Your all-time favorite game? Let's discuss the best options!

By played hours the Binding Of Isaac probably.
By impact in my heart Metal Gear Solid.

Baldurs Gate 3 anyone? I’m kind of shocked to not see it in here. I’ve never enjoyed a game more. Only sad thing is that there won’t be official dlcs or expansions… But then again there’s mod support! Other than that I really enjoy EU IV after 2k hours, but all-time-favorite? I don’t think so.

+1 on the Max Payne mention...great game!
Came out near the time of my favorite PC game, Unreal Tournament.
As far as arcade games, I'd say maybe Rygar or Dragon's Lair...but those are so old (like I am) that I might not be remembering them so well?

With endless replay. Rollercoaster Tycoon 1&2. Shout out to Open RCT (sim city 3000 is a close second)
Console favourite- The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening
Sound track - Chrono Trigger
That long play (where you forget what you were doing if you put the game down) - Metroid Fusion/Prime
Pokemon - Emerald or Soul Silver depending on my mood.

Probably Morrowind.
Properly distinct beast races, freedom to fuck up the world, really rewarding exploration, awesome scenery and concepts, great soundtrack, you can free slaves, and Argonians have never looked better overall.
Second place, probably Red Dead Redemption 2. Every single aspect of that game is outstanding. The pacing, the story, the characters, the combat, the exploration, the horse genitals, the music, the graphics, the massive scale of the world.. Just truly a masterpiece of a game, and I think Rockstar will never surpass it.
Honorable mentions for Caves of Qud, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7 (original AND remake/rebirth) and Starflight (mostly played on C64 but Genesis/Megadrive version is far better)
Oh, fuck, and Silent Hill 2, that's somewhere in the top three. Both original and remake. Fucking exceptional works of art.

That's a tough one to answer. I have to say league of legends, because it's always our friends fallback game.
But other favorites are:
Terraria
Subnautica
Bravely Default
Warcraft 3 - mainly the custom maps, we played so much of that
Slay the spire

The OG X-Com is probably up there as a game that I keep coming back to. Especially after I learned about some of the total conversion mods for it.
- X-Com: UFO Defense (1994) is definitely up there for me as well, but I don't think it can dethrone Baldur's Gate (1998) which I have to give top spot.

Age of Empires II is my all time favorite game. Gears of War 1 - 3 are a close second.

Probably Metroid Prime but some days I think it is Dark Souls 1. Both are similar in terms of trying to embody an adventure with strong environmental storh telling.

World of Warcraft!
I know people like to look down on it here but it's trully an amazing theme park metaverse experience.
I don't have much time for it these days but just playing couple of hours every week is such a joyful experience. There's just so much to do in the game, great writing, legendary characters, great people playing it. True metaverse experience everyone has been chasing lately.

I play almost every genre (minimal interest in sports games, admittedly), and my favorite changes all the time. But in general, here are some of my all-time top games:
Final Fantasy Tactics
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (people who think BL2 is better than TPS are wrong)
Spider-Man (PS4)
Hades
Civilization 6
- Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (people who think BL2 is better than TPS are wrong)
  Are you Australian by chance? I have a lot of complaints about TPS, but then after watching some taskmaster Australia I had a theory; I wonder if there is some fundamental difference in preferred pacing that causes those to fall flat for other audiences? In dialog, humor, events, etc.
  
  East Coast USA, born and raised and lived in all my life. So no, not Australian.

Transport Tycoon was fantastic and thanks to OpenTTD I still play it from time to time.
Gothic 2 is by far the best Action RPG of all time. Witcher 3 comes close, but still fails to surpass it in so many places.
Banished always gets me with it's atmosphere. It feels cozy but at the same time you are close to complete annihilation. Oxygen not included hits the same mark, but also has a distinctive art style and humor to it which I love.
Stanley Parable (and it's Deluxe edition) never fails to make me laugh. But it can get tedious sometimes...

Sekiro.

I can't choose an absolute favorite, that's like choosing a favorite child.
It's a toss up between the Mass Effect Trilogy, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher (in partiuclarly 3) and (most) of Fallout games (but in particular 1 and 2).
If you were to put a gun to my head I'd probably pick either Mass Effect Trilogy or Cyberpunk 2077, probably based on what game i've played for the millionth time most recently.

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.
- Have you tried A Link Between Worlds yet?
  
  Unfortunately not. Is it only available on the 3DS?

I probably can't decide on a single one but if I had to list:
Operation Flashpoint (a big candidate on best)
Mafia 1
Giant: Citizen Kabuto
Half-Life series
Portal series
Dark Souls/Elden Ring
Age of Empires II (also big candidate on best)
Mass Effect series
And I'm gonna stop myself here because there's way more which just complicates choice
- Giant: Citizen Kabuto
  Deep cut. Such a strange game.
  I remember playing 3-person multiplayer with no router in that game. A friend had two Ethernet ports but couldn't bridge them, so he'd host and the other two of us would join. Some stuff worked smoothly, but other stuff was super broken.

Morrowind. One of the few games you can fail the main quest by going on a rampage or by selling the wrong item.
- The spells in Morrowind are so creative & fun too! Levitate & recall were my favorites.
  
  Come on, now.....
  Grind to gather resources.
  Make a potion to fortify intelligence
  Make a potion to fortify alchemy
  Drink potions
  While potions are active, make another set of fortify intelligence and alchemy potions, which - as a result of your potion-enhanced intelligence and alchemy skill - now fortified even stronger and longer.
  Repeat steps 3 and 4 a few times to become the smartest god-like being around for an infinite amount of time.
  Game-breaking, but I would absolutely do it in real life if I had the option. I want the brains!
  
  Night eye is amazing. Don't even know what time of day it is when that spell is active.

Best single game is probably Portal. The pacing, storytelling, innovation, sound, all are top notch even 20+ years later. Graphics aren't phenomenal, but don't need to be. The challenges and easter eggs made it a blast to 100%.
- I'd say that Portal 2 even improved the first one in every aspect.
  
  I dunno. Frankly they're both absolutely pantheon, legendary games that deliver a near-perfect gaming experience, but I feel like Portal 1 delivered a kind of tighter package where Portal 2 meanders just a little bit, and while Wheatley is still brilliant I'm not sure I he hit the same way or struck the same tone as GlaDOS. But we're talking about like nanometers of difference in quality here either way as both games are goddamn stellar.
  
  I'm on the fence about which is better. Portal 2 is an improvement, but also has its flaws.
  Part of the reason I would argue Portal 1 was better is because it was so unexpected. I went in expecting "interesting puzzle game" which it is, but I did not expect to also get "excellent humor with strange horror vibes and incredibly good personality."
  If someone didn't know what a Glados was I think the first one is better. I also recognize that many people who have never played Portal are well aware of Glados.
  
  Portal felt like a very long, pretty well-done tech demo, but Portal 2 is where it's at.
  
  I felt that Portal 2’s difficulty curve was a little off but was perfect other than that. It was too easy for most of the game and then ramped up to what I consider to be a good difficulty level later on.
  The two player portion was fantastic though.

I have to say for me, I know this won't be everybody, my favorites are going to be the ones that change the way I felt about gaming, not necessarily ones that I would want to play again.
In fact, I have found that going back to some of the seminal games, or the ones that were most impactful to me, hurt my feelings because they were from a time... Where let's be real, technical limitations made a lot of very basic quality of life things nearly unavailable.
I think the 1st that changed the way I felt about gaming was Ultima 4 - they had flushed out the systems of the earlier three, which were pretty primitive, and made morality, all kinds of wonderful internal game systems, relationships, secrets, optional paths, total exploration. 5 and 6 were games that I explored and played molecularly because they were just a joy for me as well.
Another one I talk about a lot is a game called Squares Deluxe which the developer thankfully changed as freeware a few years ago. So anybody with DOSBox can download it and play it legally, and in my view, it's the best shape packing game ever made - there are so many amazing mechanics, and if you play Extreme mode and get a great run going, it can be the most thrilling experience!
How can I forget the very first game I played in arcades which was Atari Warlords at Fiesta Foods! I was bedazzled by the cabinet and I had to have a teenager explain to me what it was! I went flying home and explained what I saw to my mother and she was incredulous, and she took me back to play!
Runestone Keeper. I know that really if you distill it down, you're kind of playing a probability-based card / slot machine game. But play your choice is broad, and I love the fact that the entire playfield changes with every move potentially. Yes you can get screwed over, yes you can have amazing runs, but it's that unpredictability that keeps me salivating. I can't actually recommend anybody play this outside of steam version because the app one keeps changing - I've bought it a few times and I keep losing my license/progress when they change publisher agreements, to hell with that noise!

Better Than Wolves and Portal come to mind first.
BTW is just a labour of love of IMO a genius game designer FlowerChild (RIP) who out of spite for adding wolves to MC made the best game possible, it's extremely rewarding, all the small details are thought through. And now the community has taken over the torch and are updating it faithfully further.
Portal is just a gem of the game, already mentioned in the thread so not gonna start another one.

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.

This is really hard. Dungeon Master on the Amiga500 is up there, as is Unlimited Adventures. Today, these don't look so interesting, but man they were great at the time. Amiga also had a neat RPG maker as well whose name I can't recall.
- Do you remember feary tale?
  
  Nope! I don't think I ever played it.

Not just my mood, but I have different flavors of favorite.
In terms of nostalgia and all-time enjoyment, hard to beat Ocarina of Time.
In terms of pure "this game is so good", may have to go with Red Dead Redemption 2. Truly a masterpiece.
In terms of most hours played, Civilization 6 at over 2000 hours.
- I like this way of doing it. For me:
  Nostalgia and all-time enjoyment, probably Pokémon Gen 2 / Remakes (Silver / Gold / Crystal / SoulSilver / HeartGold). I consider them all one game of different “flavours”. If I had to choose one I’d probably go with SoulSilver. The remakes added some much needed modern conveniences, and having your Pokémon follow you around in the overworld was awesome.
  Pure “this game is so good”, probably Elden Ring. Before the DLC I’d probably go with Dark Souls III because of Gael and Friede, but Shadow of the Erdtree blew me away.
  Most hours played, Skyrim at over 5,000. HITMAN is in second place at a bit over 1,300.

Super Mario World - just a fun game. Lots of little secrets and fun to speed run.
Titanfall - I played an absurd amount of this one and really wished there was a 3rd one. 1-2 remind me of the pattern seen in trilogys where 1 sets the stage, 2 deviaties pretty far and polarizes fans and then 3 uses the best of both while trying to feel more like 1. (Mario 1-3, Halo 1-3). My favorites in this pattern tend to be 3 so I'm disappointed I never got Titanfall 3.
Pubg - when it was new. Lost me years ago now but that first 6 months to a year was awesome. So many crazy games and absurd fun.
- PUBG died the instant they introduced bots. I uninstalled immediately.
  But got damn, while everyone else complained about physics and clothing on the floor, my partner and I had the BEST TIME EVER playing. One of the best games I’ve ever played for sure when it was newer.
  I remember one time I was driving them on the motorbike thing with the sidecar with eight others remaining, and we hit an invisible pebble and were ROCKETED into the sky. We did a ton of flips and were laughing together about how we’re absolutely dead. We fell for ages and finally landed… no bounce. Just perfectly on our wheels. The bike was on fire. We were fine. We got out and ran away, only to die when three people were left. But we laughed sooooo hard when we landed totally fine. Insanity.
  I miss it so much.
  Quick edit: the first time I won in a 1v99, my heart rate hit 185 by the time my watch could calculate, so probably higher. I was vibrating. I had to lie down in bed. It was the most unique feeling a game has ever made me feel.
  
  Yeah, no game has done to my heartrate what pubg did. Absolutely the most intense game I've ever played. Wish I could play that again for the first time.
- I loved Titanfall 1 so much. Titanfall 2’s campaign was absolutely fantastic but I didn’t get on with the multiplayer so much.
  I actually think that was a “me problem” rather than a problem with the game. I think that I had just had enough of multiplayer shooters as I’ve not played one since.

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%.

Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. It’s one of the most complex city builders made, and while the interface isn’t great and there are lots of obscure, weird, and downright unintuitive mechanics, it’s so rewarding to play because you can actually construct your infrastructure with materials and time, and so unlike Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever, the game doesn’t become trivially easy when you get a late game map. Those games you can eventually afford massive bridges and tunnels, but that’s not the case in Workers and Resources, because no matter how much money you have, bridges take time to build, and you’ll have to reroute traffic during construction, so you’ll only use them when you really need them.
Also I love the scaling, things like gas stations only require a single truck very occasionally, shall industries require a few trucks, and only the big industries like steel require trains (and only a reasonable amount too). As opposed to Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever where every industry ends up with a massive number or trucks or a silly number of trains.
- I genuinely thought it's an awful game the first time I tried. Tried it again few months later and fell in love with it.
  My only problem with it is how slow everything happens if you play on realism, so I use cheat engine to speed up the game by a factor of 2-10 with hotkeys, otherwhise it sometimes feels like an idle game

Sekiro.
Only hard until you start to understand the dance moves. Then it becomes pure nirvana.
After NG+7 I had to stop playing it and give some other games a chance.
- Playing that now, just beat fake monk, next is the gorilla. Once the combat clicked for me everything made sense.
- I can't beat Genichiro Ashina, but I think I'm going at him too early, but damnit I should still be able to!
  
  He’s one of the first hard tests. You just gotta keep throwing yourself at him until it clicks. I went the other way and did Lady Butterfly which had its own pain. You have to play aggressively. Hesitation is defeat and all of that
- YES.
  Sekiro is my favorite game ever and I wish they'd make a sequel.
  It's so good that it ruins other games for paling in comparison.
- I got stuck on it and then stopped playing for so long that I feel that I need to start again. I do intend to start it again if I ever get the time to put into it.
  
  Once it clicks, there is no feeling like it. Incredible game.
- I'm still surprised how well received it was, not because I disagree, but just because of the numbers. It's currently sitting at 95% positive ratings on Steam, and that's with 229k reviews, for a game that plays so different from what gamers expected out of FromSoft.
  
  I was just reading some of the reviews on Steam the other night (because it's my favorite game), and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was not alone in that view.
  People who know, know.
- Even when I suck at a boss fight it feels like I learn something new every time, such a good gameplay loop

Dark Souls.
It fundamentally changed me as a person. All of the other fromsoft games are great but none of them really encapsulates the experience that is the first Dark Souls game.
- You can't say something like that without elaborating! How did it change you?
  
  So I first played Dark Souls when I was 17. As a kid that was going into my senior year of high school, completely obsessed with games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Uncharted 2 - Dark Souls was such a drastic change in how you interacted with a game. No constant ADHD flick shots in a cod game, no mindless story based progression with a complete lack of difficulty.
  Dark Souls taught me three things: Slow down, think critically, and never give up.
  Looking back on it, it's some real basic knowledge to impart on someone. But I feel like they apply to everything in life and nobody around me seems to think the same.
  It kinda blows my mind when you look at YouTube and see the absurd amount of videos there are of people describing how dark souls made them a better person mentally. The game is clearly special in a way no other game is to a lot of people and not to mention it popularized a whole new genre.
  If anyone reading this hasn't tried Dark Souls or has tried it once and bounced off of it quickly. I really recommended giving it a(nother) shot.

StarCraft: Brood War

It's a difficult question to answer. I personally barely consider Disco Elysium to be a game, more like an interactive story that uses certain game mechanics as grammar elements and punctuation in its storytelling. It's a novel masquerading as a game. It's three novels in a trenchcoat. But if we do count it then it is my pick, by a landslide.
Otherwise it's probably Baldur's Gate 2. It's the story game I've replayed the most over the years and it was absolutely fundamental in my journey as a gamer, the definition of a formative experience. Even though parts of it are dated now (some clunk is to be expected from a 25-year-old game) I still prefer it to BG3. It's got a great story, great companions and an all-time great villain. David Warner put in an incredible performance and even all these years later there aren't many video game villains who have surpassed Irenicus in sheer aura.
- I personally consider Disco Elysium very much a game (a way better role-playing gamer than most), because an "interactive story" is a game. Combat shouldn't be a necessary condition. Planescape: Torment should have had the guts to scrap its lackluster combat and focus on its strengths.
  
  Disco elysium is the best book I've ever played.
- For me Disco Elysium is definitely my favorite of all time if we count it.
  If we don't for some reason, then Hi-Fi Rush is an absolute joy of a game and I've loved every second of it. Very obviously a labor of love and far more gamified than Disco Elysium.
- I played BG1 and 2 for the first time shortly before the release of BG3, and I just wanted to hear Irenicus talk more.
  Disco Elysium, on the other hand, just did not hit for me. The only things I hear about it are praise, but my friends list is filled with people who played it for a few hours, like I did, and stopped, so maybe the dissenters just aren't so vocal.
  
  Like I said, the game itself on its store page claims to be a "detective game RPG" while in reality I would argue it's barely any of those things. So a lot of people probably come into it with the wrong expectations. It's more like a novel about love and loss, about addiction, depression and the past looming over the present like a grey ghost. It's a story about finding hope in the midst of overwhelming nihilism. As someone who has struggled with all those things it hit incredibly close to home, and was the most meaningful experience I've ever had playing a video game.

Fez! I love the low stress puzzle game. I think it’s beautiful and smart. I love that it was made by one guy. It’s too bad he got burnt out and quit. He is very talented.

Minecraft
There are so many things you can do in the game, especially using mods
- The mod packs just keep coming and there has been a number of interesting packs since 1.20 was released.
  Its got a billion accounts its the most played game in the world ever so its surprising to find it so far down this list.

RISK OF RAIN 2

Based on play and replay, it seems to be either Payday 2 or Borderlands 2.
Payday2, especially if you have tons of builds and DLC, is a fantastic brain-off mob shooter where you can slightly improve/perfect your build and gameplay with each run. For some reason it just works for me.
Borderlands 2: fun guns; solid story; visuals and mechanics that mostly hold up today. It's just a good time and another skill-tree builder game where you get to feel like a god if you've assembled your skill tree right. The NG+ modes are a bit of a slog, but playthrough 1 is just a solid time.

Any of those three
Disco Elysium
Death Stranding
Outer Wilds
- Great list. But I love reading trough the reasoning behind the picks. What are yours?
  Personally I think outer wilds is a one of a kind game which represents am artistic message about existence that cannot be conveyed the same way in any other medium.
  
  I think the common denominator is a strong / immersive story and universe that appeals to me (big fan of sf), interesting mechanics and gameplay in a way that makes the game unique in its own way, and the artistic approach behind the game, so for each of those :
  Outer Wilds was a fantastic experience that you can only live once, the freedom of exploration is crazy, the feelings you can go through in the span of a single minute make it so memorable, I connected with this game like no other
  Death Stranding I played during one of the lockdowns, and after hiking in Iceland, it was a continuity of these two experiences that felt very personal. It was also my introduction to Kojima games. I found it to be such a premium experience and statement about video games, I loved the insanity of the plot, and once you dug deeper, you find all the artistic inspiration and process that went behind the game, it's an insane work of interactive art
  Disco Elysium I was already fully on board just learning about the game, I sympathise with the authors, the fact that it started as an rpg campaign, with immense lore behind it, love the art style, the narration, the story and its themes, I haven't lived in post USSR Europe but the game make me nostalgic/melancholic for a time, aesthetic, struggles I didn't know
  They're my absolute favourite but some games come close, Inscryption, Pyre, Spiritfarer...
- Based list. Outer Wilds in particular chef's kiss.

Gothic 2, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, GTA: San Andreas and Arcanum are for og ny favourite games that are a bit too flawed to be all time favourite.
Final Fantasy 6 and 7 were so good, but I can't play them alone, we used to pass along the controller.
I love point and clicks like Grim Fandango and Monkey island.
I played Planescape: Torment in 2006 and it left such an impression on me.
Of never games there's Disco Elysium and The Obra Dim.
Not to mention Zelda's, Illusion of Time, the Mana series, Mario's, the old Blizzard games, Brotherbound games and other amiga games. Quake........
Maybe Day of the Tentacle?

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.

Fallout 2 is probably one of my favourite games of all time. Absolutely amazing game, if a bit sprawly. I've played through it many times and expect I will do again.
Red Alert 2 - the pinnacle of the isometric RTS genre. Bordering on too silly but without tipping into absolute farce. Mechanically very strong, the art is lovely, and even has nostalgia for me.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Massive game but a run can be completed relatively quickly. I always disable the music because I don't like games that try to scare and intimidate me. I'm pretty good at the game so it tends to be pretty relaxing for me, if a bit fugue-state-y.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2: the apex of the Battlefield multiplayer games for me. The others have plenty going for them, but BFBC2 was the best compromise between destructibility, player counts, etc. for my tastes. Sniping took significant skill and one couldn't go prone - it meant that open areas didn't feel like a death sentence (looking at you, later BF games!).
Assassin's Creed: Origins/Odyssey two open world games with beautiful maps and locations to explore. I think I preferred the setting of Origins but the story of Odyssey. A bit of escapist fantasy, I suppose. I loved the Ezio trilogy too, mind you.
- Fallout 2 is absolutely stellar. I get the arguments some old-heads levy against in when they prefer Fallout 1, but I think I just played FO2 at the perfect time. The wackiness and pop culture references and humour hit with me when I first played it. It is sprawly, but it is also amazing for how big it is and how much there is to do in it.
  Did you ever play it modded? The Restoration Project, Updated has two amazing addons that add more talking heads and more voice acting and they're both of phenomenal, basically seamless quality. It's really like putting on a fresh coat of paint on the old thing.
  
  I agree that the original is tighter, but I love the free-form adventure of 2.
  Did you ever play it modded? The Restoration Project, Updated has two amazing addons that add more talking heads and more voice acting and they're both of phenomenal, basically seamless quality. It's really like putting on a fresh coat of paint on the old thing.
  Played it? I voiced a talking dog in it!

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?

La-Mulana would have to be one of my top picks. With the catchy music, the "fuck you" difficulty, and the classic adventure theme really makes it stand out in my mind.

Curse of Monkey Island.

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.

The Witcher 3, followed by the Mass Effect trilogy (I consider it as a whole)
And honestly, Cyberpunk 2077 could complete the top 3
But if I have to consider multiplayer games, with 3000+ hours on Warframe (considering I haven't touched it for years), I guess it could also be considered my favorite (I think I also spent 1000h on ME3 multi)

My all-time favorites have been in place for many years now.
It's a tie between Sonic 2 (Genesis) & Final Fantasy 6 (SNES).
They are two very different games that represent two different concepts in gaming. For Sonic it's all about smooth, fun gameplay. With FF6 it's all about the story and the experience of controlling an ensemble cast of characters. I can beat the first in under an hour, as while the latter usually takes 60+ hours. They're like the yin and yang of videogames for me.

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.

It is crazy to me that Diablo 2 was not mentioned, yet. Second place: Modded Minecraft.
- Diablo II is maybe the best game I’ve ever played. The remaster was so faithful and perfectly done, too. D3 was okay but got worse with the expansion (thanks for taking our trading and economy, making items feel worthless) and I refuse to play D4 or the mobile game that I shall not mention.

same deal, favorites change according to mood, but there are overall few mainstays:
Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis.
It's a childhood favorite I return to every now and then. It's a point&click adventure, and to me it's essentially the 4th (and last) Indiana Jones movie. :D
Apart from one or two bad bits the game pulls, it's otherwise pretty logical from start to finish. 3 different paths from mid to late game, and mostly good voice acting (for the time). I know the game by heart at this point, but still it feels fun to play, every time. Nostalgia-goggles probably play a big part.

Cyberpunk 2077
I know it's a divisive game, don't care, works for me. The bleak vibes of the game just speak to me. Have played it through several times since launch, occasionally still find new things here and there. Not the deepest rpg around, but a good action-rpg with neonlights.
Unnamed Space Idle
I've been on this idle/timewaster for way over a year, slow progress raising the numbers all the time. Sure it's a bit low on gameplay, but absolutely neat little game to occasionally click few times when watching some longform content or so.
- Happy to see an idle/incremental here as a lover of that genre. Wish the Mbin side of incremental.social worked, I'd love to participate on !incremental_games@incremental.social or use my account there.
  
  I don't see any new posts since 7 months ago. (Unless my instance stopped federating.)

Baldur's Gate 2. There's no game I've played through more often. BG3 is a very fun successor, but Larian's writing can't hold a candle to classic Bioware.
- I honestly wish Larian had just left the IP alone and done a standalone D&D game. There is absolutely no narrative reason for any of the tie-ins and callbacks, it was literally just a case of wanting the brand recognition for better marketing and then shoehorning in some old fan favourites and calling it a day. Seeing Sarevok and Viconia as they were in BG3 just makes me sad.
  
  It was still pretty inherently tied to Bhaal under Baldur's Gate, so it made enough sense to have continuity.

Into the Breach for sure. Extremely satisfying strategy gameplay with a ton a variety with the different teams/units, heaps of replayability especially after the content update from a couple years back, and it being a run based game is great for folks who only get an hour or two to play on any given day.
Tabi (ey/it)

Sometimes Rimworld, sometimes CP2077 and sometimes BG3

My favorite game is actually 3. The mass effect trilogy. I designed my first tattoo around the n7 renegade and paragon symbols. Second is definitely Mario bros 3. Still play it every once in a while.

For me, Elden Ring. I enjoy open world exploration and collecting-heavy games, and I also enjoy soulslikes for the strategic combat and variety of options. So ER was like two of my favorite ice cream flavors combined into one delicious meal.
- Came here to say the same thing. 2 of my favorite genres rolled into one epic game.
  Before Elden Ring my favorite was RDR2. Didn't think it was going to get bumped down anytime soon.

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 faves are still The Longest Journey and Grim Fandango. My love of stories told with games started here. I do need to think about what my all time favorites are, though. That's a big question.
- oh man, The Longest Journey has been on my todo list for eternities. Ages ago I was being a pixel-peeping-perfectionist and I hated the aliasing on the character models - but now that ScummVM does the game perfectly I really have no reason to wait... but... here we are.
  Since the game is dear to you, how about some motivational sales pitch for it? Why should I drop everything else and go play the game right now? :D
  
  One thing I really loved about it was even though the character models were as weird looking as you'd expect from the era, the backgrounds were beautiful and when i played it years later with more modern sensibilities, I still was fond of them. The story took advantage of the fact that the main character was an artist, so there were a number of colorful or visually interesting segments.
  The whole experience felt so vast, and even not being a child any more (which can make stories seem vast because of your own imagination), there still feels like there's a lot to both worlds. And history to characters, just out of view.
  It also lives up pretty well to its name. There's a lot of it. A lot of lore and locations and puzzles. Some of the puzzles are obtuse to the extreme, and silly. There's one that's almost legendarily bad, so it has that bit of history if you're interested lol.
  It's tough to say what's nostalgia and what's my preference and what's genuinely great. You'd probably have to play it to find out!

definitely Deus Ex
but also The 7th Guest lol
- The 7th Guest defined my childhood, along with Quest for Glory I.
  
  I'm obsessed with The 7th Guest lol
  !stauf_mansion@lemmy.mods4ever.com