything about it I love. During covid things got very dark for me personally and this game just hit perfectly on some stuff plaguing my mind at the exact right time I most needed it. The devs were one hit wonders unfortunately. Coming from that, the sequel was atrocious.
Thief 2: The Metal Age. It's like crack to this brain of mine. Yes I play The Dark Mod too.
Runners up:
LISA: The Painful
Diddy Kong Racing
Thief 2 is just incredible. Many games try, but none can dethrone the stealth game king.
And I totally forgot about Diddy Kong Racing, but yeah. It’s legitimately a better game than Mario Kart 64.
Aye and it helps the fans are so passionate making new maps to play for both Thief games and TDM.
DKR holds up so much better. It's just mire realised too. Way more stuff to do. MK64 is skeletal more like an arcade game really. Wish it'd get some reverse engineering love as much as I enjoy the fan made map packs for MK64.
With DKR once you get used to the car drifting camera movements, bunny hopping the hovercraft, letting go of the gas before hitting boosts, and learning the plane can also trigger ground boosts you'll feel like a god.
I see a lot of people shit on the hovercraft while I'm over here bunny hopping sharp corners jumping up to smash into walls on purpose like a psycho so I don't slow down ping ponging all over. It's such a joy.
I’ve been curious about LISA: The Painful for a long time.
Impossible to rank, so I’ll pull from at random from a top 25 I did not long ago:
Honorable mentions:
BOTW Fallout: New Vegas Skyrim
Twenty-two years later and still nothing really compares. I’ve played it through 5… 6?.. times and the characters still feel compelling.
I miss Westwood… everyone that came after only imitated their work, and while some have made improvements to the gameplay, none have really accomplished the same level of storytelling in the RTS genre.
Kind of a perfect game, one that keeps you coming back again and again.
I’d definitely have a higher opinion of FTL if it didn’t feel like the entire game ended up just being about the final boss. Knights of the Old Republic is also one that I felt that, if you knew the twist ahead of time, lost a lot of its impact.
Morrowind - the first game that let me leave the path. It completely changed RPGs for me, and I loved it.
Solasta - this game captured the D&D feeling like no other game has. My wife and I have spent hundreds of hours playing this together.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard - this game touched me emotionally, more than any game before it. The whole 3rd act is an emotional rollercoaster. Plus it has one of my favorite action sequences ever, in The Siege of Weisshaupt.
Off the top of my head, in no particular order:
All great games
Have you had a to at the Blasphemous games?
Not yet, they're on my list to try at some point though
I tend to run an unranked top 10 so three of those would be.
All three of these games just respect your intelligence and are composed of systems deep enough to give you countless ways to solve their challenges.
It’s really hard for me to separate my nostalgia for older games with what I’d think about them now. There are some games I’ve played a LOT but haven’t touched in years for one reason or another.
Some pre-Steam games would be things like Halo 3, World of Warcraft, Runescape, and few Pokemon games.
On Steam my most played game BY FAR is DoTA 2 at ~2100 hours. I loved that game and I still think it’s really well designed… I just haven’t played it in years because it makes me too mad to play with randos and it’s impossible to get 5 friends who play DoTA online at the same time anymore.
If I was going to pick a top 3 outside of those nostalgic outliers, maybe:
Rock and stone, brother.
Have you tried deadlock yet?
I tried it out when the testing started. It’s… fine. I’m not much of a shooter/action game player, so the higher skill elements of it are a bit of a barrier on top of re-learning a lot of DoTA-type stuff. I can imagine getting into it more if it came out years ago. But now it’s hard to find the time and motivation I’d need to dedicate to even get back to the level of incompetence I had with DoTA.
From my youth:
Mega Man 2
Super Metroid
Fallout
Current:
Borderlands
NieR Automata
Baldur’s Gate 3
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 minutes ago
Ragnarok Online in the early 00s is the only reason I’m alive to post this comment
Diablo II for sure, what an amazing technical achievement in the year 1999
Theeeen probably Earthbound.