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Just as with books, movies, plays etc the past holds a treasure trove of amazing experiences. Unless you have a lot more free time than I do it's unlikely you've played anywhere near the majority of the classics. Let's get out those pink sunnies and compare notes on some of our favourite releases.

I've recently been going back in time a little on the retro pi and looking at console games I never had.

  • I have to say Chrono Trigger blew me away with it's stunning art, puzzles with surprisingly little moon logic, and beautiful music.

  • Mario golf on the SNES is very simple but for tired evenings cuddling on the couch it's been a winner in our household.

  • The n64 Zelda games are surprisingly great too although that awkward period of 3d had some unusual controls. Even the gameboy ones are a blast although the water temple in oracle of ages it a bit frustrating.

  • Heroes of might and magic 2 and 3 hold a special place in my heart and I can still dump hours into skirmishing with those (32167 for when hom2 gets too frustrating amiright?)

  • I loved neverwinter knights as a kid but recently tried to check it out again and just... idk the magic wasn't there. I think now I'd rather just play some actual ttrpgs instead of sprawling CRPGs

PS1 is a mystery box to me so I'd love to hear some recommendations from that old thing. All I ever played on it was time crisis at my mates house (which was and is soooo coool, RIP lightguns).

What about you folks? What games hold a special place in your heart? or what have you checked out for the first time recently and found it's actually pretty good?

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[-] Boozilla@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Beyond Good & Evil, 2003. It's been so long since I played it, I don't remember much other than it was a sandbox and it had some neat mechanics and cute characters and I loved it. The closing credits musical sequence is magical, too.

[-] insurgenRat@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

I think I rented it for the gamecube but never played much. Apparently it's famously good! I'll have to check it out.

[-] omgarm@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

One of the first games I played that was translated in Dutch with good voiceovers! Loved it and made me more open to localized games.

[-] julianh@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Not a unique opinion, but Portal is probably the closest thing to a perfect game. Nothing feels unnecessary, and every part of it (story, gameplay, visuals) is not only good on its own, but also work together to make the game better than the sum of its parts.

Portal 2's also great but suffers from a lot of fluff imo. The analogy I like to use is Portal 2 is like a big feast of really good food, while Portal 1 is just one small dish, but it's the best version of that dish you've ever tasted.

[-] MrEUser@lemmy.ninja 2 points 1 year ago

My response to this will look like a who’s who of Dreamcast games. The Dreamcast was the first console I bought myself, so I have lots of fond memories.

  • Soulcalibur I & II
  • Sega NFL 2K1 (and I was NOT a sports game person)
  • Shenmue I & II
  • Jet Set Radio
  • Phantasy Star On-Line
  • Quake III arena
  • Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2
  • Hydro Thunder
  • Fur Fighters
[-] azureeight@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Had a partner want to practice hacking a 3ds before they closed the shop so I can play PS1 games. The first one I put on that mofo is Azure Dreams, my first and probably favorite dungeon crawler roguelike with a city builder. Also Breath of Fire IV is one of my absolute favorite games ever.

[-] insurgenRat@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I haven't even heard of either of these so I'm definitely going to have to check them out!

[-] azureeight@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I definitely think they are loads of fun but they both have amazing soundtracks, too! Breath of Fire IV still brings me to tears!

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[-] MxVivian@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

No spoilers please but I'm finally sitting down to playthrough and beat the original Deus Ex. Installed GMDX mod and have been having a blast so far!

[-] insurgenRat@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Oh you are in for a treat! I'm thrilled for you.

All I will say is experiment. Follow that "huh I wonder if?" relentlessly.

[-] MxVivian@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Definitely. It's starting to fall into the "They thought of everything!" levels of ways to solve puzzles and beat missions. I love how my character's personality seems to be driven by the sub missions I do and don't do. Very cool game so far.

[-] prole@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I just picked up Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (the original, not the Remaster) again. Installed it on my Steam Deck along with DSFix after a year or so of scrolling past it and seeing the "unsupported" icon. Looked it up on ProtonDB and apparently it works just fine.

What a game. The level design is still unmatched imo

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[-] fritata_fritato@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 year ago

I still play Doom 1 & 2 most days. Nothing matches it for speed of play. Doom is fast.

Doom 2016 is a good game too, but I'm it lacks speed.

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[-] UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Final Fantasy Tactics(PS1) remains my favorite game to this day. I really liked messing with the various classes and abilities, and it's a rock-solid tactics game, to boot. Couple that with amazing music and a great political story, and you've got a classic.

TG Cid is hilariously broken, though.

[-] blindsight@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

FFT has an active modding scene, too. Lots of rom hacks are still being made for the PS1 and PSP versions of the game.

[-] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

There's always Diablo 1.

But my favorite is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which was made by some of the people who created Fallout and has a LOT in common with it. It's an open world, a combination of classic fantasy with elves, dwarves, and halflings with a rising steampunk technology that competes with magic. There are many schools of magic and technology, as well as social, stealth, and combat skills. The graphics are very crude by today's standards, but the gameplay is outstanding.

[-] Plus_a_Grain_of_Salt@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

You know, I never tried Diablo 1 even though I grew up religiously playing Diablo 2. Also love the original fallout games, I definitely need to make time for this.

[-] Erk@cdda.social 1 points 1 year ago

Diablo 1 has the same gameplay as the other games but in terms of scope and concept it's much more self contained, it's a different experience. Good game, but d2 is what the sequels have all tried to recreate, so it will feel quite different.

[-] Plus_a_Grain_of_Salt@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the warning, but I don't mind different; different can be good. I'm excited to see the beginnings of my childhood game, I think it'll be worth the patience. Though, having a hard time finding it, it's not on the blizzard downloads list. I'mma do more digging tho, it's gotta be out there somewhere.

[-] drewdevorcula@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Eternal Darkness

Silent Hill

Resident Evil 1+2

Call of Cthulhu

Quake 1-3

Doom 1+2

Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy 3, 7, Tactics

Metal Gear Solid (all of them)

Shadowrun (SNES)

Castlevania 1-3, SOTN

I could go on...

[-] HereticalDoughnut@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Unfortunately some of my favorite games are no longer around in a playable state.

I friggin loved Atlas Reactor but it shutdown in 2019. Another all time favorite, which is still around but does not have the community to keep it feeling alive is: Shattered Galaxy.

Other games I think deserve to be in the all time best games of all time list are:

  • Heroes of Might and Magic 3
  • StarCraft Brood Wars
  • Dota2
  • Civ5
  • Diablo 2
[-] Eszed@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Every Star Wars fan owes it to themselves to play Knights of the Old Republic, at least once. And if you play it once, you'll want to play it through again, as a different character class. And if you play it twice, you'll want to play it through again, as a dark-side Jedi. And if you play it thrice, you may be tempted to play it through again, as a Droid.

It's a wonderful story, that feels like Star Wars (which, for those of us older Star Wars fans, who at the time were suffering through the cumulative disappointments of the prequel trilogy, became our salving solace), with plots and settings and characters and ships and light-sabers and action and betrayals that were (and still are) as rich as any of the movies or shows.

The people who run the franchise keep teasing canonicity, so play it soon, so you'll gasp like we do when Darth Revan makes an appearance.

[-] chahk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Revan's introduction in KotOR was mind blowing.

[-] iamhazel@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago
  • OpenTTD
  • Puzzle Pirates
  • Mario Golf on GBA
  • Bike or Die, Space Traders, and Fish Tycoon on Palm
[-] zen404@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, all of these still hold up, and are totally worth a play even if you never played them back in their day.

Also, Alpha Centauri has SUCH a great narrative. Each faction has a strong identity, each leader has a fitting personality, the whole package is great.

It really deserves a remake to update the controls and UI, it still plays really well if you can get past that though.

[-] Cavemanfreak@vlemmy.net 1 points 1 year ago

TimeShift came out in 2007, and that game was the bomb. Loved the concept with the suits that can control time, and the game play felt really smooth. Nothing beats freezing time and grabbing the enemies' weapons from them and shooting them with it.

[-] chahk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I loved the bullet time in OG Max Payne game (2001).

I was addicted to EverQuest since I started playing it in 2001 for at least 10 years. They don't call it "EverCrack" for nothing. No matter how I feel about it now, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

I also played PlanetSide MMOFPS for at least 4 years since it released back in 2003, and it was so great. I hear both good and bad things about its successor, PlanetSide 2, but haven't tried it for the fear of it ruining my nostalgia of the original.

Starsiege: Tribes was an awesome game too. I was a beta tester for that one way back in '98, in the days before broadband was a thing. I still have an installation CD hand-signed by the devs that they had to ship to all the testers, because downloading 500+ MB over dial-up was not feasible.

Earthsiege 2 was the game for which I went out to CompUSA and bought a joystick that had swivel function (MS SideWinder 3D Pro).

[-] sculd@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

The original Red Alert is still one of my favorites! In the expansion you can even fight Giant Ants!!! (Not sure how many people knew)

[-] Confused_Idol@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Baldur’s Gate II is and will always be the most influential and important game of my life.

[-] kelvinjps@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago
  1. Commando, 2. Black 3. metal gear 4. GTA san andreas 5. prince of persia 6. I remember having an emulator of a lot of old games.
[-] alea@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Civilization III. Still undoubtedly the best from me, every subsequent change to the series has been negative.

[-] EremesZorn@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

All the old MechWarrior games, starting with MechWarrior 2. That was my childhood. PGI didn't have what it takes to recapture that with MechWarrior Online or MechWarrior 5.
Shout out to Half-Life 1 and Team Fortress Classic (1.5). THAT was my teenage years. I played an insurmountable amount of TFC, adminned a couple servers, and took zero interest in TF2, because it just wasn't the same without concs, throwable frag nades, etc.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was a gamechanger though. That released when I was in college. Fell in love with the hopeless atmosphere, good gunplay, and the eurojank. I still play the various S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods to this day and am eagerly awaiting the release of number 2 (slated for December, but we will see. Devs have been through a lot).

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[-] Trashbones@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

This game is actually a bit before my time since it was released two years before I was born, but the original XCOM game (aka UFO: Enemy Unknown) is still one of my favorite games of all time. And it's just gotten better over the years with fixes and modding through OpenXcom.

I like the modern Firaxis games a lot too, and Xenonauts even moreso, but nothing has quite hit the same as the OG.

[-] misguidedfunk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

For me it was metal gear solid 3 snake eater. I thought it was the perfection of the metal gear formula. I’m exited to see its remaster.

[-] CorrodedCranium@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I played Max Payne and its sequal recently and I was surprised how well they held up. The gameplay and level design kept it consistently fun

[-] chimera765@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

The first game definitely shows its age, but is fun nevertheless. The second game, though, has always surprised me how amazingly it has held up.

Fantastic games.

[-] sludge@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Mischief Makers for n64! its a puzzle platformer by treasure, its controls are a little unintiutive at first, but the games grappling/boost mechanics are so much fun once you get it down.

also, SHAKE SHAKE!

[-] RichByy@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (PC version). Be aware that PC version is a completely different game from the console versions.

[-] Ultimatenab@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Soldier of Fortune. I will remember that whistle darn it!

But I lived through the golden era of arena shooters such as Quake III and UT2K4 which was amazing, but most of all the whole FPS genre was really ramping up to new heights every month back then with HL2/CoD and mods such as Counter Strike, Garry's Mod and the like.

[-] prole@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Oh man, I remember when Soldier of Fortune came out. It was the first FPS (that I was aware of at least) that had dismemberment. I remember my mind become completely blown after shooting a guy's legs off with a shotgun.

Nowadays, it's nothing special, but back then it was insane.

[-] 0nyxee@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I definitely have a lot that really get me feeling nostalgic. Couldn't even count the hours I spent playing games as a kid lol but here's a random list of a few:

  • Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (My favorite of all time)
  • Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age
  • Dragon Warrior VII
  • Final Fantasy: Tactics
  • Chrono Cross
  • Phantasy Star I and III
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Minish Cap
  • The Sims 1
  • RuneScape
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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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