The 10 Games I've Played Most On Steam

Hello, OneTakeSchrier here, and today we're going to do something a little bit different. I am going to talk to you about some of the games I have played most in recent years. I spend a lot of time on this channel talking about industry news and analysis and issues and stories, and so I thought I would take a little break from that today to talk about some games that I actually play, cuz I play a lot of video games, believe it or not. It's uh it's useful for this job to play a lot of games. So, let's get on with it, huh? So, this is me pulling up my Steam stats. I'm going to look at the ones that are real. There are a couple on uh on my list of like top most played when I when I sort it by um total played hours, there are a couple that shouldn't be on there, but like bugged out cuz I left them running on Steam Deck or something. So, these are the real ones. The real 10. Let's do 10 of the games I've played most on my Steam account. Let's start with number one. This is 233.8

hours, Final Fantasy XIV online. I actually I think this this seems pretty low for a Final Fantasy XIV, and that is because I actually played a bunch of hours on PlayStation before I got a gaming PC that I started using more regularly, which was like 10 years ago or so, and switched over my account from the PlayStation to the PC version. So, my real total is probably more than that. Um I've played a fair amount of Final Fantasy XIV, great game, great MMO. Um I am currently in the middle of last I played I was in the middle of Shadowbringers, which is the what, third expansion? Yeah. Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers. Yeah, third expansion. Um and uh I've heard it's really good, but just haven't been able haven't found the time or been able to get back into it and play more. Um the moment-to-moment gameplay is a

little tough for me. The MMO combat, I'm not a huge fan of, but the characters and the story and the music and the vibe of it all have kind of kept me playing over the years, but every time I get back, it's hard to kind of get back into the swing of things into my Paladin rotation with all 400 buttons that I have to learn and figure out how to uh use properly. So, that's been a little bit of a barrier, but still, I mean, great game. All right, number two. Coming in at 166.5 hours, 100 Line Last Defense Academy. This is a game that came out last year. It is a visual novel / strategy game. And you know how there's that kind of meme out there, that like when you're playing a JRPG or something, it's like, "Oh, it only takes 10 hours to get good. Oh, 5 hours into Persona 5, the tutorial is just starting or you just got past the tutorial." So, 100 Line Last Defense Academy is like one of those games to

the extreme. It takes about 30 hours to play through the game for the first time, and then it opens up and it's like, "Oh, hey, that that uh play-through that you thought you just did, those 100 days that you thought you just did, where you are uh you are in this kind of post-apocalyptic world trying to save the Earth from these alien invaders, and you have 100 days to do it before you can escape and and go off into space with the rest of humanity." Um that was just the prologue. So, hey, here's the real game. Um people when people ask me what I think of this game, if I like it, um uh it's very difficult. That's a very difficult question to answer. I would say I love it and I hate it. Um for those of you out there who have played this game, you'll understand because the way it works is um after that first section that I mentioned, you then go back in time and you get to start over making different choices as you go, and you have this huge flowchart where like each of your decisions gets you to a different point in the flowchart and different routes along the way are I would say of of varying levels of

quality. Some are much better than others. Others some make you feel like you are just completely wasting your time. So I played through all of it. I got 100% completion on this game. Um mixed feelings I would say, but I mean overall I would say I love it. It's just in the same way that you might I don't know love something that you also hate. Like in the same way that I love watching the New York Jets play football. I hated a lot of moments of it over the years, but I still love it as a concept. Kind of like that. Number three Blueprints. This I feel the opposite way about this game. I unabashedly love with absolutely no reservations. It's one of my favorite games ever. This is a game that is a kind of It's a cross between like a a strategy game with like rogue-like elements where you kind of you have to uh uh strategize how you're going to get through this mansion with ever-shifting rooms. It's a cross between that and also like Myst, a giant narrative first-person puzzle game and it blends those two to great effect.

It actually it's when it starts off it's more of a game game where it's the rogue-like element. You get to this mansion. You were told you have to find room 46 of this 45-room mansion by making your way through it and there's a lot of just kind of game-playish elements to it where you can only draft some rooms in certain areas only if you get a certain number of gems and you have to get gems each time you go through the mansion etc. etc. And that's a game where as it evolves and you kind of get the hang of the the more game gamey aspects of it, it becomes much more of a puzzle game and a story game in this really deep rich satisfying way that I cannot recommend highly enough. Just a phenomenal game. Um number four, CrossCode. I have played this for 155.1 hours. That is because I played through the entire game twice. Is it twice or three times? Twice. This is a game it's a Zelda-like game. I got a little of Yeah, mostly Zelda-like game. I got a

little of like the Enix quartet of like Soul Blazer, Terranigma, Illusion of Gaia. I got a little bit of that in it, too. But mostly I would say a Zelda-like game. Also got a lot of RPG stuff to it. You got your item systems, your level systems, your skill systems. A little bit of mana in there, too. And the concept, which is brilliant, is that you play as this this kind of Android named Lea, who is who is kind of you start off in the quote-unquote real world and you are sent into this MMO within the game that a bunch of people play. And so as you go through this MMO, you are playing as if you are in a in an MMO by going and doing quests for people and and grinding and collecting things. And you meet other players who are having their characters and kind of talk a little bit about their lives as you go. And throughout the story, people have to log off and go to bed. And it's really smart, really cool, really clever, really fun game, really funny, a lot of good humor to it. One of my favorite games ever, just like Blueprints. Love it to death. Um

Here's another one. Elden Ring, 142.2 hours. That would include the base game and the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, which both of which I I 100% it. I don't know. I guess I wouldn't say 100% it. Did did most of everything there is to offer. Phenomenal game. You probably know it, Elden Ring. Souls game, you know. I mean, do you not know what Elden Ring is? You probably know what Elden Ring is. Next up with 126.5 hours is Balatro. Man, what a game. Even just hearing the name Balatro makes me gets me the urge to to and start playing it, collecting those jokers. If you're not familiar, I just realized I skipped over one. Okay, hold on. We'll we'll we'll we'll get back to that. Anyway, Balatro, if you're not familiar, this is a game where you it's like a roguelike with poker trappings to it. So, basically, your goal is to start a new run and get your

numbers as high as possible, your point scores as high as possible by making hands out of cards that you are making poker hands out of cards that you are handed that you are distributed that you are dealt. But, then you can modify various parts of the game using all these different kind of jokers that you collect and you can kind of you can hold on to throughout the run and they will change the nature of the game in all sorts of ways. At the same time, you get all sorts of other cards that help you modify your runs and get higher and higher scores. Even though it looks like poker, it has nothing to do with gambling. It is really just a a number go up simulator. So, look, here at One Take Shrier, we don't do edits, we don't do fixes. So, I'm just going to go back in time here. So, that was Okay, Balatro was 1 2 3 4 5 6. That was six. But, I actually, accidentally, while I was browsing through my Steam page here, skipped over number three. So, we're going to go back in time and pretend this was number three, but this is actually going to be the seventh entry in our list. 164.7 hours, we have Mutagenic, a game that

came out just a few a few months ago. This is a game by the director of Binding of Isaac and Edmund McMillen and his partner in crime, Tyler Glaiel. And it is a game where you build an army of cats, you have them breed with each other, and then you send their descendants off into battles on these ridiculous strategy RP strategy turn-based strategy battles and quests and um also got a little roguelike in there where you're going on different runs and the thing and various variables can change every time. Brilliant game. Sense of humor isn't quite for everybody. I really I thought that my my dear friend and podcast co-host Kirk Hamilton, I thought he would be like super into this game just because of the strategy of it all and the way that the the core gameplay feels and how and like smart it is and um how much strategy and and clever builds you can make and just how much fun that whole part of it is, but um the like art style and aesthetic was not not up his uh up his alley.

Um alley by the way is is a level in the game. So, a little bit of little bit of cat wordplay there. Um I really enjoyed it. Um I'm fine with the gross-out humor. Uh I've I've watched lots of South Park. I'm I'm I'm I'm okay with it. All right, so that was seven. Back into the present now, back into the proper list. Now, let's get to number eight, which is uh a little bit of a decline here in our total, 84 hours. This is actually lower than I would have guessed. We have Baldur's Gate 3, um game of the year 2023, widely acclaimed and beloved and has sold a kajillion copies because people love watching other people, attractive people, make love to bears. Um this is a role-playing game uh based on Dungeons & Dragons. It's kind of it's it's really an interesting story in so many ways. I've written quite a lot about this game and I've talked to the people behind it quite a lot. Um but I think it's absolutely brilliant uh the way that

it's uh accounts for all of the different choices you can make, make it feel makes it feel the closest that uh that any game has felt to actually playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign and living that out on your screen. Um it just keeps track of so many different things. There's so many different variables. When I played it, I had a couple of issues with Act 3, uh a lot of bugs. One bug prevented me from actually completing a quest. A few other bugs just gave me all sorts of hiccups as I went. Um plus the frame rate drops and whatnot, a lot of technical issues, but still, I mean, even the first two acts alone were so good that uh I think they made up for um what I think was kind of a little bit of an uh I was going to say underwhelming, but it's like also kind of overwhelming conclusion. Uh one of the problems I think with Act 3 in that game is that you were just deluged as soon as you get to the city of Baldur's Gate with all these different quests and things that you have to do, and it's a lot to just kind of wrap your head around. Still a fantastic game. Um played through it all. I don't think I ever actually beat it. I think I got to

battle, and then for some reason just stopped playing. I've been meaning to give it another play-through at some point. Um maybe a Dark Urge play-through at some point. So uh so we'll make that happen. Uh we'll make that happen at some point in the future. Um Although they do have another game coming out. Well, that'll be a while. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll play through that game again at some point, maybe on my Steam Deck. All right, what are we up to now? So we have so far Final Fantasy 14, 100 Line Last Defense Academy, Migenic's Blueprints, CrossCode, Elden Ring, Balatro, Baldur's Gate 3. Two more to go. Next up, at number nine, we have with 81.6 hours Hollow Knight: Silksong. Uh another all-timer, another game that I've played just endlessly. Um 100% the main the the game and then did a replay where I think I got through like Act 2 or so, and then I've done a third play-through just for kicks where I just kind of mess around at the beginning of the game. I mean, this is a game I could be playing forever. Um We'll undoubtedly

watch that total go up whenever the DLC comes out, Sea of Sorrows, which will hopefully be um this year. That's what they've said. Uh up to you if you want to believe it. Um fun fact, the the first Hollow Knight, I only have 48.6 hours on Steam, but that is because I played through the original version on the Switch in 2017 cuz this is is I have to play on handheld. This is a a game designed for handheld. Um but uh but it wasn't Was it 2017 or 2018? Whenever that was. 2018. Um but anyway, so so it wasn't uh there was no Steam Deck back then. Now that's I play everything on Steam Deck these days and that's where I played all of Silk Song and then all replays and and whatnot. Um so uh the 48 hour 6 hours I have of a Hollow Knight on Steam are my second play through of Hollow Knight that I did around the like right after Silk Song came out. I wanted to play through all of Hollow Knight again, so I did that. Um but if you add my

Switch hours to my Steam hours, it's probably more than Silk Song at this point. Um yeah, tremendous game, tremendous Metroidvania, beautiful game, well-crafted, meticulously crafted, intricate, full of all sorts of incredible details, and feels amazing to play. All right, number 10. Last but certainly not least, with 79 hours, we have Divinity: Original Sin II. The game that Larian made before Baldur's Gate 3. That's a a nice little Larian sandwich we got here. We got Baldur's Gate 3 and then Silk Song in the middle and Divinity: Original Sin II on the other side. Another fantastic game that just is um a whole lot of fun to play. Just so many different choices you can make and details and just kind of decisions and um I guess decisions means the same thing as choices. Um uh characters who just really pop off the page and off the screen and uh just man, so that that is a game where I uh I really I wasn't super familiar with

Larian's work until I played this game and then I just got kind of sucked in on a weekend and just did nothing but play it. I think this might have been before I had kids or like my kid was out of town or something like that. No, it was before I had kids. Um and uh I just felt like 12 hours straight playing Divinity: Original Sin II. And I was just so so by like the characters. You you you you have a who has demons in her head and is trying to reckon with that at the same time that you are playing as like this undead who if he reveals his true face to people, they will be terrified and and not talk to you and go hostile. And just the number of ways that it would say yes to the player, um there's this this genre of games called the immersive sim, um of which the most famous are games like Deus Ex and Dishonored and um Prey, the most recent Prey. And the constant the the kind of the hook of those games are the the kind of running theme with that genre is something that Warren Spector is one of the forefathers of that game used to call of that genre used to call say yes to the player. And

um it really a lot of that kind of comes back to the Ultima series and Ultima Underworld in particular, which was a game that was just very what game designers call systemic, meaning that like things operate the way that they should in the same way that I don't know, in Breath of the Wild if you go up to a tree and you hit it, it will roll over and turn into a log in the way that you would expect it to. Rather than following game logic, it follows logic that a player would would just kind of know to expect based on the real world. And I think Divinity Original Sin II and Baldur's Gate III are both good examples of that in that the game is always trying to say yes to the decisions you're making. Do you want to kill this person even though it'll lock you out of a quest line? Sure, you can go and do that. Do you want to um I don't know, get an ability that lets you teleport anywhere even if it could potentially break the game by teleporting into places you shouldn't, and then the game will account for that. Um do you want to uh I don't know, pick up barrels and then put things in them and then use them to destroy things by blowing up people? Do you want to um set something

throw a pool of water under an enemy and then cast a lightning bolt on that pool of water so it shocks the enemy and then kills them? Those are the kinds of like systems that all just kind of interlock and play together and make for really satisfying experiences both in combat and in story. And I think Divinity: Original Sin II, if if by the way, if you out there have only played Baldur's Gate 3, which I think a lot of people have, and haven't checked out DOS II, you should because it's really cool and it's fun to see how many ideas and just kind of systems and mechanics have been taken from one to the other. Uh DOS II is a very different kind of combat system and I wouldn't say that one is better than the other. I think they're both different and cool in their own ways. And I think it's worth checking out. Um also like Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity: Original Sin II has an ending problem where the last act is significantly weaker than the others, but it's okay. I I you get over it. Um Another trait of both of those games by the way is that no battle feels like a

wasted no battle feels wasted. There's no kind of filler battles in either of those games. Every battle feels like it has some sort of consequence, whether it's introducing you to a new idea, a new mechanic, or has some role in the story. It's always got some sort of weight to it, which since the battles require a lot of thought and can't just be just kind of like put on autopilot for the most part, I think that adds a lot to those games and and is a reason that they're so good. Um all right, that's all 10. I'll read them again just for kicks. Final Fantasy XIV, Hundred Line Last Defense Academy, Mugen Blueprint, CrossCode, Elden Ring, Balatro, Baldur's Gate 3, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Divinity: Original Sin II. Those are the games I have played most on Steam. Doesn't count consoles, doesn't count um I don't know, Playdate or anything else that I might have played stuff on. Uh and I'll give you a couple of I'll give you a few I'll I'll roll through a few of the games that did not make the final

cut real quick. I won't talk about these in depth cuz we're almost out of time on this video, but I'll read through a few more. Um number 11 would be Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, 75.3 hours. Number 12 would be Metaphor: Re-Fantazio, 73.7 hours. Number 13 would be The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2, 58.7 hours. I think the previous one I played on PlayStation or Vita, Vita. Number 14 would be Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, 55.6 hours. Number 15 would be Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, 49.4 hours. Man, that's probably the worst game on this list. The game that I really, really played and sunk all of my time like so much time into it despite it not being very good. And that is it. So, that's 15 of them. But, yeah, those were the top 10. Gives you a little bit of an idea of my gaming taste. Although, funny enough, one of my

favorite genres, the kind of detective genre, is not on here. In fact, that's kind of strange. What in Hold on, let me You know, yeah, that's weird. So, well, I mean, I guess this kind of makes sense. Another of my favorite genres is of course the deductive mystery genre. The Rise of the Golden Idol, I've only played 22.2 hours. I guess that makes sense. The problem with that genre is it's not very replayable, so I wouldn't be sinking a ton of time just like exploring or doing everything there is to do because all you do is play through it once and that's the end of it. Case of the Golden Idol, fun fact, 12.9 hours. Return of the Obra Dinn, Yeah, I suppose this all makes sense. All right. Hope you guys enjoyed hearing me talk a little bit about my gaming habits and I will see you all next time.