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[BiggNife]

SF4 (more specifically SSF4) was the first time I really took fighting games seriously and didn't just button mash. I liked fighting games up to that point but only casually — with SF4, I actually took the time to understand stuff like footsies and crossups and why wakeup DPs are a very bad idea.

 

[astroturfing]

Demon's Souls.

So far is the only game that has forced me to change my mindset on how approach the game.

yeah this. for me it was the first game in a reeeally long time that i truly felt i HAD to respect, i had to take every moment in the game seriously so i didn't mess up. it was great.

right now RE7 in VR is making me feel all kinds of new things.. pure dread, awe etc. "presence“ i guess. it's a totally fucked up experience.

 

[LCGeek]

Tekken 4 and then Soul Calibur 2 in terms of understanding how to play fighting games and what it means to actually play at a high level. The biggest thing was probably getting away from the mindset of stuff being "cheap", and getting into the mindset of figuring out how to deal with it. Also just understanding how big a gap there is between casual play and tournament play, and realizing how much work you have to put in to bridge that gap, but also how much more fun the games are when you put in the work.

You won't go far in either of those games viewing your opponents as cheap. God forbid you face steve, jin, xianghua, ivy, mitsurugi, or the greek sisters. Talk about giving yourself an psyche out before the match starts.

 

[CloudStrife_ca]

Final Fantasy VII definitely opened up the realm of RPG's to me, before that my experiences were limited to the Legend Of Zelda and D&D with friends. Since then I can say that RPG's have been a staple of my gaming diet so to speak and probably my fav genre as long as I have the time to sink into them now as an adult.

On the negative side of things, some games take themselves too seriously when playing online, I find alot of fighting games are like that online, Grand Theft Auto, RDR was like that or just really poor as far as matchmaking went. I feel like Call Of Duty has also gotten to be like that. I still enjoy playing online in Titanfall 2, Modern Warfare Remastered, Battlefield 1, Star Wars Battlefront and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online. I don't consider myself competitive enough to take it too seriously anymore.

I'd also like to add that as I've matured as a gamer, I've come to appreciate games with good multiplayer modes, when hosting game nights. Its something that is kinda lost on Microsoft and Sony, while Nintendo seems to still understand its a huge positive to bring people together in a room to play a game where everyone can get into it, no matter if they're casual or more experienced.

Those are the experiences that have come to mind when thinking about changes in my mentality as a life long gamer.

 

[RoadHazard]

Dark Souls made me appreciate a difficult but fair challenge and how rewarding that can be, and taught me to be patient. Before that I had generally played most games on Normal difficulty (at least the first time through), but these days I usually crank it up to max and only lower it if the challenge is based on unfair BS.

 

[The Look Away]

For me (this is a stupid answer by the way) it would probably be undertale. Theres a line someone says in the game somewhere that basically goes,

Spoiler

"If you have the power to manipulate timelines and can do anything you want, is it not your responsibility to not hurt anyone cause you can overcome any situation and get through it?".

And because of this line, I've gone through most games I play nowadays doing whatever non-lethal route I can possibly do because I'm the player character, therfore I'm essentially the god of this universe and its my responsibility if someone dies because I've could of done something better. Again, really stupid answer but there it is.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Undertale.

It is fine to let things go.

 

[rhandino]

Dark Souls

For the longest of times I post-poned getting this one because all the talk about how HARD it was and while I am not bad at games I always felt that I would never get into them even if I loved the aesthetic and tone.

But then I randomly started watching videos and watched some dude doing naked run a beating Manus without weapons and at that moment it dawned on me that if that one could beat the game naked then I could do it too using armor, weapons and leveling up so I bought the game and now the Souls series is one of my favorite.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

My favorite JRPG series of all time was Final Fantasy but in the games I played from that series you could mostly use only the attack option to clear the trash and I almost never used status effects.

Come Nocturne and I learned how useful buff and debuf could be and how you don't need random encounters to feel tedious if you have a nice build to clear the trash and another to beat a boss.

 

[Lunarwhale]

Drakengard changed how I can appreciate games as art, making me open to more alternative experiences where interaction with the media is unpleasant in a way intended to elicit a certain emotional response. Prior, I had never really played a game so dedicated to that. Even if I didn't "enjoy" Drakengard, I really appreciated what it did and played it through to the end regardless, loving it in retrospect as I do some films or books that aren't exactly entertaining.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne altered how I play RPGs with respects to status effects and experimentation rather than the typical "save all MP until boss, go ham on attacks, forget statuses and buffs exist" that got me through games just fine prior.

 

[ClearMetal]

Devil Survivor introduced the urban fantasy RPG genre to me, set either in the present or the near future. Before that, I couldn't even imagine playing an RPG that was not set in some sort of medieval high fantasy setting. I bought the game on a whim, even had to import it because it only saw a North-American release, and I was sold the moment I turned on the game.

 

[AdmiralMikey]

League of Legends changed my mentality around competitive games in general. Learning to play defensively and live by the idea of "It's better to not get killed than it is to get a kill" is something I carry with me now into multiplayer games that I've played since long before I started playing MOBA games, like shooters and fighters.

 

[Dr. Buni]

Silent Hill made me fascinated with horror games. I haven't finished a lot of them because I am a scared cat, but I love and follow the genre for a long time.

Overwatch finally made me realize competition isn't for me. Can't be bothered to play games where people will keep offending me because I picked a hero they don't like.

No, thanks. I will stick to single player and coop.

 

[Data West]

PUBG makes me abuse the fuck out of doors in shooters now even single player

 

[Pookmunki]

xcom 2 made me change my mentality as a xcom EW player

Great example.

 

[Syf]

StarCraft changed the way I think. Specifically learning to be a good macro player, not letting anything go to waste. For a simple example, when I started out if I had a bunch of extra minerals I'd queue up a bunch of units; but that was a waste because every unit in queue behind the one actively being produced represented minerals spent but not actually being used. If I cancelled just a few of those queued units, I could build another barracks in the mean time and not miss out on any output from the first one, as long as I remembered to go make another unit when the one before finished. Better to use those queued resources to expand production or tech up. There's more examples, but in the end I learned to be extremely efficient with my play and always ask myself what else I could be doing while waiting on one thing to finish. Doing that showed me how deep the game really is because there always was an answer; I found I could always be doing something else. It was around when I hit platinum league that I realized the pros weren't spamming for high APM, there was just a whole other level of thinking to learn that required a high APM to fully execute. Years later I'm still finding subtle ways to improve my play even after making master league. I think critically about every action now. And that's applied to other games and real life.

It also made me realize I hate playing team games competitively, lol.

 

[Sushi Nao]

The Witness was an interesting one - due to how it taught you the mechanics of the puzzles, you had to be unafraid to reappraise what you thought was true - there's a few rules that work for a bit, then it turns out your interpretation isn't quite right and you need to reconsider it in the light of some new information. I noticed that a lot in the official thread - there were a few significant puzzles that many people thought were impossible, but the problem was themselves - they'd become too wedded with a simple interpretation of the rule, that when it got more complex, they didn't go back and reappraise it - I've seen quite a lot of complaints that "They change the rules halfway through" when they don't; the rule was always consistent. You were just wrong, but right enough until now.

It's a little like the scientific method in that regard.

Edit: I think I slightly misinterpreted the title, because The Witness is a game that required you to change your mentality within the context of the game, but it didn't have an overall impact to my actions as a player beyond it.

This is how schemas work in early childhood development - don't be afraid to extrapolate it out as a broader life lesson, because it is.

 

[PataHikari]

Rivera: The Promised Land.

I've never hoarded items again.

 

[Ralemont]

I used to always finish games no matter how long or unsatisfied I was with them. In the middle of a slog through Valkyria Chronicles 2, which I was thoroughly hating but resolved to finish, I took a break to play Journey. That game gave me something in 5 hours that a game like VC2 couldn't give me in 100. So now I just stop playing shitty games.

 

[Shivershorts]

BotW taught me that, regardless of the quality of a game, I just can't bring myself to play games with such huge, sprawling worlds. The time I spend exploring and just getting from A to B isn't worth it anymore.

 

[K.E. Keith]

NieR.
I could explain, but you're better off exploring that one yourself.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Battlefield. Made you way more of a team player instead of who-can-get-the-best-KD.

MGS. Made me want to play games with as much stealth and as little killing as possible. Such as with Dishonored. I went through the entirety of DH2 without killing anyone.

 

[snow in jamaica]

Drakengard changed how I can appreciate games as art, making me open to more alternative experiences where interaction with the media is unpleasant in a way intended to elicit a certain emotional response. Prior, I had never really played a game so dedicated to that. Even if I didn't "enjoy" Drakengard, I really appreciated what it did and played it through to the end regardless, loving it in retrospect as I do some films or books that aren't exactly entertaining.

This is a big one for me. I was already bored with the way games are conventionally evaluated but Drakengard kinda blew it wide open for me.

 

[MSScaeva]

Fire Emblem got me to stop hoarding items and play more efficiently, instead of holding onto all of my good items and brute forcing hard fights.

 

[AppleSeason]

- Fallout 3 changed my opinion on non japanese RPG's. I always fond them boring and over the top complex, lacking that "cinematic feel". Then I could not stand jrpg's anymore.

- Overwatch showed me that there's no point in being anxious and scared about disappointing the rest of the team, causing them to fail and immediately being attacked. Things weren't that bad, I wasn't the crappiest player and except for the usual "you are noobs this team sucks", things weren't that terrible (for now).