Katamari Damacy for the spectacle of it. Wait for a switch sale and let your mind be blown.
Edit: it’s actually 75% off right now in my region.
Starwars Knights of the old Republic 1 and 2 they are on steam and kotar 1 can be played on a phone. AC blackflag. Dragon age origins. If you want a more specific recommendation based on a old gaming system let me know.
Need for Speed Underground 2 was a great game. Not sure how much nostalgia ia in there but it just felt good for a racer.
Bloons TD holds a special place in my heart and so does Runescape.
I know I am old and you don’t have to call me it but F Zero was my first forway into racing.
I loved F-Zero on the SNES and an old game called PoD: Planet of Death on the family PC.
Super Metroid because it’s amazing, and Castlevania Symphony of the Night for the same reason. I may be biased because those are two of my favorites ever but I swear they legit hold up.
As someone who didn’t play them back in the day, I feel like SotN holds up but Super Metroid doesn’t. Just as another opinion. I couldn’t really get into metroid fusion either. To me it feels like the moment-to-moment action gameplay is too clunky in the early metroid games I’ve played, even if the exploration element is neat. I did enjoy playing SotN for the first time a couple of years ago though. It’s been a while since I played either, so they’re not totally fresh in my memory - I guess it’s possible that I’m just more forgiving of clunky melee combat than clunky shooting.
Tangentially related, always amuses me how “metroidvania” has become the genre name, when originally it was just a way that reviewers poked fun at the big change between SotN and earlier castlevanias. They were like “this isn’t what I expect from a castlevania, it’s a great game but maybe they should have named it metroidvania”, and the name stuck. Another odd fact about that terminology is that according to interviews, the SotN designer never played metroid - they were inspired by the non-linear exploration with different routes opened up by items/upgrades in Zelda games (although obviously adding that to castlevania’s platformer gameplay makes it more closely resemble metroid). So it should probably be considered a zeldavania.
Thief 1 - 3.
I must admit I’ve never seen or played these. They might be a bit too new for me. I listened to an interview with the game designer on the retro hour a while back. It sounded intriguing.
Would you care to give an elevator pitch on why these are must-play?
The open world concepts for each level.
The story is found and told through other characters. A lot of the story is shown rather than told.
Thief 3 has the most horrific level design ever in the orphanage. A game review had a review (really more of a worship piece) just on that one level. (I think this is the review: https://www.pcgamer.com/journeying-into-the-cradle-in-thief-deadly-shadows/)
The stealth mechanics actually require stealth and are multivariate. Most stealth games stealth systems now are actually less advanced.
They’re great games.
God I remember having to actually disable enemy AI to get through The Cradle as a kid.
Thief 1 and 2 have incredible community made mods that completely overhaul the graphics and make it quite a beautiful game. Said community is still alive and well over on the TTLG forums, making fan missions for the game to this day (including the highly regarded Black Parade, which is basically an entire game made in the dark engine).
The only stealth games I’ve played that come anywhere close are Dishonored 1 and 2 (which, unsurprisingly, had a lot of Looking Glass veterans working on them).
