Feel free to speak about your favorites, recommend games to other users and anything else you can think of. My rationale for my favorites is the following (I am not a very good writer so bear with me):
Planescape Torment: Interesting setting which I feel is drug-fueled to an extent, great gritty atmosphere, the writing is very good and the narrative is extremely interesting and well done. Go blind and you won’t regret it.
Terraria: The game has a lot of flaws (and I prefer the exploration focus before hardmode more than the boss rush), but I have played it a ton of times alone, or with my gf, or with friends so it is my comfort game and I can always relax when playing it. Also, he Thorium mod is a pretty good content mod that stays true to the spirit of the game.
FFXIV: Shadowbringers: It’s the climax of the whole story of FFXIV, where almost all of the mysteries are resolved, the plotlines converge and the main antagonists are confronted and explored. I love the setting, the enemies and the lore of the First as a whole, and the story if full of emotion and more thematically rich than one would expect, with a part of the game being a direct parallel of the first world during climate change, and it involves positively if naively portrayed class struggle.
ZeroRanger: Besides the amazing aesthetic, soundtrack and the good gameplay (two of the bosses are some of my favorite of all time), the game blends the story with every aspect of the gameplay seamlessly and it perfectly executes the Buddhism theme in ways I cannot explain without spoiling you. It also has its fair share of emotional moments, and is the perfect mecha anime-like game imo. OFF: Fucked up surreal RPG maker game with a unique aesthetic and disturbing atmosphere and soundtrack. The story has many interpretations and it makes great use of the gaming medium in a meta way to make you feel things. It’s probably the most artistic game I have ever played.
Trails in the Sky trilogy: I used the 3rd for my 3x3 since it is the one that impacted me the most emotionally due to the amazing character writing and the emotional journey of the protagonist, but the whole trilogy is the peak of JRPGs for me, with a very fun combat system, amazing music, characters and an interesting setting with great worldbuilding. Some dislike it due to being slower plot-wise than games like Final Fantasy, but that just gives the characters and the setting time to be fleshed out, making you much more invested when shit actually goes down. The portrayal of the nationalist antagonists and the politics as a whole are lib, but in the face of everything else that makes the games good I can easily ignore it.
Hollow Knight: This is pretty much the perfect platformer in all aspects except the music which is very good but not exactly my style. The aesthetic, exploration and bosses are all amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.
Katamari Damacy: Has a very unique style of gameplay and humor which accompanied with the great Shibuya-kei soundtrack makes for a great stress reliever game. The final level is something to behold as well (I won’t spoil you).
These games have become part of me (sorry for the cheesiness), and if you haven’t played them you are doing yourself a disservice.
My favorite genre by far is strategy games — 4X, grand strategy, and RTS. There is definitely some recency bias in this list, and it is not meant to be an attempt at finding the objectively best games in the genre. These are just some of my favorite games within the genre. I would probably have to make like a top 20 at least just to cover Strategy games.
Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne - This was the 1st RTS that got me hooked on RTS games back in the day. Sure, Age of Empires was great and all, but nothing hit me like Warcraft 3.
Red Alert 3 - Cheesy as fuck, but in the best way possible. Its very funny and still manages to be a kickass RTS with a solid campaign. I’ve never been super into Command & Conquer, but this game turned me into a fan.
Dawn of War: Soulstorm - The grand finale of the Dawn of War 1 series and one of my all-time favorite RTS games. It’s a badass intro to the 40k universe and an awesome game for its time.
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm - I got into the beta for Wings of Liberty, but it wasn’t until Heart of the Swarm that I got sucked into competitive multiplayer. I never climbed higher than Platinum League, but damn, it was fun being decent at an RTS.
Civilization 6 - I played Civ 4 and Civ 5 before and I like them a lot but and im aware the is controversial to some I think CIV6 is the best CIV game
Stellaris - A grand strategy/4X beast I’ve been obsessed with since day one in 2016. This game is straight-up one of the greatest of all time for me. It’s locked into my top 10, no question.
Crusader Kings 3 - A dynasty RPG/grand strategy mashup. I liked CK2, but CK3 made me believe in the divine right of kings, even if it’s all just an excuse to fuck around and create chaos.
Victoria 3 - You can turn the USA into a communist utopia in this game, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a great economic and political sim set between 1836 and 1936.
Age of Empires 4 - I started playing this recently, and it’s a damn good modern take on the classic RTS formula.
I really like CK3 and it had one of the best launches of a paradox game IMO, that being said It never grabbed me like ck2 did. I love Stellaris and it’s crazy to think how different it is from launch. What are your thoughts on Civ 7? I haven’t really heard much about it even though it’s coming out next month.
The thing with Civ games is that the community always seems to hate or dislike the newest ones when they first come out. But give it 1-2 years and most of the community will play the new CIV game and be pretty happy with it.
People gave Civ 5 a lot of shit at the start, and the same thing happened with Civ 6. Civ 7 will probably get the same treatment, but in the end, it’ll likely become the biggest Civ game to date in terms of success and player numbers.
One thing about modern Civ games (and yeah, I’m including Civ 4 in this) is that they always try something new. That’s exactly what they’re doing with Civ 7.
Now, my personal take? I’m pretty hopeful Civ 7 could end up surpassing Civ 6 for me. Obviously, I’ll need to put at least 50+ hours into it to really give it a proper shot, but I’m optimistic.
I played a ton of Civ 5 and then a good amount of Civ 6. I really like the climate change and sea level rise as well as the map changes with flooding rivers and stuff. Also a lot of dope civs were added with a much less eurocentric focus.
For me I think this is partly due to it being relatively easy to understand compared to CK2, so the drive to keep unraveling how the game actually played wasn’t there. Like, the CK3 tutorial could actually be played and wasn’t bugged out half the time and the systems and mechanics were all extremely clearly explained., meanwhile it took me 100 hours to figure out reliably successful ways to play CK2 without getting owned.
Absolutely this. I understand that some folks prefer CK2 - BUT CK3 is MUCH more easy to grasp and beginner friendly. The fact that CK3 actually looks nice and has an amazing nestled tooltip system is just icing on top. Basically I understand why / how something happens in CK3 most of the time, which isnt really the case with CK2.
Also on the mod front while CK2 has awesome full conversion mods, CK3 is really getting there. There is like probably a dozen or so really big mods in development atm for CK3
Yeah the tooltip system is great. Most of the big mods like after the end and game of thrones are getting to the level of their ck2 versions.