For me it’s Chrono Trigger. I always want to play it. I want to show it to my children. I hope it will be regarded as a masterpiece for generations to come.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
From the art to the music to the plot to the gameplay, it’s just iconic.
Was looking for this!
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Portal 2 is still beautiful 12 years after its release and puzzle games will be relevent even in 50 years.
Super Mario World
I honestly feel a little disappointed that I scrolled this far and nobody mentioned Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999).
This is an RTS game, which is a dying genre. It’s also a 24 year old game, which after its release two more Age of Empires games have been released as well, and the game itself has been remastered recently. Yet people continue to play the original game to this day, the multiplayer scene and competitions are still active.
If that is not timeless I don’t know what is.
This is going to be a weird one considering the graphics, but hear me out, the original Deus Ex. Something about the game just feels so well put together that the graphics take a back seat to the gameplay. There is a reason the community around the game has fought so hard to keep it running on modern hardware.
The original DE is still one of my favorite games of all time. It’s truly a masterpiece.
Halo Reach. Every time I replay it, it hits harder.
say no to abuse
The Binding of Isaac. I keep buying it on all platforms. No single run is the same. More expensive than it should be these days but it is my crack.
I still play through Final Fantasy VI at least once a year.
Super Mario World! It holds up remarkably well even by modern platformer standards. It feels great, looks great, and is a blast to explore.
Surprised no one has said Super Metroid yet. The game just excelled at atmosphere.
Half Life 2 still looks and plays fantastic even nearly decades later
Half life 1 also! May be the graphics are a bit dated, but for that is the Black Mesa verdion
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I started playing Valve games with HL2, and didn’t play HL1 until the Black Mesa game came out. I highly recommend. It’s a fantastic game and the story made bolder choices than the new games. It really gives a sense of wonder in parts, especially on the back half of the story.
I would say Borderlands 2. This game is so good in terms or story and gameplay creating its own type of game + the graphics that are sort of cartoon/drawing like definitely makes it timeless for me. I would still restart a gameplay today if it wasn’t for the 4 or 5 times I finished it at the time it got released haha
Skyrim, actually. It’s quite dated by today’s standards, but just recently I started another playthrough on a whim and ended up playing 20h or so even though I’ve played the game a bunch of times for several hundreds of hours throughout the years already.
Tetris. Straight original is so simple accessible and addictive. I really haven’t cared for much else they done with it since. It was perfection also out the gate.
Also, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I can play it anytime, anyplace. The gameplay, music, graphics even today just feel so go for being 2D
For Tetris, Game boy version or is there a different console you feel is definitive ?
Gameboy Tetris is king.
I had it on original Nintendo. But the Gameboy version is almost the same (to my knowledge) just without the color pallet.
Also the story of Tetris and how it got lisenced is crazy. The new Tetris movie is a fun (albeit with Hollywood coat of paint) recount.
They made a film about Tetris, that’s bizarre.
Yes, yes they did. It’s actually a pretty fun watch.
It deals with the licensing fiasco that occurred when the game released.
Many companies saw the potential in the game’s popularity and so an all out bidding war/competition for rights occurred between Soviet Government, Bulletproof, Holobyte, Mirrorsoft and most notably Nintendo.
It’s probably an interesting story, it’s just funny what they bother making films about sometimes. Like that McDonald’s film.
The tank game on Wii Sports (reminiscent of Atari Tanks but coop)
PS1 Final Fantasy Tactics (especially with mods, particularly FFT 1.3)
PC Master of Magic (especially with community mods, Caster of Magic is a favorite)
SNES Super Mario World
SNES Super Bomber Man