Skip Navigation
Let's Talk About Games @feddit.uk
SbisasCostlyTurnover @feddit.uk

Games you wish you could experience again for the first time.

Two initially jump to mind for me.

Outer Wilds took me three attempts to get into, but when it did...wow. Its a game that I is definitely more than the sum of it's parts, and one that I'd argue is genuinely beautiful in it's story and how it tells that story.

That said, once you've worked out the games mystery; it's story, it's tricks, timing and logistics, I wonder how more pull the game would have.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a game that I spend a lot of my time thinking about. The music, the atmosphere and of course, the games moment to moment gameplay.

Those puzzles will likely (hopefully) melt from my mind at some point, but even then I fear that initial sense of excitement and intrigue will be lost.

As much as I plan on going back to it at some point, I'm not sure a game of it's nature is all that well suited to additional playthroughs unfortunately.

85 comments

  • I mean, it's the Outer Wilds. That's the right answer to this question.

    But also, Hellblade was absolutely incredible to play in one sitting with good headphones in a pitch black room. It took a few minutes to get used to the voices, but once I was finished with the game, my mind felt strangely empty for a while

    • I didn't play Hellblade in one sitting, but I also really loved it. The blind trial where you navigate purely through sound and controller vibration and have to ignore the scary monsters will stay with me for a while. Very cool level.

      Looking forward to the sequel.

  • In no particular order:

    Undertale, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2, Final Fantasy III/VI, Slay the Princess. All those games "lose" something the more that you've played them.

  • It's World of Warcraft, and it includes being the age I was with the knowledge I had at the time. Vanilla was such a stabbing in the dark experience, and then stepping through to Hellfire Peninsula, what a vast view compared to the prior landscapes. I miss not knowing who's "bad" and who's "good" and who's "meta"

    Maybe that was always there (though I doubt it was there as much without all the third party metric collecting interference) but that's why I caveat with knowing what I knew at the time

    • Same, I think.

      I still vividly remember, just a few hours into my first character (orc hunter), when I made it to the Crossroads in the Barrens for the first time. While I was seeing what NPCs were there and starting to pick up quests, a bunch of Alliance PCs turned up and attacked. Word made it back to Orgrimmar and high-level Horde characters started dropping in. As a level 5-ish character, watching all these high-level characters go at each other was so exciting.

      I hit one of the Alliance guys with Hunter's Mark, which turned on PVP for me, and I was almost immediately one-shotted by something I never saw. coming. Worth it though.

      Played through a few of the expansions, but nothing quite recaptured the sense of exploration of that vanilla experience.

    • The culture that grew up through that game has never been equaled. I was only there from BC onwards, so I missed the initial evolution but it's really interesting to look back and read the history, especially the parts I lived.

  • I'm definitely showing my age here, but for me it would be a PC game from 1996 called The Neverhood. When I played it at age 15 a lot of the biblical overtones were kind of lost on me, and the guy who created it turned out to be kind of a nut job, but it's one of the most fun and creative puzzle games I've ever played. The entire game was made in stop motion with real clay sets and figures. The music is amazing and the soundtrack is definitely worth listening to on its own even if you don't play the game. I've replayed it on emulators a few times over the years, but it was nothing like experiencing it for the first time and discovering all the puzzles and secrets! This was pre YouTube so even if you had to occasionally check the walkthrough you still didn't really know what to expect next!

    • Oh, yes. This was also a game of my childhood. I first played it when I was six, maybe? Didn't get very far, because I never thought to go back to the place the Weasel popped out of for that final button to get out of the first area. I think I was eight when my older sib and I finally completed it. This was before I had access to the internet, so we called up the family member who had given it to us for hints when we finally put our nose to the grindstone to get it done.

      In retrospect, the help we needed was ridiculous and somehow we figured out the harder puzzles with less issues. (Probably not me. My sib is better at those things than I am.)

      I also didn't know anything about the biblical overtones, because I wasn't raised with religion. It was just nutty and unique. Yet I still listen to the Neverhood OST and quote Willie Trombone's tapes.

      I remember being scared of the first person sections. I genuinely expected something to pop out. XD

      • I've never been particularly religious so I missed that part the first time through. I loaned it to a friend of mine at school and he pointed it out to me lol!

        My family has just gotten the Internet maybe a year or two before I got the game so I did have the advantage of being able to use a walkthrough someone had posted, but I tried to do as much on my own as I could!

        I still listen to that soundtrack once or twice a year lol! The guys name is Terry S. Taylor and I checked out a few of his other albums later on but the OST from Neverhood is still my favorite thing he's done!

    • I have a Win XP virtual machine with that one installed. I didn't manage to get very far though.

      • It is not an easy game lol! Even as an obsessed teenager I had to consult the walkthrough a handful of times!

  • Spec Ops:The Line

    All I wanted and expected was yet another mediocre military schooter. Mechanically I got that. What I not expected: how hard the story would hit. I am so very glad I went in blind.

  • Dayz.

    There is no other game that has ever given me the same adrenaline rush as Dayz. It just hits different. The learning curve is a bit steep, but every step and every player encounter is a memory to remember. Really wish I was less experienced and not knowing the maps inside out, really wanting to get lost again not knowing might what happen next.

    The game has come really far and more players are playing it now than ever. The game has great modding support and community servers. If you have never experienced Dayz then you really should give it a try as it is often on sale.

    But remember: no mic, no life.

  • Dragon Quest III - I originally played and completed the Japanese version without understanding Japanese. Now I am waiting for the HD2D remake to re-experience it.

  • Mass Effect trilogy. Bioshock. Deus Ex (the first game). Disco Elysium: this game made me laugh so hard I ended up crying, made me feel the entire rainbow of emotions. Wish I could experience that again). The Witcher 3.

    But yeah, most of all Mass Effect. Still look forward to N7 day each year, but I would give up my entire Steam library to experience the trilogy for the first time again.

85 comments