Gaming

RPG: Star Ocean 2, Breath of Fire 3, Grandia 1 and 2, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Zelda link to the past, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 9, Skies of Arcadia, Legend of Heroes series (start with trails in the sky), Persona series (start with 4), FF Tactics series, Tactics Ogre series, Phantom Brave series

Fighting: Tekken 3, Soul Calibur, Rival Schools, Power Stone 1 and 2, SNK vs. Capcom

Racing: Ridge Racer series, Tokyo Xtreme racer series, Colin McRae rally series, Burnout Paradise, FlatOut series

Shooters: Mars Matrix, Einhander, Cotton series, Ikaruga, Bangai-o, Rez

Fps: Time splitters 2, Red Faction series, Quake series, anything in Orange Box, Rise of the Triad

Adventure: Beyond good and evil, Devil May Cry series, Gurumin, Sleeping Dogs, Syberia series

Platformer: Klonoa Series

I ran out of brain but maybe I'll add more when I wake up.

Master of Magic
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Deus Ex
Tyrian 2000
Postal 2
UT2004

This is what I played as a teenager that still hold up in my eye.

X-wing alliance

Age of Mythology

Strongholds Crusaders

Rise of Nations

Midtown madness

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters

Diablo

Starcraft and Broodwar

Super Street fighter II turbo

Super Mario World

Kirby All star

Heroes of might and magic 3

Age of Wonders

Not that old, but Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (2004).

I have not played that many games, but I have yet to find such an amazing action adventure combat mechanics.

There is a trailer on Youtube that does the system justice - everything can be done in-game, at your will, and it's not even that hard. Context matters, and it's so rewarding chaining different combos to plow through them like butter.

Those basic enemies are meant to be fucked up in every possible way, the environments often provide ample varieties of opportunities.

Then there are stronger enemies and bosses, which don't let you mop them around, so you have to fight them face to face.

The game itself is decent, there are some bad platforming parts, but thanks to time rewind they can be beaten.

The biggest issue is very low native resolution, and the game kept crashing on my Steam Deck. I will try it again, because I want to relive that combat again.

Many of the old Sierra and Dynamix adventure games are great. Kings Quest IV through VII are probably the ones that hold up best. The adventures of Willy Beamish, Heart of China, Police Quest and Space Quest.

Half life, if you really can't get into it check out black mesa but please try the original first it is amazing and was truly ground breaking. Then play the portal games because they expand on eachother.

Quake 3.

Pure, unbridled, FPS action.

I am not sure if tfc (team fortress classic) still has servers running in any capacity, but it was one of the forefathers of role based, team shooters. It's influence and by proxy TF2's is still huge in competitive gaming.

Those games defined my late teens and early 20's.

Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret.

Controls kinda fucking suck in the modern day, but the games are still solid fun.

If you like rpgs (real ones, turn based, not this action rpg thing)

Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy 6, 7, Tactics (the ogs, not remakes)

Secret of Mana

Lufia 2

Grandia 2

Breath of Fire

...And why not, kickle cubical

I think ghost trick is older than 10 now

Full Throttle (any of the LucasArts really...).

Descent Freespace

Not super old, but Shadowrun Returns games.

• Ys VII, Ys VIII
• Mechwarrior III
• Battlezone, Battlezone II
• F.E.A.R.
• Quake II, Quake IV
• Unreal Tournament
• Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer
• Midnight Club 3
• Katamari Damacy
• NiGHTS Into Dreams
• Moto Roader
• Tetris (Gameboy)
• Fallout New Vegas

The list could seriously go on and on.

Star Wars knights of the old republic 1 and 2

You might enjoy crpgaddict, a blog that is playing through every computer roleplaying game in chronological order, providing scores for each one on various metrics. The reason I bring him up is that he doesn't rate on a curve, or give things marks for being "good for its time" - if pool of radiance scores higher than skyrim, it's not because it was influential or good for its time, but because he thinks it's outright better regardless of age (just an example - I'm not saying he would actually rate those two games that way, and he has not rated skyrim). There are early 80s games that he remembers fondly and had a huge impact on the industry that he rates as like 23/100 or whatever, because the scale leaves room for the Witcher 3.

It takes a long time to get through all those games, so he's currently up to the early 90s, having updated his blog regularly for over a decade. But his list of highest rated games might be a good place to start.

Oh, and while we're talking about old-ish RPGs that would score well on his scale, I might as well mention Morrowind and the Baldur's Gate series (before 3, obviously), which he won't reach for a long time but has been known to hold up as solid examples of the genre. Personally I still think Baldur's Gate 2 is great. I'm also a big fan of the quest for glory series, which crpgaddict has rated, but might not make his list of top scoring RPGs, because they're a hybrid adventure/RPG, so not all of their strengths appear on a scale designed for pure RPGs.

DOS

• Commander Keen - Goodbye galaxy. Completely different but it's right up there with Zelda for SNES.
• Museum Madness - insanely creative and supremely educational game with an abssssurd amount of content for the time that must have taken ages to build. It's the basics of major educational subjects so most would (hopefully) be review but it's well done and the path to learn each piece and sub-ppieces requires constantly rejiggering your mind. Also a great way to teach modern kids how damn persistent you had to be to figure something out.
• Oregon Trail
• Where in the ______ is Carmen San Diego
• Scorched Earth

SNES- super Street fighter 2 turbo, NBA jam TE, Ken Gruffy baseball, Zelda link to the past, supermarioworld, Earthworm Jim

N64- Mario kart 64, Mario golf, Goldeneye, 1080 snowboarding, blitz NFL, Gretsky 3d hockey, DK Country GTA2 - top down view and sound effects were fantastic.

Worms Armageddon. Like comparing Doom to Pong, this for me was the ultimate level of what started with Pong/cannon fodder/scorched earth. It took all that and made it hilarious and graphic and incredibly memorable. Easy to learn, difficult to master, top 5 party game ever.

Warcraft 2 is hard to go back to because of some of the QOL improvements war3 introduced but the sound board from war 2 may never be outdone.

Tribes online was one of the first mostly open world team based team fps I played. Some of the vehicle mechanics were clunky but many games never even bothered to try to implement such features before or since.

Diablo II - years of my life. Obligatory fuck Duriel

Unreal Tournament 2004 - weapon selection, play style and map variety options with bots that weren't great but much better than what had preceded them. Graphics were incredible at the time and for me still look good on some levels.

Max Payne - the time slowing feature, consistent and well done noir theme and feel and an enjoyable narrative make it one that even though I only played through twice I remember 20 years later.

If Little Big Planet for the PS3 and PS4 ever get a proper sequel or remaster, or the Restitched developers ever actually put out that spiritual successor it would be a no-brainer. It was a magical game series for me that was not only very fun to play but also inspired creative and logical thinking with the intricate community level maker tools built into the game. Especially LBP2 with its logic gate and microchip implementations. When I took real engineering classes I was familiar with many high level concepts just because I screwed around with them in a video game as a child. Crazy.

It was also a very cute and well done aesthetic. The gorgeous background enviroments and the little sack boy character you play as. The vibrant collection of music. It was very unique.

How old? Heretic, Zork, Nethack, Metroid Zero ( it's basically OG Metroid with quality of life upgrades). On the old Nokia, we had snake....

The Donkey Kong remake on the GameBoy is still one of my favorites and an amazing puzzle platformer!

Maybe I overlooked it, but I didn't see any mention of Jade Empire yet. This is one of the master pieces from Biowares golden age. The setting and story are wonderful and they aced the characters and how you interact with them.

And Diablo II is also still a master piece of action RPG. The flow in playing it is masterfully done.

SNES era RPGs like Final Fantasy, Lufia, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Star Ocean, etc. And once you're done, move on to the equally worthy roster of PlayStation 1 era RPGs.

Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers

It is a puzzle game like Myst but the puzzles make more sense, less like rubbing 2 coconuts on everything until they fit, and the world has more life to it.