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The Most Intellectual Video Games of All Time

**The Most Intellectual Video Games of All Time** 1. **...
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
Baroque is one of the first Games I considered picking up wi...
vivacious spruce parlour
  02/14/25
I guess it’s on Switch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
The original version takes place using a first-person perspe...
vivacious spruce parlour
  02/14/25
What you don’t know won’t hurt you
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a perfect embodiment o...
Chartreuse fat ankles
  02/14/25
the Crowning Achievement of Gaming
vivacious spruce parlour
  02/14/25
Dennis Dyack has been unemployed for 15 years. Western game ...
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
Dr. Maximillian Roivas: I tried... I tried to tell them... B...
Chartreuse fat ankles
  02/14/25
crrrrr
Mahogany piazza
  02/14/25
Dr. Edward Roivas: Remember me, Alex?
Chartreuse fat ankles
  02/14/25
Where THE FUCK is Eternal Darkness?!?!
Mahogany piazza
  02/14/25
Pious Augustus: I had no knowledge of what was to come. Nor ...
Chartreuse fat ankles
  02/14/25
cowshit refuses to acknowledge it because it was a Gamecube ...
vivacious spruce parlour
  02/14/25
Dr. Edward Roivas: Dear Alexandra, If you are reading this A...
Chartreuse fat ankles
  02/14/25
Where is Final Fantasy Tactics, Morrowind, Eternal Darkness&...
razzle public bath wrinkle
  02/14/25
In the top 25 imo
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
Metal Gear Solid 2
Slippery rough-skinned market mediation
  02/14/25
A triumph
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
3,4,5 have much crazier and more esoteric narratives imo
vivacious spruce parlour
  02/14/25
3 does not 4 is insane but it’s largely an extension ...
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
yeah I was mostly thinking of 4 but I remember 3 being total...
vivacious spruce parlour
  02/14/25
3 had cool bosses like 1 kind of but the story wasn’t ...
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
Surprisingly prescient in hindsight
razzle public bath wrinkle
  02/14/25
Why would you be surprised
Glittery hideous sex offender community account
  02/14/25
Yes https://youtu.be/jIYBod0ge3Y?feature=shared
Slippery rough-skinned market mediation
  02/15/25
Myst Chrono Trigger
Yellow faggot firefighter theatre
  02/14/25
Earthworm Jim 2
pearl sick juggernaut principal's office
  02/14/25
Civ V, actually
salmon shitlib box office
  02/14/25
planescape torment by far
Swollen double fault casino
  02/15/25
It started off good but they got lazy af in tge last act
Naked whorehouse toilet seat
  02/15/25
tbf, so do most classic CRPGs. part of disco elysium's trium...
excitant state
  02/15/25
Yeah its a shame
Naked whorehouse toilet seat
  02/15/25
Also disco's last act is just as rushed bro did u play the g...
Naked whorehouse toilet seat
  02/15/25
i played the shit out of the game. did you? it's largely tex...
excitant state
  02/15/25
Leisure Suit Larry
Jet quadroon corn cake
  02/15/25
I really can't take a list seriously that doesn't list perso...
Naked whorehouse toilet seat
  02/15/25
drakengard III was extremely underrated as an intellectual g...
excitant state
  02/15/25
Shit list, very losery, here's a better one in no particular...
nudist ticket booth reading party
  02/15/25
How have none of you tried “CUCKHOLD SIMULATOR: Life a...
dashing degenerate
  02/15/25
Cruisin USA
maroon plaza laser beams
  02/15/25
if engineering counts you must include Kerbal
Odious honey-headed round eye
  02/15/25
Actually it’s Portal 2 ime
Mahogany piazza
  02/16/25
Portal 2 Eternal Darkness MGS 2 Shenmue series ...
ropefuel
  12/01/25
...
click here to Learn More
  12/01/25
I actually watched a Xenogears play through in part because ...
Yummy Phase Pol Pot
  12/01/25


Poast new message in this thread



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Date: February 14th, 2025 9:02 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

**The Most Intellectual Video Games of All Time**

1. **Xenogears (1998, PlayStation)**

A deep wound of a game, its scars tell a story of gods, men, and the machinery that binds them. A labyrinth of psychology, Gnosticism, and Nietzschean dread, wrapped in combat that is both brutal and poetic. You fight, you learn, you suffer. And when the screen fades to black, you wonder if you were ever in control.

2. **Policenauts (1994, PC-98 / Saturn / PlayStation)**

A hard-boiled dream of space and crime, painted in the flickering neon of a dying future. Kojima builds a world both alive and sick, filled with men who have outlived their purpose. There are betrayals, cigarettes, and the kind of silences that stretch long into the night. Every answer leads to a deeper question.

3. **Panzer Dragoon Saga (1998, Saturn)**

A game built on atmosphere and isolation. The world is ancient, its bones cracked, its people fading. You ride a dragon across the ruins of something greater, chasing the ghosts of civilizations long buried. The story unfolds like a whispered legend, its truths only half-remembered.

4. **Baroque (1998, Saturn / PlayStation)**

A fevered hallucination trapped in a dungeon. Every corridor is a descent into madness, every enemy a reflection of sins unspoken. The game does not explain itself. It only punishes. You piece together a shattered world through cryptic words and dead men’s memories, but meaning is fleeting, like smoke in the dark.

5. **Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (2003, PlayStation 2)**

A world reduced to nothing, a boy turned into a demon. The earth is a battlefield for ideologies, each one grasping for control over what little remains. You choose who lives, who dies, and which god will rise. The game does not care about you. It only asks that you decide.

6. **LSD: Dream Emulator (1998, PlayStation)**

There is no story, only sensation. Colors shift, walls breathe, doors lead to places they shouldn’t. Logic is abandoned. You wander through a dream that is not your own, watching it change with each step. There is no winning, no losing—only the quiet hum of unreality.

7. **I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1995, PC)**

A machine hates you. It tortures you, not for information, not for purpose, but for amusement. You play as the last shattered remnants of humanity, each broken in a different way. The game presents choices, but few of them are good. Morality is a weapon, and you are always outgunned.

8. **The Silver Case (1999, PlayStation)**

A detective story wrapped in code and cipher, built for a player willing to stare into its abyss. Suda51 does not explain, does not guide. He only presents fragments of a city, a killer, and a conspiracy that unfolds like a dying star. The answers are there, but only if you’re willing to dig.

9. **EVE: Burst Error (1995, Saturn / PC-98)**

A noir puzzle where every move is the wrong one. Two lives, tangled in a web of secrets, their paths intersecting over crime and desire. The game gives you two perspectives, but truth hides between them. Solve the case, or let it consume you.

10. **Pathologic (2005, PC)**

A town is dying, and so are you. A plague moves through its streets like a slow, hungry god. You play as one of three doomed souls, each trying to understand the sickness in their own way. But the town is a riddle, and you are not guaranteed an answer. You can only endure.

These are not just games. They are arguments, essays, riddles posed by minds that do not care if you solve them. They are stories that leave scars, worlds that demand thought. They do not hold your hand. They let you drown.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661673)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:09 PM
Author: vivacious spruce parlour

Baroque is one of the first Games I considered picking up with my Saturn if I ever get one.

https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5680767&mc=2&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661697)



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Date: February 14th, 2025 9:17 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

I guess it’s on Switch

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_(video_game)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661722)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:19 PM
Author: vivacious spruce parlour

The original version takes place using a first-person perspective using tank controls, navigating 3D environments while interacting with 2D sprites of characters and enemies.[4][5][6] The remake mainly plays from a third-person perspective using entirely 3D graphics, using full analogue movement with more action-based gameplay and combat, in addition to remade graphics and adjustments to the progression.[2][7]

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661728)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:22 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

What you don’t know won’t hurt you

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661740)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:24 PM
Author: Chartreuse fat ankles

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a perfect embodiment of cosmic horror. It doesn’t just play with your mind—it devours it.

$anity is not merely a stat, but the very fabric of reality itself, which the game twists and tears, piece by piece.

Every crack in the psyche mirrors the horrors of the cosmos, the ancient evils beyond human comprehension. It’s an experience that feels almost like an existential intervention, forcing the player to confront their own fragility and lack of control.This is true intellectualism—not the abstract puzzles or linear morality plays of lesser games, but the raw confrontation with the unknown, the uncontrollable, and the imminent collapse of reason itself.

It goes beyond storytelling or even gameplay—it becomes an unsettling meta-experience, where you, the player, are not just part of the narrative, but are drawn into it, losing yourself in the same madness as the characters you control. And in the end, that’s the real horror—the revelation that reality itself is the ultimate puzzle—and we’re all just fumbling in the dark, waiting for the inevitable unraveling.

This isn’t a game that just asks you to think—it forces you to feel what it means to lose your mind, piece by piece, while the very world around you begins to slip away. This is true intellectualism in its darkest form, the kind that doesn’t let you walk away unchanged, that leaves you questioning not just the game’s world, but your own. That is the essence of existential dread.

The XO touch? Eternal Darkness didn’t just explore horror; it embodied the Mahchine™’s grinding inevitability—where every fragile piece of our existence is slowly being consumed, whether we see it coming or not.

Mainlining

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661748)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:25 PM
Author: vivacious spruce parlour

the Crowning Achievement of Gaming

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661752)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:28 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

Dennis Dyack has been unemployed for 15 years. Western game development is a tough and Scummy business. If you think that game was so good then you’ll have to admit it’s bc if Japanese Supervision.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661759)



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Date: February 14th, 2025 9:29 PM
Author: Chartreuse fat ankles

Dr. Maximillian Roivas: I tried... I tried to tell them... But they wouldn't listen to me... Damn them... DAMN THEIR EYES! They didn't believe me... Strange creatures... The world in peril from unseen foes... The death... THE DARKNESS! Instead they jeered and threw me into this forsaken place... A place of empty souls and fevered thoughts... reeking of foetor and decay! Thinking me mad with delirium!

[chuckles]

Dr. Maximillian Roivas: The fools cast away their hopes of salvation by locking me in this damned asylum! MAY THE RATS EAT YOUR EYES! I am now lost to your cause!

[sobs]

Dr. Maximillian Roivas: The Darkness comes! It will damn us all!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661763)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:29 PM
Author: Mahogany piazza

crrrrr

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661762)



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Date: February 14th, 2025 9:31 PM
Author: Chartreuse fat ankles

Dr. Edward Roivas: Remember me, Alex?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661769)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:29 PM
Author: Mahogany piazza

Where THE FUCK is Eternal Darkness?!?!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661761)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:30 PM
Author: Chartreuse fat ankles

Pious Augustus: I had no knowledge of what was to come. Nor did I care. How the knowledge changed me... It will also change you. As you read this, you will come to learn fear as I have. You too, will come to understand, or you will perish. To think that once I could not $ee beyond the veil of our reality... to see those who dwell behind. My life now has purpose, for I have learned the frailty of flesh and bone... I was once a fool...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661766)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:31 PM
Author: vivacious spruce parlour

cowshit refuses to acknowledge it because it was a Gamecube release

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661768)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:32 PM
Author: Chartreuse fat ankles

Dr. Edward Roivas: Dear Alexandra, If you are reading this Alex, then I am surely dead. Knowing that the police will contact my only living relative, I made sure to leave this message for you. As I write this letter, Pious Augustus is waiting for his chance to strike me down for what I have done to the Guardian City. I believe I have slowed Augustus' plans, but not stopped the completely. He will still try to bring his Ancient into this world. You must continue what our ancestor Max has started. You must gather the Artifacts and call forth an Ancient to combat what Augustus brings into this world. Of the artifacts there are four, but one of these is in the clutches of Pious himself. They are: The Black Heart of Mantorok The Claw of Chattur'gha The Sigil of Xel'lotath The Veil of Ulyaoth Your skill in the arcane science will not be as strong as Pious', who has had two millenia to prepare his gate. You will need all the remaining artifacts to match his power. It all rests with you my dear. I wish you well in this desperate act. I wish I had more guidance for you but I am at my wit's end and feel I am running out of time. Your Loving Grandfather, Edward.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661771)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:39 PM
Author: razzle public bath wrinkle

Where is Final Fantasy Tactics, Morrowind, Eternal Darkness…

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661792)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:42 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

In the top 25 imo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661802)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:44 PM
Author: Slippery rough-skinned market mediation

Metal Gear Solid 2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661806)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:44 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

A triumph

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661807)



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Date: February 14th, 2025 9:44 PM
Author: vivacious spruce parlour

3,4,5 have much crazier and more esoteric narratives imo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661809)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:49 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

3 does not

4 is insane but it’s largely an extension of 2

5 is almost like a western developed game story-wise.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661823)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:50 PM
Author: vivacious spruce parlour

yeah I was mostly thinking of 4 but I remember 3 being totally batshit and awesome, or maybe that was the handheld one or something

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661828)



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Date: February 14th, 2025 9:54 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

3 had cool bosses like 1 kind of but the story wasn’t insane at all.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661839)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:45 PM
Author: razzle public bath wrinkle

Surprisingly prescient in hindsight

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661811)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:50 PM
Author: Glittery hideous sex offender community account

Why would you be surprised

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661825)



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Date: February 15th, 2025 6:35 PM
Author: Slippery rough-skinned market mediation

Yes

https://youtu.be/jIYBod0ge3Y?feature=shared

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48663832)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:44 PM
Author: Yellow faggot firefighter theatre

Myst

Chrono Trigger

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661808)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:45 PM
Author: pearl sick juggernaut principal's office

Earthworm Jim 2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661812)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 14th, 2025 9:51 PM
Author: salmon shitlib box office

Civ V, actually

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48661830)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 8:47 AM
Author: Swollen double fault casino

planescape torment by far

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662398)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 10:37 AM
Author: Naked whorehouse toilet seat

It started off good but they got lazy af in tge last act

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662520)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 11:02 AM
Author: excitant state

tbf, so do most classic CRPGs. part of disco elysium's triumph is managing to land a final act.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662586)



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Date: February 15th, 2025 11:03 AM
Author: Naked whorehouse toilet seat

Yeah its a shame

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662591)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 11:04 AM
Author: Naked whorehouse toilet seat

Also disco's last act is just as rushed bro did u play the game? Lmfao ur just thrown into the last act and it's mostly text choices

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662597)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 11:09 AM
Author: excitant state

i played the shit out of the game. did you? it's largely text choices. the last act ties everything together (what you discovered, chose, etc.) rather nicely within that framework.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662616)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 9:57 AM
Author: Jet quadroon corn cake

Leisure Suit Larry

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662452)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 10:10 AM
Author: Naked whorehouse toilet seat

I really can't take a list seriously that doesn't list persona

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662470)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 11:03 AM
Author: excitant state

drakengard III was extremely underrated as an intellectual game imo. especially if you like convoluted plotlines, yoko taro might be better than kojima.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662594)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 11:46 AM
Author: nudist ticket booth reading party

Shit list, very losery, here's a better one in no particular order:

Yakuza 0

Yakuza

Yakuza 2

Yakuza 3

Yakuza 4

Yakuza 5

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Like a Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Yakuza: Dead Souls

TBD: Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48662721)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 2:27 PM
Author: dashing degenerate

How have none of you tried “CUCKHOLD SIMULATOR: Life as a Beta Male Cuck”. You really have to see the screenshots and clips of the gameplay.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141550/CUCKOLD_SIMULATOR_Life_as_a_Beta_Male_Cuck/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48663171)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 6:36 PM
Author: maroon plaza laser beams

Cruisin USA

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48663834)



Reply Favorite

Date: February 15th, 2025 6:43 PM
Author: Odious honey-headed round eye

if engineering counts you must include Kerbal

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48663870)



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Date: February 16th, 2025 4:34 AM
Author: Mahogany piazza

Actually it’s Portal 2 ime

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#48664922)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:10 PM
Author: ropefuel

Portal 2

Eternal Darkness

MGS 2

Shenmue series

Xenogears

Bioshock series

C&C: Tiberian Sun

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#49475432)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:05 PM
Author: click here to Learn More



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#49475413)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:08 PM
Author: Yummy Phase Pol Pot

I actually watched a Xenogears play through in part because of posts about it on this forum. It is truly a triumph.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5681054&forum_id=2most#49475420)