Two initially jump to mind for me.
Outer Wilds took me three attempts to get into, but when it did…wow. Its a game that I is definitely more than the sum of it’s parts, and one that I’d argue is genuinely beautiful in it’s story and how it tells that story.
That said, once you’ve worked out the games mystery; it’s story, it’s tricks, timing and logistics, I wonder how more pull the game would have.
Return of the Obra Dinn is a game that I spend a lot of my time thinking about. The music, the atmosphere and of course, the games moment to moment gameplay.
Those puzzles will likely (hopefully) melt from my mind at some point, but even then I fear that initial sense of excitement and intrigue will be lost.
As much as I plan on going back to it at some point, I’m not sure a game of it’s nature is all that well suited to additional playthroughs unfortunately.
Read Dead Redemption 2. While I didn’t like the Intro as much, it really made for quite a journey.
I really should try getting through the intro again. 3rd time’s the charm!
The gameplay is pretty unique in this one, and the world is enormous, so a long tutorial makes sense. Once you final escape the snowy mountains and can access the wider world you feel a real sense of release and freedom that’s really worth it.
That said, like skyrim, it makes a new game a slog and I wish you could skip it on subsequent play throughs.
Mass Effect Trilogy
I’m definitely showing my age here, but for me it would be a PC game from 1996 called The Neverhood. When I played it at age 15 a lot of the biblical overtones were kind of lost on me, and the guy who created it turned out to be kind of a nut job, but it’s one of the most fun and creative puzzle games I’ve ever played. The entire game was made in stop motion with real clay sets and figures. The music is amazing and the soundtrack is definitely worth listening to on its own even if you don’t play the game. I’ve replayed it on emulators a few times over the years, but it was nothing like experiencing it for the first time and discovering all the puzzles and secrets! This was pre YouTube so even if you had to occasionally check the walkthrough you still didn’t really know what to expect next!
I have a Win XP virtual machine with that one installed. I didn’t manage to get very far though.
Oh, yes. This was also a game of my childhood. I first played it when I was six, maybe? Didn’t get very far, because I never thought to go back to the place the Weasel popped out of for that final button to get out of the first area. I think I was eight when my older sib and I finally completed it. This was before I had access to the internet, so we called up the family member who had given it to us for hints when we finally put our nose to the grindstone to get it done.
In retrospect, the help we needed was ridiculous and somehow we figured out the harder puzzles with less issues. (Probably not me. My sib is better at those things than I am.)
I also didn’t know anything about the biblical overtones, because I wasn’t raised with religion. It was just nutty and unique. Yet I still listen to the Neverhood OST and quote Willie Trombone’s tapes.
I remember being scared of the first person sections. I genuinely expected something to pop out. XD
I’ve never been particularly religious so I missed that part the first time through. I loaned it to a friend of mine at school and he pointed it out to me lol!
My family has just gotten the Internet maybe a year or two before I got the game so I did have the advantage of being able to use a walkthrough someone had posted, but I tried to do as much on my own as I could!
I still listen to that soundtrack once or twice a year lol! The guys name is Terry S. Taylor and I checked out a few of his other albums later on but the OST from Neverhood is still my favorite thing he’s done!
Planescape: Torment
I’ve asked my partner… in case I ever get Alzheimer’s… to just plug me in front of that game forever.
Fallout 4, it’s taken me ages, but I finally have a console mod set that makes survival mode what I always wanted it be, and being able to explore the world that way with fresh eyes would be amazing.