Gaming

For a Gameboy suggestion, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. This is the first game featuring Wario. You can complete the worlds in any order. When you get a game over you lose all the Golden Coins you've obtained which act.as keys to enter the final world. So you still have to reheat the final stage in each world again if you get a game over. One of the worlds is a giant mechanical Mario you get to go through!

I haven't played this, but the next game in the "series" is Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 lmao. But I have played Wario Land II. Wario Land II is interesting because you cannot die in the game. Getting hit makes you lose a few coins and that's it. When a boss hits you you get sent back in the stage a bit. Rather than having power ups, some of the enemies affect you. For example, if a bee stings you then you begin to swell up and float. If you're lit on fire then you catch on fire and can burn certain blocks. These are fun because they're oftentimes the only way to progress.

A lot of Gameboy games were kinda crappy. No offense to them or if you liked them, but these two still really hold up. They look and sound amazing. It's a shame to me that so many people seem to remember and are nostalgic for the first Super Mario Land but haven't played the second which is WAY better.

!patientgamers@sh.itjust.works

Gen X here. Arriving late to the thread but I think I have something to say about this. I'll try to keep the list short, as it could go really long if I added everything that deserves to be mentioned. Games that were genre-defining for me:

• Gradius/Nemesis (this saga defines what a good shoot 'em up should look like, noteworthy title being Nemesis 2 for the MSX)
• Double Dragon (original arcade version, as it was never correctly ported to any other platform due to home consoles being too weak at the time, this is the beat 'em up game you must play)
• Shadow Dancer (for the Genesis/Mega Drive, the best title in the Shinobi series, has great graphics, music and gameplay)
• Bionic Commando (for the GameBoy, there's just something special about this game that was never truly replicated)
• Super Mario World (the Super NES title is 16-bit platformer perfection, the interaction between sprites is just what you expect it to be)
• Ninja Warriors Again (for the SNES, is just a fun, very well-made beat 'em up)
• Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold (a.k.a. Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, this is 2D fighting perfection, simply put)
• Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (the series' debut on the Game Boy Advance was also one of the best games ever made for the console, arguably the very best 2D title in the series)
• Doom (the game that made Boomers get interested in video games for better or worse, requires no further introduction)
• Ōkami (this one has been re-released for every platform since its original PS2 version and if you play it you'll understand why)
• Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (hands down the best 3D Castlevania title ever created, criminally not ported to newer consoles)
• Resident Evil Zero (probably the best fixed-camera title in the series, also sets a good basis for playing the next ones afterwards)
• Resident Evil 4 (the original, not the remake, arguably one of the best video games ever made, also first "action" title in the series)

Anything that comes after that is probably not "old" enough for me.