What game can you only play once for the full effect? - For fuck's sake, mark your spoilers.

[Bender]

I nominate Return of the Obra Dinn, which is a pretty obvious choice since you can't go back for a second playthrough and enjoy all of those "oh SHIT, THAT'S what happened!" moments a second time.

 

[MediocreMilt]

Tetris

Spoiler

 

[Bender]

Tetris

Spoiler

View attachment 1011882

Should've gotten those T-Spins, you scrub.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Most games that are heavily reliant on story. Once you experience that for the first time, it won't have the same impact on subsequent playthroughs.

As much as I love Planescape Torment, once you clear it as a high intelligence and wisdom character, you've finished the full story/game. I still replay it once every few years or so, but it doesn't compare to the first time I went through it. That was an experience.

Silent Hill 2 had a wonderful atmosphere and a great twist (for the time) but again, once you finish it, there's nothing left to creep you out or immerse you, as you already know what's coming.

 

[Bender]

Most games that are heavily reliant on story. Once you experience that for the first time, it won't have the same impact on subsequent playthroughs.

As much as I love Planescape Torment, once you clear it as a high intelligence and wisdom character, you've finished the full story/game. I still replay it once every few years or so, but it doesn't compare to the first time I went through it. That was an experience.

Silent Hill 2 had a wonderful atmosphere and a great twist (for the time) but again, once you finish it, there's nothing left to creep you out or immerse you, as you already know what's coming.

I've been meaning to play Planescape Torment, I just never got around to it, all I know is you're some guy who's immortal or something and the story is really rich.

However I'm too much of a pussy to play any Silent Hill games, but I think I might watch a playthrough of Silent Hill 2 on YT, since everyone raves about what a great game it is.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I've been meaning to play Planescape Torment, I just never got around to it, all I know is you're some guy who's immortal or something and the story is really rich.

However I'm too much of a pussy to play any Silent Hill games, but I think I might watch a playthrough of Silent Hill 2 on YT, since everyone raves about what a great game it is.

I highly recommend Planescape. It's still the game I recommend to people who don't consider video games art in order to change their mind. It's very light on combat (I think there's only three unavoidable fights) and that's a turnoff for some, but the story is so deep and cerebral that I feel it's worth it.

Silent Hill 2 I'd agree would be best to probably just watch a longplay of. It's a pretty short game (roughly 7 hours or so) and it's better just enjoying the story and atmosphere. The gameplay itself can be seen as a mixed bag these days, especially if you don't like the old tank styled controls survival horror had back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Headphones recommended.

 

[Bender]

Silent Hill 2 I'd agree would be best to probably just watch a longplay of. It's a pretty short game (roughly 7 hours or so) and it's better just enjoying the story and atmosphere. The gameplay itself can be seen as a mixed bag these days, especially if you don't like the old tank styled controls survival horror had back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Headphones recommended.

I'm gonna give Cryaotic's playthrough a go, I liked his Okami playthrough. I'm not even halfway through the first video but christ it looks clunky as hell.

 

[Pissmaster]

I know visual novels are obvious, but Zero Escape lives and dies on its insane twists near the end. If those games get spoiled for you, you're really fucked. Like you'll just be going "oh, he/she/that's that way because of this reason" the whole game and it'll be really boring.

Heavy Rain awards different achievements for different decisions you make in each scene and there are a few different endings, but it becomes a serious slog your third time through and you really start to notice how many silly things there are throughout the game.

 

[Muttnik]

Soma fucked me up so hard when I first played it. The atmosphere and deadfuck bleakness of it all really does a number on you. I don't want to replay it because I know it'll mess me up again. Def reccomend though.

Spoiler

The conversation with the last human on Earth is a fountain of tears.

 

[Bender]

I know visual novels are obvious, but Zero Escape lives and dies on its insane twists near the end. If those games get spoiled for you, you're really fucked. Like you'll just be going "oh, he/she/that's that way because of this reason" the whole game and it'll be really boring.

Holy shit, I can't believe I didn't post that in the OP, VLR was such a fantastic game but I played that first, then ZTD and THEN I finally got around to playing 999. I couldn't find 999 on the DS here, so I only played it when it released on Steam, but that version let you use the time-line jumping mechanic introduced in VLR, which made it a lot easier to go for the other endings..

 

[Marissa Moira]

Journey

Spoiler: DO NOT CLICK IF YOU WANT FULL EFFECT

 

[Takodachi]

Radiant Historia.
A shame really, its such an underrated gem, I'd put it up there with Chrono Trigger

Spoiler: True Ending

 

[Bender]

Journey

I played about half of Journey, and the best part of it was completely anonymous people who had already completed it whistling at me to show me where to go for the extra scarf length.

Radiant Historia.
A shame really, its such an underrated gem, I'd put it up there with Chrono Trigger

Did a quick Googling and there's an expanded version for the 3DS, which would you say I should play?

 

[Takodachi]

I played about half of Journey, and the best part of it was completely anonymous people who had already completed it whistling at me to show me where to go for the extra scarf length.


Did a quick Googling and there's an expanded version for the 3DS, which would you say I should play?

The 3DS version has difficulty settings, if you arent too much into JRPGs and just want to experience the plot, along with some other changes to combat that make it less grindy.
So I'd say the 3DS version.

 

[HeyYou]

Far Cry 2. It has tons of issues and people sucking it off too hard annoy me, but the atmosphere really is something else. For that reason, though, I really, really doubt I will ever play it again.

 

[killuminati]

Far Cry 2. It has tons of issues and people sucking it off too hard annoy me, but the atmosphere really is something else. For that reason, though, I really, really doubt I will ever play it again.

I fucking hated the game the first time I played it, but once it finally "clicks" it's a decent experience. It's so repetitive that you'll only want to play it once though.

Same thing goes for the Just Cause games IMO.

 

[Thumb Butler]

South Park - The Stick of Truth.

 

[Bread Fetishist]

Most point-and-click adventure games, really.

 

[Eryngium]

Danganronpa, pretty low hanging fruit though, since the whole game is based around not knowing shit while the characters play 4d chess, and 99% of it's replay value comes from the music or possibly having alzheimers and forgetting everything.

 

[Edgeworth]

Along with what Equinox said, there's also games with twists or unexpected events that are really only truly experienced once - yeah, Last of Us and Bioshock obviously CAN be replayed (and I enjoy playing them more than once) but that impact only hits most people the *first* time they play.

I'll be that scrub and say TellTale's Walking Dead *Season 1. It hit hard the first time and subsequent playthroughs just seem to water down the experience because it doesn't hit nearly as hard a second time.