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.
I’m really surprised that nobody’s mentioned The Last of Us yet. It really used the uncommon technique of changing POV to really suck me in to its storyline. Right from the start when Joel’s daughter dies in the tutorial it was a gut punch as I had ‘been’ her just a few minutes ago. But the whole story was so immersive I found by the end I was really engaged with the characters and their stories. Spoilers for the end of The Last of Us if you’ve not played or watched the series. In the last big action piece in the Fireflies Hospital on my first play through I shot both the nurses in cold blood because I was so upset about what was happening. I like to think of myself as a ok person, at least better then the kind of guy who’d do that but in the heat of the moment I was so angry I totally empathise with Joel and his desire to kill everyone threatening Elly.
A lot of games try to open with a character death and fail because they don’t really give you a reason to care about the character. The perspective swap in The Last Of Us’s intro is absolutely amazing for that exact reason- it’s hard not to empathize with someone when you’ve literally been in their shoes for a bit.