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.
Nier Automata Deus Ex GOTY (and Human Revolution) Red Dead redemption 2
- MGS3
- Metal Gear 4: Peace Walker
- MGSV
Honourable mentions: Metal gear, Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid, MGSV: Ground Zeroes and Sons of Liberty
Crab… Battle…
Broke muh knife
Thank you for enlightening me with this masterpiece. I will forever repeat this every time i replay the game while struggling to kill those crabs for food in that godforsaken cave
Sons of Liberty is the most cohesive entry in the series IMO. Best story too; prophetic, really.
Metal… Gear… 4?
Lol. I always hallucinate and see an imaginary 4 next to peace walker since it technically should be if they decided to keep the numbering consistent
But what about the actual MGS 4 that came before Peace Walker?
My top 3 are based on “for their time”.
Morrowind
Portal
Halo 2
Forever stuck in mid to late 90s JRPGs, if I had to pick 3
Final Fantasy VI Final Fantasy Tactics Suikoden II
- Minecraft
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Portal 2
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Chrono Trigger
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Link to the Past
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Super Mario RPG
Someone like the SNES.
Probably he is a Nintendo hater /j (but not entirely, it happens).
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In no particular order, and without adjusting for recency bias:
Single player
- Hollow Knight
- Undertale
- Outer Wilds
Multiplayer
- The Finals
- Awesomenauts*
- YOMI Hustle
* Right now the game is in a weird state where the original company who owned it went backrupt, and the game is in the process of being revived by a different company. In the meantime, the already low player count got lower. On top of that, there’s two versions of the game: an old version that used Steam matchmaking (as the matchmaking server went down when the game original closed); and what had been the current patch, being accessible on a beta branch, which currently has issues making it hard to actaully play a match.
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Minecraft - Was my absolute childhood and I met so many good friends and learnt a lot throughout my time playing the game.
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Skate 2 - The controls are perfect, the vibe is amazing, it’s just one of my overall favourites.
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GTA V - The first R rated game I played. Both this game and Fallout 3 were massive inspirations for me focusing on 3D environments as a Game Dev student.
Honourable mention to Little Big Planet and Rollercoaster Tycoon Deluxe; both of which absolutely shaped my childhood
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I’ve probably got some weird takes, but let’s go:
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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.
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CrossCode 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. It’s also written in freakin’ HTML5.
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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.
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!
There is one “No” she says in the story that is just … I swear they did such a good job of getting so much emotion through expressions and simple words alone, really impressive
When she cries, and Emilie cries, I cry. This game is near-perfect.
That expression she has with her head in her hands is horrifying and perfect and never seen twice.
I cried too, such a touching moment
- 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.
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.
For me it is not even having a quest log. Some sidequests are just someone hinting something could or should be done.
after being living in the map marker era for so long.
Jeez, this is totally it!
Thanks for putting it in simpler words for me 😅
Definitely gonna check in taking notes.
When playing classics, http://gamefaqs.com/ is your best friend. Guides were how we played games back then.
You’re not the only one. I’ve beaten The 7th Saga more times than Chrono Trigger lol.
I love Chrono Trigger, but as far as SNES goes, Final Fantasy 6 and Secret of Mana 2 (or Trials of Mana or whatever we’re calling it now) both beat it for me.
I didn’t know about this game, but honestly it is so good that others experience the same as I, of course I don’t think that I am the only one in the world that Chrono Trigger is not for him (not even sure about this myself), but definitely is so scarce to read comments of people struggling with the title compared with praises for it gets!
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.
XIII isn’t in my top 5 FF games. But the interpersonal dynamic is the absolute best in the series. The scene where Sahz discovers why his son was branded is one of the most impactful moments in gaming. Two of the most cheerful characters in the franchise, suddenly broken.
I don’t love how restricted the game is at the beginning. But each of their personal stories are magnificent, usualy leading to their Eidolon awakening.
+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.
I gave Chrono Trigger a fair whack and just got bored. I suspect JRPGs just aren’t for me.
Out of all retro JRPGs from that era, I’d say Chrono Trigger is the one that has aged the best, but it definitely is still a product of that era and that can be a bit of an acquired taste. If you haven’t played any other modern JRPGs, I’d suggest checking out how the genre has evolved today, you might have an easier time getting into newer titles.
I actually started playing chrono trigger because of threads like this, but stopped playing close to the end because I wanted to do all the side quest but didn’t have the time to try things out and also played with a lot of breaks so I forgot a lot of things and therefore I started to look things up online but then it became tedious and also felt like cheating and now I can’t even motivate myself to finish it even though I am probably missing out on the best part of it.
It’s why we got so many games!
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.
Updoting for Chronotrigger. Always at the top of my list. Every list.
Except worst lists.
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- Portal
- Disco Elysium
- Drone Perspective
My top 3 choices are (in no particular order)
- Disco Elysium
- Outer Wilds
- Fallout New Vegas
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.
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, and there are some other games that affected me on the same level, but I could only pick 3 :)
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.
Control, the horizon games and stardew valley.
Tears of the Kingdom was amazing. The only thing BotW did better was how it felt riding on horseback through Hyrule field dodging lasers. But that was the high point, the average experience in BotW was less fun that TotK for me.
TotK really might be one of my top 5.
It’s too hard to really rank every game. I spent a ton of time on Minecraft over the years but haven’t recently. Like over a decade ago I liked gmod and still spent so much time on it but haven’t played recently.
Lately colony management games have been scratching the itch. Do id probably say Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, and Oxygen Not Included.
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.
I recently played Kotor for the first time since its release and unfortunately, it really felt kinda cheesy and bland. But right before that I played Disco Elysium so that was maybe the wrong order.
Yeah Kotor 1 is a very classic Star wars hero story, which is fun in its own way. Kotor 2 With TSLRCM patch will likely hit a lot better for you after disco Elysium.
Portal 2 and Warframe. I’m not sure about a third, several contenders. And can’t really say which spot any are in, feels more like they share 1st.
Questions like this are always hard, it’s never a certain answer and it shifts over time, no matter if something new comes along to take a place or not. It’s as fluid as anything else.