Ask HN: What is the most memorable game you played?

Assassin's creed II. Will never forget the beauty of Florence and Venice.

Came here to post this. It and the expansion are each 40+ hour purely narrative experiences that are genuinely emotional and moving self-directed journeys of discovery. There's nothing else like it.

If that sounds interesting, seriously, DO NOT LOOK UP ANYTHING, do not read anything about it, just buy it and play it blind. You won't regret it. The mystery and wonder and surprise is the whole point.

EDIT: one caveat - if you are on PC, do yourself a favor and use a gamepad rather than a keyboard. You'll get way too frustrated with digital inputs rather than analog.

Nier Automata.

It really didn't look like my thing but I picked it up from a friend's recommendation and it blew me away.

The story, the soundtrack the gameplay are incredible and made me think a lot more about the philosophy of games. Highly recommend it.

Chess, growing up, was a big one. But I guess you mean video games (:

Hard to pick "the" most memorable, so here's a small list:

PC:

Homeworld — the scope and "space-y" feel, and how well you could control things down to details. Seemed impossible at the time. Likewise for Total Annihilation.

Command & Conquer — glorious pixelated gruesome deaths (:

King's Quest and Myst-style games — I remember drawing maps and taking notes with my Mom to get through these.

Heart of Darkness — more wonderful death animations

SNES:

* Mario Paint ­— really good variety; you could make music, animations, paint, play that flyswatter game. Plus the mouse was a novelty.

* Sim Ant — loved how the humans were a kinda peripheral antagonist; you just see their footsteps or get caught in a lawnmower from time to time.

* Populous — for some reason the thing I remember most is the alternate tilesets — cake-world, computer-world, etc.

* Chrono Trigger — the depth of the story, the beautiful artwork and music. Played through many endings on that.