If you could play one game for the first time all over again, what would it be?
(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.
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.
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.
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
The Outer Wilds.
A game you can only play once and that one time is magical.
I came in to type just this. One of the best games ever made!
Played about 2 hours of it and uninstalled. It was incredibly boring. Why do you think it was magical?
Spoilers. ❤️
But seriously, maybe it just didn't work for you and that's okay. Nothing is everything to everyone.
It's definitely a slow start. The way it's designed to allow discovery but not lead you too much makes the moments where points of data click and connect really powerful.
It's hard to talk too much about it without potentially spoiling the enjoyment one might take from it.
But it's not for everyone. But if it is for you, it's really really something.
It took me about two or three hours to learn to navigate and find my first "magical thing". When I did I was hooked. But yeah it can be slow to start.
Same story for me. I've heard it's incredible so I guess I'll have to try again sometime though. The start was just incredibly dull
I was going to say outer wilds too, what an amazing experience.
Half life or Half life 2.
I find Half-Life and Portal are some of the best games ever made regarding world building, story telling and general addictiveness.
I keep coming back because I've never found any other game like those.
I don't how old you are, but the first one was the first very big implementation of scripted scenes. To see something happening in an FPS as in a movie was mind-blowing.
The second one is just absurdly well designed. And the visuals are imbued of this Eastern European architecture and vibe that right now, walking the streets of Warsaw, I am gladly breathing in.
I'm old enough to have been stunned by games like Cybernoid and Exolon (oooh, so many colours and sprites and explosions), Elite (damn, actual 3D wireframe spaceships!), Driller (wow, actual solid 3D at 0.5 frames per second!), Wolfenstein (actually playable 3D, with sprites), Doom (this changes everything), Quake (full 3D, nothing can improve on this), all the Half-Life franchise (you can also have a story to go with the shooting? who knew?), Portal, Portal 2 and The Talos Principle (puzzle games can have riveting stories) and finally Skyrim (damn, this thing is huuuge!). So yeah, I'm old. :-)
Seconded.
Portal 1 / 2 wouldn't be far behind
'Or?' Why not both?
Windwaker.
Don't think its considered retro yet, but I wish I could forget every second of it I played. The complete emotional Rollercoaster I went through playing that game was incredible.
One of the few games where I really felt like I was the "super important protagonist" and the world really depended on me.
It's 20 years old... if Windwaker isn't considered retro now, then Atari 2600 games weren't considered retro in 1997 :)
Oh shit
Hah. You're old.
I mean I am too but.....you.
Probably my favorite Zelda and the most underrated game in the series imho
It might be relatively new, but I'd say Subnautica.
It was such a breath of fresh air when it came out, and instilled both such a sense of wonder at all the vibrant lifeforms of 4546B and also instilling such dread upon encountering reapers or diving deeper than ever before. I still remember the mixed sense of wonder and unease upon discovering the Jellyshroom caves for the first time
I guess I am very picky in games and most of them are boring to me, but Subnautica (first game) has a special place in my heart. <3
Jellyfish caves were nothing, discovering the edge of the map nearly made me start a new game because I couldn't bring myself to continue knowing what my current situation was
Secret of Monkey Island. Like most adventure games you can only really play it once. It'd be nice to enjoy it again.
I sat down with my son and let him play it. Seeing him experience it for the first time was a pretty awesome experience. He cracked up at the sword fighting.
I think I’ve played it through more than 20 times. I roughly do it once a year… 1,2 and 3 at least. It’s no longer about the challenge, story or puzzles, it just feels like coming home.
And then there is me, who just finished Hotel Dusk again as a ritual hoping Nintendo brings it back as it is about to be with Another Code!
Agreed. I mean, The Silver Case and now Trace Memory are getting re releases so... Hotel Dusk seems like the perfect next choice
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.
World of Warcraft. Starting out in an MMO for the first time is magical. No worries about the endgame, just the desire to explore and learn.
I responded to another comment here about it. WoW and other MMOs would be my choice -- but to make it any fun you'd have to rewind the whole world. Not only get rid of wowhead, wowwiki, raider.io etc., but get people to forget they ever existed, forget how to do data mining so effectively. Also get rid of streaming and video sharing services so that you had the chance of discovering things on your own. You wouldn't be the first, but you wouldn't know that.
Yeah, the internet ruined online gaming.
Oh yeah, WoW hands down. The sense of wonder as I explored the world the first time was incomparable to any other game.
It's hard to pick just one:
Deus Ex. It's timelessly topical despite being released in 2000. It predicted the War on Terror and a massive pandemic to name a couple.
Spiritfarer, for maximum onion chopping. Saying goodbye to Gwen really messed me up since I became very attached to her, and I can't finish the last stretch of the game because it's too emotionally taxing.
Undertale and wholesome fan-games like Act to Flirt.
Half-Life 2, circa 2004 when it was a leap ahead of everything else. I was unsettled by the teaser screenshots due to how real it all seemed to be during its heyday. (I did re-capture part of that feeling with M Mod and its great yet faithful modernisation effects. Plus there's some blursed mods you can combine with it such as replacing Alyx with Krystal, voiced by the original actress.)
Duke Nukem 3D: Alien Armageddon. It blew me away how much custom content and passion has been invested, so good that it almost felt like I was playing Duke Nukem for the first time all over again.
There's many more worth mentioning such as Unreal, Morrowind, Oblivion, Company of Heroes 1 and the forgotten gem that is Ground Control.
Man, I was born just at the right time to experience a stunning variety of titles and enjoy the mods that improve them.
!!! How did I never hear about https://www.moddb.com/mods/duke-nukem-alien-armageddon ??? Thank you so much for mentioning that! Once I get home from vacation, I know what to do!
Enjoy! Let me know how it turns out!
Subnautica.
The first game to make me truly sad that I had finished it. Wow, what an experience!
I loved exploring and piecing together the story. I loved discovering new creatures and ecosystems. I loved finding strange things and figuring out what to do with them.
I've never played a game quite like it before or since. My god, it was really amazing. I beat it without needing a guide or walkthrough. It's great enough to the point where, if you are curious enough, you won't need one!
It's certainly a slower-paced game, as it's not all non-stop action, so it's not for everyone. But if you're a patient and curious person, this may be for you.
I dint think ive ever played a game that made me so anxious. The first time i went into the deep and the giant ghostly leviathan came at me i almost had a panic attack.
Planet Crafter gives me Subnautica vibes, though it's still in early access. But it has the "build a base and survive in a hostile world with cool things to explore" already and potential to become really great.
That said, Subnautica was the first thing I thought of when I first saw this thread but not planet Crafter.
Maybe give outer wilds a try. Exploration and really unique level design.
Same for me yeah, such a great game. I remember doing so many things like setting free all animals i caught in their own habitat before leaving, because i wanted to play the last little bit out of it. Also filling the rocket food for the trip back home. I cried, when i started the flight.
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.
You can't even share much about this game without ruining it for someone else. I love this game so much but it's really difficult to get someone else to play it as well.
Well. In a sense you're replaying it all the time ;)
I’m gonna break the rules and name more than one.
Super Metroid
Link to the Past I beat it with my mom as a kid. I’d love to go back and just be a kid who loves his mom playing that game again.
Ocarina of Time My mom and I snuck and opened the Christmas present every evening after my dad went to bed. We were at the forest temple when I actually opened it for Christmas and pretended to be surprised.
Wind Waker I was so disappointed over the cartoon graphics I almost didn’t play it. Once the game won me over I fell in love with everything about it.
Twilight Princess My first Zelda as an adult living on my own. I bought it on GameCube and played it with my ex. We had no cable, no internet, no phone. It was the only entertainment we had (video games) and it was an experience that made us closer.
Symphony of the Night I just fucking love that game.
World of Warcraft I want to go back and play with my son. We did arenas and we were an unstoppable team. Some of the best nights of my life were spent side by side playing WotLK and Cata.
I could go on but someone is standing here bugging me now. Take care folks.
That's a fun memory with your mom. With parents like that, how did you grow up to be an angry seal?
Oh, they weren’t all sunshine and rainbows.
My parents were a nightmare haha.
Symphony of the Night is $2.99 on play store and istore. Using the native touchscreen controls gives you a hotkey for your spells, you only have to "cast" them once to unlock them.
I'm amazed Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger weren't on your list.
Oh I’m sure they would be if I had ever played them.
I’ll give them a go.
Final Fantasy VII
I went straight on from super Nintendo to this. You can imagine he level of amazement I got.
I picked it up blind after getting carried away in the magazine hype and excitement. I'd not played any FF games before that... man, that was quite an experience!
Oblivion. I liked Skyrim but Oblivion quests were so much better
I didn't like shutting down the gates which felt like the same thing over and over. But mostly it was awesome, especially the Grey Fox quests.
Maybe Stardew Valley? I found that very enjoyable.
Knowing how to min max on your 5th farm does kind of take out the charm, but it was a very fun to always start a new farm on a new map.
Just play Stardew Valley Expanded with all the new farms & such, it's quite the unique experience that blows base Stardew out of the water
Chrono Trigger. Hands down the greatest JRPG I've ever had the pleasure of playing.
Omg of I could go back!
I was shocked I had to scroll down so far to find this. I’m right there with you my friend!
Outer Wilds. It's the best game I have played, and it can't really be played a second time.
I played Outer Wilds immediately after I played Disco Elysium. Both would be incredible to experience fresh again.
Oh yes, Disco Elysium is up there as well.
Not retro, but Celeste hands down. That game is an emotional roadtrip of a platformer. My favorite indie game out there.
Me, to my wife, after three months of playing Celeste: "I think she might be gay"
Game totally wooshed me
Diablo 2 of course. It's the best game ever made. I still play it for a month or two every year.
Recently bought the remastered version, still holds up for me, played for a good while.
I don't think it works on the remake but I've been playing the Median XL Sigma mod. It's very good and they're still updating it.
Deus Ex
Undertale
That game fucked me up good on a personal level
I'm glad I accidentally got the neutral ending first, thus making the best ending even better.
So very true. It pains me to hear of others who did extensive research for their playthrough(s)
The Last of Us.
It's very linear and short to the point most of that sense of wonder goes away immediately after you finish it once.
Also being a horror game, the more you play the less scary it is.
The big moments hit really hard the first time around, but then that's kinda it. Still love it though.
Portal. I thought it was just a puzzle game. I love twists in movies and this one really caught me off guard.
Dark Souls. It was a game that had so many surprises just to fuck you over randomly. Random boulders, hidden enemies, boss mechanics, mimics, hidden gems. Played the hell out of it but the first time was like magic. 2, 3, bloodline, elden ring... I had expectations. Only played a couple hours of demons souls before I dove hard.
My heart says it should be Dark Souls, but my head reminds me I absolutely hated it until I'd figured out that the run from Undead Burg bonfire to Taurus Demon couldn't be rushed, and the point of the game was to be slow and methodical. Then I loved it.
For me it's the fact that it took me YEARS to git gud. Bought Demons souls before the hype, and had no clue. After a couple trys it went on the shelf. Went on to buy every souls game, cause I knew they were amazing, but never finished one or even got half way.
It was watching walk throughs, speed runs, and various challenge runs on youtube that, along with hours and hours of grinding, got me comfortable with these games.
Playing DS1 with fresh eyes and my current skills and knowledge of the other games would be amazing, as it really has the best world.
Having said all that, my answer is the Mass Effect trilogy.
you only ever get one true blind playthrough. I would gladly blank all of my soulsborne knowledge to play through all of them again with fresh eyes.
it's not the same, but if you're playing on PC there are some decent mods for DS 1, 2, and 3 that make them a little more fresh. particularly, the randomizer for DS1 makes it a pretty hilarious challenge, since you can no longer plan your runs in advance, and have to roll with absolutely mismatched gear
Mass effect 2
That game was such a wild ride from start to end! The final mission made my heart thump and I appreciated the fact that nobody is truly safe, more-so with a few mods that make it less predictable.
World of Warcraft. 2005 was a hell of a time for that game.
I was just thinking that, but you'd have to rewind the whole world, not just your own experiences.
What made WoW amazing at the beginning was that it was new to everyone, not just you. MMOs in general were new. The Internet was relatively new. People didn't know about data mining, and those who did weren't used to being able to share everything they knew with every other player out there. Also, sharing video was brand new. YouTube itself launched in 2005, and Justin.tv (which became Twitch in 2011) would only launch in 2007. Theorycrafting didn't really exist, so people just relied on their experiences and went with the bigger numbers, or sometimes ignored the numbers and went with the cooler looking weapon.
So, you were left with figuring out a lot of stuff on your own. Realm firsts were a big deal because it was mostly people on your own realm you interacted with, and you got to know them, and if another realm had done something first, you might not even have heard about it. If your realm had a certain way of handling a PvE fight, or a strategy for a certain battleground, it might just be a quirk of your realm. There was just a lot less information available outside the game, and so you had to figure things out inside the game.
A friend of mine (hunter, naturally) didn't know about equipping new gear until he hit level 30 or so. There was no armory page to inspect him, no gear score, no typical DPS expectations for a level 30 toon. It took one of us randomly right-clicking on his dude when he was next to us to notice all his gear was greys, and to ask him about it in voice chat (Teamspeak? Roger Wilco?) to find out he'd just been stuffing his new greens in his bag and forgetting about them.
Now, people just don't play MMOs the same way. Devs know that everything they add will be datamined and everyone will know the new stuff as soon as it's available in the game. There's one well known strategy for every boss. There's one well known talent build. If you choose to go in and face a raid boss blind, it's because you chose to do that, and chose not to watch the hours and hours of boss kill videos there are from the competitive guilds that killed the bosses in beta.
What about Everquest back in 99. Man that was a game especially on the pvp servers.
I didn't play it, so I don't know, but I assume it's the same. The only way to really play it again like it was then would be to have everyone else forget everything they've learned about MMOs for the last 24 years.
Not to mention you'd need to give me all that free time back.
The Secret of the Monkey Island
I'm not going to take your insolence sitting down
Your hemorrhoids are flaring up again eh?
I'm rubber your glue
celeste every day, that game got right to my heart
Ocarina of Time, or Final Fantasy VII. Both of them had just incredible impacts on me as a teenager, and I'd love to be 16 and experiencing them for the first time again.
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.
The universe! The characters! The plot! That reveal! Oh, man. To be able to experience that again for the first time. Wow.
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.
Mine would be bioshock 1.
TUNIC
This 1000x. The "I could do this the whole time??" Moments are so incredibly cool, and I've never felt smarter than when we pieced together the final puzzle
It's a game that bounces off of some people, and that's kinda sad.
I had so many goosebump-inducing moments of having my mind blown by the game. And the soundtrack and sounds do such a great job adding to the ambience.
Yeah, its going to be Legend of Zelda: A Link to the past for me.
It's such a great game, played it for hours and hours. It truly made Hyrule came to live.
World of Warcraft.
What a great game to be a noob in.
That would be way up on my list, too. Man was I amazed when I first saw some random guy playing the beta at my university.
Top spot has to be Max Payne 1 for me, though. That the comfort game of my youth and I think I still know nearly all dialogue by heart.
Final Fantasy 6. Still my favorite game of all time.
Everyone always mentions FF7 but I think 6 is superior and slept on.
Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, or Super Mario RPG. I couldn't get enough of Squaresoft in the SNES days.
Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger or Earthbound. So many feels my little brain didn't have words for.
Chrono Trigger for the "trippy" story.
Pretty much any NES game for the "gamer" soundtrack (beep bops.)
scratch your itch with chiptunes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY6xrEFh7WQ
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=uY6xrEFh7WQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Shining Force
Earthbound. It’s been my favorite game since I first rented it from blockbuster
I rented this game so much as a kid but never made it past Threed. I never cared and just loved roaming around. It wasn't until years later, just a few years ago now that I finally completed it start to finish and got to see how much more bonkers it got.
Yeah I used to love wandering around and playing pretend in the game
Final Fantasy 7 (the original).
And it's not even close. What a journey.
Man, I fucking LOVE the storytelling in 7. It's so insanely well done and the music just makes it all the better
That music lives inside my head. I often play it as background music when I'm doing stuff at home.
I played 8 first and fell in love with it, then I played 7 and it was so fucking incredible to my little brain, I had so many dreams back then about that game. I really liked 9 and gave 10 a shot but neither of them really hit me the way that 7 and 8 did.
Nier Automata. Every thing about the game is amazing, but would love to experience the endings and heart wrenching moments again for the first time.
Have you played Nier Replicant? It's not as good of a game as Automata, but I think the the story is better. Getting all the endings is a bit repetitive since you have to replay a chunk with small changes, but it all pays off with ending E, which was added in the remaster. (ver.1.22474487139)
Sid Meier's Civilization!
Dark Souls.
But I suck and this time I don't get sucked into the entire series. That oughta save me some time and money.
If I had to take a Retro game, Chrono Trigger for sure.
Considered Dark Souls... but, honestly, the first time I played it, I hated it. And every successive playthrough, I've loved it more and more. Playing it for the first time would feel like a step back.
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.
There are two games I would love to play for the first time again and those are Portal and Dishonored.
Portal is obvious - it's a well-refined and immersive puzzle game with enough story and atmosphere to keep you invested, but never so much as to pull you away from its puzzles. It may only be a short game, but it is one of the best!
The only people I know who haven't given this game the upmost praise are those who've never played it before.
Edit: Portal 2 is also a fantastic game, but it definitely leans on the story more. That is by no means a bad thing though, as we wouldn't the absolute menace that is Cave Johnson without it.
As for Dishonored, the original is Arkane Studio's best game IMO - the world it's set in is so interesting and brimming with lore; the levels are well crafted, and reward the player's creativity and exploration without ever feeling forced; The gameplay is challenging, but without ever feeling overwhelming. I'm sure it has it's flaws, but all these years later, I still remember how much it got right.
Edit: Dishonored 2 was very much like it, and I remember it for all the same reasons, but the first is the one that really captured that lightning in a bottle for me.
I also loved Prey. It plays in a similar style without feeling too much like it's predecessor. I can't say I liked the Roguelike DLC very much though.
Edit 2 Electric-Boogaloo: I keep forgetting Dishonored uses the American spelling. I always remember it in the British spelling. Oops.
Dishonored absolutely holds up, just replayed it a month or two ago. I do also believe it's just a tighter, more well designed experience than Dishonored 2. It's hard to properly explain without taking notes, but Dishonored 2 felt like "well, we have to make a sequel, what can we expand on and add on?" Where Dishonored 1 just felt like they knew exactly what they wanted to do and expertly executed every single thing just like they wanted.
Still a blast to play today, and the art style holds up.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Dishonored 2 felt like it had to be made, rather than wanting to be made like the original.
Having said that, it is still a sequel worthy of it's predecessor, which is better than can be said for a lot of sequels.
Agreed, I would still recommend it since I enjoyed it, beat it, and got part ways through an NG+ playthrough, and that's a lot more than I get out of a lot of other games.
Metal Gear Solid on PS1
Mass Effect trilogy.
Or maybe Bioshock.
Either/both.
Very late edit: Deus Ex. I still play it every once in a while and while the graphics are terrible, it's a lot better with GMDX and you get used to it very quickly. That game is still a masterpiece.
I was thinking ME trilogy as well, but while ME1 is a great game it doesn't really hold up in terms of graphics today. ME2 and ME3 still look fine though.
Oh the graphics don't bother me at all, the Legndary edition holds up fine, I think. But ME1 has the best story in the trilogy, it's why I still play it. I still remember the first time I played it. Being made a Spectre, speaking to Sovereign, the attack on the Citadel. How scary and unknowable the Reapers were. Hanging up on the Council. ;) The main storyline is better than 2 and 3 combined, imo. However, you are right that ME1 has some issues. While the Legendary Edition fixed a lot of the issues (and it does play smoothly, I do think), there are some things in ME1 that have become so tedious I don't even do them anymore. Mainly talking about the exploration of unchartered worlds and the terrible handling of the Mako, or how every outpost looks the same, every mine looks the same, with the exact same layout. Makes it feel way more dated than it feels if you only go through the story. Not to mention the headache that is inventory management and swapping weapons and mods and grenades, turning everything into omni-gel because the stupid mini-game is even more annoying than inventory management!
For this reason I made a few save games that I 100%ed (one paragon, one renegade, different romances, etc). And I backed those up. Now, whenever I play ME1 I only do the main storyline and some side quests, and ignore the rest, lol. Then in ME2 I import one of the files I saved. Cut out all the tedium. ;)
Gothic
My first open world game, unmatched freedom to do what you want and to go where you want, exploration rewarding with handplaced loot everywhere. I lived in that game for a whole year.
Probably Planescape: Torment
Good one, especially if you can go into it blind, and not be tempted into looking up solutions online.
Factorio of course, because that's what people already do. They start over and over again with ever bigger plans.
Easily Majora’s Mask
Edit: upon further speculation, Final Fantasy X is tied
Freelancer
Freelancer but without being spoilt by modern graphics. The space scenes are gorgeous, but the characters have aged.
I looked it up just now and there is a HD-mod out. And wow so many other Mods with new Content. Maybe I have to try it again
Yeah I wanted to try the HD mod, but haven't found the time yet to do all the patching.
The freelancer community is still actively creating content and mods! Check out HD edition or Crossfire.
Crossfire is silly difficult to begin though. I am still stuck in the early missions :)
I wish I could experience Portal for the first time again.
Monkey Island 2: lechuck's revenge.
100% this. I have fond memories of playing this on my 486 age 14, in a shed at the bottom of the garden at night, getting spooked whilst roaming Woodtick. Beautiful, beautiful game.
System Shock 2 or Thief: Dark Project. Those two were the games that impressed me most in my 40 years of playing games.
Honourable mention: Minecraft. The first few weeks playing that come very close.
Definitely Subnautica in VR. I didn't play it on flatscreen, only in VR, and it was the most immersive and amazing experience out of any game.
Haven't played it on VR, but man that sounds great. My girlfriend is deep into a hardcore play through now and it's so much fun to watch.
Half Life or Command & Conquer for me
Either:
Or
Came here to say Mario 64 but I have to agree with Morrowind as well, both of these were such ground breaking games for their time.
I remember playing Mario 64 at my grandparent's house back in the day. My grandpa had pretty much ignored video games, but had probably casually noticed games like Pong and Pacman over the years. Then he caught a glimpse of Mario 64 in 3D and was just blown away.
Morrowind was my intro into elderscrolls and it blew my mind. So many options, dialog, spell crafting, dlc, mods on pc... every iteration after felt kind of empty and lacking. Being able to kill a god or three was something else.
I still havent played Morrowind, though somewhere along the line I picked up a PC version. One of these days I'll have a gaming machine.
Baldur's Gate 2. Would love to re-live the feeling of wonder and suspense this game offered, although it'd probably help to forget about modern RPGs too, to keep with the nostalgia.
Doki Doki Literature Club. Because I got spoiled the first time I played it.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Inside
BioShock
All great stories with some very powerful moments.
There's a couple I'd have to choose from on this:
Portal 1 and 2 (if it can only be one game and not the series then portal 2),
Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the wild maybe,
Prey,
Firewatch,
Fallout: New Vegas,
FRACT OSC,
Donut County,
... This may have been more a list of my favorite games rather than play for the first time again...
Super Mario Galaxy
Final Fantasy 6
Super Mario 64
Super Mario World
Resident Evil
VVVVVV
Super Metroid
Either Oblivion or Fable: The Lost Chapters
Yes! Oblivion and Fable were my first experiences with RPG's.
The first Mass Effect. That moment when Sovereign speaks... instant goosebumps. ("Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.") This also presupposes that I haven't played the other parts as well of course. I actually played the second one before the first one back in the day.
Everquest. No other game I've played before or after instilled that feeling of exploration and wonder that this game did. I'm so glad I got to experience that before I got older.
Jesus, eq is life hijacking.
Try project Lazarus, it's the best of eq without all the painful time consuming bs.
Lanys T'Vyl, later Antonius Bayle, then p1999. I loved that world and community to bits (despite the trolls).
CrossCode
Probably Red Dead Redemption. It was an amazing game and even fun to 100%. The soundtrack was the icing on the cake.
Half-life is close too. That game blew my mind as a kid.
Death Stranding
I still have dreams about that masterpiece of a game. There's just so few like it.
Agreed, that was the first game in a long while that I'd played that at once felt extremely novel but also felt executed incredibly well.
Champions of Norrath on PS2. I played through the entire game with my dad and it was the most fun I ever him.my mother said he used to play video games all the time, but then stopped (having kids probably does this to many). So when he said he’d play the game with me i was very excited. i only wish i could have found the games sequel, return to arms, before heading off to college. that would have been a summer to remember.
i don’t know why he never shared his love of video games with either me or my sisters. some dads are weird like that. i bought him a series s for the holidays and while i don’t think he plays it, he enjoys watching his grandkids play.
Champions of Norrath has ruined every single isometric RPG for me.
Baldur's Gate 3 is meh to me. I acknowledge it's technical, narrative, and gameplay achievements. I can't get into it.
My backstory was the game is good and gameplay is immediately in your control. No rolling of dice, no pauses between moves. Just loot, aim, and kill. Hack/slash at its finest.
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.
Minecraft, botw
Minecraft for sure. Every other game I can still play and feel more or less the same.
Even though I was older when I first played Minecraft, I never felt the same feeling as the first 2 or 3 times.
Give Vintage Story a shot! Like you'll go in with a MC mindset and slowly realize you're in a whole new world. It's dark and the wolves after after you and the 3 stacks of berries you collected have all rotted. Is that a bear? What does it mean "temporal storm approaching"?
(few weeks later you've mastered voxel by voxel claymaking, knapping, and maybe done gotten some smithing done if you've managed an avil. Winter is approaching, is your cellar stocked? Do you have warm clothes?)
(Been playing for years and still learning things, and the devs seem to outpace mojang in terms of adding features, you get modding built in, and the chiseling...by god the chiseling...)
Ooh. Never heard of it. I'll take a look! Thanks
Half Life 2, New Vegas and MGS all blew my young mind and would be great to relive.
Neverwinter Nights
Did you play the Penultima mods? Very nicely done campaign!
No! And now I want to! Thanks for the suggestion.
you are welcome - I have had a similar valuable suggestion here, hearing for the first time about a Duke3D mod: Alien Armageddon - this thread has been quite rewarding so far :)
Picking one is quite hard, but since it's retro only, my vote goes to Super Metroid. That game is a rare gem.
Final fantasy tactics, or 7.
Both of those were game changers for me too. I had a PlayStation 1 memory card with just Squaresoft games. Absolute golden age.
For these though, I would alter the original question to be if I could relive playing this game for the first time at the time that I did. If I tried them for the first time now I'm certain I'd find both to be antiquated.
If you play tactics ogre before then FFT is cutting edge. Lol
Haha, no kidding!
I know it's not really retro yet, but either Nier game. True perfection those two.
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.
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.
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
Stardew Valley or Terraria.
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.
If you haven't already, try some modpacks. For extra difficulty, the packs based on GregTech are pretty amazing, like GregTech: New Horizons or Nomifactory. They make it so complicated to produce items that you're kind of forced to automate things, and then you keep expanding what your automation can do.
GTNH takes like 2 years to build a pair of star gates if you're playing alone, and they keep making it harder. It's a massive amount of content.
I've never heard of those, but I'll take a look. Thanks!
I've actually been playing a bunch of Vintage Story to fill the void, but when I go back to Minecraft I'll give those a try!
Factorio
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
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.
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.
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
Halo reach. Such a masterpiece.
Hollow Knight
Yes!
I loved Bioshock, so probably that.
Yes!
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."
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.
My nostalgic answer is Super Smash Bros Brawl (Subspace Emissary was wild to me), but my more modern answer is Elden Ring.
That game was like cocaine the first time I played through it.
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!
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 .
Minecraft, specifically Beta 1.7.3.
Final Fantasy 7 or 9, Earthbound, Secret of Mana, Phantasy Star Online
Chrono Trigger, Castlevania SOTN, Pokemon BW and B2W2, Dead Cells
StarCraft's campaign was a masterpiece. I get to include Brood War here too.
Since StarCraft and SC2 are free, you should check out SC2:Mass Recall. It's a mid for SC2 that brings in not only the original campaigns, but three other mini campaigns that I have never seen before.
Good to know, thanks for the recommendation!
Homeworld
ICO
such an amazing game that never seems to get any love
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.
Yeah, when I was a kid and Doom had first come out, I got scared to death when I walked around a corner and ran into my first pinky; it was horrifying!
Monkey Island or Little Big Adventure
First thing that popped into my mind too. Monkey Island, Loom, Zac McKraken, and all the other LucasFilms (but even after they rebranded as LucasArts) too.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is still my favorite point and click adventure. Purchased it three times too: on floppies when it came out, the enhanced *talkie *edition on CD, and then on Steam when it came out.
Indie 4 is on steam? <3 I wish they had that movie instead of the stupid "we don't talk about it" fridges protect you from atomic bombs one. Also, I wanted to ship a big-screen Sophia Hapgood!
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.
God this just unlocked a core memory for me but I don't remember the name of the game, it was a hockey game maybe on Atari or PC where you could fight 1v1, you'd push the other guy around and eventually it would zoom in on you two and you'd both throw your gloves on the ground and punch on
I've got two candidates for that:
Ubcharted is visually stunning and I really like the story it tells.
GTA 5 STILL is a game where I find new things.
Shadow of the Colossus and some Silent Hill stuff
Shadow of the Colossus is a good one. Up until that point, I'd never played a game that felt like that. You didn't feel like an awesome, powerful hero destroying monsters, instead you felt like you had to make a tough choice to destroy beautiful creatures.
Portal 2 and Undertale the true pacifist run
Learning Team Fortress 2 for the first time as a teenager was such a crazy fun experience.
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.
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.
Phantasy star 4, though it's still great to play now anyway.
I played through Grandia 1 a couple of weeks ago (for the first time, so no nostalgia) and I felt like it very much holds up. From the artstyle to the mechanics, I really enjoyed my time with it.
Oh wow really? The art style really was amazing. I think i might have to test my curiosity.
I actually just played this for the first time recently and loved it. Grandia II was one of my favorite dreamcast games ever, and while the first one had nothing in common with it I was still really impressed with how well it held up to modern standards.
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.
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.)
Are you aware of the Zelda: ALLTTP randomizer? https://alttpr.com/en
Silent Hill 2
I've replayed that game so many times but the first playthrough hits different
Hotel Dusk.
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.
Half-Life 2 and Shining in the Darkness.
Might and Magic 3
F-19
Wow
Half-life
Dishonored
MM3 - I loved that so much, we built our own MM3-based engine to walk around in such a landscape & had a map editor. Too bad as teens we didn't have the endurance to finish the adventure game based on that that we were dreaming of.
Spyro the Dragon as I was back in the day. That game has always been so magical for me.
I remember loving Spyro as a kid, but I tried playing the remakes and didn't really enjoy it anymore. I wish I could experience them again as a child, not as adult me.
I actually really liked the remakes. Pretty much just as good as the originals imo. Sorry you did not enjoy it anymore :(
They seemed like good remakes. It's just not the kind of thing I want to spend my time playing anymore. It was still fun enjoying the nostalgia for a little while though. I'm glad they exist.
Ah, I see. Fair enough. I am glad that they exist too. It is pretty impressive imo. Since they did not have the source code and had to do some really fancy stuff to remake the game.
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.
That'd have to be Metroid: Zero Mission and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Two of some of the only games I actually 100%.
Quake 3 Arena. Or more specifically OpenArena + baseq3 and other mods like ratmod. Most fun I have had playing a game ever.
That one you can ask enjoy even today regardless though. It's not the story that made it, is the gameplay
Nier Automata
A game I will never forget
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
The story has so many great twists and turns even up to the very end. There was a distinct point about 75% of the way through when I came to the realization that I had to binge the rest of game. Even if it meant I got zero sleep that night, I had to see how it ended.
It was so good I wish I could experience it again blind.
I agree with lots of what's already been said and haven't got much to add to those extant conversations, so let me try to add in some that I've not seen:
RuneScape is a candidate. I started way back with RS Classic (the sprite-based one!).
Oh, and Dwarf Fortress too. That began in 2009.
Achaea and/or Lusternia are way up there but I don't imagine anyone but me can share the experience.
Oh, as well, Mount & Blade: Warband. Quite the adventure(s).
I don't really game anymore. But this thread did dredge up some memories, old and new.
Thank you.
Dwarf Fortress is one of those games that I love to read about, but I don't think I would actually enjoy playing. Like Eve Online.
I always like the idea of Eve Online. Then I start it up again and hate myself.
I have seen no mention of Planescape Torment, so there you go.
Read dead redemption 1. A masterpiece.
FF6, FF9 and Links Awakening
Space Invaders
Asteroids
Pitfall
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.
You might like Black Mesa. It's a faithful remake of the first Half Life. It really nails the atmosphere and feel with modern graphics.
Bioshock. I am sure you can just replay it. The twist at the end... I wish I could relive the surprise again.
This is one of those franchises that I never liked because of over hype. My buddies were talking this game up so damn much, talking about how awesome it was. I just kept thinking "ok when does it start to be fun? "
When I got to the twist, I was so disengaged that it just soured it even more for me. I wish I could play it without the hype so i could form a different opinion
It's funny that you say that because my first playthrough was when the prices had dropped on Steam (a couple years after release). So the hype was gone for me. Its probably a big reason I enjoyed it so much
Wings for Amiga, flying in WW1 and a cool story between missions. Everything I know about ww1 air battles, I know from that game :)
Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. BOTW was my first Zelda game and I honestly loved it. I would sit for hours in the living room zoned in to the game with checklist paper and notebooks next to me to keep track of what I was doing. If I could do it again I'd instead use an interactive map like I did with TOTK.
As for TOTK, the Rito dungeon was my favorite and if I could experience that adrenaline pumping battle for the first time again, I would. Tulin is a baby and I love him.
Morrowind but it wouldn't matter because I don't have enough time to get immersed in it anymore.
FF3, US version.
There was magic in that game.
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.
The Binding of Isaac.
This is the eternal game of ever. It is balanced, fair, excellent feedback (time to win), super I'm depth unlocks, one of the best meta games. Take the time to learn the basics and this game is infinite.
Mmmm Delirium would disagree
Star Control 2
I'm gonna say Skies of Arcadia, just love that game, and it saddens me to this day that Sega have abandoned it.
Mother 3. I really don't know what else to say, this series impacted me so much in my youth and I wish I got to experience it raw.
The end of the game blew my mind out of the water in a way no other twist has ever quite captured. It might have been the mental space I was in at the time too. Whatever the case, I will always remember the first time I played it.
I also wish I had played the first Golden Sun before the second, so if I could put a duology and that caveat in there? Definitely those two.
For retro games my answer is probably Yoshi's Island. If you include modern games I'd likely go with Hollow Knight. If VNs count then Echo.
tales of phantasia.
the op intro song is very memorable
If you haven't yet, play the psx version. It's gorgeous
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R series & Metal Gear Solid 1
gives me nostalgia