(Saw this question asked on another popular link aggregation website and it got me thinking)
If you could play one game for the first time all over again, what would you choose? This might be because you want to do it all again, or because you don’t think you got enough out of it the first time. It could be experiencing the game exactly as you were back then, or experiencing a game with what you know now.
For me, it’s Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, experienced exactly as I was back in 1991.
Nothing comes close to how jaw-droppingly amazed I was by that opening sequence. The epic orchestral score, the cinematic rainstorm, creeping around in the dark… it was a generational leap above anything I’d played on 8-bit computers and consoles, and even the Megadrive. I’d love to play it again without thirty plus years of Nintendo/Zelda knowledge, or without knowing about the dark world.
OUTER WILDS.
It’s a fantastic exploration game if you go in blind and I wish I could forget it all and explore it all again.
What’s sad is that I know I will forget the lore and the journey on how I figured out how I got to the end. But I don’t think I’ll forget the specifics for the ending.
Yeah, it really was amazing to play blind. We especially enjoyed the DLC… when we first realised what it was all about, it nearly blew our minds!
Yeah, I’ve never wtf’d so hard in a game as when I entered the thing and left the other thing in the DLC.
That game was so well done and thought through.
I’m shocked that this isn’t everyone’s answer tbh lol
Those are the people that haven’t played it yet.
I got it in my library and only played for 10 minutes somehow. After reading als those comments maybe now it’s time to play it
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.
Sid Meier’s Civilization!
Outer Wilds. You can’t even really replay it, not like you can other games. But boy, I will never forget the unbridled joy of unraveling its mysteries - and ironically, would love to so I can do it all over again.
Metal Gear Solid. Going from tooling around in the NES Metal Gear to sneaking thorough Shadow Moses while figuring out 4th wall breaking puzzles was amazing.
The Secret of the Monkey Island
TUNIC
The Witness
I know this is almost a stereotypical answer, but the Witcher 3. because after that game i went and read through all the books. so if i got to re experience it would be the difference of finding siri after 100 hours of gameplay and finding siri after 5000 hours of story. "find siri’ is Geralt’s primary motivation throughout the books. i can only imagine how satisfying and emotional that scene would feel for the first time with the weight of the books behind it.
Disco Elysium
The sheer joy of realising it’s not “just another” RPG, slowly pulling the curtain on how intricate the worldbuilding is, discovering the main character and in turn reflecting on yourself. It’s become a small addiction to watch first time streamers and let’s players for me, to vicariously relive that process.
Another candidate might be Ultima 7, the interactivity and how “real” it felt in the 90s was mindblowing for kid me.
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.
Ahhhh UO. Sitting on my llama in my prized neon sandles in front of the bank. Buying a white wyrm from someone and having it rampage because I couldn’t control it. Riding around in a boat with a polar bear trying to level up animal handling or whatever because you stopped getting xp if you were stationary too long… Good times lol. I used to have a whole bag of runes to glitch spots in the game 😎
Earthbound. Even on my subsequent yearly-ish playthroughs, it’s so easy to get immersed into the beautiful quirkiness of the world.
Came here to say this one. It’s been ~30 years and there still isn’t another game that quite hits in the same way. The perfect combination of jrpg, weirdness, emotion, humor, horror/dread, and lightheartedness. Earthbound has it all.
I’m reading the book about Satoru Iwata and in it he talks about Earthbound and says (hardcore paraphrasing) that Earthbound on the surface has a lot of regular RPG conventions, but through a combination of its non gameplay aspects it becomes something incredibly unique that even today has very few comparisons.
Earthbound. It’s been my favorite game since I first rented it from blockbuster
Final Fantasy 7 or 9, Earthbound, Secret of Mana, Phantasy Star Online
I think this is a tie between Bloodborne and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Absolute masterpieces, both. I replay both of them at least once a year, but it would be wonderful to go back in fresh.
Panzer Saga is excellent, though I’d love to have played it on release instead of years later.
