What are some video games that made you a better gamer?
For example, I am terrible at Super Meat Boy, but just playing it has really improved how I play platformers and games that need faster imputs overall.
Multiplayer games taught me that I generally dislike other people.
I've been on a decade long hiatus from multiplayer aspect of games - aside from games I was with people I knew in RL.
I only occasionally get a twinge for the comraderie of some epic raid in an MMO, or tight unspoken squad tactics where everyone just does their job as expected (not necessarily well lol) and came out on top.
But really, I don't have the time to commit to either of those.
Then I hear about my friend in GW2 (RL friend) who is going through some toxic guild BS and I don't miss it.
I tried DOTA once. Once was enough.
I can play on my own time, and I can play with friends, but god help me I HATE playing on the server's time. I can kinda do it with Pokemon Go, but that's one you can play as casually or as hardcore as you like since you're mostly playing for yourself after a point.
Sorry in advance to people who hate talking about it but Dark Souls is a very paradoxical experience It can:
I think that only works if you already have that in the first place though (and you already have enough mechanical skill to get anywhere in those games fast enough to get hooked)
Have made the mistake of introducing people who don't really play videogames to games like Celeste before thinking it'll help them improve but it only ends in frustration
Those first two are so true. I got around to Elden Ring recently, and I realized that losses I've taken and not sweated and how meticulously and carefully I approach each situation have been influenced by all the games that came before. I'm (relatively) kicking the crap out of it because I know how to play Souls games now because the series has been teaching me these exact things all along. I've offed quite a few bosses first try, and damn it feels good. It's such a great series for giving you a sense of power through perseverance and awareness, rather than just grinding up the XP to trivialize everything like most other RPGs. Miyazaki really did strike gold with the formula. I hope there are way more Souls games coming in the future.
I was also going to say dark souls. It made me better at accepting loss in games.
Though I do think it's interesting how some people thrive on challenge and getting their ass kicked until they triumph, and some people just aren't here for that. If the game is hard they just don't want to fuck with it.
I failed hard at DS then, except for the last item on your list. I remember a friend who was really into it recommended it so much. I found it so ridiculously difficult I lost interest too quickly. But, I don't have a problem if others enjoy it
Maybe give it another try sometime, I had the same initial reaction years ago, finally gave it a bigger shot after reading some basic tips and tricks, they're such good and rewarding games imo
Bethesda games taught me to save at every opportunity
On the other hand, that taught me to use more than just quicksave. Too many instances of saving just before I die, setting me back hours.
quicksave
Literally every couple steps.
I’m surprised not to see more people mention From Software games. Going all the way back to demon’s souls they consistently teach you how to understand the tools at your disposal, the challenge that you currently face, and how to use the former to overcome the latter. I learned how to “read” opponents to find and exploit vulnerabilities while playing dark souls way back, and that general approach is consistently useful in all sorts of other games. There are lots of other translatable skills involved, of course, like timing and resource management.
Yeah I agree,
Other games mentioned in this thread involve a lot more manual introspection to get better at, otherwise you're at risk of just repeating the same mistakes again and again without realising.
In the Souls games you simply cannot progress without learning and becoming better.
There's always that special moment when you dip your toes into NG+ and overcome bosses first try that would have taken you dozens of attempts beforehand
getting incredibly good at Quake back in the day made me good at basically any first person shooter game that you put in front of me
Also, the first time using a mouse for look/steer-ing. Before that (e.g. Doom 1/2 etc.) you just used the arrow keys.
Counter Strike: raw aim, how to outsmart opponents, perfect practice makes perfect and if you put enough hours into anything and do it correctly/good, then you can get good at almost anything.
Path of Exile: Taught me about being efficient. If you're repeating the same action 10,000 times, if you can cut even 1 second off each time you do that action, it adds up over time to a significant amount. And then you can try and cut another 2 seconds off...then another second.
It took me 1038 hours to get out of silver in csgo. It took me 10hrs to get to DMG, one day something just clicked.
Knowing the maps puts you at such an advantage, those hours add up
Rocket League. If I can reach my fast moving targets without having to adjust pitch, roll, yaw, and thrust, all at once, from a third-person view, there's just no challenge.
I second Rocket League. It's hard to find other competitive games that scratch the itch now though. I used to be an FPS guy but the challenge they have just makes me wish I was splaying rocket league
Thirded, and was expecting RL come up. It's so unbelievably hard to master yet extremely simple and easy to get a leg up on competition through common sense.
There is the smurfing problem that seems to arise for me after midnight, but I'm at a level now that smurfs either quit early, or I can torture them into leaving matches.
There really isn't any other game that scratches the itch. We all suck at RL, but the calling of will to suck just a bit less never dies.
I came here to say this! No other game has given me that incremental improvement feeling from practice like Rocket League. It's the closest game I've found to a real life sport.
Celeste was the first "hard" game I played that I actually ended up 100%ing. It's so fun and makes me try harder on other games too
I was also going to say Celeste! I feel like it also improved my attitude towards games in general- taught me to be persistent but forgiving of myself when I'd fail
This is admittedly kind of an oddball interpretation of "better gamer", but my personal take on that is being able to enjoy games more, as opposed to any measure of skill in playing them (and also understanding that there's a lot of overlap there, but humor me for a sec :P).
Perspective: currently in my mid 30s, peak gaming for my childhood was competitive shit like the N64's Smash Bros (which is the best Smash Bros. Fite meh.) or 007; fast forward to some racing type games, COD... the thing those all have in common was that the fun was in defeating your opponent, and any aspect of the game that wasn't competitive just kinda automatically felt not fun. Nor was getting stuck in a losing streak from playing against people better than me; or winning streak from playing against people who weren't challenging to beat. The window of potential to actually have 'fun' was shockingly narrow.
The game that kinda pulled me out of that was Halo CE. Right out the gate, it looked like any other shooter, and it had a rapidly growing community and the competitive elements that caught my initial attention. Fire it up, and it IMMEDIATELY stood out as something special. Up to that point, videogame music was pretty much exclusively simple digital sounding jingles, so the Halo CE login screen music hit like a fucking truck. I start up the campaign, and experience another first: the story had me hooked. Campaigns in shooters only ever felt like a tutorial you have to sit through to not be terrible in multiplayer, but Halo CE was like a full-blown movie, with each scene supported by a literal symphony.
It made me look at games differently - things like Zelda had flown under my radar, cuz what's the point if there's no multiplayer?? Not even score to compare?? Got myself a copy of OOC, and "...oh, that's why."
So, long story short, Halo CE was my gateway drug into RPGs.
More in tune with OP's question though, it kinda yanked off the blinders that stopped me from fully enjoying parts of some games, or entire genres of games.
...and that whole spiel is ofc relative to my subjective experience to the gaming industry circa ...idk, 1995+? So, Halo CE probably won't hit the same against today's gaming industry: but keep an eye out for games that blend elements you know you enjoy with material you haven't really dabbled into - you could unlock an entire new genre of awesome experiences.
I'm in the same boat. I had a PS1 when I was a kid and didn't rediscover video games until a few years ago in my early 30s. I definitely appreciate games more as a form of self expression as an adult.
I definitely appreciate games more as a form of self expression
If Enderal isn't already on your radar, I can't give that game a high enough recommendation.
Basically an indie dev crew broke skyrim down to its most basic assets, then rebuilt a completely new game using them. AND IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD. Completely new lore / game universe (has nothing at all to do with elder scrolls, tamriel, etc), new voice acting, terrain, music, you name it.
Steers away from common story tropes to the point that there isn't really an antagonist in the traditional sense - but it uses concepts, emotions, philosophies, etc as the driving force for the main story line and some of the larger quest chains.
This game is an absolute passion project by the devs, which is something we don't see often now-a-days.
Note: link above is to the version that uses Skyrim SE's assets (the 2016 re-release). If you have the original version of skyrim, use this link instead. If you own a different version of Skyrim, there might be a compatible version of Enderal here: https://sureai.net/games/enderal/
Fair warning: the children NPC voice acting is even worse than the kids in Skyrim. The TAI (toggle AI) command can shut them up without breaking them.
Fair warning 2: they redid combat. The OP shit in Skyrim, like the sneaky archer build, will get your ass beat to a pulp in Enderal. Make a save when you get to the point where you can spend some talent points, experiment with a few styles, and go from there.
a little bit like that for me. Early on, I always loved pvp. The question was which mmorpg would be worthwhile to me to invest the thousands of hours to grind a character. I didn't want to end up grinding up and hating the game, which would be a huge waste of time. Studying all the candidates, I realised I wanted some key elements which would assure enjoyability:
Only after finding an mmo meeting all the the above, did I slowly play the game and over time, realised that a solid RvR open pvp game actually taught a player about real life and its challenges. How to win, how to lose, how to have the right attitude to challenges, how to endure tough times, succeed during good times, what it meant to defeat an opponent, what it meant to die in battle, and so on. Hence, I have been playing Champions of Regnum for more than a decade, and still love the game.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=ONqr8g9mL_I
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Crusader Kings reminded me that losing can be fun
Oh man, that brings back memories. All my Dwarf Fortress games were horrific dystopias. Full-on police states optimized for the production and export of lead children's toys (they are enchanted by our more ethical works).
Then new unskilled arrivals would wait in a room with retractable spikes before they met anyone. It was someone's job to pull a lever all day. Then the clothes would be exported (they are enchanted by our more ethical works).
Everyone left was either in the army or a skilled worker confined to a 2x2 room containing a bed, table, chair, and statue of the mayor. The doors locked from the outside.
Newer versions have made this strategy less productive I think -- I haven't really kept up. At the time a single death could send your fortress into a fatal spiral of depression and it worked pretty well though.
Nothing like castrating half of the family tree because of that one time your brother tried to break up your empire!
You may have misread my post. I said losing the game. What you're describing is clearly winning the game :p
Sekiro
Many games come down to finding some unbreakable combo of buttons or abilities and when you have that figured out you steamroll the game. To successfully finish Sekiro, you must be patient. Learn when to let your enemy attack, so that they leave themselves open or provide you with a chance to parry.
There's no leveling up to get so strong you can thrash any boss, like in other souls games. You just have to learn the game mechanics and get good.
Sekiro really is the "Get Gud" of FromSoft games
Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. In my opinion, these are still two of the greatest games of all time. You don’t get better because your character or weapon is better. You get better because you put in the practice. you improve your reflexes. You learn the arena. Every player starts every match on an even playing field. Every frag feels like an accomplishment.
I appreciate that modern shooters are trying to do something different with every iteration. But stuff like call of duty, overwatch, or destiny never captures that magic. In many ways, they felt more like slot machines.
Halo got close, but I always felt it was too slow. And also, I felt Tribes was the better series for online play that felt similar. 
Oh fuck, I used to play Tribes Ascend. Still so sad that game got axed and we never got a follow up. I never thought about it that way, but I think I'd agree. Tribes is at once slow and fast since you can ski at incredible speeds, but shooting in that game is more about preparing and positioning for a few really good shots.
Not that it’s much of a benefit today as RTS games are barely nonexistent. But StarCraft 2 taught me all about macro management. Spending them resources and building an economy.
Yeah, learning to perform a macro cycle while doing other stuff is really useful. I sometimes play AoE2 with friends, and I'm not very good at it, but if there's one thing I can do, it's spamming trash units in the late game.
Hollow Knight 100%. Its also my favorite game.
Eve Online taught me that math + leadership are effective ways to win. Also the importance of thinking strategically and weighing risks.
World of Warcraft taught me that many people are willing to craft items all day, if it earns more in-game gold than actually doing anything fun in the game (actually in hindsight this was true of Eve, and real life for that matter). I sort of... ran an exploitative in-game sweatshop producing things for the in-game markets (e.g. not involving real money or anything that violated the rules of the game).
These two groups of realizations made me pretty good at online games for a little while! My gaming hobby came to an abrupt end when I realized I could just... start a company IRL and be paid non-virtual money.
So, you learned how to open a sweat shop? XD
Yes, I suppose so! Technically with child labor too!
We just call them factories here though, not sweat shops. They have varying levels of working conditions, and child labor has been more or less eliminated.
Some are awful, and others are quite OK! I've personally had worse jobs than the OK ones. Some have integrated housing too, I knew someone that designed it. The ones they designed looked quite reasonable, at least -- I've unambiguously lived worse places. You won't save much money working for an OK sweatshop, but you will accumulate a small pension, eat, have a place to live, and get 2 weeks vacation a year (usually accompanied with a bonus equal to a month's pay). Most people I know see them as a sort of always-available job that's the closest thing we have to a social net right now.
I run a small tech company though, not a sweat shop. Just recently, an opportunity to help open one did come up though!
A client is looking at setting up backoffice work in the countryside, so far it looks like we'll be able to offer decent working conditions and wages. I'm slowly building the management software -- fewer managers means we can pay workers better as well as be more profitable. If it works out, it would probably pay about double the regional minimum wage, which amounts to a decent job, certainly better than a lot of people have currently.
It's not perfect, but it's progress. There's still a hundred ways it can go wrong and fail. So far we only have 10 staff, but it's going steady.
For about 3 years though, I earned less running my company than the workers in the worst sweatshops. Even with all my video game experience! That was hard. Still, video games were my first experiences with management, accounting, economics and so on. It was better than nothing.
Anyway that's a slice of life for you, fresh from Southeast Asia.
Portal was my first FPS on a computer. Got me to practice using mouse and keyboard and now I can't imagine playing an FPS with a controller
When I was a kid it took me 2-3 weeks to beat the Flight School mission series in GTA: San Andreas, and although I hated nearly every minute of it I did become a better video game flier.
Dude fuck that mission. The draw distance made it nearly impossible because power lines would appear right in front of me
Battlefield 3 was my flight teacher. I could whip any chopper around after playing that game.
Gta vice city as I learned how to type properly as I couldn't figure out how to pause the game to type aspirin with 1 finger. Does that count?
Hades. I used to hate hard games. Hades taught me to get good.
I stll hate hard games, luckily Hades is not among them.
World of Warcraft. 12 years of playing and raid/guild leadership helped me learn how to play, not just play. How to:
I had learned portions of these things in other games, but my leadership role in WoW pushed me to truly understand many things that aren't a major focus in most games.
I have a bunch of friends in middle management positions. Almost all of them cite being a raid leader in WoW as being a formative experience.
I have basically the same take from my years of raiding and leading in ESO (still top Argonian DPS babyyyyyyy), and it has also given me an unparalleled intuition when it comes to game and combat design, which comes in handy since I'm a game developer.
And not just gaming, looking back on it my first people management experience was leading 40 players through Molten Core.
WoW increased my typing speed and accuracy as without voip, its essential to communicate effectively.
+1 for wow for typing and also it was the game that taught me to think about the enemy's habilities and how my abilities should be used in a particular way effectively against them.
Same. I wouldn't stop talking during combat so I was typing full sentences in that one second global cooldown.
Everquest did this to me.
I mained a bard, and back then you had to stop a song and start a new one every so often...
Mathematically it translates to a button press ever 1.5 seconds, ignoring movement, other combat abilities, etc.
I also refused to compromise on spelling and grammar at the time.
I got real good at typing accurately and quickly.
I have lost a lot of that speed, but at comfortable pace I'm probably 80-90 words a minute, and the last time it was measured was a keyboarding class requisite. 121 GWAM for an eighth grader isn't too shabby. As long as I fixed the printer I got to play games in that class.
Six-ish years ago I would say Overwatch. It was my first online multiplayer FPS and it fosters a lot of skills. Teamwork, communication, mechanical ability, game sense, ability management, managing tilt, etc.
Too bad Blizzard decided to stop new content for Overwatch 1 for years, only to reintroduce Overwatch 1.5 with an upgraded battlepass and cash shop monetization scheme. I don't get how people are still playing after what they did to it.
Blizzard are still simultaneously making gross comments about how players are just too stupid to see that they are wrong about wanting to play 6v6 whilst not actually delivering on their previous claim that they would offer it as an alternative mode at some stage.
I can't see how it would be complex for them to do it. They already have a balance patch for multiple tanks and you can enable 6v6 in the workshop. It can't be very difficult for them to spin up a 6v6 quickplay. What do they have to lose if they are convinced that the playerbase doesn't realise how little fun they'd have playing it? Either Blizzard are right, people play it and say "y'know what? Their condescending comments about how 'nostalgia is a powerful drug' when we say we want 6v6 back like they promised were right after all! 6v6 does suck!" and then they can just take it down, or Blizzard are wrong and offering it as an option makes their players happy and excited to play more Overwatch.
It's a win-win so long as you're not making your decisions based on sheltering the ego of the individual developers from having to deal with being wrong about stuff. Multi-billion dollar businesses would never make silly self-destructive decisions based on something like that, right?
I stopped playing shortly after trying Overwatch "2" and so I'm not abreast of the news. But its not surprising that their PR is still this bad.
This dates me somewhat, but trials maps in UT2004 helped me develop a lot of precision and fast fingers.
It was a multiplayer FPS, but it had cool mobility like double-tap dodges, double jumps, wallkicks, and crouch jumps. And they could be combined in many ways, so there were platforming levels of varying levels of difficulty. Diagonal dodge-doublejump with a wallkick at the very end to get onto a platform that's like 4 inches square, type of thing.
Dates you? You're probably still in your mid to late teens (or worst early 20s) just like me, right? Riiiight? Not in your 30s. Nope.
I can still hear the m-m-m-m-m-monster kill kill kill....
Hello nostalgia.
I clocked a good 2000 hours in UT2004 between 2004 and 2008. Most of those were in trials and race maps.
That was almost 20 years ago. Damn.
I befriended one of the guys who made some of the first trials maps for Unreal, Eric. I believe he went by Pixelscope? He went on to work on Killing Floor, if I recall correctly. He also got me into making levels, modding and 3D modelling.
Here I am, twenty years later, making a living as a VR developer. UT2004 not only made me a better gamer, it made me a game developer.
I have two answers.
First, my general reflexes, situational awareness in games etc. were strongly improved thanks to Doom Eternal. The game keeps you stressed and engaged the whole time (especially on the harder difficulties) and you have to be very quick. It was the first time I needed custom keybindings to be fast enough to solve some sections. Switching between 8 weapons, sometimes after single shots, is something you have to get used to, but it's incredibly fun!
Second, specifically for 6DoF navigation, Outer Wilds was incredible. When I started I could barely make the spaceship go anywhere without exploding, now I feel I could be pretty good at a 6DoF racing game!
I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game
If you know, you know.
You lost
Fucking CONSTANTLY. I did eventually beat it though.
Red Dead Redemption 2 taught me once again to slow down and take all the time I want with these huge games. I've saved a ton of money since.
In relation to skill, playing a ton of the original Halo on Xbox at my friend's house while being only a PlayStation owner got me really good at using arbitrary controls.
StarCraft 2
Mostly for building in-game awareness. Helped in a lot of games, even FPSs. Just always being proactive when facing some kind of meta.
The 3 that stand out the most for me thinking back on it
Typer Shark and Mud's (typing skills)
Really helped me get down my typing skills which translates to a lot of pc based games (even just chat). Mud's were some of my favorite fast paced games (multi-user dungeons). Godwar's was my shtick and as a Drow character you had a lot of powers you had to get out before an opponent could notice and respond to your presence.
MechWarrior: Sega Genesis (team work skills)
This was a crazy one I would play with family. There was a co-op mode that allowed one person to control the bottom half while the other person controlled the top half of your mech. You really had to cooperate and work together so it didn't turn into an actual physical brawl because of the frustrations.
Call of Duty: Zombies (game mechanics)
This was probably my first game that I really got into game/enemy mechanics. To survive to higher rounds you had to adapt and know what the zombies were gonna do. Later iterations kinda destroyed that feature with zombies stumbling and etc but I get they were trying to stay innovative and fresh, still killed the genre for me though.
Honorable mentions are the great RTS's that were everywhere in the 90's. Starcraft for sure but even blizzards previous Warcraft's and then of course C&C and even Dune (another sega game but solid RTS for it's time). Really though the skills for RTS's don't translate as direct to other games anymore (just got me better at the RTS's that I love) as more and more they become hero focused like what they did with WC3.
edit: grammar
Rhythm Games in general, but specifically osu!mania taught me that I can, like, actually get good at completely new stuff no matter how much I suck at it to begin with
It also taught me that I really like Hardcore EDM, before hand I wouldn't really listen to music cuz I wasn't sure exactly what kind of music I was drawn to
Exactly the same as you lol
I can't n get into rhythm games but I just don't think I found the right one. I am sure there is a rhythm game out there that will blow me away.
Yeah there's a decent ton of them out there, each player can find the one that resonates with them!
Something I think worth doing is searching "in 40 rhythm games" on YouTube to get a quick compilation of a bunch of unique rhythm games , and importantly it gives a little preview of their gameplay, usually at a high level
Elden Ring.
I didn’t love the learning/difficulty curve of Soulsborne games until this one, but it got its hooks in me hard.
I usually spammed most boss fights and played everything a certain way, but here I had to learn the boss’s moves and dodge, parry and use power ups to bring them down.
Worth it. While frustrating, it made me return to other genres and play them again but differently. Hitman, sniper elite, roguelites/likes, anything that rewards patience, really. These now had a whole new facet I didn’t see before, or I did and I was applying it to these games.
I’ve since tried other soulsborne games, and while I now appreciate the difficulty and find them a lot more fun, the exploration and world of Elden Ring was the difference maker for me. It was being able to forge my own path and choose my challenges.
Similar answer and probably cliché, but for me it was the first Dark Souls. I finally played it about 2 years ago after avoiding it for a long time and thinking it wasn't my thing. I thought I hated games that didn't allow animation cancelling because they weren't "responsive". If I hadn't heard so many people insist it's great I would have given up because the character doesn't react to every wild button mash.
Boy was I wrong. Once I understood the combat it was like Zelda (my OG favorite franchise) but better. And brutal. Playing through it subsequently made Elden Ring much easier than it probably would've been otherwise. Exploring every nook and cranny and overleveling helped a bit too I'm sure.
On PC with mods for upgraded resolution and textures (and dsfix) DS1 was a quite good experience. There's still a bit too much BS like hidden paths and even NPCs that are way too obscure, and the game falls apart near the end, but learning to navigate the platforms of Blighttown and besting all the different bosses sharpened my skills like nothing had in ages.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (PS2).
You either learned, or you quitted.
Ori and the Blind Forest. I sucked when i first played it :D
Megaman X - Probably the best Action Platformer ever, it teaches you all the basics of the genre through gameplay alone.
Metal Slug 2 - Cuphead too hard for you? Then give this good ol' classic a shot! It has simple yet fun mechanics and you can go as trigger happy as you want. And don't feel bad if you play on Free Play Mode, what matters is that you have fun!
Gran Turismo (PSP) - If you want to get into the series (or into Racing Simulators in general) this is probably your best bet, you have all stages available from the beginning and very little customization, but you can feel the progressiveness of the game as you buy more powerful cars and unlock higher difficulties.
Grand Theft Auto III - This game can be really hard at times (no swimming, only 3 safehouses, cars are really fragile, etc.) But once you understand the mechanics of the game and you start getting better, the rest of the series is a piece of cake. (Also, i loved the freedom you had when performing most missions in this game, it makes sense that later titles restricted you due to being more "story oriented", but GTA V's missions really just feel like going through film setpieces that is boring :/)
GTFO. It has honed a ton of skills for me. Coordination/cooperation, accuracy, ammo conversation, fast problem solving, the ability to switch from fast to slow and back very quickly, the list goes on. It's the most intense game of red light green light I've played.
"Ammo conversation", for when you let your guns do all the talking, but you need to express yourself beyond just violence.
Rainbow Six Siege made me much better at FPS games.
Life
Unironically old school runescape. Playing it for years ingrained the concept of efficiency into me. Now I'm able to do well in games where mechanically I'm still shit because I'm constantly trying to use my time as efficiently as possible.
It also taught me how to type (albeit not 100% correctly because I use my right pointer finger to hit the space bar rather than my thumb)
Metroid Dread. The quick thinking and reacting to avoid the E.M.M.I.s has helped me. But also raises my adrenaline whenever I hear that music…
If you think Super Meat Boy is hard oh boy do I have one for you.
The End Is Nigh is also an Edmund McMullen platformer, but with a much higher emphasis on precision. The game is technically short, but there are just so many easy ways to die that you have to get good to beat it.
It also has a little modding community that has produced some even more nightmarish levels to go along with it.
Celeste, Guacamelee, and Monster Boy in the Cursed Kingdom all made me better at platforming games.
Elden ring taught me that I had to be calm when playing games. It taught me to know that I will be able to clear content, its just a matter of when. I used to think of games in terms of, can I clear this content? Now I think of games in terms of, how long will it take me to clear this content? I also realized that single player games aren't hard. They are literally designed to be beaten.
I also learned that I play a lot better when I'm more focused on my body than the screen. I started bringing the same mindsets I use for sports into playing games and it helped a lot. It used to be that when I played games the screen was all that existed. Now I focus more on the pleasure of my fingers gliding across the keyboard, or just the contentment of experiencing my body doing something it enjoys.
Margit the fell omen and Godric the grafted took me like 30+ tries each. I beat blood flower lady on the second try (with mimic tear) and the final boss in maybe 6 tries (with a less powerful tear). I was beating bosses on the first or second try pretty consistently, like the starbeast things, ancestor spirit, dragonkin soldier, magma wyrm, and some of the crypt dungeon bosses.
I had put 40 hours into hades back in 2020 or 2021 and I probably cleared the game with no heat 5 or so times in those hours. More recently I sunk my teeth into hades and put in another 60 hours. In those 60 hours I got 100% on steam and was able to clear the game on +17. I also got through the first phase of hades on +32. But, I realized getting good enough at that fight to get through all 3 phases would've been rough. But regardless the difference in skill level was really apparent to me. It was so much fun to actually get constant story progress because I was actually clearing the game.
StarCraft II made transitioning to League of Legends easy. I also played a lot of Kovaaks which made my aim generally better in FPS games and it helps with osu! too.
Mirror's Edge. I would try over and over to improve times on the time trials, and I found that I did better when I took a break and relaxed for a few minutes, or overnight, before trying again. It has improved my playing other games as well as my real life efforts
Mass Effect made me far better at multitasking and not letting myself get tunnel vision on an objective.
Sure I'd played Gears of War, or RTS's that used the traditional rock, paper, scissors method of unit dominance, and resource management.
I'd just never played a third person shooter that expected me to combine all of those skills into a single gameplay loop which required constant shifting from power/defense based problem solving to accurate shot placement and squad positioning on the fly.
Planescape: Torment made me slow down and realize a game can be an entire world onto itself and I shouldn't skim over stuff I read.
The Outer Wilds is probably the most recent game that changed how I approach stuff. It's so good. Nothing is given to you, you have to figure out everything on your own. It's good for developing patience and curiosity.
For twitchy gameplay type stuff, I recommend Radiant Silvergun. Makes every other shmup feel like they're in slow motion. That game is why I was able to beat any of the Touhou games.
Radiant Silvergun is so good. Great mechanics, good variety of techniques to employ. Perfect foil to Ikaruga.
Well, I can tell you this. I grew up playing Mega Man. People say those games are hard, but I have them all memorized, so they're all pretty easy for me.
Sometimes I play platformers that people consider hard, and I'm just disappointed by how mind-numbingly easy they are. Celeste is one example. I kept thinking, surely it must get harder. Maybe when I do the B sides. Surely there must be at least one part I struggle on. There never was. I never found anything hard about the game. The story was amazing, though.
So anyway, my answer is Mega Man. Not Mega Man X. Those games are amazing - quite possibly my favorite platformers of all time - but they're too easy to fit into this category. The classic, 8-bit mega Man games from the NES (Mega Man 2 excluded. That one is also too easy).
Counter Strike got me through hard times in school an taught me how to communicate efficiently. It also got me over that cringy "i rage in video games" phase that many people are still in.
I don't get the reason for raging as it only makes everything worse
Bayonetta, and Burnout 3. I got really good reflexes and timing.
And way way back when I was super absorbed playing Manhunt I got uncannily good at spotting dark shadows at night to hide in.
It's not really in the spirit of the prompt, but learning the NMG speedrun of LttP has really improved my movement efficiency in games simply because I'm always thinking about it now