Videogames that changed your concept of videogames

[lunanto]

Mine is: The Last Of Us.

I must admit I was a gameplay centric player but this game showed me that videogames can be a very powerful and effective narrative medium. It made me feel and emphatize with the characters and their circumstances way more than many films I have seen, so kudos to Naughty Dog for that.

What is that special videogame for you?

 

[Deleted member 15428]

Silent Hill Shattered Memories

 

[ngower]

Animal Crossing.

I was growing tired of AAA games and the violence and carnage they tended to feature. Having something with no real objective, no real end, and a pretty relaxing atmosphere totally altered what I thought video games could be.

 

[AshenOne]

I was a story first and gameplay 2nd player until I played dark souls. It redefined what gaming is for me. Iam so done with narrative heavy story games with interactive gameplay elements.

 

[jon bones]

The Witness each really knocked my socks off.

It was a very powerful exercise in learning about learning, especially when so many games spend so much time showing you how to use your three skill trees.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

Good thread.

The Witness, maybe?

Barely a tutorial, no words, essentially no narrative. Just pure mechanic, and mechanic being iterated and twisted and layered constantly. Unbelievable.

It exists on this kind of philosophical plane of game design which I never considered before, one of total gameplay and conceptual purity.

It's not flawless, nothing is, but it's a game changer in some ways.

-------

Silent Hill 2 changed how I saw games in terms of telling a story - one which was not only great and potently symbolic but which was fucking REAL and RAW.

Sex, shame, self-loathing, interpersonal and intrapersonal ambivalence - you pretty much never see these themes explored in games in a direct, head on, blunt fashion, and Silent Hill 2 did just that. It's unbelievable.

And from a Japanese developer, no less.a culture which usually comes at these things from a very different angle, at least in games.

Also in terms of gameplay has a multitude of very clever, very terrifying sequences that are innovative in terms of how they orchestrate terror or tension and discomfort in the player.

The Witness each really knocked my socks off.

It was a very powerful exercise in learning about learning, especially when so many games spend so much time showing you how to use your three skill trees.

Click to shrink...

Myman.gif

 

[Acquiescence]

Broken Sword was the first point & click adventure game I ever played, and it floored me. It made me realise that games could have a really heavy emphasis on story, contain excellent writing and be frequently laugh out loud funny. Prior to that I was just accustomed to basic arcade thrills, but Broken Sword changed all that.

 

[ShadowAUS]

Dragon Age: Origins - I was fairly young at the time it released and had never really played story heavy games (and certainly not RPG's) before so seeing that a game could have great writing, an amazing world and still my favourite companions in any game ever while also having deep and rewarding gameplay? Shit - that was a revelation. I've been a writing and narrative first gamer pretty much ever since. The romances also probably started my hopeless romantic streak and my love of rom-coms and romance books.

 

[Deleted member 35653]

Definitely Demon's Souls, it didn't really change me as a gamer but made me realize I care most about gameplay, then art direction, music, atmosphere, whatever and last about story.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors was that game for me. I finished that game and knew I'd never look at stories the same way ever again

 

[TGR Onix]

Undertale.
The way it used being a game to tell a unique story while still being "gamey" really can't be topped.

Also Nier: Automata.
Both titles that can only be conveyed in this medium.

 

[Transistor]

Demon's Souls made me realize that I love games that you can just breeze through.

The Witness made me actually look at the world differently.

 

[DNAbro]

Undertale made me realize how much potential there is in telling stories in games that are impossible anywhere else. It takes the fact that it's a game and knows how players think to give the narrative much more depth and adaptability.

 

[Faiyaz]

Dragon Quest V. It made me realize that jRPG's can be THAT good and deep while being so simple on the surface.

 

[Phantom]

Katamari Damacy. Exceptional design and a great look at Japanese creativity.

 

[AzureFlame]

-Demon Souls, the way the world and story is presented is not possible with TV shows or movies and i love that and the how the online features are presented in the most unique way.

-Pokemon games, the old ones before online, how it connected people together in real life.

-Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, when video games are more than just about game play, but also immersive big worlds and stories that can play with your emotions.

 

[Deleted member 5334]

Final Fantasy VII, back in early 1998 (though discovered it on around Christmas 1997, thanks to ads and having a demo disc with my PS1). First RPG and it gave me the whole idea games can have complex (even if flawed) stories that I could never thought to imagine.

 

[Mobyduck]

Braid and Undertale when it comes to the full usage of mechanics for story-telling. Binding of Isaac defined my taste when it comes to mechanics-oriented games.

 

[Fredrik]

The Witness
Made the whole family sit in the living room sketching puzzles. One of the best games ever made.

 

[Deleted member 61326]

Silent Hill Shattered Memories

Click to shrink...

I'm convinced.

 

[Harris Katz]

I've got 3:

The first one is going to seriously date me... I was in high school and went into an arcade with a buddy when I saw Donkey Kong. for the first time. It seems funny now, but in 1981, it was leaps and bounds beyond what I had seen before (Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, etc.). I thought it looked like an actual cartoon come to life and I was blown away!

The second game that comes to mind is Myst on my PC back in the early 90's. I had just gotten a Hewlett Packard 486DX computer (smoking!) and could not believe what I was seeing on the monitor... and it was all on a CD! Really amazing experience back in the day.

The third game was Uncharted 2. To this day, it was the first time that I had seen such a cohesive, cinematic story told in a game, with characters that came to "life" for me. Yes, Naughty Dog started it with Drake's Fortune and topped everything with The Last of Us, but U2 sticks out to me as the one that really did it for me in that genre.

 

[Secretofmateria]

Dark souls 2 made me really appreciate the feeling of accomplishment that comes with overcoming a challenge, ive been a souls fan ever since. I know i spent a lot of time dumping on death stranding, but made it made me appreciate how my favorite part of a tripple a game could be something as trivial sounding as building infastructure. So far, constructing roads and bridges has been my favorite part of that game. Mass effect in 2007 made me realize just how powerful video games could be as a means of story telling.

 

[ryushe]

Super Mario Bros. 3.

I literally thought I was playing a cartoon.

 

[Deleted member 23850]

BioSHock made me realize that video games were an art form.

 

[Flygon]

Ragnarok Online blew my mind with the concept of a realtime persistent game world.

I was so new to the concept, I didn't even understand the game's Save function at certain NPCs was for setting your respawn point, and not actually saving your character's state.

 

[Flevance]

Oh, I'd say the exact same thing OP, but it's Umineko who did it for me

 

[Dreamboum]

Shadow of the Colossus awakened something in me that made me see video games are more than games but worlds with deeper meaning to them.

 

[CorpseLight]

EverQuest when i started playing in 2001 was the most addicting thing I have still to this day ever experienced.

 

[Rotobit]

Before I played Final Fantasy VII, the most in-depth story I expected from video games was Pokémon's short sentences and relatively mundane drama. FFVII kinda opened my eyes to the potential of games to tell stories, even if I was probably way too young to grasp most of it.

Sonic Jam made me aware of the craftsmanship that goes into making games and that they aren't just made in a vacuum, thanks to its concept art galleries which were a wholly new concept to me at the time

Super Smash Bros. Melee made me realize just how far-reaching and historically important games and their characters were. Those trophies were a trip to someone who grew up mostly with Sega consoles.

 

[werezompire]

Retro Game Challenge convinced me that I could be a professional game developer.

 

[DoubleTake]

Bioshock 1 made me begin to pay attention to Video Game narratives and see video games as art.

Silent Hill 2 made me realize how emotionally impacting and all around incredible a video game story can be.(played this after Bio1)

Dark Souls 1 made me appreciate the thrill of overcoming challenges in video games and again reshaped my ideas of how a video game can present it's narrative.

 

[soul]

Back when I was a kid, I played FFIX on my cousin's PS1 console. I enjoyed it so much I couldn't stop asking my parents to buy it to me as a birthday present all year long. It changed my entire perspective on games (mostly playing RTS back then) and showed me how beautiful they can relay complex and interesting stories, even better than books and movies.

...I googled the game and I can't believe it's been 20 years since then. Fuck, man.

 

[Grue]

Super Mario Bros. 3.

I literally thought I was playing a cartoon.

Click to shrink...

To build on this, Mario 64 remains my single most memorable 'wow' gaming moment.

Something about using the analogue stick to make him go into the screen was quite magical, and full of promise. Definitely a combination of hardware and software coming together to make something special.

 

[TKG]

The Last of Us: That game was a turning point for my "game culture". Before experiencing that game, I was mainly playing shooters like Call of Duty, sports games like FIFA and similar games. The Last of Us showed me two things: First, video games can provide great adventure, beautiful narrative, rich characters and more. Second, PlayStation is a great place to play exclusive games. After I played The Last of Us, for some years I only played first-party games of PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 (There're exceptions, you'll see below). I was mind blown with the quality and everything about adventure, story, etc. To this day, I still love PlayStation's adventure-themed first-party games but at the same time, I try to play third-party games because these games can be really good too.

Telltale Games and Life is Strange: Thanks to The Last of Us, I found that I love adventure and narrative-driven games. I can't remember why but I was pretty curious about Life is Strange's first season and bought it on its release day. That game opened up so many new doors for me because now I'm in love with graphic adventure games. After the first season, I played Telltale Games' games too and other Life is Strange games to this day. Currently, this type of games are my favorite. Also, graphic adventure games made me curious about visual novels too. I tried visual novels but only liked Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York.

Forza: I played Forza Horizon 2, Forza Horizon 3, Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Motorsport 7. These games made every other racing game unplayable for me because the quality is so up there in Forza. Between GRID, Gran Turismo Sport, The Crew 2, DriveClub, Project Cars 2, DiRT Rally 2, Need for Speed 2015, Need for Speed Payback, Need for Speed Heat and some other racing games, I could only enjoyed The Crew 2 and Need for Speed Heat.

 

[softtack]

Shadow of the Colossus because it threw the traditional rules out the window at the time.

 

[SparkleMotion]

Mortal Kombat is the game that made my impressionable youthful self realize that video games could have violence in them beyond Mario jumping on a Goomba's head.

 

[GamerJM]

Fire Emblem (7) and then later Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney showed me the heights video game narratives could reach and they both showed me the ways in which game narratives can be impactful thanks to some degree of interactivity.

 

[OryxTheBakinKing]

The Witness

 

[Frosty Death Knight]

The Walking Dead and Death Stranding, both were just very different to what I've played before and enjoyed both of them.

 

[SunBroDave]

Dark Souls
The Last of Us
The Witness
Dishonored
Assassin's Creed 3 (in terms of what makes a 'bad' game)

 

[Deleted member 9035]

Some great answers here.
I'll add Endless Ocean and its sequel Blue World.

There was no health, a very forgiving time limit, no way to die, no weapons either.
It was also controlled entirely with a Wii remote (can't recall if other controllers were supported). Yet the experience was as immersive and as transformative for me as a conventional game like Metroid Prime. Perhaps more so.

Blew my mind.

 

[Daouzin]

Melee made me realize the difference between a video game and a sport.

I only have so much time in my life for video games, but I always make time for Melee.

 

[WestEgg]

Ocarina of Time literally shaped my concept of what adventure was and cemented to me the idea that video games were a legitimate medium for Narrative. Mother 3 would later go on to show me that at their best, games can even be the superior medium for it.

 

[Deleted member 56752]

As a Nintendo fanboy, elder scrolls IV oblivion. Didn't know games could be that big and open

 

[Henchman]

Spec ops : the line was a complete shock for me and made me realize how much a good narration can shape a game into a complete masterpiece.

 

[Elodes]

Rain World led some people, myself among them, to some pretty profound buddhist realizations about the world around us through its narrative and gameplay. Someone did a nice write-up of it here.

 

[Dancrane212]

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Games had gotten an emotional reaction out of me prior to Brothers, but the final gameplay "puzzle" was something so unique to the medium that it really stuck with me.

 

[Garchia3.0]

The first Silent Hill had a huge impact on me as it became the first videogame that truly made me experience dread attacks. First time in my life I had to turn off the console out of fear. Before that, I never knew a videogame was capable of pushing someone to that limit.

The first time I played Super Mario 64 it felt like nothing else before. The 3D environments and the freedom of movement was not just revolutionary but you could feel it was the beginning of a new era.

Xenogears was the first RPG that made me realize videogames had the potential to exploit narratives in profound and intricate ways by mixing up sci-fi with
concepts like religion, politics, psychology and ethics. It doesn't mean other RPG's before it weren't significant at all; it's just that Xenogears raised the bar so much it was impossible for me not to compare that game against every other RPG I play.

Tetris Attack (Pan del Pon) was the first puzzle game that got me so hooked I became addicted to perfecting scores and anticipating combos. I think Puyo Puyo had a similar effect on me but the speed of Tetris Attack changed how I viewed puzzle games entirely.

ICO + Shadow of the Colossus were the first 2 major experiences I had on the medium where it felt as I was out of my body and just leading the main character on a journey. It also made me realize you can tell stories by keeping the narrative hidden from plain sight and spread around the architecture and the environment.

 

[N.47H.4N]

Mine is The Last of Us too.

 

[Mr. Genuine]

Persona 4 convinced me that there are still people out there who know how to present a narrative in a game.

999/Zero Escape made me realize I care more about story than gameplay.