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.

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

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.

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.

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

Runescape, 2006 sort of era

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

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

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."

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.

Hollow Knight

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

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

I loved Bioshock, so probably that.

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.

Minecraft, specifically Beta 1.7.3.

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

Portal 2 and Undertale the true pacifist run

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 .