Now I am pretty sure that we are not all completionists when it comes to gaming; but I am certain that we have all had at least one game that we have loved so much that we poured hours and hours into it after winning so we could get and do everything possible within that game.Sometimes, we might not have a lot of time consistently to dedicate to gaming and therefore may not stay on one game for too long. But when you find that game that you absolutely have to keep playing over anything else, I think many people will agree that it is a much more satisfying game experience when you have more time and memories with a game (as opposed to a played and beaten one-time game)

   Whenever I think about this sort of thing, the first game that comes to mind is PacMan world 3. There were a few before this that I had beaten and continued to play, but that was more or less because I did not have very many games. For me, PacMan world 3 was only the second fully 3d game that I had played (I think the other one before this was Acme Arsenal), but from the moment that I started the game, I was so taken by it. I absolutely loved everything I saw. From the slimy pits of the robot junkyard at the beginning, to even just the concept of wall jumping, everything in the first fifteen minutes of gameplay had me hooked. Fast forward about four or five weeks, I had just beaten the final boss of the game, and I was ecstatic. After all the levels I had gone through, I had finally beaten the evil scientist Erwin and saved multiple worlds. But yet somehow, I just couldn't leave it there, so I started back at the beginning of the game, this time on hard difficulty. I went through every level over and over again, trying to top my high score and life count each time, as well as trying to get every collectible. I played PacMan world 3 so many times for so long. that nearly six years later, I can go into a level and still remember all the little hidden nooks and crannies where the devs would hide fruit or extra lives! I could go on and on with multiple other games from various franchises such as Mario, Kirby, Metroid, Rebel Raiders, and even Defender, but for the purpose of this thread I won't.

      Whether it be completionist save files, speed runs, hours upon hours of multiplayer, or just exploring the game worlds that you love, what are some of your absolute favorite games and what are your experiences with them?

I absolutely loved Tiny Toon Adventures: Acme All-Stars! Despite not watching the show all that much, the game quickly ate up all my time back in 2009 and 2010 because it was so addictive to me. Just everything about it made me very happy, like the characters, graphics, music, etc. It was all very good fun, sir. I'll cherish that experience forever, sir. Just magical.

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I've owned the Gamecube version for at least 15 years, yet it's the only game I've never felt tired of playing. Probably the only game I've ever spent more than 200 hours playing it, but surely the only game I've gone that far without complaining about anything.

What I loved from it was the Chao World. You started with a couple eggs in the standard garden, then depending how you raise them you could open up two more gardens, with one more egg inside each of them. The Chao born from those eggs then live a happy life (if you're not a jerk), going through evolutions and mating seasons until they die or, if they enjoyed their life very much, reincarnate into another egg.

What got me hooked so much was 1) the colorful evolutions and 2) the races Chao could participate in. Evolutions took a very long time to get but sometimes the results were incredible. As for races, they are extremely fun because Chao need to swim, run, fly and use their strength in specific layouts. Training a Chao to be the best at racing produced amazing results, like seeing them swim in the garden, running through the grass or randomly flying when they were about to fall down from somewhere. Besides, training Chao for these stats in racing directly affected evolutions, so the pack is complete.

If we add to this that you can get more variants of Chao in the game's Black Market, then the game takes on a whole new dimension. When it comes to mating, you can get even more colorful results than through evolution. Too bad that you need to keep playing the Story mode so the Black Market gets more and more items, but since you'll need to play missions if you want to train your Chao I guess they complement each other. I never got to complete much of the Story for being so focused in Chao and I never will, that part of the game is and will always be more interesting for me even if I have limited access to items.

The game I have by far dedicated the most time and enthusiasm to is Super Mario 64. Not only did I skip beating the game with 70 stars and just go for 120 the first time, but I proceeded to beat it at least 120 more times. I learned many tricks and glitches I could do to speed things up and give me more to do in the game.

That still wasn't enough. I learned to speedrun it. I watched other speedrunners and based some of my routes off of theirs. However, I also made up a couple consistent routes myself. By speedrunning it for a few months, Super Mario 64 became even more fun than ever before. I managed to beat it in 2 hours and 15 minutes on my Wii U with my Wii Classic Controller. That wasn't all that hard.

Unfortunately, I stopped speedrunning after a long time. It was getting in the way of the multiple other hobbies I have, so I now stick with playing video games for fun.

According to steam it would be Sonic Adventure (I 100%ed it) or one of the three other games with 100+ hours.

However, I think Pokémon Pearl / Diamond gets the grand title. I love that game so much that I have 3 different files for it. I've completed the national dex (although I think that was through hacking), stole literally everyone's flag that had the game, and even bothered completing a nuzlocke. And you know what? I'd do it all again if I didn't have other games to beat before letting myself sink hours into it again.

This seems like a fun subject, and everyone's reflections are interesting to read.


Growing up with a NES, I  give props to a beat-em-up called River City Ransom, I knew every secret, and challenged myself by speed runs, weakest gear, no $$, all sorts of stuff. Final Fantasy 2 (IV in Japan) and 3 (VI) were time-consuming rpgs I really sunk my teeth into to discover all their secrets. Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World, were full of surprises, I was so proud when I found the 'all P-wing' bonus in Mario 3 before anyone else in school..

I used to play Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari for hours, trying to get world record scores. Both games have really cleverly designed levels, and you don't really realize it until you go for high scores. I did eventually get a world record "fastest time" on a Katamari Damacy level, but to my knowledge, it's already been beaten. Oh well. All in good fun.

As a young kid, I played San Francisco Rush 2049's stunt mode way too much. I'm talking hours and hours. Probably a lot more hours than Katamari score attacks. I didn't play the other modes as much, and all I did was throw the car off the same exact jumps and did the same exact stunts, with little experimentation. I don't really remember why I found it so captivating. Maybe it was the electronic music and futuristic visuals? Don't get me wrong—Rush 2049 is still a great game to this day, but I wouldn't mind having some of those hours back, to be honest!

We had a friend come over and he had never played Katamari Damacy before. I had been playing it for months. I picked a stage for him, the North Star. He rolled up exactly. 10m first try, and said the game was not his thing.  I was never able to match that lol.

Some of my favorites of all time include Skyrim, Rocket League, CSGO, Bully, Guardian's Crusade, and Yugioh Forbidden Memories.

The last two are my favorites of all time, I used to play them so much long ago. I used to fully beat those games over and over and over.

I only recently got into Skyrim, like 2 months ago but it quickly grew into one of my favorites thanks to all the exploration and mods.