What are the most impactful video games you've ever played?
That's the question we posed to our team here at Chalgyr's Game Room. We didn't propose a particular order, we didn't want to pigeonhole our responses to a platform, genre or generation. We framed this challenge around not what games were critical darlings, commercial successes or even just popular during a certain time, but which ones were personally impacting to us. The lists were great, but the explanations were particularly interesting.
Let's take a look at part 1 of our series, starting with...
Susan
Believe it or not, this list was a bit challenging because there have been several titles that have influenced my whole gaming career. As Valerie is my mom, I have fond memories of games on her list like Warcraft II, Diablo 2, and Loderunner. We played some of these together or she introduced us to them. A couple of other notable mentions that are not included here are Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy textbased game on PC, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the seaweed one, not the fighting game one), and Boulder Dash / Rocks n Diamonds / BD4 that my brother and I played for hours on end. While all of those are amazing choices, there are five games that really pushed forward my gaming career, beginning with a game that should surprise absolutely no one, Myst.
Myst (PC)
If you haven't read my review of Riven (which you totally should), you'd know that Myst opened up the world of point and click mystery games. There was something magical about being dropped into a world you knew nothing about in order to save a man's wife. Catherine had been kidnapped, by her sons no less! And while I had no idea why they would do this, the game occupied my time and scratched an itch that I hadn't really felt since reading Nancy Drew books. It should also be noted that my grandmother and aunt were playing Myst and I had helped them with some of the puzzles well before I owned the game myself. Anyways, the islands were beautiful, the music enchanting, and the puzzles were infuriating as I, like many before me, thought, "What the heck am I doing right now?" After I finished Myst, I ended up buying and playing anything I could get my hands on that was published by The Adventure Company like Riddle of the Sphinx, Safecracker, Still Life, Aura: Fate of the Ages, Riddle of the Tomb, Syberia (1,2, and 3), and The Crystal Key (1 and 2). I became obsessed with these types of games and as you may know, I will ALWAYS pick one up. Adventure mystery games are like comfort food to me, and that hasn’t changed a bit.
Valerie
Games that had the most impact on me over the years are a big list that it was very hard to pinpoint certain markers per game genre. I usually played a certain type of game, but these are the ones that expanded my gaming horizon, if you will. So, without further ado, here are my five most impactful games from 'way back when'!
Loderunner (C64)
Loderunner was a 2D puzzle platformer game I thoroughly enjoyed to the max on the Commodore 64. The impact this game had was I played it with the joystick and I've never felt such a huge connection to a machine before until I played that game. Being in sync with the character on the screen and its movement through the levels with the joystick made for an addicting experience, so much so that whenever I have that much of a synchronicity with a game I find I am IN THE ZONE! You have to collect all the gold while avoiding the guards then reach the top of the screen to progress to the next level. That has carried me to this day in almost all of the games that I've felt that connection to. Loderunner's ladders and levels kept me intensely active to keep going until the end. I would laugh maniacally whenever I dug a hole to trap a guard and get the gold he was carrying. Was there an end to this game? I don't think there's a screen at the end of the 150 levels, but fond memories of playing and getting through each level on time was such a thrill. There was even a map editor where I could make as intense or easy a level to get through for practice.
Pierre-Yves
Thinking back to my first days of the NES with Super Mario and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, gaming had come a long way. In that time, there are some titles that have been more impactful to me than others. Not all of these are my favorite games, but games that got me into specific genres, subgenres or series.
Final Fantasy IV
This had to be on this list. Known to me as Final Fantasy II back in the day, FFIV was my first RPG and JRPG. Showing me that games could be more than 2D running and jumping, sorry Mega Man 1-6, the depth at that point in time that could be presented was wild to me.
While "Final Fantasy III" was miles ahead, since I played FFIV before FFVI, this one takes the cake to have introduced me to a genre I had yet to experience and would continue to hold as my number one genre decades later. It's just funny that one was always right beside the other at the video store.
Robert
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Simply a fantastic title that is warm from the start to the finish; beautiful, engaging, and with a story that still holds up today, A Link to the Past introduced me to the wide world of story-driven games. Sure, there were others like those found in the Final Fantasy franchise, but A Link to the Past was the first that I really truly recall being absorbed in.
Nick
Hunt the Wumpus
Released in 1980 for the TI99/4a (my first video game system), this game hit me pretty hard as a small child. My parents didn’t watch horror movies, so this was as close as I came at the age of five when I first got to play this game. In an era where most games were action ones that relied heavily on reflexes, Hunt the Wumpus was strategic in nature. Playing it in a dark room by yourself at night after the sun set? It was also my introduction to horror gaming as a misstep loudly cuts away from the map screen to your character plummeting to their death in a pit of slime or getting eaten by the Wumpus’ massive jaws, the loud, low music and sound effects serving as my first video game jump scares. This has since led to decades of playing games at night, lights down, sound up and finding delight in the tension of immersive text-based titles games, to graphic adventures such as Maniac Mansion or Shadowgate to more action-oriented Fatal Frame and Dead Space horror titles.
Hamza
Wipeout: 2097
Wipeout didn’t just influence my love for games—it had a huge hand in shaping my career as a graphic designer, even before I knew what that term meant. I played it at a time when I had no clue about design, but seeing that unique box art and those incredible visual identities fly across the screen sparked something in me. I spent years sketching the logos and messing around with 3D wireframe experiments, and it all paid off when I eventually became a (half-competent) full-time designer. Honestly, I’d say this game had the biggest impact on me beyond gaming.
Mike
Barbarian Commodore 64 (1987 by Palace Software)
No doubt inspired by Conan the Barbarian, I was amazed at this title being the very first game with a mature style of violent combat present in my life beyond the films I had seen in my youth. Playing it for hours against my siblings we would try our best to win against each other and fight the AI in an effort to become good enough to best our father when he would get home from work. Blocking, spacial awareness, and attack patterns made me take a deep interest in animated fighting games from that point onward. Hit boxes as well as critical strikes were first introduced to me in this forgotten classic. It’s impact inspired my in-depth admiration of sprite animation as well as the joy of fundamental controls in combat games.
Richard
For me, the 5 most impactful games are a bit of a weird mix. We'll start with the reasonable and end with the unexpected.
Honkai Impact 3rd
I mean, it's in the title. There's a reason the community calls it "depression impact". Definitely impactful in a "gives you the feels" sort of way. Hell, this can be attributed across all of the Mihoyo titles to varying degrees. It's also the first gacha game I ever played.
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