Any games hold a special place in your hearts?

[Strigon]

It's a simple enough question. Do you guys have any games that you have a strong attachment to that goes beyond what the game itself merits?
This doesn't imply that the game itself can't be good, or even fantastic. It's also not simply a case of "This is the sort of game I like more than most people"; it just implies that, for whatever reason, a game latches onto you and simply doesn't let go.

For me, I have at least 2 such games; the first is Custom Robo, for the Gamecube. It wasn't particularly well-received, and I'm not sure what people think of it now, but I absolutely adore that game! It's simple enough, mechanics-wise, and doesn't have an outstanding job of world-building, or storytelling. But something about the story it does have, the characters, the way it plays out, and the combat really all come together for me. Tack on the fact that I was really young when I first played it, and so there's heavy nostalgia in there for me, and you've got yourself a recipe for one beloved game.
I've been playing through it again, and I've just had an absolute blast!

The second is Ace Combat 6. Dunno why. I've played my fair share of air combat games, and they really work for me, but this one is something special. It captures me as very few games are able to.

There are a few others, but I wouldn't count them either because they just aren't quite as powerful for me (Luigi's Mansion) or because I think the game itself is probably worthy of my feelings toward it (The Witcher 3).

How about you guys?

Edit: This introduction gives the impression that only video games are meant to be shared. That is not the case; board games, card games, choose-your-own-adventure books, and even I Spy are potential candidates for discussion!

[Togath]

I have five that come to my mind~
Spyro: A Hero's Tail. The bounciness, openworld-ness(at a time when I'd never seen at open world game), and goofiness, combined with surprisingly good platforming controls has let it stick in my mind as one of my favorite games.
Arctic Thunder. A old ps2 snowmobile-in-theory racing game that I really adored as a kid for the weird level designs and odd-but-fun vehicle designs that sometimes looked almost nothing like a snowmobile. Plus I liked playing it with my cousin a lot.
Everquest 2. THE HOUSING. I literally spent hours and hours on crafting, questing, and building with my houses, trying to create themes for buildings and rooms and come up with new ways to transform how they looked.
Neopets: The Darkest Faerie. A Zelda-y and Skyrim-y action platformer rpg thing I adored as a kid for the fun combat and all of the exploration. The lack of loading screens most places also seemed awesome to me, since I'd never seen a game that didn't pause for each area before(other than that Spyro game mentioned above).
And finally, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. A fun somewhat silly jrpg with quirky character designs, plus I got used to the turn based system a lot easier than FF's timer thing.

Of the five, I still go back and play the Spyro, Darkest Faerie, and Dragon Quest game once in a while even now.

[VincentTakeda]

Man.. Too many to list. Out of what... Like easily over 200 games that I could call my 'favorites'... These arent necessarily the top ten percent of my favorites, but they do hold personal significance.
Final fantasy VII
Final fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XIV
City of Heroes
Motor City Online
Intellivision football
Intellivision Tron Deadly Disks
Intellivision Space armada
Karateka
Gauntlet
Gauntlet Dark Legacy
Hydo thunder
Arcus Odyssey
Scorched Earth
Age of Mythology
Air Force Delta
DOAX2
Sims2

I mean... I like the soul calibur series and all the street fighters, marvel v capcoms, forza, gran turismo... and a bunch of other stuff that i've probably sank more money into than any of these except the online ones... but I wouldnt say they struck any kind of special chord with me.

[Zevox]

The NES Mega Man and Genesis Sonic games. Most of them are fairly good games on their merits, granted, but they feel like absolute treasures of my childhood to me - and more so when I just think about them than when I actually re-play them.

[Dienekes]

Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War
Super Smash Bros: Melee
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

[Rynjin]

Kingdom Hearts. Any of them.

There's something about the world, the structure of the games, just everything about them that makes them...comforting. The music, of course, helps (Yoko Shimamura finds a way to craft at least one masterpiece in each game, The Other Promise is probably my favorite besides the Birth By Sleep version of the title music Dearly Beloved).

It doesn't hurt that the games are FUN but their generally upbeat and hopeful tone never fail to drag me out of a funk or calm me down when I get too wound up.

Solitude, a cup of black tea, and Kingdom Hearts heals all wounds.

[Derjuin]

Final Fantasy VI. First game to make me cry legit tears of sadness. Goddammit Cid.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. The main game present in all three Explorers titles is pretty awesome (picking Treecko as your partner had me thinking the game was way more involved in time travel shenanigans than it actually was), but the bonus missions in Sky make it even better. The PMD games /after/ Explorers are alright, but feel... I'm not sure how to put it. I was overall less emotionally invested in them as the stories went on, and sometimes they just felt confusing. Explorers was about /time travel/ and was less confusing; how does that even work.

Explorers still has the saddest ending of any game I've played that wasn't specifically a depressing/sad game.

Guild Wars 2, because of how fabulously amazing that game is. Seriously deserves more love. Of any game where you design your own character, my absolute favorite came out of that game. It helps that the game is the most gorgeous out of any I've played, and has so many different ways to play your character that it almost feels like it's solved the whole cookie cutter issue (though I'm sure it's present in the new Raids system thing they have). It also helps that this exists and is a thing you can get. <3

[Togath]

Guild Wars 2 is awesome~
Really looking forward to playing it again once I get my desktop.

[Sajiri]

Ragnarok Online, it was my first mmo back in the day and opened up a whole new world to me. Got to meet plenty of new people and made tons of new friends I otherwise would have never found. I try to go back to it occasionally on private servers but unfortunately it's just not the same as most people I come across on there are teens who I just dont relate to anymore.

Pokemon Emerald is another one. Bought it at a very happy time of my life, days after I finished high school when I was on schoolies week (basically its a tradition in aus that the week after you have graduated high school you and your friends go off on a vacation, usually a lot of partying and drinking is involved). Im usually up very early in the mornings while the friends I was staying at a hotel with were the opposite, so I bought the game and would play it in the mornings while sitting on the balcony of our hotel overlooking the ocean watching the sunrise. Anytime I play the game it just instantly relaxes me

[Alent]

Everquest 2. THE HOUSING. I literally spent hours and hours on crafting, questing, and building with my houses, trying to create themes for buildings and rooms and come up with new ways to transform how they looked.

Ditto, and I am so glad I'm not alone. Housing was what actually broke my will to play the game when I went back to it 3~4ish years ago... I was so poor I couldn't afford everything I needed to recreate the Delphinus and Pirate Isle on my private Tenebrous Tangle island.

Man.. Too many to list.

This.

A good stab, in no particular order:

Megaman 2, 3, 4; X1, X2, X6; Zero 3
Zelda LttP & Link's Awakening
Legacy of the Wizard
Crystalis
Blaster Master
Fire Emblem Thracia 776, Seisen no Keifu, Gaiden (So many hours)
Berwick Saga (So many hours that I'm embarrassed to say I never beat it.)
Phantasy Star 4
Final Fantasy 1, 3j, 4.
FFL/Makai Toushi Saga
Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre
FFT
Maniac Mansion
Secret of Monkey Island
Valkyrie Profile
Valkyria Chronicles (1, 3.)
F-zero (the original)
Shining Force 2
Lufia 2
Star Ocean 2
Wild ARMs
Wild ARMs XF
1943 (I have the most complicated relationship with this game.)
UN Squadron (SNES)
Super Metroid (Sad to say this is a recent addiction.)
Wings (the Original Amiga game.)
Castle of the Winds
Barren Realms Elite
Suikoden 2
Lemmings (Amiga)
Titus the Fox (contributed to an old penname of mine, even.)
Mechwarrior 2, GBL, Mercs
Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World
X-com UFO Defense, Terror from the Deep
Skies of Arcadia Legends. (Missed out on the original for not having Sega consoles)
Carrier Command (Edit: Started looking through some old floppies, saw this, couldn't believe it wasn't at the top of my list.)

For some of these, it was my childhood dream to grow up and join the dev teams for the sequels or remakes, others came much later and they became defining games that helped shape my concept of game design and balance that drives in my current dream of making indie games... Some of them I enjoyed but wanted to improve the story to be more powerful, etc. Several I spent hours and hours using icon or tile editors to redraw game assets for... Some I wrote long fanfics that have been burned as to prevent them from ever seeing the light of day... Some I just devoted sizable chunks of my life to mastering.

A few of them I still want to remake, truth be told.

[Fri]

Grandia, the first one, in PSX, is the game that literally shaped what tropes I find as "cool" in my life.

Let's see... pulp adventures, goggles, advanced ancient civilization, "Gondor calls for aid', I wonder what else.

[Vaz]

Spyro the Dragon, Dungeon Siege, Homeworld, and the Pokemon games. I'm a 26 year old adult, dammit, but there's just something that's so enjoyable about the pokemon games.

[RoyVG]

Lufia 2 (or just Lufia in Europe): It was the first (and for some years, the only) console game I can remember that was translated to my native language, Dutch, and at that time, when I was around 9-11 years old, I did not have enough knowledge of the english language to enjoy any other RPG (beside the fact that over half of the Square RPG's were not released here). It got me into RPGs and I still enjoy playing through it every now and then.

I also have quite fond memories of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, it's the game that got me into the Final Fantasy franchise and I arguably have the most hours put into it from any handheld game I played.

MegaMan 2 is also a favorite of mine, it kept me interested in the franchise until the Battle Network games revitalized my interest in the series.

[factotum]

Probably GTA: San Andreas. I've done a full playthrough of that game at least four times that I can remember--they nailed the balance in that game, far better than they did in GTA4 or GTA5. (Heck, I never got close to completing GTA5 because it was just so revolting being asked to play as such horrible people in a video game).

[jollysunflora]

Okami, and to a lesser degree its mini sequel Okamiden. Have never looked at gaming the same way again after playing it. Then, of course, the Pokemon franchise in general since its how I met my boyfriend.

[Rynjin]

Probably GTA: San Andreas. I've done a full playthrough of that game at least four times that I can remember--they nailed the balance in that game, far better than they did in GTA4 or GTA5. (Heck, I never got close to completing GTA5 because it was just so revolting being asked to play as such horrible people in a video game).

I liked GTAV for the same reason you dislike it, myself. It makes no bones about it that every character you play as is a different variety of *******. If it had tried to make you feel like they didn't deserve everything bad that happens to them, I'd agree, but while it humanizes them it also doesn't sugar coat that they're bad people doing bad things for mostly selfish reasons.

[Starwulf]

Several, but the primary one that springs to mind is Secret of Mana for the snes. Me and my best friend spent sooo much time playing that when we were younger, and we didn't just play it, we basically lived it. We both picked a character and voiced it, though my best friend voiced the third as well. We never, EVER renamed the characters, they were always Sprite, Boy & Girl. It felt like we would dishonor them if we named them. Every play-through we'd give them slighty(Or wildly, as we got older) different personalities. I couldn't even begin to guess how many different times we played through that game, but it must have been close to triple digits.

Even now, 16 years after highschool we still talk about that game, and if either of us could find the spare time, at the same time, we'd love to load it up and play it all over again.

[NEO|Phyte]

Games that hold a special place in our heart, eh?

Lets see what my desktop background has to say.

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Or perhaps my smartphone wallpaper.

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And for good measure, the source of my steam avatar.

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I think it's safe to say Homeworld for me, and that's without getting into my keychain and model Pride of Hiigara.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Planescape: Torment:
Probably one of my favorite games to read, and there's a lot of that to be done, it's got a lot of special moments. It's just a shame that you have to waste time with combat every so often.

Psychonauts:
It's zany, fun and I just love the premise and the story.

The Secret World:
One of the few times where I got bit by the MMO bug. It's story and mechanics all just clicked with me and I haven't found anything since which even comes close.

Unreal Tournament 2004:
Probably one of the game of my youth, and although I don't really play it anymore, I still remember it fondly.

[Hunter Noventa]

Oh man...most of this could probably go down to the games I played on PS1 in high school.

Final Fantasy Tactics: I loved this game so much, I hunted down a DexDrive (a thing you could use to backup PS1 memory cards to your PC) in order to edit my saves and try out all the enemy classes and skills and stuff you don't get normally.

Front Mission 3: I got this game by trading in a copy of Final Fantasy Anthology (Whichever one had 5 and 6 with horrible loading times). Best decision ever. Tactical mecha Action with New Game+? I put over 200 hours into it that summer.

Xenogears: Quite probably still my favorite RPG of all time, flawed as it is. It had everything. A love story, kung-fu action, giant robots, secret cults, doomsday weapons, blatant religious symbolism...such an amazing game.

[Douglas]

Star Control 2. Of all the games I have played, this one did by far the best job of making the game's setting feel real, and it did that in large part by an approach hardly ever seen outside of strategy games where there's an actual opposing player - by having important things happen without the player having done something to cause them.

Incidentally, a free open source version of it is available here.

[Keltest]

My biggest one is the original Dungeon Siege. Nothing else really gives me that same feeling as when I play it, and it was clearly a labor of love.

[DataNinja]

For me, Pokémon Emerald is a big one. It was my first ever owned video game, and I sank so many hours into that game. Yet, to this day, I still enjoy popping it in, because it feels like it has the best overworld, postgame (I'll get you someday, Frontier...), everything. I just wish it had the updated Gen IV battle mechanics, because I keep forgetting about those not being there.

But, before that, Gauntlet: Legends. Every few weeks, I would go down to the downtown arcade while that existed, and just play with my dad and brother. That was my first real experience with 'video gaming'. I can't even be sure how long total I'd spent on that machine over my life.

For more recently, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. It's just the perfect blend of humor, mechanics, and innovation (even though, yes, it's the third game in the series). I could play it for ages, and not get bored. It made me really disappointed with Dream Team, which I stopped playing partway through, to do another playthrough of this.

There are a few more, Age of Empires and Civilization III amongst them, but those are the main ones.

[Vaz]

Games that hold a special place in our heart, eh?

Lets see what my desktop background has to say.

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Or perhaps my smartphone wallpaper.

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Show

And for good measure, the source of my steam avatar.

Spoiler

Show

I think it's safe to say Homeworld for me, and that's without getting into my keychain and model Pride of Hiigara.

My man. I'm currently hooked on spending 3-4 hours on Complex 10.1.

[factotum]

If it had tried to make you feel like they didn't deserve everything bad that happens to them, I'd agree, but while it humanizes them it also doesn't sugar coat that they're bad people doing bad things for mostly selfish reasons.

Which would be fine, but the game is effectively expecting *me* to do the bad things on behalf of these people, and that makes *me* feel bad. There are a couple of missions in San Andreas like that (the one where you murder Mad Dog's manager purely to give OG Loc a leg up in his career, and the later one where you entomb a work foreman in concrete for the grievous crime of letting his men be disrespectful toward your sister), but overall you're fighting against people who are far, far worse than you are, so it feels OK.

I actually had the same disconnect with GTA: Vice City, incidentally--Tommy Vercetti is a douche through and through, so I never finished that game.

[Rynjin]

Eh, different strokes and all. I approach it in the same way as watching Reservoir Dogs or something. Yes, these *******s are the protagonists. Yes, they are terrible. Yes, you can also have fun watching/playing as them.

You're not doing anything different than you do in GTA anyway, just with different justifications.

It helps that I always kept certain crimes contained to certain characters (I only went on wanton assault and murder sprees with Trevor, for instance).

We now end your regularly scheduled derail.

[Pendulous]

I used to load up my 5-CD changer when I played video games. So whatever music I had in there for months at a time, whenever I went back and played the games I played during that time, my brain heard those songs.

Nowadays, I typically just put Youtube in the background, or a TV show I'm familiar enough with that I can just listen to, so it's mostly just faded. But two games I specifically remember were tied to Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers: Breath of FIre and Final Fantasy 12.

[Inarius]

Baldurs Gate 2 would easily be one for me. The second RPG I had ever played and it was a pretty awesome one that got me hooked on RPGs, eventually I went back and played the first one but it and the IWD games just never had quite the same feel for me.

Everquest 1 also fits the bill, the game itself was pretty bad when I think about it but I still enjoyed roaming around the world. On top of that the people I play games with today were pretty much all on my EQ server back in the day, though ironically none of them are people I ever actually grouped with while playing Everquest 1.

Homeworld 1 just because it felt so epic when I first played the game. That opening cinematic just hooked me and the music was spectacular. Watching the Mothership launch to Agnus Dei and the intro song to the Turanic Raiders were events that I doubt I'll ever forget.

[Corlindale]

Little Big Adventure 2 will always hold a very special place in my heart, I think. I adored this game and its world so much I can't even express it in words. It was just utterly magical when I played it as a child, perhaps because it was the first game I played where I actually felt like part of a world. And not just any world - a beautiful, detailed, happy world that I wished I could live in. Unlike other games from my childhood, I haven't actually replayed this one recently (perhaps because I want to keep the memories pure), but I still remember details vividly. Much of the dialogue, all the words to the Ferryman's Song, the password for the moon base, where to get which items, everything...

The soundtrack was definitely part of it too. There's no better way to inject myself with high octane liquid nostalgia than simply listening to the main theme.

I used to load up my 5-CD changer when I played video games. So whatever music I had in there for months at a time, whenever I went back and played the games I played during that time, my brain heard those songs.

Nowadays, I typically just put Youtube in the background, or a TV show I'm familiar enough with that I can just listen to, so it's mostly just faded. But two games I specifically remember were tied to Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers: Breath of FIre and Final Fantasy 12.

I know this feeling. I listened to audiobooks while gaming for a while, so there are some games I associate with some books, often really strange combinations.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Nowhere Else and Beyond, the old 2D MMO that taught me how to briefly lose your life to a soul-sucking RPG that lured you along through grinding and crafting.