RetroGaming

Inscryption. One of my favorite games to come out in years, but the secondary playthroughs don't have anywhere near the appeal without the mystery/intrigue sadly. The first time for me was magical though.

Halo reach. Such a masterpiece.

Definitely Dragon Age Origins. Loved it all, from the weird combat mechanic to the relationship scores. I only wish Varric had been available to romance.

Portal or Minecraft.

I've played so much Minecraft that I have everything down to a science.

Like quickly making a wooden pickaxe, mining exactly how much cobble I need for a furnace and a stone pickaxe, and how to find coal and iron in less than 5 minutes.

Wood and stone tools, outside the two pickaxes, are skipped entirely.

Before the end of the first night I am almost entirely decked out in iron stuff.

Farming cows for bookshelves for enchanting is quick and easy, and then getting fortune 3 and looting 3 pretty much makes the game easy mode. You print ores and food.

Not to mention you can get mending from a villager easily. Just pick up and put down the job station until they give you mending. It's not skill, it's just luck. You can get it in less than 2 minutes if you're lucky. Now you'll never have to worry about anything ever breaking again. You can also get fortune and looting this way as well, removing the need to waste time and materials on the enchanting table.

It's sad. I wish I could erase my knowledge of it, and play Minecraft how I used to. By savoring my enchanted items, creaming my pants at the sight of diamonds, and grinding hard for food.

Chrono Trigger, Castlevania SOTN, Pokemon BW and B2W2, Dead Cells

Wow OP it's like we had the same childhood. That opening sequence and the early parts of LTTP are seared into my memory. +1

Picking one is quite hard, but since it's retro only, my vote goes to Super Metroid. That game is a rare gem.

Half Life 2, New Vegas and MGS all blew my young mind and would be great to relive.

Ultima Online. It was my first MMO. I could own a friggin house that other people could visit! I've been chasing that high for 20+ years now.

Easily Metal Gear Solid 3 for me.

Stardew Valley or Terraria.

A link to the past is my top Zelda game for sure.

... Have you ever tried the randomizer for it? It will give you a rom where all the items are randomly distributed around the map, making you do the whole sequence out of order.

I will play though a random Rom one a year or so and it's a blast.

https://alttpr.com/en

Oh man.... I would love to experience Zork again for the first time. 😊

"West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here."

Wing Commander 3 and Black & White.

Played both of them when i was a kid and it'll be nice to be able to play them again as an adult.

Runescape, 2006 sort of era

I loved Bioshock, so probably that.

I actually bought LTTP before I bought a SNES.. The game itself wasn't easy to get in my area and I happened to be out of town and ran across a copy, so it was an easy decision

Final fantasy tactics, or 7.

I know it's not really retro yet, but either Nier game. True perfection those two.

Hollow Knight

Portal 2 and Undertale the true pacifist run

Minecraft, specifically Beta 1.7.3.

There are many games that I loved and would enjoy playing for the first time, but I'm going to pick Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. My reason being that I spent the vast majority of the game waiting for it to morph into a spiritual successor of Super Mario RPG back when I first played it, rather than giving it a chance to stand on its own as a unique and hilarious game. My preconceived idea of what I hoped the game would be really hurt my initial enjoyment of it.

For a runner up, I'll mention Kirby's Dream Land 3. In the days of Blockbuster rentals, I'd rented Kirby Super Star first, so it took me a while to get used to the more traditional Kirby powerup system where copied abilities only do one type of action each.

That Zelda is on my list for sure. I'd add super Mario world as well, just like Zelda did, it introduced so many new mechanics and the maps were so HUGE you could spend absolute weeks trying to unlock all of certain areas.

NBA Jam on SNES.

Wolfenstein or Doom first time really seeing a 3d game. Being absolutely terrified of the ambient noises in Doom.

Half-Life for sure. Relatively intelligent soldier opponent tactics, puzzling real puzzles in 3d for the first time not just point and shoot.

Goldeneye 007. Trying to figure out how to aim, so slowly and ineptly. Then one of your friends says let's try multiplayer and 4 years later...

Warcraft 2 on dial-up with your friend across town.

GTA 2. Discovered almost by accident and the top down view was so great. Never cared much for the rest of the series.

Super Bomberman.

Have you tried a link to the past randomizer . It makes it very fun and you can find different ways to progress through the game . Sometimes you have to do some of the dark world first or find clever ways to get into areas .

Homeworld

94 NHL Hockey on Sega. That game blew my mind then after years of playing pretty bad ports of hockey games like Ice Hockey and Wayne Gretzky's hockey on NES. I was hooked from the very first moment and played the franchise for years until they got into 14 buttons and FPV. The older overhead version was peak for me.

ICO

such an amazing game that never seems to get any love

Portal or Arkham Asylum, something that surprised me in unexpected ways.

Portal because I thought I was getting a neat puzzle game (I was), but GLADoS blew me out of the water.

Arkham Asylum because of how effectively some of the Scarecrow sequences messed with me specifically (making me think my game had glitched, etc.)