Games that stuck with you
Games that stuck with you
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.
Dreamfall Chapters was the first game where I stopped and thought for 15 minutes about a choice I needed to make, and its implications.
Life is Strange, LiS: Before The Storm, and LiS: True Colors, hve a special place in my heart for their deeply engrossing and moving stories, and for really getting me to care about the characters and their fates.
The first Witcher game was one that drew me in so much that I immediately started a second playthrough upon finishing the first. I have never done that with any other game.
Hardspace: Shipbreakers stuck with me for being such an excellent melange of complex puzzle, industrial accident simulator, and poignant satire on the state of labour in late stage capitalism.
I loved The Longest Journey series. Beautiful games. Not without flaws, but beautiful and thoughtfully written.
Rollercoaster Tycoon. What was a silly little game which we got for free out of a cereal box is now a main stay on any computer I own. Runs on everything and has aged incredibility well.
Shoutout to OpenRCT2 for modernizing it, even if the original games run fine as is
My big three are Outer Wilds which at this point barely needs mentioning, Disco Elysium which seems to be getting more famous by the day, and Hollow Knight.
Outer wilds is an exploration game, and if the other comments haven't been clear, that's all I'm saying.
Disco Elysium is an unbelievably dense police procedural set in a unique setting, it can also be fantastic to explore without hearing much beforehand but unlike outer wilds, you don't really need to beat yourself up for looking up the occasional piece of lore.
Hollow Knight is a souls-like metroidvania, so it's ticking the Sekiro / Dark Souls box well.
I got about 90% through the game with only a rough understanding of the lore before ending up watching video essays about it and I was absolutely blown away. I don't think the lore is overly difficult to find, and isn't that complicated, but like FromSoft's games, it's not always delivered in a way that you naturally pick it up.
I play a lot of games with the "media literacy" part of my brain firmly switched off, because often games handhold you through the storytelling. With Disco Elysium, you know from the getgo that it's a pay attention kind of game, but Hollow Knight, it sort of feels like a storyless flash game, and sometimes key lore is delivered in a beautiful set piece or creature design, so I only realised I should have been paying attention when it was too late to catch up.
I got no less enjoyment from it by catching up on the lore later though, these three games are absolutely my top three.
My final bonus suggestion is to bash out all the supergiant games in order, Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades all hit the marks for me to sometimes just stop in awe and let myself get chills, although less tban the three above. I also think Pyre is one of the most overlooked games of all time.
I never played Outer Wilds and I don't know anything about it, but I absolutely love Disco Elysium and Hollow Knight. I might check out Outer Wilds since I agree with your write ups with the other 2.
Thanks for the rec.
Would you kindly play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Excellent game play, especially going in blind. The music is one of the best game soundtracks ever. The writing is compelling, and you get to play as everyone's favorite broody vampire, Alucard.
Strange, after reading your comment I get a very strong urge, almost need, to play that game. It’s almost like I don’t have a choice not to. Weird. Anyway, I’ll definitely play it soon
Super Metroid - the atmosphere in the beginning of the game was something else when I started it the first time. The rain, the music... As a kid I was just mesmerized.
Gradius - being too fast is not always the best.
Factorio - planning goes a long way. Even if you think you planned for enough space for your construction it will never be enough as you probably need to make it larger later on.
What Remains of Edith Finch was the first game to make me cry. I think I played it when I was around 12, and it just kinda broke me for a few days, particularly Walter's story. Just an entire game of people trying and failing to escape their fate. The narration is pitch perfect. Edith sounds so real, and so tired.
For me, it's Beatmania by Konami. I first played it as a highschooler in the late 90s and it's totally changed the way I visualize music. I will never not think of music as notes falling towards a line because of it.
Psychonauts has had a profound effect on how I view the world and people. Honestly, both games, but moreso the first one.
SIGNALIS has been haunting my brain for a full year now. I'll probably be thinking about that sad scary beautiful horrifying piece of art for the rest of my life.
Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.
Remember Our Promise
Gotta agree with others that mentioned The Outer Wilds. I haven't stopped thinking about that game in some capacity since I played it and the second (part? Game? DLC?) about 6 months ago. I never looked up anything before or during play, but loved reading all about it after finishing them.
It bears repeating...Do not read/watch anything about this game online. The best way to experience it is through discovery and I wish I could wipe the experience from my memory just to experience it again!
Other notable mentions are...
- Dead Space for it's integrated menus and systems that never take you out of the game.
- Prey (the Indigenous People one) for the unique story.
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent for the story, voice acting, and fear.
There are other games to mention, but my kid just came in and broke my train of thought.
Gris and Subnautica. For different reasons, they made me feel things I didn't think I could feel while playing video games anymore.
I think Final Fantasy 7 and 10. the worlds were so well build. And in current times of terror, climate crisis, wars, so many topics were in the games.
As other games i mention Limbo, Ori and Hollow Knight. The have a really great athmosphere. Just thinking about these games, makes me remember of the feeling playing them.
And the biggest game in my list is Elden Ring. So many wow things in there. And the shear amount of content ... Just blew my mind.
Heres a weirder one no one else has mentioned yet: I've heard art described as a way to express and emotion, and I really felt that with Hotline Miami. Its not done through the story or setting (in fact, the intentional ignorance there adds to it) but rather the contrest between the hyper-violent trance as you play through a level, and then the sudden cut of the music as you quietly walk past the mountains of bloodied corpses back to your car. I feel that shift, when you first notice it, really emphasises the pointless brutally of it far more so than many much more heavy-handed attempts in other games.
My answer is the original BioShock, just like OP. The story, setting, soundtrack, and overall vibe made a lasting impact on me.
Definitely "Abzû" and "Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice". One is a beautiful piece of art that touches me every time I replay it and the other finally gave me a wonderful example to show to friends & family of how noisy it is in my head sometimes.
I love Abzû! It truly is a beautiful piece of art.
For me it would have to be BioShock infinite the gameplay, story, characters everything about it was amazing to me.
There are certainly a lot of games I remember fondly; but ever since
I first playedI clicked with Dark Souls, it, its sequels, and the spin-offs have stuck with me. Consumed me. I have put hundreds of hours into every single one. Seen everything I can see, done everything you can do, including the DLC that just came out for Elden Ring and I still. Want. More!don't care if it sounds silly, Dark Souls literally saved my life. was going through Some Shit™ & it was easy for me to take the game as a metaphor for depression; it's not over unless you give up.
i don't play it as often as i maybe should, but it's definitely the game that's stuck with me the most.
I think "What Remains of Edith Finch" traumatized me to this day.
God, that game is so good.
I actually am going to replay it soon, but I am going to inverse tonemap it from SDR to HDR. And play it on my LG OLED. I can't wait.
That game was extremely relatable for people with mentall illness. The game essentially asks the question of whether you can escape your fate from genetic mental illness. In the game, most members of the Finch family suffered from "a curse." But it was it fairly obvious that the curse was mentall illness.
Hollow Knight had me excited for the world like I was a kid. It shows the devs had an artistic vision.
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.
I have to go with Chicory: A Colourful Tale. It starts of kind of slow, but the writing and character interactions sucked me in with heavy themes of self doubt and searching for a place in society, which are very well implemented in my opinion.
There are many games that are about overcoming depression as an overall theme, but it's usually represented in a very metaphorical way and in doing so they kind of lose impactfulness, at least for me. Not here, Chicory straight up has depression, and you're trying to help her out.
The game also has pleasant art and music, and it cleverly pokes at you to be creative at various points. It actually got me to buy a cheap drawing tablet and start playing around with art haha.
Overall just a really well made game that resonated with me on a level that no other game has.
Some games have already been posted, so I’ll share two games that really stuck with me:
- Life is Strange
- Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
I could mention Persona 5 Royal, but it’s such a hugely popular game so there’s no need to elaborate.
Life is Strange took me on a mystery journey, and I felt such nostalgia for my early days as a teenager. It’s an old game, but I won’t spoil it here. I’ll give a small plot. You’re Max Caufield, and you’ve returned to Arcadia Bay and see your old best friend, Chloe Price, whom you haven’t spoken to in years. She gets into some crazy stuff and Chloe is about to be shot by another student, but Max intervenes and discovers she has the power to rewind time, allowing her to save Chloe’s life. There’s an underlying mystery in Arcadia Bay where another young girl mysteriously disappeared, and Max and Chloe team up to try to find her.
Hellblade allowed me to experience what psychosis is like, through the lens of the main character, Senua. This game is unforgettable. Senua needs to save her lover, without letting the rot that’s festering inside her to consume her. That's all I’ll say about this gem.
Seeing Max again in the new life is strange game brought me back to High School as a teenager. I don't think seeing a game trailer has done something like that for me ever.
I really gotta play Life Is Strange. I started playing it a looong time ago but didn't get very far into it at all before I put it down- I don't honestly remember why.
I will forever rave about CrossCode, an indy game I found on gamejolt in 2016. It's a top-down JRPG with great action, a cool parkour mechanic, and really pretty pixel art. It officially released in 2018, and it's one of my favorite games of all time.
I love this game. Number 1 game I've ever played. Sooooo good. I love thr characters so much
Added. This looks like it would be fun on the Deck and checks out at ProtonDB
It’s on sale right now, I’ve added it to my cart. Looks really interesting
Personally I have to mention The Talos Principle and its sequel. It has helped me formulate a kind of philosophy of mind that I couldn't entirely grasp before. It's also just an absolute masterpiece of a puzzle game. If you've played portal, you'll enjoy Talos too most likely.
I asked this once on the Talos Principle subreddit and got absolutely wrecked for asking in the first place awhile back, I'll try again here:
If I like puzzle games but do not enjoy philosophy, would I enjoy the Talos Principle?
In the game, you'll find various philosophical texts. These are entirely optional and serve as a kind of background set and things to think about. So you can just not read them if you don't want to or find them boring. I'm guessing when you say you don't enjoy philosophy, you'd find it boring to read those texts, so just skip them.
You'll also find snippets of other texts that aren't philosophical that give clues to the story. These can also be skipped but you'll miss out on a significant chunk of the story then. There are other story bits that require no reading so you'll still get an idea of it and might still get the gist mostly.
But you can play just the puzzles and not worry about the philosophical background or the story at all. They actually deliberately designed the game this way so that you can enjoy the puzzles alone if that's your jam 🙂. The puzzles are very good so even if you just want some good puzzles, I'd still recommend it.
TUNIC
I just bought Tunic and am going to dive into it today!
Go in blind and avoid looking anything up if possible.
Enjoy!
No game has ever affected me as much as Outer Wilds. Out of every life changing piece of art I've ever experienced, whether it be film, television, music, literature, or videogames, this is the first and only time I've ever gotten chills by the end.
The story isn't super deep and it isn't necessarily profound -- it's not really a belief-changer, outside of, perhaps, your idea of what a videogame is -- but the experience itself is beautiful and rewarding and I'm not sure it can be recaptured.
Also for anyone looking to play it, don't read anything about it! Not even the Steam description! It's best experienced completely blind.
Nier Automata
The Last of Us
Undertale
Prey 2017
SOMA. Duplicating consciousness across multiple bodies and the branching off of one particular conscious mind to carry the narrative while the others were left behind was a fascinating concept for a game to engage with. Plus the atmosphere was a sublime nightmare.
That's what I came here to say as well. It's so well done and it hits in such a profound way.
Have you read any of the short stories on the game's website? I highly recommend it. Catherine's is so sad and it really gives a ton of insight into what she went through.
The discussion between Catherine and Simon on the elevator is my favorite dialogue in any game. Not just are the voice actors amazing but a common sci-fi trope is presented from a much darker view than usual.
(Spoilers for SOMA ahead; go play the game, it only costs 5 bucks on sale)
Another vote for outer wilds. Its weird how often it pops into my head.
My game time is limited so I play what I hope to be most impactful. My list is chock full of unforgettable experiences:
- Control
- RDR2
- Uncharted
- Dead Space
- God of War
- Ori and The Will of the Wisps
- Disco Elysium
- The Artful Escape
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Gris
The first three I’d say there was life before and then life after. The rest, I wouldn’t want to miss if I had a redo in life.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 both could’ve made it for me too, but for the sake of the post I only wanted to do two games so other people could suggest some. I absolutely agree with your picks
- Limbo
- The Long Dark
- What remains of Edith Finch
- Subnautica
- Ape Out
- Fire Watch
- Prey
- Hitman 1,2,3
There's nothing like a great story married to good gameplay and simple yet beautiful and effecting visuals. I guess also a small but skilled team of developers with common focus.
I’m so glad someone mentioned Limbo. Have you played Inside? It’s my preference between the two. They’re both A+ games though in my books
Yes inside is... something more than limbo, a story without words but you can tell exactly what's going on. So sad too.
What is it about the Long Dark that's stuck with you?
The art style is good especially the varying weather and sky effects, and changes in music to accompany it. So many different areas and places to explore. The challenges are punishing but amazing when you succeed - something about being on the edge of death and pulling yourself back at the last second.
I'm waiting for the last episode of the story mode to release.
For me its Subnautica because the progression works so well. I've tried lots of survival games and sandbox games with similar progression afterwards, but none of them had the same impact on me. It's also because of the genre - Sci-fi on an alien planet, discovering what actually happened, and all that baked into some real satisfying gaming loop. Also, without spoilers, the end sequence always makes me emotional, regardless of how many times I've played it. It just speaks to me on a personal level.
Subnautica is the perfect mesh of several things that work fantastically. It is a good survival game but with it's upgrade and discovery based exploration limitations, it's closer to a metroidvania than it is to Minecraft. The thing it does so well is sneak this past you, it's a mystery driven metroidvania where the downtime is a resource gathering, based building game.
The closest game I can think of of that tried the same mystery metroidvania approach is The Forest, but this feels like one of the many many games from the post Minecraft and DayZ boom that has a certain scrappiness to it that somehow Subnautica absolutely sidesteps, and it's all from just being a really well made game. The vibrant and often tranquil art style that lends itself to awe inspiring locations, and the level design and overall plot support eachother so well.
That said, I'm not in love with the amount of resources. A 4*8 gridded inventory puts me off a game from a worry of it to getting too grindy, and subnautica is a "I need to build another storeroom" kind of game. With a full survival game like Minecraft, which is endless and about exploration and progress alone, I know my storage will be unweildy and I can forgive it, but I'd have appreciated Subnautica finding a way to require less mindless resource hunting / busywork unless itnwas optional base cosmetics or the like.
There was so much thought put into that game. While I couldn't work it out for myself, with the help of guides I worked it out. The sense of peril and discovery was wonderful.
I have many choices but here's a few that really stand out to me
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The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine If you've played just the base game of Witcher 3, you've missed out. I decided after playing the base game and waiting for a couple years that I'd go back for the DLC. I spent upwards of 100+ hours with this game on the hardest difficulty and the story in the base game is long, engrossing, and whimsical. But at the end you aren't really completely satisfied despite several moving moments. Enter the DLC of Blood and Wine though and now you're basically in The Witcher 3 part 2. This is where you leave the baggage of the main game behind and play out the best ending to any character I've ever seen. It's full of adventure and new sights to see, its full of interesting characters to meet, and it captures the sense of love that Geralt has for the other characters. I legitimately cried at the end of the epic adventure when you sit down next to Ciri and just.. realize that its over. Every good book I've ever read makes you really feel an empty heart to see the last page and read the final words on it. It felt just like that and I was sad to leave that world behind.
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Kingdom Hearts Series Just an incredible game series that appears almost made for children but turns into a very convoluted and at times extremely beautiful story. Whats so wild about it is that the story is somewhat complex but the emotions throughout are so simple, pure, and understandable. It gets to the core of what we all feel and makes cartoons of our emotions and never leaves that space. And the music matched with those emotions is just the purest art.
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To The Moon Its short, its sweet, it has great music, go play it and bring tissues. Its a sad tale with very simple gameplay but I listen to the soundtrack once in a while to this day and I never stop thinking about the themes of this game. What exists in this game is so thoughtful, thought provoking, understandable, and most importantly human. I can't discuss the story at all without spoiling it but just go play it. It takes a few hours and I recommend never leaving your seat for the whole thing. You can probably even just watch it be played on youtube without commentary and get 95% of the experience.
Blood and Wine was especially tragic; I sympathized with Dettlaff and his pain, and Syanna was a terrible person. But preventing Detlaff from killing Syanna for using him leads to him attacking Geralt, who has to defend himself. Regis understands why you had to kill Dettlaff, but he still loved him like a brother; the death of Dettlaff leaves him feeling terribly alone. There isn't any way to end the bloodshed; everyone is hell-bent on destroying themselves.
That’s what I really love about the Witcher and its writing, there aren’t very many characters that I can think of that don’t have many dimensions to them. And every decision you make isn’t good or bad, just different. Even the love interest you can completely turn your back on and for understandable reasons. It’s just phenomenal writing that doesn’t exist in any other game of its caliber imo
Do you need to play the first two Witcher games to play the third one? I want to play the Witcher 3 but I can’t seem to get into the first one. I’ve got about 6-7 hours put into it on steam and I haven’t had any desire to come back since
I actually haven't played the other two since they're both very old games at this point but I do plan to try them out. Witcher 3 seems like it mostly stands on its own and you won't be missing anything too huge when it comes to the story and characters from the other games. That being said, its a situation where knowing the prior games helps and you'll understand the relationships better. If you bounced off of the first one though, my recommendation is just to at least read up on the characters and major events of the first two. Maybe watch a game movie if you can find one. I went in completely blind into the third game and it turned out fine so really you can't go wrong, don't let the prep for playing the game stop you from actually playing it.
Absolutely not- you can just play TW2 which is significantly less dated than TW1, or just skip directly to TW3. Maybe watch a recap of the first two games if you do that, though.
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Games that play with metanarratives stick with me:
- Beginner's Guide
- The Stanley Parable (Ultra Deluxe especially)
- Break The Game really stuck with me the ending especially.
Damn! Your list made me remember that I missed Superliminal.
Which led me to Stanley’s Parable, which I hated. I maintain that I totally missed something despite a few playthroughs to “the end” but it seems to have just gone over my head.
*Break the Game is $2 during the Summer Sale. Definitely trying it.
Which end? The main story is just a narrative device, in fact you shouldn't really obey the narrator at all. Calling any end "The End" doesn't make sense in the context of the game, really. Unless you just broke out of the mind control facility three times then called it quits? That end is supposed to be non enticing so that you try literally anything else before putting it down. I think the going insane end sticks with me the most. Although the game dev commentary in the recent release is fun.
Little Big Adventure Little Big Adventure 2
- Rain World (top favorite game if all time)
- Cassette Beasts
- Lotr: BfME2
- Wizard of Legend (favorite Roguelike)
- Bloodborne
- Dark Souls (original)
- Gauntlet: Dark Legacy
I'll tell you this and I would love to know if anyone agrees; Starfield's entire ship combat mode is stunningly similar to the Wing Commander series. I'd bet the farm some lead devs or PMs were fans of WC.
Granted you are always going to be limited within a genre however to me;
- the views feel the same
- ship handling is very very similar
- the way you transfer power between systems is identical in practice and visual design
- weapons are similar in function and feel
- enemy ships come at you in similar counts and formations
you can't control individual shield direction and you can't ram enemies and do damage but otherwise every time space combat starts i expect a little PIP cat to start talking shit.
I actually had a really fun time with Starfield. It didn’t blow me away and suck me in for 1000+ hours but the 60-70 hours I spent on my first playthrough was a blast and I got immersed and really felt connected to the characters. Not to mention the ship building which I got from pretty obsessed with for a couple weeks
Rayman 2 PS1, Rayman 1 PS1, Rayman Rush PS1, Rayman Arena PS2, Rayman 3 PS2, Rayman Origins Wii, Rayman Legends PS3 and Switch.
It's been years since I finished CrossCode, but I just cannot stop thinking about the characters and world. I won't spoil anything for anyone who hasn't experienced it yet, please go play this game it's on sale right now and make sure you get the epilogue DLC, but Lea holds a special place in my heart for what an emotionally compelling protagonist she is.
Outer Wilds.
This is definitely my answer as well. Really wish I could wipe my memory and experience it again, I've never played a game quite like it. That first bombshell they drop after 20 mins in (IFYKYK) absolutely blew me away
Oneshot, Undertale, Mother 2 and 3 are games I think about years after playing them, great worlds and characters. Super Metroid too, the ambience alone still strikes a chord with me.
Mother I feel like changed the way I view storytelling and RPG game design, like I use it as a mental benchmark for story-driven and/or turn based RPGs
Like I don't think I would have appreciated OFF or Omori the same way without having played Mother games as a teen
Persona 4 as it was my first. the concept of having to choose how to spend your time, split between training in the dungeons, fostering relationships with friends, or studying and working part time was affecting for me, and its characters and stories are very good.
By extension Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney for showing childhood me that I liked visual novels, before I even knew what that was.
Monster Hunter. I learned to play MH purely because of its reputation as an obtuse game, I thought if I can learn to play and maybe even enjoy MH, that the other parts of my life I wasn't happy with couldn't be that much harder to figure out. Years later and I still adore this series, and don't think it's actually that complex, it's just hard to teach.
Dark Souls. Really taught me that games are more than just games. They're worlds, concepts, feelings. I'm sure I have more games than this that were formative to me, but these are what came to mind.
Which Monster Hunter game did you start with? I like listening to old players gripe about how MH:W ruined the series for them. I haven't played any others but it was an awesome game for me.
I started with Freedom Unite on a PSP as an early teen, but had no idea what the fuck was happening, just that it all looked awesome.
Then in my early 20s I resolved to learn Generations Ultimate. I slightly gripe about how almost all non hunting quests have disappeared in World & Rise, because it takes away your ability to change the pacing of the game without putting it down for a more relaxing game.
However, what World did to MH's weapon movesets in its expansion and... sleekening is incredible, and the move to open levels with no load zones along with the interactions of multiple monsters does an incredible amount to the atmosphere and experience.
So I love GU and I love World. And I love Rise. It's a series I pre-order because I know that even if it might be different, I know the developers gave a huge fat shit about the game as they made it and it shows.
Mine's probably nostalgia tinged but here goes: FFVII, VIII, IX, and X I love the setting, I love the mechanic changes between the series from materia giving various boosts in 7 to the actual spell slots changing stats in 8 and the summons in 9, and blitzball in 10. The story for each was unique in their own world ending way and beautiful to run through. I replay them probably once every three-five years or so but they mark a high point for me. Adding to the list, Demon's Souls. I never fully understood the storyline behind it but the sequencing of zones around the central hub and the combat are some of my favorite aspects. I need another play on that soon.... It would probably be a little weeby of me to take some life lessons from them but they did help me to understand that hard decisions sometimes have to be made that include personal sacrifice and doing things that are unpleasant in order to move everyone forward and up.
Warzone 2100 (you can download for free as it is an old PC game that went GPL)
gets more on the nose by the day