Originally I loved this game because it's absolutely nuts from start to finish. It stayed with me because it has a big heart. Even though FFVIII is an absolutely batshit maximalist soap opera about a ragtag group of amnesiac, hot dog-obsessed, time-traveling child soldiers who are hired to kidnap the president, it's also an achingly emotional game about an anti-hero who learns how to overcome his trauma and open his heart.

Replaying this game 20+ years later, I was struck by how unrelentingly sincere it is and how deeply it bares its soul. Then in the next scene, you get shot into space out of a giant cannon.