Back in the day... Sonic the Hedgehog. Could never play/enjoy a Mario game after.

Ghosts'n Goblins/Ghouls'n Ghosts/Black Tiger: there is, absolutely, no arcade/platformer hybrid than can compare with my aforementioned sacred trinity. Nothing.

Diablo II: it sucked the desire to feel joy in any other action-RPG out of me. Diablo III is homogenized bullshit for the Facebook generation. And I played it a lot.

Well, it tends to happen to me for newer installments versus old ones. Like mentioned, I find SWAT 3 hard to get into, as I started out with SWAT 4. Likewise, I don’t tend to play HOMM 1 and 2 much, as whenever I feel for playing, I tend to go for HOMM 3. Another example is Dune 2/Warcraft 1, which are so hard to get into compared to C&C/Warcraft 2 (or almost any other later RTS).
As for Morrowind/Oblivion, it was actually the other way around for me. Playing Morrowind first made Oblivion’s flaws so very noticeable, especially the boring story and awful levelling mechanic.

It's the other way round with Warcraft 3 vs Starcraft for me. I love both, but I'm a much bigger fan of Warcraft's setting and general vibe.

You might like Dawn of War then. At least up to Dark Crusade. It doesn't have nearly as much of an interesting campaign, but it scores full marks on all other fronts with its brutal combat, intense characters, and 7 very different but remarkably well balanced factions. Other post Warcraft 3 RTS games I really enjoyed: LoTR:Battle for Middle-Earth, C&C:3 ,Company of Heroes, DoW2, Act of War and World in Conflict.

Somehow I managed to miss the Warlords Battlecry series. I think I might've played a demo of one at some point, but couldn't really get into it.

I haven't been too active on the adventure game front for some time, except for Fate of Atlantis that I'm still stuck on because I refuse to consult a walkthrough :P I'm not sure how common it was back then but the only of archaic adventure game mechanic that I can't make peace with is the one that allows you to proceed beyond a point of no return without an item that you need later. I'm not even really sure if there are concrete examples of that among the more well known adventure games. It seemed to me that, unless I missed something, it was possible to get stuck that way in the original Space Quest.
Yes well, HoMM 3 is kind of the game to end all games in its genre :) At least almost. It loses some points in my book for its non-engaging story and characters. Which is why I think I find Age of Wonders and Disciples 2 to be just as good.

Warcraft 1 is still fun for me to this day (probably the intense nostalgia) but Dune 2 is unplayable in its original form. Though some of the modern clones/reverse engineered versions are remarkably fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX_3Ah7gFdI

Pretty much the reason I never picked up any of the "Quest" games. However, apparently there is a "no dead ends" mode in these remakes, so I might eventually check them out.

After discovering turn based strategy, real time strategy/tactics looks casual to me.

Contra ruined all platform shooters for me.

That is interesting. I could never get myself to finish FF5, didn't like the story, not a huge fan of the job system. FF4 is one of my favorites though, probably because it was the first RPG I played that had more of a story than go save the world ala FF1 and Dragon Warrior. FF6 is right up there with Chrono Trigger in the untouchable nostalgia department, will probably always consider it the best FF.
Really? I find Mario games easily superior to Sonic games. The first time I played Sonic the Hedgehog I laughed that they thought it could challenge any Mario game. Different strokes for different folks obviously.

Speed... music...characters. I've tried numerous times in the past to play various Mario side-scrolling platforms but I just get tired of them after a hour or so.

I know Mario was more important... vastly more so... but I just never found the games as fun as Sonic games.

Not a game really, but a DLC.

The Goat Simulator STAR WARS add-on ruined all other Star Wars themed goat simulation games for me.

F.E.A.R. ruined other FPS games, because the AI is actually good at what it's there for, not just some dummy like in most (all?) other FPS games.

Similarly, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series also ruined FPS games, because they were tough games, where as games these days (even in pvp...) they're all far too easy.

magicka2 ruined the entire Magicka series. That "sequel", especially at release was atrocious.

There is the negative version of this.

I'd say either Assassin's Creed Brotherhood or Watch_Dogs have ruined a lot of sandbox games for me.

You know the type: none of its gameplay mechanics are any good, the stealth is shallow, the combat is either mashing a button or using your invincible counterattack, the platforming is just holding down a button and pointing to a certain direction, the gameplay revolves around doing the same 3 or 4 missions over and over again. But the game does offer all these shitty mechanics in a single package and a large world to explore, and that's the big draw. It got to the point where I just couldn't stand it anymore.


I'm not certain I can quite say it ruined them completely though. Eventually I find one that does enough things well that it does access the part of my brain that likes to just go around completing the checklist of missions, but it just doesn't carry to other games. I did love Far Cry 3, but Far Cry 4 never engaged me enough to bother finishing it. I did think Shadow of Mordor did assassinations better than AC ever did, but there hasn't been a follow up yet.

I am in the mood for something similar now, as it has been a long time since I enjoyed one. The last one I tried was AC4, aka the good one in a lot of circles, but I never even got to the ship parts because everything else about it was the same it has always been and just too infuriating. The new Zelda is going full open world, I'm hoping that turns out good enough to scratch this itch.

EDIT: And in the moment I write this there's a leak saying Shadow of Mordor 2 is coming out in August. Although it might be like Far Cry 4, where I think it's just more of the same once again and end up not caring for it despite enjoying the previous one. Gonna go ahead and make a thread about it.

i completely agree in regards to ff6 being the best in the series (followed by 4 and 7 in no particular order, at least for me). it had the perfect concoction of detailed graphics, memorable sound, and epic story telling. i tried to get into 5 when the anthology came out for the psx, but I recall the step back in graphics from 6 and the job system just didn't do it for me. plus the art direction in 6 had this neat sort of hyper-detailed victorian painterly thing going on that gave the game world a cool sense of time and place during an industrial revolution. i remember being in the 6th grade in 1995 learning about the industrial revolution during history class, and thinking about ff6 and wanting sooo bad to get home to my snes. ah good times.

Yes by all means give a go! Feel free to drop a pm if you've got some questions. I'm still pretty useless, but I've managed to figure out a few important things. Unfortunately since the game isn't as infamous as Nethack or Dwarf Fortress it isn't always that easy to get info online. Though it does have a tutorial, a good ingame help system and there does appear to be a pretty active forum and reddit community.