Games that had a powerful effect on you

The game that had the most impact on me in the last 20 years was metal gear solid 1. I must of played that game 50+ times in the first 3 months I got it.

 

Final Fantasy 8...

I love it because of the story... Characters... Music... It was the best game of my life.

It was about a S.E.E.D (Some kind of special force, )

Whose name was "Squall Leonheart", he, with his friends ("Selfie, Zell, and others) would have to go to an adventure to defeat the The Evil(?) Sorceress Edea...

 

The Last Of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Final Fantasy VIII (but also VI, VII and X) and To The Moon for their stories.

Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 3 and Uncharted 3 for the awesome multiplayer, i can play those games forever.

 

Iji. dayum that ending made me cry -- and for one of the last characters I expected to be sympathetic.

 

.hack G.U. games, Vol. 2 and 3 had heartwarming moments that just made me feel great.

 

Spec Ops : The Line

That game was one of the best I've ever played,It made me stop to think for a second.That war,war never changes (LOL)

Seriously though,that

Spoiler

White Phosphorus

scene was quite shocking.

 

Legend of Dragoon, FF9 and Chrono Trigger...

 

I tried to write a paragraph and it ended up being a huge list, so... why not?

- (Tengen)Tetris, because it was the first videogame I ever saw.

- The 16 bits sonics where a big part of my childhood (I'm old )

- Metal Gear Solid, I was awed by it's cinematic feel and story telling, I must have memorized most of it growing up and it played a big part in me learning english. (I'm self thaught)

- Final fantasy VII, while not the first rpg I played, left a huge impact on me and I love everything about it. It's also the other big factor in me learning english.

- Valkyrie profile. It got me into the internet! I was tearing my hair apart trying to get the A ending, decided to check out a cybercafe and look for the info online. I ended up in the official Enix forums. The rest is history.

- Final fantasy X made me care about the main character as much as VII did, but it managed to be even more relatable.

- Baldur's Gate absorbed huge amounts of my time I'll never get back and I'm very thankful to Bioware for it.

- Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines raised forever my standards in videogame writing.

- Knights of the Old Republic 2 raised the bar even more!

I bet I could think of more (mostly oldies), but I've rambled long enough.

 

Lunar 1-2 and breath of fire 3 built the game maker i am today.

 

To The Moon, need I say anymore.

 

Tales of Symphonia for introducing me to JRPGs.

Dragon Age: Origins for introducing me to WRPGs.

Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country for being such a huge part of my childhood.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for being the game I played endlessly during junior high.

Chrono Trigger for being such a pixel art inspiration.

And of course Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean for the beautiful scenery, beautiful music, and...well, pretty much everything. xD

 

Just today, Emily is Away. Yesterday, some gamebook.

 

Dark Souls. 1, because 2 succesfully managed to get me not to give three quarters of a dayum about the story.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Those characters were just so properly rounded out, the soundtrack that came along with each of their quests...I don't even know where to start.

Transistor (bestgameever). Because if it hadn't, it wouldn't be the best game ever.

Undertale, kinda, but I just started that one so...I guess I should wait further.

Deadly Premonition. Yes, that bug ridden, poorly voice acted, amalgamation of a game SOMEHOW managed to make me feel like I was going home after a long day of work whenever I went to the Inn after an investigation. And I haven't played many games that, even with a similar premise, have given me such a powerful feeling of "calling it a day". Zach is probably the biggest reason I feel this way.

Honorable mentions: Hotline Miami (closure), Sunless Sea (tension), TftB (and all Borderlands games), Spec Ops: The Line (obvious), Bastion (not best game ever, but close).

 

• Lufia II, largely because it was one of the first story-heavy games I'd ever played. Fortress of Doom and Curse of the Sinistrals definitely count as well.
  
• Plenty of BioWare RPGs: Knights of the Old Republic, the Mass Effect trilogy, the Dragon Age games (particularly DAII, a.k.a. the BioWare game where you aren't the most important person in the universe).
  
• Final Fantasy, for certain. Particularly the FFXIII games, which do a phenomenal job with character development. (Edit: By the way, I knew all the way back then that someone would waltz along and start spewing the usual complete garbage back when I posted this.)
  
• Dragon Quest III; even if I think most DQ games are meh, it's definitely a classic.
  

(Spec Ops: The Line gets a...special mention. Because "beat the player over the head for the story you wrote" certainly has a powerful effect on me! )

 

First of all: I do not want to disrescept your choices or experiences. The only person who can judge if a game had a big impact on you is yourself.

But while I am a big fan of the Final Fantasy series, I am really not happy about the last games.

You are the first person I ever hear this from. All I ever read or hear (or say ;-) ) is that while XII was already bad, XIII-1 and XIII-3 set the expectation bar for the next Final Fantasy games even lower because they were so poorly written. Especially the hollow characters were alwas a problem for me. Off course also the gameplay of this games was not what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game (XIII-2 did a lot more stuff better but was still not as good as many other parts of the franchise).

The only good character plot was the development of the relationship between Hope and Snow and even that was a cliche.

It would be really cool if you could try to explain to me which character development you mean exactly, so I can get a better understanding why you like the game for this and perhaps even change my mind a bit about it.

 

Some more honorable mentions: Valiant Hearts and Catherine.

 

I would say Lunar 1-2. It's the first RPG I've ever completed. Especially Lunar 2, being one of the best RPGs in PSX era.


Honorable mention : Tales of The Abyss

 

There are a few games that had a big impact on my life as a gamer and as a game developer.

FF3/6 on SNES however you want to list it. I played that so many times... for its time it was probably the best story I had ever seen in a game. I still have powerful memories of that game and IMO it was better than FFVII.

Then on PSX we there were many memorable, but the one that stands out the most had to be Xenogears. Great combat engine, great story, great graphics for it's time and great music. Star Ocean 2 was more powerful as inspiration than anything gameplay was out of this world (no pun intended) but it gave me countless ideas...

Xenogears lead me to Xenosaga series. Albeit, they were only loosely related to Xenogears, they told an amazing story and had amazing graphics as well. A lot of people complained about them being cut scene heavy, but it was once of the things I liked most about the series. It was not only a powerful game but it had powerful characters as well.

Then there was Neverwinter Nights. The game itself wasn't all that impressive IMO. The game creation side of it is what got me into game development. I was even offered a position at Bioware because of my scripting. I ended up turning it down because it meant moving to Canada and while being old enough to make the move, I wasn't mature enough to handle the move and be that far away from family. Biggest mistake of my life - but that's a story for a different day.

 

I'd say borderlands, man that game is fun.

 

Tales of Symphonia !

For me it's not only my first RPG I played alone ( except of Baldurs gate: dark alliance that I played together with my father), but also the best example of a JRPG there is.

Does not get the love it deserves.....

I think it has all elements a great RPG has, and it heavily influences my own  game.

The official walk through was also the first English  "Book" I ever read. Ah...looking up all the strange words I didn't know.... playing with a dictionary next to me... playing  that scene in Meltokio when you first met Zelos over and over again... sweet childhood memories...

My English grades skyrocketed after playing it ^^ 

Tales of the Abyss is great too. 

Honorable mentions: 

Pokemon franchise

Rune Factory

Civilization