Games that remind you of other games and make you want to play them

Ever play a game that reminds you so heavily of a nostalgic experience, that it made you want to go back and relive that experience?

For me, playing Skyrim often reminds me of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. The setting, with the mountains and forests, and open explorable world, just heavily gives me that vibe and makes me want to replay it. And I have done just that.

Skullgirls makes me really nostalgic for Darkstalkers, considering that too, had really hilarious animation and freeze frame gags and the like.

While playing through Tearaway, I had the itch to play Journey, with it's whole exploration and trek through a gorgeous world.

mount and blade warband makes me nostalgic for sid meier's Pirates!

Any and every FPS eventually leads to comparisons to Doom and makes me wish I were playing that instead.

edited 25th Nov '13 10:56:10 PM by MrPoly

Hear, hear

I'm a big fan of the Marathon series, being a long-time Macintosh user (it runs in the family). I've played all three at least three times each in their entirety, and tried every difficulty level, back when "normal" meant "tough" and "hard" meant "nearly-damn-impossible".

I haven't played a lot of Halo. I liked what little of the games I tried (a little bit of the first one, a few missions from Reach), and I think the games stand out, especially graphically. But I always miss the complexity of Marathon level design, and the sound effects surround thing (that had you play with headphones).

In general, I miss the complexity of 90s FPS level design. I'm a huge fan of Doom and its variations as well (Doom 2, the Master Levels, Final Doom, 64, etc), and its great intricate maps. Every time I try to play a modern FPS it just makes me want to go back to Doom or Marathon. But I'm veering off track here.

And each time I play Fez (and I love Fez), I go back and play Shadow of the Beast as well : the third one is one of my favorite games and I'm reminded of it a lot both graphically and in terms of the puzzles in Fez.

Path of Exile keeps reminding me of Diablo. But then again, that game is more or less a Diablo clone made by fans of it to begin with, so it's definitely not unintentional...