RetroGaming

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."

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

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.

Probably Planescape: Torment

Stardew Valley or Terraria.

Roller Coaster Tycoon, 2 preferably. Like, if OpenRCT2 could magically time travel back and exist on 12 year old me's computer, it would be bliss.

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.

Factorio

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

Skyrim. After 200 hours, you start becoming really aware of the "seams" and the clunkiness of the Creation Engine. Although, while you're still working your way through the quests, and every stat isn't at 100 yet, it's pure pure pure bliss. To have that original feeling back. Gah!

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.

ICO

such an amazing game that never seems to get any love

I've got two candidates for that:

• Uncharted 4
• GTA 5

Ubcharted is visually stunning and I really like the story it tells.

GTA 5 STILL is a game where I find new things.

Portal 2 and Undertale the true pacifist run

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.

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

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

Grandia on ps1. I refuse to replay it out of a morbid certainty that it's basic as all hell. But it was my first jrpg and it blew my mind.

I swear it took me weeks to make it to the wall, but searching my memory it's the first scene after your hometown.

Minecraft, specifically Beta 1.7.3.

Final Fantasy 7 or 9, Earthbound, Secret of Mana, Phantasy Star Online

The return of the Obra Dinn. Really fun unique game

I feel its been so long since i last played it might feel new to me, but still it wont be the same as first playthrough.

its not exact but LTTP rando gives that sense of new game feel each and every time. The races are great.

Then I double teamed it with https://samus.link/ which is SMZ3 crossover. Races are even better again.

Course all the wonderful hacks for both games. Parallel Worlds for LTTP is wickedly hard but a lot of fun.

Getting in to SM arcade mode recently too.

Both Super Metroid and Zelda are phenomenal.

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.

Learning Team Fortress 2 for the first time as a teenager was such a crazy fun experience.

Super Metroid

Space Invaders

Asteroids

Pitfall

Monkey Island or Little Big Adventure

Are you aware of the Zelda: ALLTTP randomizer? https://alttpr.com/en

The original Luigi's Mansion. First off little kid me was still scared SHITLESS cause this game has ghosts everywhere. And that dumb kid didn't have a clue what "triangles" or animations" were so in his mind those ghosts could do ANYTHING to poor little Luigi just trying to save his brother.

And the story of course isn't anything super amazing of course, it's a non-rpg Mario game. But again little kid me doesn't know shit. In my mind I can remember thinking "what if E.Gadd is lying and is actually evil. What if I can still find Mario somewhere in this mansion and we can gtfo together.

My family used to rent that shit from Blockbuster all the time and I was youngest of three, so I barely got to play much back then and we wouldn't own it for years. But I can still remember major tears of joy when I finally did and Luigi just starts laughing at Mario with that vent stuck around his neck.

Others for my list that I've seen plenty here so won't gush about the same way is: Dark Souls 1, Both Portal, Destiny if I could experience it from release day and have the shitty content droughts D1 went through constantly, Halo 3, and another I haven't seen is JK: Jedi Outcast

Homeworld

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.)

If I were to experience it as I am today (and judge it versus games with modern graphics etc), I'd pick Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It quickly became one of my all-time favourite games, and I finished it three times in a year when I discovered it. Beautiful in so many ways.

Half-Life is probably the game that has had the biggest impact on me, though, so that would be my pick if I experienced it as I did around 1998.

Probably Fallout New Vegas (if that even counts as retro yet). I've played it to death ever since it came out and can't even remember the first time I completed it.