RetroGaming

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.

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.

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.

Dwarf Fortress was an amazing experience the first few times when you had no idea what to expect or do. My fortress designs have become much more boring (even if efficient) since, and I'm just unable to do the sort of artistic weirdness that happened during the first games.

Wings for Amiga, flying in WW1 and a cool story between missions. Everything I know about ww1 air battles, I know from that game :)

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.

Hotel Dusk.

ICO

such an amazing game that never seems to get any love

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.

Read dead redemption 1. A masterpiece.

Space Invaders

Asteroids

Pitfall

I have seen no mention of Planescape Torment, so there you go.

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%.

Spyro the Dragon as I was back in the day. That game has always been so magical for me.

Might and Magic 3

F-19

Wow

Half-life

Dishonored

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.)

Half-Life 2 and Shining in the Darkness.

FF6, FF9 and Links Awakening

Quake 3 Arena. Or more specifically OpenArena + baseq3 and other mods like ratmod. Most fun I have had playing a game ever.

Silent Hill 2

I've replayed that game so many times but the first playthrough hits different

Morrowind but it wouldn't matter because I don't have enough time to get immersed in it anymore.

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.