Ender Lilies

It’s a mechanically strong Metroidvania with branching paths, hidden areas, and exploration, but what I love about it is the atmosphere and the juxtapositions is uses.

It is a crumbling decaying kingdom full of monstrosities, and the main character is an innocent little girl in a pure white dress. Lily does not attack, some of the monsters she is able to purify to restore their mind at which point they help her. So when you attack a monster appears to do the attack animation, while lily cowers a bit behind it.

One thing I love is when you are in a boss fight and shit is going down hard, the sound track is extremely chill piano music. The soft and beautiful contrasts against the harshness of the situation is a very compelling way.

The sequel Ender Magnolias is good as well. Mechanically there are some improvements, but I don’t feel like the atmosphere or world building is as good. That may be because I played Lilies and was used to it. If your haven’t played either I’d suggest starting with Lilies, and if you like Magnolias is worth your time.

StarCraft 2 was the perfect competitive RTS, with the best pro scene. I lived and breathed that game for years. Sucks that Blizzard decided to stop supporting it.

It’s easily The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

It has everything I could ask for in a game: Sword fighting. Magic. Secrets. Dungeon crawling. An alternate dimension. Side quests. Different tools and items. There’s enough content that it feels fulfilling to complete it. Peak art. Peak music. NPCs don’t talk too much, and there are just enough of them to make the world feel alive. Bosses.

I mean Skyrim is kinda cool. In similar vain I really really enjoyed Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, waiting for KCD2 to get all its DLCs before I jump into it. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was also pretty good considering its age. I found Control to have a very addictive and unique gameplay. Special mention to The Last of Us part 1 and 2, as they had really seamless integration of gameplay, narrative and atmosphere.

I feel like my “all-time favorite” changes depending on my mood, but if I had to pick just one, I’d probably go with The Witcher 3. That game just hit all the right notes—amazing story, incredible world-building, and so much stuff to do without feeling like pointless filler. Plus, the expansions were just as good, if not better than the base game.

I replayed the entire game after completing Cyberpunk 2077 and finished it this weekend. Sadly for me the game doesn’t hold up that well in various aspects and it was one of my favourites. The story is great, the ending is really well done, but the combat is too simple, the leveling of the game is all over the place, the RPG aspect of the game is really underwhelming and the game is just too damn long. I actually ended up enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 more at the end, but TW3 is a better game in general.

As for my “all-time favorite”, that depends.

Nier: Automata changed me, the game had a real impact on me.

Zelda BOTW is the game that made me feel happier while playing it.

Sekiro is the game that just clicked perfectly.

DAO was my all time favourite RPG but Divinity 2/BG3 both took that spot.

Chrono Trigger is the game that I’ll always remember, the singleplayer game that I’ve replayed the most.

Terraria is my favourite indie game.

I have a real soft spot for Bloodstained, I loved Casltevania Symphony of the Night and I waited so long for Bloodstained and the guys delivered what I expected. The first game that I wanted to do 100%.

I think Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was amazing. The only gripe I have is that the Switch just can’t handle it very well.

It’s hard to answer this because if you’d asked me 5 years ago my answer would be different (not just because TotK hadn’t released) because my tastes change.

Shadow of the Colossus was barely even a game, it was art. I don’t think I even played it for more than 20 hours total but just a simple masterpiece.

I call it a tie between The Last of Us and Uncharted 2. These are two of the most fun games I’ve ever played for totally different reasons.

Uncharted 2 was a lot of a great adventure, and loads of fun with great characters, while The Last of Us games were extremely emotional and I was totally invested in the characters and story.

Total War: Warhammer 3. I play it more or less exclusively with a buddy in multiplayer. Been playing since part 1 came out. I love how the addition of magic and flying creatures changed the Total War formula up, the immense size of the map, the mixture of races.

Rimworld with a couple of hundert mods is still at the top, although I tend to let it rest for some months before I pick it up again.

Baldurs Gate 3 and Divinity Original Sin 2 are my favourite RPG games.

Used to play Skyrim with a bassilion mods a LOT and love it for the hours of enjoyment, but after so many years I have possibility played enoth of it… But who knows, might feel the itch and spend 48 hours trying to get every mod to run just to stop playing after one hour again at some point.

Loved the Mass Effect Triology. Only did one playtrough, that was intens and great.

Binding of Isaac is still my go to for a quick 30 minutes gaming session when I feel like it. I realy suck at it too, so after 12 years there’s still a lot left to do.

My “nostalgia favorites” will always be Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Sonic 2 (Genesis version). Sonic 2 is just so fun to go back and play any time I want a quick retro sides rolling platformer fix, and I’ve played through it more times than I can count. OoT was the first game I played that showed me what games could be through a combination of story/cutscenes and gameplay, as someone who was never able to get my hands on an SNES to play the epic JRPGs of the console growing up (I loved my Genesis, but let’s be real, those kinds of games on Sega consoles didn’t really come until later).

Nowadays Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have eclipsed OoT for me, and for other more modern games another standout fave is Fire Emblem Three Houses, due in large part to its story and setting having everything I look for in a game, and its characters actually being more fleshed out and developed than the one-note units handed to you in many other games in the franchise. Engage has more… Engaging gameplay (sorry not sorry for the pun) but the story and characters hold it back quite a bit for me. Gameplay-wise, my favorite strategy RPG actually has to be Triangle Strategy, in that it has quite creative maps and every unit is designed with the potential to be useful depending on how you approach your own strategy, but I like the story/characters of Three Houses at least a bit more, and I tend to value story more in general in games. I’m also a big fan of the Ace Attorney franchise for the overarching story, characters and writing that it’s built up through its history. Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, Apollo and friends are all among some of my favorite characters in gaming, and I’m glad I decided long ago to give that quirky-seeming series a try. AA7 when, Capcom?

Sometimes Rimworld, sometimes CP2077 and sometimes BG3

I like many types of games. My favorites are probably Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Super Metroid, and Super Mario World.

Planetside 2 as it was many years ago. I’ll be forever bitter how they ruined it.

If I look at recorded playtime then its teamfortress 2 which wins just by 0.1h over rimworld and I havent really played tf2 for over 10 years.

Minecraft

There are so many things you can do in the game, especially using mods

All time faves, it’s a toss up between Fallout: New Vegas and RDR2.

Those two are the ones I still enjoy restarting new games in, and still enjoy playing, despite the cumulative hours logged over the years.

Very special mention to Skyrim though, obviously. I think I’ve logged more hours in Skyrim than the two above, potentially combined, but because I played that so much, I no longer have the desire to play it again whereas when I’m stressed at work, I often find myself daydreaming about riding my good boah through fields of lush grass and fishing in my lil boat.

And I would never have developed the love of gaming I have today if it wasn’t for Oblivion, of all games - so for nostalgia, that gets a mention too.