The last game where you felt "it".

Do you mean like when a game was originally released, when you actually experienced the game for the first time or just from playing a game in general?

If the former I guess... Monster Hunter World? While looking back I prefer how the older Monster Hunter games played, it was still a fun as hell experience and I remember feeling pretty grateful that there were kids who were going to grow up with the game. It captures the feeling of Monster Hunter while also bringing in some of the advantages and conveniences of modern game design without taking away any of the fundamental things that made it great. Something that rarely seems to happen now.

If in general, I just replayed Klonoa 2 again. On the surface it seems like just another kiddie 2D platformer, but the general themes and subjects covered hit pretty close to home for me. Couple scenes in particular really touched me. It also has a level of charm that's kinda hard to match for me personally.

I don't know, there's just something about games from that era that really resonate with me. 3D graphics were beginning to mature, game devs were willing to experiment more or refine what they already know, and some of the absolute best in storytelling in games came from around that time. Final Fantasy IX, Planescape Torment, ect.

Could be nostalgia I suppose as I was a kid during that time. But fuck, I miss that time.
 
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I guess it'd be 7.62 (with the Hard Life add-on).
Sure, it's buggy, janky, unintuitive, the translation's pretty rough ... but it's also very unique, it has some real heart put into it and it's just plain fun. A diamond in the rough. Definitely getting strong Jagged Alliance 2 vibes here and I love it.
From all the pre-battle preparations like cleaning weapons, applying camo, supplying the right kind of ammo for the task ahead, distributing medical supplies and food, fixing and refueling my damn car, through sneaking everyone into the right position and waiting for the perfect opportunity, cutting throats, setting up mines along the way, right to the final shootout and seeing how the whole plan comes together.

It definitely makes it onto the short list of games that resonated with me, alongside titles like:
North vs South, Warcraft 2 (the PSX version), Future Cop L.A.P.D, GoldenEye and Super Mario for the N64, Tekken 3, the aforementioned Ja2, Deus Ex, Gothic I and II, Kohan: Ahriman's Gift, Warrior Kings: Battles, Medieval II: Total War, the original Operation: Flashpoint, Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, Guilty Gear: Accent Core +R, and Fallout: New Vegas.
 
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Return of the obra dinn
Telling lies
Bug fable tales of the everlasting sapling.

It's just some fleeting sense of joy and wonder I used to get of old games like OOT/ Mario 64/ Golden eye/ Majora's mask.
 
Paper Mario and The Thousand Year Door’s final boss. Even though that game has so many broken builds and super guarding, 11 yr old me not knowing about or being good at any of them made for a very epic fight. Matching her crazy stat buffs with my own via power lift, constantly switching between Yoshi and Vivian to keep the damage on without getting killed, and reaching that climactic point where literally every NPC you’ve encountered throughout the game is cheering you on.

Moments like those are a special high pulled from a wonderful combo of gameplay and storytelling seldom seen in games. I wish I could play that game for the first time again.
 
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There's a few games I've played where I've felt 'it', where it doesn't feel like a game but a world of experience to explore. Eventually, all games get reduced to the mechanics, tricks and secrets, for me - and I feel like as I play less and get older, it happens earlier and earlier.

So the last game it happened for me would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where I loved making my own way through the story, trying to sneak around and then going going full murder-style during the ambush in the capsule hotel - it wasn't frustration at the game, it was frustration at the bad guys for having killed all those people, and it no longer felt worth it to not just kill them all. I would have been three-quarters of the way through the game before I started to get distracted by the gameness of it rather than just loving the world of it, and even then it didn't spoil my enjoyment.

I also had that with Arcanum, enjoying seeing how your choices of race, gender and skills and alignment would guide you through the game world. I only ever ended up finishing it once, but I played through the start of that game at least a dozen times, with everything from a human with such high persuasion he could end up with the King of the Dwarves and the King of the Elves in his party, to a dumb ogre who had only the stupidest dialogue options open to him but boy could he smash shit good.

It's been a while, though. I've played a few MMOs, and while I never go full minmax stats nerd on them, the wonder truly ends up getting extinguished. I had that awe during WoW, from accidentally ending up in a zone too high for my level and needing a friend to escort me out to simply marveling at how the music I was listening to as I played developed an echo when I was exploring caves. But I wouldn't recognise the game now, and it was really about ticking things off the list by the time I deleted it anyway. I loved The Secret World's world-building, and especially its starting zone, but through a complete revamp and simplification into Secret World Legends I've explored every single nook and cranny of that world.

A few games I thought I'd enjoy just annoyed me, because I never felt immersed in the world. It took me many hours to feel bored of Oblivion, but much shorter to get bored of Skyrim, for example - and the overwhelming number of mods makes it even harder, in some ways. When you can change everything, it's hard to know what will actually make the game more fun and what will just cause frustration with trying to get the mod to work.

I'm more likely to distract myself with basic games nowadays, simple gameplay for simple pleasures without the chance of experiencing 'it', but without the chance of being disappointed by the lack of 'it' either. Truthfully, I don't think I'll experience that wonder again, that combination of openness and gameplay and world-building that really makes anything feel possible.

Unless VR steps in. I think that technology has the ability to reignite that sense of wonder because of the heightened immersion. I'm interested to see where that goes.
 
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Daddy's Little Kitten said:
BotW. There's so much shit to do.
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Same. It was very refreshing to do shrines(before learning how few of them had any rewards) and seeing how there could be different solutions for the same puzzles. Most memorable was a balance beam when you're first given the magnet power, and there's wrecking balls in the way hanging from chains; some folks would get the balls swinging and try to MXC across, others would slowly hold the balls off to the side, move past, then try to bring them to rest again without swinging(stealthy!) and others would wrap the damn things up around the bar they hang from a few times so they would no longer be in reach! I felt very good about figuring out the forest puzzles leading to the Master Sword, the lightning field's golf puzzle, the island that strips you of all your items, and the three giant labyrinths on the edges of the map. And filling in the map was pretty satisfying.

La-Mulana 1 & 2 were also deeply satisfying to play this decade. They're fair games, but they pull no punches with puzzles, bosses, and the way it encourages note-taking and mapmaking is really great. Also they're basically Ancient Aliens: the Game, which was unexpected. I'm surprised by how different the DOS freeware one is from the Steam HD remake, I recommend playing both versions.
 
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Honestly Ive only felt that in Morrowind and Breath of the Wild. I guess I have a style of games I go for. Skyrim was a bit like that too. I like seeing the environments and especially if they feel handcrafted.
 
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Dr. Geronimo said:
1vs100 was such a small blip in gaming history but it was a damn special one.
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Fuuuuuck. I miss 1vs100 so much. It was so goddamned fun. I would say I wish they would bring it back but it wouldn't be the same.
Also Ninja Gaiden Black and Dark Souls 1. NGB felt like I was in a big connected world despite basically being levels. I must have played through that game a good 40 times with 100% completion on multiple of them. Upon playing Dark Souls 1 for the first time it gave me the same feeling but being able to backtrack to pretty much anywhere gave me even more of a sense of being on an "adventure".
 
Terraria 1.4: I admit, I did read the patch notes, so I knew that there were two new bosses and all that, but there was still so much cool shit they didn't mention, so I was finding it for the first time.

The original Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion: While this game (and its HD remake) can do absolutely nothing to me nowadays, the first time I played it, I was fucking terrified, in a good way. To this day, I think it's the only horror game to have ever made me fear going into the next room. It helps that the game's pretty fun, even today.
 
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ive had a few games that have done this to me. most recent one would have to be new vegas. before that, there was the usual array of elder scrolls games, world of warcraft, animal crossing wild world on DS, and maplestory of all games
 
Im not sure yet, but im falling in love with the Battlestar galactica games they had on humble choise last month. realy nice turnbased space fights.
 
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I just bought the Disney Afternoon collection on PS4 and played Duck Tales 2 for the first time.

It isn't as good as the first game, but its a nice continuation of it, and it gave me that joy of discovery that the first game gave me.
 
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Dragon's Dogma. Bringing down monsters several dozen times your size alongside a classic RPG party never gets old. Second only to Trials of Mana in terms of action RPGs.
 
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The Bazelgeuse hunt in MHW felt particularly awesome for me. Getting to fuck up the monster that routinely ruined or prolonged my other hunts with my friends felt so awesome.

That and the Slave Knight Gael boss fight in DS3. As underwhelming as the base game was, the DLC made it worth it, and the Gael fight is what I see as the true final boss. All the awesome effects, the ruined arena, the level of skill required to fight him, and the fact that Gael has three phases made his boss fight a spectacle to behold.
 
I almost want to say Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. As flawed as the game was on release, it really drew me into the world, had great writing, character and atmosphere (at least until the final third of the game where it fell apart) I love that game and still go back to replay it, but I can't quite call it the one where I last "felt it"

That goes to Planescape: Torment. Never before had I played a game that just completely sucked me in like Torment. The setting was such a departure from the standard fantasy RPG tropes I was used to. The characters were all fleshed out and made you care about their background, motivations and evolution, even alot of the NPCs had tons of detail added. The plot was deep and really made you question your choices and allegiances. Everything about this game was perfect to me. 21 years later and it still remains my all time favorite game, and the one game I found myself just completely absorbed in my first playthrough, even feeling a bit wistful when I beat it for the first time because it had ended.
 
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