What's the best quality of your favorite game?

[Bob_McMillan]

You know that one little thing that makes you ignore every single flaw in the game and keeps you playing forever?

Mine would be the small details in Arkham City. The game has orgasmic combat, great graphics, the undeniably best voice acting, and an okay story. But what really caught my attention were all the easter eggs and additional content. There were dozens of audiotapes that you could actually enjoy enjoy listening to, because they actually added to the story in a big way and again, voice acting was phenomenal. The information packets and stuff you collect are equally interesting, but more plentiful. The main YouTube channel of the Arkham series has hours of easter egg videos. The detail and amount of them just astound me. It's like every single employee of Rocksteady is a Batman fanboy. And they way they set up Arkham Knight! Amazing. If anyone was surprised that Scarecrow made a return, they just didn't play enough of Arkham City. There so much stuff they added to the game that I feel bad for them, since majority of the players probably don't even know they exist. To me, easter eggs in a polished game means that the devs love what they do.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I dont think there is any one singular part of the game that makes it my favourite game I mean I like the characters more than probably any other game but tbh pretty much everything else about it I can cherry pick other games and say that this did it better and in a few instances many did it better.

The only reason its my favourite game is because of the way everything comes together and the experience it gave and continues to give me is still the greatest I have ever experienced in the medium. Also not going to say what the game is because I know that would get us off track.

 

[SoreWristed]

Arkham asylum/city. As op stated, orgasmic combat and a high level of detail. Out of the two, I feel asylum takes the lead for it's enemy encounters. I normally don't like forced stealth, simply because it is forced, but in this game it really fits. The game puts you in closed off areas where there is real threat and you feel automatically enclined to go about sneaking and killing off enemies one by one in various ways. It also feels fun, while you could just do the one takedown over and over again, the game rewards you for switching it up and taking down every enemy differently. When stealth fails, the combat feels good and it's not too punishing for missing a combo. I liked this system in Prince of Persia as well.

Arkham city left way more options to approach an enemy encampment, but that also meant there was much less threat. I could use the grappling hook almost at any time to instantly get out of the line of fire and try again. It did have the best boss fights though. Mr. Freeze. Not hard, just needed you to think.

An other game would be Jak & Daxter. While there aren't any flaws to speak of in the first place, i really liked the way they did tutorials. Or didn't do tutorials. At the start of the game they send you to an island and only interrupt the flow of the game four times for very short explanations. And you got useful things on the tutorial island. Once the tutorial is over you're just dropped into the world and you get to go nuts. The mario64 style of gameplay that I like. Linear in a sense that you progressed from hub to hub, but non-linear in the sense that you could do whatever in whatever order, with only some minor, and logical, exceptions.

Lastly, the way Beyond Good & Evil approached combat. You're given little explanation how the combat and stealth work before you're released into the world. Most areas look like they're designed with stealth in mind, but combat is equally viable in almost all situations. Then there's the option of clearing every room before progressing, or simply stunning enemies and walking past. Without specifically pointing it out and saying "hey look, we programmed it so you can approach enemies in different ways, aren't we smart and smug", the game just let's you do whatever.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

Replay value. It doesn't really matter which game it is, but if I'm really going to get into a game I'm going to want to play it again. This could explain why Timesplitters, Duke Nukem, and the various Warriors games are my favorite franchises.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I quite like the commutes in Shadow of the Colossus. Primarily because they feel less like you're commuting and more like actual exploring. Everybody always remembers the boss fights and describes the game as a series of boss battles, but they forget that's just one half of the game. The other half is about braving an open world with a fickle compass for a guide (which doesn't take into account obstacles, and doesn't work in the shadows), forcing you to explore in ways you never would if the game just did the GTA thing of stamping your objective on the map, or drawing a line on the ground for you to follow ala Dead Space. It works because it feels like you're actually exploring, and not just taking the elevator to the next boss. Also helps the scenery is gorgeous and its purpose is to tell a story that goes beyond your own personal mission.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Characters or music.

For example the Mass Effect games. The plot is serviceable, and it keeps the player going I guess. But the characters! Oh fuck man, the characters! Liara, Tali, Kaidan, Jack, Samara! More complex than the honestly relatively few conversations you have with them would ever allow you to believe.
I'll hold the Mass Effect trilogy as the par for characterization and character development.

Failing that, I'll fall back on music. The Silent Hill games are perfect examples. Plot and character wise, they're a joke. Literally in some of the secret endings. I know people bang on and on about Silent Hill 2 and OH SO DEEP! But its a stupid story with stupid characters doing stupid things using bad controls. But I love the music!
Even Silent Hill 3, which I hold to be the best of the series, is basically a teen slasher flick, with all the corniness and cringe-worthy lines that entails. But I play it because I love the soundtrack. Hell, I bought the soundtrack and I still play the game just to hear it again!

 

[FPLOON]

The music and the combat... When games like REZ and Child of Eden mixes them flawlessly to the point that it becomes an experience in and of itself, it's magic to my controller fingers... Also, the Kingdom Hearts series made me appreciate a good grind session where the game's OST's playing throughout, switching between regular and battle themes at the drop of the hat...

Other than that, that is usually what makes me comes back for more in some of my favorite games in general

 

[Rebel_Raven]

A playable character I like, really. It makes almost anything tolerable in a game. I try for some escapism when I game, or to just forget troubles. A character I like helps a lot towards things like this.

 

[GabeZhul]

Characters and modability.

The former is present in many of my favorite games. Persona 4, Mass Effect 2, and then there are a bunch of JRPGs and visual novels you probably never even heard of and I am too lazy to list them all.
I am a staunch believer of the literary ideal that good characters are more important than a good plot, because characters you like and can sympathize with can make even a boring or otherwise sub-par plot enjoyable, but even the greatest plot falls on its face when it happens to characters you don't care about or even actively hate.

As for modability, it's the life-blood of the Elder Scrolls/new Fallout series and it is the reason why I can overlook all their flaws... because there are mods to fix all of them. And if there is still a bug somewhere that cannot be fixed? Who cares? I am riding a dragon while wearing a neon green gimp-suit and shouting Thu'um that causes exploding cheese to fall from the sky! Your argument is invalid!

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Gothic 2.

There are many great things about this gem, but above all in my mind is the combat. Gothic 2's melee combat is just fucking sweet. While the first Risen had an even better system, I'd give the edge in challenge to Gothic 2 as it's bit trickier than Risen. It's based on methodically combining your swings into efficient combos (if you mistime it, you can expose yourself to counter attack) while carefully parrying your enemy if they're a humanoid or dodging away from them with precise timing if they're a beast. Sounds simple, but it works so well.

Magic is also a tonne of fun. Freezing an enemy solid in a block of ice and then bashing his skull in with a staff never gets old. Or summoning dozens of skeletons at once and creating a small, makeshift army to fight your way through a horde of orcs is also very fulfilling.

Only downside is archery and crossbows suck ass, but I don't particularly care enough about them for it to matter to me all that much.

 

[TonkaBix]

It's definitely the characters and story for me. I love to get sucked into the world and well crafted character will do that.

Bioware is the absolute king of this. I have yet to play one of their games that doesn't pull my heartstrings in some way.

The characters and story is also what sets the Halo franchise apart from every other FPS on the block. I am not afraid to admit that I cried when a certain character died in Halo 4 and when all Noble team died in Halo: Reach.

 

[aozgolo]

Degree of interactivity. I like games that let me interact with the world in a meaningful way. I hate to see a cluttered desk full of books, drawers, pouches, and various items of curious interest and zero way to do anything with them. I like the touches that bring a game world to life beyond what simply serves the means of telling the story in the most direct way possible.

Skyrim for example does not require the ability to pick up every single item and murder every NPC I encounter and have a physics based world that reacts to my spells and abilities to tell it's story of the Dragonborn, but because it does, the game's appeal supersedes it's story in a meaningful way by letting you experience the world in ways the developers have not implicitly scripted for you.

 

[Evonisia]

The characters and story is also what sets the Halo franchise apart from every other FPS on the block. I am not afraid to admit that I cried when a certain character died in Halo 4 and when all Noble team died in Halo: Reach.

As mediocre as Halo: Reach is, it has one Hell of an ending that did feel like a fond farewell from Bungie in a game that was so cynically designed. I didn't cry, but I felt closure from it. And then the world didn't continue into 2011 and everybody had lemonade.

OT: My favourite quality (and also what I feel is the strongest quality) of my favourite game FarCry is its world building.

FarCry is an incredibly cliché but utterly earnest game, going for a cheesy Sci-Fi theme right down to mutant soldiers and mutant monkeys being one of the major enemies faced. The huge variety of areas help create this seamless world where death laboratories can co-exist with peaceful jungle, military-esque camps and old World War II bunkers rusting on the cliff's edge, and it doesn't feel incongruous at all that the final mission is set in a Volcano Doom Fortress. Then there's the small details of the world like the empty cages with infection signs on them, or the odd mercenary mentioning something called a "Trigen", or hell any Mercenary conversation that I just love listening to through the binoculars. You can also find lovely things like Mercenary porno mags lying around the base (including toilets) and pizzas missing a slice or two.

It all works so well that you forget that the game only has one female character in it.

 

[Nazulu]

No. There isn't just one thing that makes me ignore the rest. The reason I have a favourite is because I believe it does many things so damn well. I can't ignore the flaws either, and in essence it is what makes me appreciate it more.

Super Metroid is my favourite, and it's because it's amazing music along with it's execution of it, including the fun to explore level design, well thought out surprises and the fluent movement mechanics make it amazing. Nintendo's masterpiece.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

The soundtrack in Chrono Trigger is so good it just shines through everything else, despite the other elements also being borderline sublime. Though To the Moon stole the best soundtrack title from Chrono Trigger, it's still my favorite game.

 

[Lupine]

Characters and story for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy action as much as the next guy, good gameplay, etc. But the characters and their motivations are usually what decide it for me one way or the other. Likewise, lore and world quality also allow me to overlook the things that I might not enjoy about a game as they tend to be the things I most fervently enjoy.

 

[necromanzer52]

Something I really love about Ratchet & Clank is that they're just dudes. They're not some great hero of legend who's been prophecised for centuries to come along and save the galaxy in its time of greatest need. Nah. They're just good people who want to do the right thing, and happened to bump into each other at the right time. Hell, for most of the game, Ratchet's not really that bothered about the whole saving the galaxy thing. He's not a bad guy, he's just kinda selfish. It's a well written character arc.

Also it has a gun that turns enemies into chickens. This is good.

 

[squeebles12]

Plot of Demon's Souls or to be honest any of the later From Software games. I love the fact that the majority of their plot is told in the background rather than in cutscenes or big dialogue chunks. For example in the first level you can find two bodies hanging from chains in a tower, on has old rags but the smaller body has a jade hair ornament... right after you speak to Stockpile Thomas who says that he fled the city, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

That's only one example of the background storytelling that it features. Initially it appears that the plot is very barebones but it's actually so deep and detailed as well as quite heart breaking. I think its part of the reason why I preferred this game to Dark Souls. The story was a lot more cohesive compared to dark souls, at least in design. Dark souls at least had some beautiful areas whereas demon's souls didn't. Demon's souls is thematically stable (the proper word fails me at the moment), everything is dark and gloomy, you genuinely feel that there is nothing good left in their world. Even the NPC's and their dialogue works to create a sense of desperation and loss, like:
Stockpile Thomas "You have a heart of gold... don't let them take it from you."
Garl Vinland "Why do you come here? You abandoned us long ago. Will you not turn back?"
and then once you kill Garl Vinland and you go to face Maiden Astraea "You killed him... Garl... Fine, I no longer need life... Take your Precious demon's soul!" (proceeds to commit suicide) Last quote may not be entirely accurate but its something similar.

 

[Tilly]

For me, one of the most constant priorities in my gaming tastes is the world building. I'm often shocked how little this gets talked about in game reviews and people seem happy to swallow the same LOTR-clones over and over again. Games like Dragon Age Origins get critical acclaim despite being the most unoriginal fictional world ever created.

The 2 games that have most stood out in this respect are Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy 9. Plenty of flaws, sure. The list of flaws in Final Fantasy 9 kinda moves beyond subjectivity to actual really glaring mistakes in game design. But I really don't care. It's a perfectly realised fantasy world that feels completely full of life and has such a distinct mood that I haven't found anywhere else. For which I'll be eternally grateful to the former masters of RPGs.

 

[CaitSeith]

Ace Attorney in general: the humorous plot twists (although some of the touching ones are also good). They always make me laugh. Justice for All has one of the most epic and funniest intros in my opinion.