One of the best 16-bit era games ever made is Ecco: The Dolphin and the sequel Ecco: The Tides of Time for the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis if you live on that side of the Atlantic Ocean). To this day it's one of the most atmospheric games ever made, it usually takes a while to get in to but once you do it's amazing.
LOVE this one. Very solid list from the looks of it too. Definitely a touch biased towards long-form strategy action puzzle games though. While I appreciate the depth of these games, and you can't beat some of the RPG's (they were at their peak then IMO) I've always been one for a good platformer.
I've got 3 EXCELLENT ones you may not have heard of. Each with beautiful music, decent challenge, filled to the brim with creativity and each with wonderful colours and visual appeal.
1- Plok! - Follin's best soundtrack imo. My choice for possibly the most underrated soundtrack EVER.
2- Umihara Kawase - Japanese only, grappling game like Bionic Commando or Ninja 5-0 with a bit of a learning curve. Totally addictive.
3- Sutte Hakkun - Japanese only Nintendo licensed game. Q.U.B.E. in 2D with an adorable kiwi bird. Really cool puzzle meets platformer game. It absolutely BAFFLES me that this game isn't more popular.
Honourary Mention - Do Re Mi Fantasy - Cute Japanese game, sequel to Milon's Castle for the NES, with a musical theme. Nothing to write home about, but an amazing use of the SNES soundcard, a few avante-garde tracks too. Some real gems on that soundtrack.
I buy older games from the CD era from Amazon or eBay. I buy older DOS games from GoG.com. It's rare, but even Steam may have them. They might require a little tweeking for compatibility's sake, but that's what forums are for.
I was SO happy to se Starflight on this list. I first played it when it came out in 1986 on an IBM XT in CGA mode and it's next to impossible to get it to play on any modern machine even with DOSBox. I didn't even know it had come out on the consols later on but I'm glad it did. The first time I played Star Control I thought "Someone remade Starflight as a strategy game."
Even with the hardware limitations of the time it managed to make space seem huge and mysterious, and evoked a sense of adventure and exploration modern sifi games have a hard time matching. Definitely worth a play.
Zazu Yen on
ExistentialExistenceException: Your thread encountered a NULL pointer and entered a state of non-being.
My personal highlits were Terranigma (played the german version back in the days, i absolutely enjoyed the way one's actions influence the surrounding world e.a. the sausage guy) and Shadowrun (which in fact introduced me to cyberpunk back then and was one of the incentives for me to pay more attention in english class). To me those games are an absolute must for gamers from this decade. It's kind of sad that simply due to the outdates graphics and the age (and of course the lack of frags per second) it'll be hard to bring the quality and profoundness of these games to the actual (and following) generation of gamers. I'd really like to see a makeover (like they did with the first two monkey island parts) with better graphics, sound AND the possibility to switch back to the old style ingame, but i think i'm indulging in wishful thinking here.
Anyway thanks for another great episode and keep up the great work!
You absolutely made the right choice on the Terranigma theme. Honestly, I was on the edge of tears.
One game folks might not have considered is Soulblazer for SNES. No, not Actraiser, Soulblazer. It's a top-down adventure game where you fight monsters with sword and magic to clear monster lairs, all to save people's souls and return them to the world of the living. The closest game to it I can think of is Terranigma, except you can't jump in Soulblazer. It's still an amazing game though, with a well populated, diverse setting with fascinating characters, and it's just plain fun. I've beaten it once and the story is wonderful.
DO 64 BIT! N64 For the win! (more Specifically; "Buck Bumble", whenever I mention that game people look at me like I'm crazy! I want more people to know about this awesome game!)
you should try tin tin in Tibet it is a great game it is on the snes you play as tin tin the Belgian reporter you are going to see a friend in Nepal to see a friend but when you are about to get on the train snowy ( your dog) gets spooked and runs off so you try and find him and the adventure you have on the way this game is the hardest game i have ever played every thing is out to kill you you cant save and it is long i have had it for 16 years and have only ever got 14% it is a great game every one should try it
ZOMG you put in E.V.O I wasted so much of my childhood on that game mostly renting, but by god was it a fantastic game I hope someday it comes back!!! BTW, you may want to update people as to the fact that Shadowrun, sadly this is one game I did miss out on, is being brought back in Shadowrun: Returns for all those fans the played the old version I hear it could be similar if not as fun, but time will tell
Technically, wasn't Starflight also a PC game? I know I played it on computer. Sadly, I only had a Commodore 64 at the time, and I could never figure out how it worked on that system.
Also, Shadowrun has a magic fox, not cat. After all, her name's Kitsune.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
Well, for PC games there are two that I remember well. One of them is the game Sacrifice, the same company that made that game also made Earthworm Jim. The game was interesting in that not only did your choices feel reasonable and like they were having an impact but also the different deities felt legitimately different you even did kind of get an idea for your personality based on what god you bowed to. As for the other game, Lost Eden, this game is sort of a weird one in that it's a bit of an adventure game but more that you're observing a story in a kind of weird never-been time. It's hard to explain what made the game so compelling to me but I remember it well.
I'm kind of surprised that they didn't mention Crusader of Centy for the Genesis. Think Zelda, but with the ability to use animals to help you get through tricky situations. It was super colorful, had a great soundtrack, and was super fun to play. Unfortunately it's super rare now.
I would like to see you guys talk about some N64 and GBA games. Also, I think Pulseman for the Genesis and Virtual Console is a good candidate. It's a well designed platformer made by Game Freak, before the whole Pokémon craze started.
As long as we're recommending 16-bit games, I'll give Seiken Densetsu 3 a mention. While not released in the US, it has an English patch available.
The game is basically Secret of Mana (same combat engine, and is in fact the "sequel" to Secret of Mana) fine tuned to a large degree. Combat feels smoother, story is better, has a cast of interesting characters, and an interesting class system.
Basically you choose three characters out of a pool of six at the beginning of the game. The game's story then engages in multiple subplots tied together between the three characters you chose, culminating after some time into the main story of the game (always affected by initial party choice).
Love this episode. If there would be ever another one with that category I would like to recommend one SNES which a lot of people might not know.
Clock Tower was released in 1995. It was a 16-Bit SNES Game which was very unique for it's time.
It was one of the very first true Survival Horror games.
The game put you in the role of a young woman which is looking for her friends and her past, trapped in an old mansion. You Encounter one and one enemy only which can't be killed. Instead you are forced to run away and hide to avoid getting murdered.
Amnesia wasn't the first game with that idea, it was already done in 1995 for a 16-Bit console. Besides avoid being killed, you have to examine the mansion for hinds for what is going on.
Another unique characteristic of Clock Tower is the fact that it manages to create an intense atmosphere with nearly no background music (Silent Hill 2 anyone?).
Would you expect a 16-Bit SNES game to be able to scare you shitless?
Unfortunately the game way only released in Japan only. But a group of dedicated fans released a english patch for the ROM.
I highly recommend this game if you are a fan of Silent Hill and other Survival Horror games.
PS1 or PS2, but I was particularly fond of the PS2 game Dark Cloud and it's sequel Dark Cloud 2 (or Dark Chronicle, depending on where you live). It had an interesting spin on the RPG in that you levelled up the weapons instead of the characters, and upgraded them into new varieties, and there were a LOT of varieties - even with a decent bit of level-grinding, you'd be hard-pressed to reach the final level of weapon before the final dungeon. And even then, you'd probably go back, start with a different base sword and level it up again to see all the different forms it took on the way to the top.
The original was quite rough around the edges, being a release title for the PS2, but the sequel took the first game, fixed 90% of the problems, and was a very enjoyable little title - clearly meant for younger gamers, the plot was a little bare and simplistic, but boy oh boy was it fun.
OK, I don't know if these would've fallen outside your normal remit due to their ages, but are you familiar with Russian PC developer Ice Pick Lodge and their games Pathologic (2005) and The Void (2008, called 'turgor' meaning 'tension' in the original Russian)? Pathologic is set in an isolated russian town to which three playable characters come for differing reasons, just as an epidemic breaks out there. You have to survive in this place for 12 days (including getting enough food, sleep and medication) whilst trying to work out what's going on, as each day the situation gets more desperate, with a disease so virulent even the earth is covered in boils and the buildings in sores and civil society collapsing around you. It's a strange melding of RPG, FPS and survival horror with...Brechtian Epic Theatre (raising interesting questions about how we act in games vs. reality). There is only one storyline, but each character only sees part of it, influencing your choices in each playthrough. Atmospheric and inventive, though the translation is very clunky.
In The Void you find yourself as the soul of a recently deceased person who, on their way towards absolute Death, alights in the purgatory-esque Void, a bleak world where the only resource is Colour (which acts as your armour, ammo, stats, currency and transport, you could think of it as 1st person resource management mixed with exploration and survival horror elements). You find yourself having to maintain a balance between your own needs, the needs of the beguiling Sisters (who beg you for Colour) and the demands of the monstrous Brothers as you try to find a way out as your very presence as a living soul in a dead world causes the world around you to decay. Raises some thought provoking ideas about the nature of heaven and hell (and how they are subjective eg. someone from a world *below* Hell would regard Hell as Heaven) whilst being rather beautiful to boot. It's rarely that you come across a game that is genuinely *cleverer* than you are, as opposed to simply holding the answers to questions *it* set.
These games aren't for everyone; their atmospheres are almost unrelentingly bleak and their pacing can be rather glacial, but they provide original, thought provoking experiences and there's a good reason that they won a lot of awards in their native Russia and it's a shame that they seem comparatively unknown in the English speaking world and gaming in general (being largely, understandably, focused on the US and Japan).
I'd echo an earlier comment of Herzog Zwei for the genesis. It was the first real time strategy game you could play split screen with someone else and it was honestly incredible. You can see it in IGN's top 100 games of all time (2003 and 2005) and in Gamespy's 25 most underrated games of all time.
I don't know if there's enough material for it, but maybe a "Interesting games that were forgotten beacuse their platform died" episode?
Like, ideas we might have lost in the grand scheme of things because of the death of consoles like the dreamcast. Surely those platforms at least had a few influencial games? (I know the dreamcast had quite a few, but most had been ported or ripped since then... or maybe some were rips of even obscurer games?)
Not everybody liked but when i was a bit younger i played a lot Philips CD-I... will never forget games like: "INCA", "Dragons Lair" or "Link : the faces of Evil", probably not the best games but fantastic looks on Pre rendered images and lots of fun. If you ever do one "Games You Might Not Have Tried: Sega Saturn". You should show Shinobi X. Excellent environment and musics.
For PC: "LBA - Little Big Adventure".
PSX: OverBoard, Kurushi, Alundra.
(sorry the English)
If possible, I would really enjoy seeing the PS1 version of this segment.. cant wait.. excellent list of games guys
Split Infinity Radio - Get loud, Get Mental
Saturdays 5pm EST - HEADSHOT - Getting your First, Third, and everything inbetween shooter news, reviews and gameplay tips
GAMECUBE: The most under-appreciated console EVER. Think about it. NES, SNES, Genesis, 2600, N64, PlayStation, Dreamcast (though Sega screwed it up), PlayStation 2, Xbox, 360, and PS3 are all looked upon and loved. Wii is loved by families who play it. Saturn was too much of a fail (in America) to succeed. Most people remember all those consoles (except Saturn and to some extent Dreamcast). Gamecube has been almost totally forgotten and ignored. And guess what? It wasn't that bad. It DID have definitive titles. Super Smash Bros. Melee, the definitive Super Smash Bros., was on that system. Animal Crossing got its start there. So did Pikmin and Resident Evil 4. It had Wind Waker, Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door, and many other great titles. But enough of my rambling. Why did I bring up Gamecube?
Because I have a suggestion for a game people almost definitely haven't tried. It came out on Gamecube in 2006, so it was destined to be forgotten. Chibi-Robo. While not perfect, and graphics could be a lot better, it is a LOT more than meets the eye. It's a game about a small little robot and his assistant who were purchased to help a family around the home. While the game should be repetitive due to the nature of cleaning up and doing mundane tasks, it's not. Because it has a surprisingly good story. In fact, it has multiple of them. The game is almost open-world in the players' ability to go throughout the entire house without being constrained to anything, and with multiple different storylines to follow and puzzles to solve. Sort of like Arkham City: there's a story, but you can do so much more as well. And these storylines are not as cutesy as the cover art. This game deals with abandonment, financial troubles, family issues, loss, divorce, and even DEATH (No. Not fainting or anything). It's not perfect. But man is it clever, engaging, original, and TOTALLY underrated and unknown.
If you want, you guys could include this in a video on sixth-generation games. I'd like to see that. I miss the sixth generation. It was at a point where games were shifting to more mature experiences, but there were still goofy and lighthearted games. Now they're pretty much all gone. It stinks. You guys could even include Game Boy Advance games. That was another system that people almost completely forgot about. Why did people abandon Nintendo so much during the early 00's? Those consoles were just as good as their newest ones. And they didn't have nearly as much pointless games. Screw consumers. All they want are generic family games, modern warfare shooters, and time-wasting apps.
I would like to add my vote to the folks calling for a GBA episode. It was so easy to program for the GBA that it had a MASSIVE games catalogue, full of games which probably barely sold 1000 copies.
Koei's Taikou Risshiden 5 is an interesting game that is largely overlooked ;p A metagame with smaller games within that focuses on life...
On other note, Im surprised that there was no mention of the newer Uncharted Waters games, rather with the mentioning of Sid Meier's Pirates. Especially given Uncharted Waters' popularity (in the asian countries)
To be honest, I was actually surprised to see Terranigma on this List.
EVERONE knows Terranigma...
Or so I thought.
An then you mentioned that it never got an US release... huh?
It was translated to german, but never got an US release?
That's probably the only game to which that statement applies
Also there was one comment about Lufia 2...
EVERONE knows Lufia!
Or not?
A few games I'd like to mention (and their respective platforms), which either deserve a sequel, or (from my experience) didn't get enough attention, OR need to be played by those who did like the sequels, or similar games, as mentioned:
Waxworks (Amiga)
Shenmue (Dreamcast) - If you like Heavy Rain, you gotta try this. Also sequel please
The Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind (PC) - If you liked either Oblivion or Skyrim.
Brigandine (PSX) - was referenced in this episode
Jade Cocoon (PSX) - if you liked Pokémon
Bomberman Fantasy Race (PSX) - If you liked Mario Kart (any)
Neverwinter Nights (PC) - If you liked Baldurs Gate
Diablo (the first one, PC) - seriously, try it if you liked the sequels.
Blaze and Blade (PSX) - if you liked Secret of Mana for the multiplayer aspect
Recettear (PC) - simply unique gameplay.
Also, since you now allowed mods/conversions (Day Z)
Mechwarrior - Living Legends (PC)
-> needs "Crysis Warhead"s multiplayer component (which is a seperate install, called 'Crysis Wars', but uses the same CD-key)
- obviously if you loved ANY Mechwarrior game, Earthsiege, Steel Battalion or ANY game that featured "walking tanks"
If you're gonna play all of these, you should be busy for a while
Caulk Bite 6One of the multitude of Dans infesting this placeRegistered Userregular
used game shops that don't have the initials EB or GS perhaps. Pawnshops, flea/farmer's markets, garage sales, eBay, Amazon (maybe, I just got a copy of super mario rpg of that)
This was my favorite GYMNHT episode yet! and look forward to sub cat future episodes. with over 400 classic titles on the shelf, i didn't own any of these. although you might frown upon this, think of it as so many new things I have to see. suggestion for another? failed systems hidden gems, TG16, saturn, sega 32X, 3DO. and dont forget to ask the community for stock footage!
Wow… the console version of U.N. Squadron sounds superior to the arcade version. Dang, wish I had gotten it when I had the chance. (Between Guardian Legend and Sigma Star Saga, I don't see many Sh'mup RPGs out there. R-Type Final was the most recent game I played that came close though.)
Terranigma, Shadowrun, and E.V.O. were overlooked and *haven't* gained cult followings? I've had plenty of people tell me that they love those games because I bring them up to everyone who loves 16-bit games. They aren't "Link to the Past" popular but I don't get confused stares when I mention them. Great games but I feel like they don't fit the premise, Terranigma in particular.
Seconding Umihara Kawase as a great game that has been overlooked far more than the ones on this list. It's a platformer that uses a grappling hook as its primary mechanic, so for anyone who loves physics games or the ninja rope in Worms it's a blast. The game is Japanese but there's no text outside of the menus so it isn't an impediment to the actual gameplay.
What I really like about it are a lot of the little polishes, such as gravity. If you find yourself carrying around a mirror for a puzzle, your machine will feel it, you'll find it harder to slow down and might end up crashing into a wall if you're not careful. And if you burn too much fuel controlling it, you might not make it back without losing a life. It's a good one that can get pretty tremendously difficult!
I would strongly recommend Live a Live, but unfortunately it's not really possible to play it in english without pirating it, which you guys might be opposed to promoting. It's still a great RPG that shows just what variety of expenriences different dev teams can create with the same core game system.
I'd love to see you guys take a look at the Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance selections. Handheld releases tend to get overlooked by the industry at large for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the overwhelming amount of shovelware, half-assed tie-ins to home console releases and mediocre ports that tend to clutter the shelves, but some amazing gems were released for the GBC/GBA and I'd love to see some of them featured.
Played/Owned all of these except the last one.
Terranigma - This game was released in Australia in English, I had it, dunno where it is now unfortunately.
Posts
That warsong looks similar to a DS game but I forget which one.
Terrinigma was great I still have to finish that one.
I've got 3 EXCELLENT ones you may not have heard of. Each with beautiful music, decent challenge, filled to the brim with creativity and each with wonderful colours and visual appeal.
1- Plok! - Follin's best soundtrack imo. My choice for possibly the most underrated soundtrack EVER.
2- Umihara Kawase - Japanese only, grappling game like Bionic Commando or Ninja 5-0 with a bit of a learning curve. Totally addictive.
3- Sutte Hakkun - Japanese only Nintendo licensed game. Q.U.B.E. in 2D with an adorable kiwi bird. Really cool puzzle meets platformer game. It absolutely BAFFLES me that this game isn't more popular.
Honourary Mention - Do Re Mi Fantasy - Cute Japanese game, sequel to Milon's Castle for the NES, with a musical theme. Nothing to write home about, but an amazing use of the SNES soundcard, a few avante-garde tracks too. Some real gems on that soundtrack.
Even with the hardware limitations of the time it managed to make space seem huge and mysterious, and evoked a sense of adventure and exploration modern sifi games have a hard time matching. Definitely worth a play.
Anyway thanks for another great episode and keep up the great work!
One game folks might not have considered is Soulblazer for SNES. No, not Actraiser, Soulblazer. It's a top-down adventure game where you fight monsters with sword and magic to clear monster lairs, all to save people's souls and return them to the world of the living. The closest game to it I can think of is Terranigma, except you can't jump in Soulblazer. It's still an amazing game though, with a well populated, diverse setting with fascinating characters, and it's just plain fun. I've beaten it once and the story is wonderful.
Also, Shadowrun has a magic fox, not cat. After all, her name's Kitsune.
How about a couple of Genesis strategy games....Herzog Zwei and Dune II?
The game is basically Secret of Mana (same combat engine, and is in fact the "sequel" to Secret of Mana) fine tuned to a large degree. Combat feels smoother, story is better, has a cast of interesting characters, and an interesting class system.
Basically you choose three characters out of a pool of six at the beginning of the game. The game's story then engages in multiple subplots tied together between the three characters you chose, culminating after some time into the main story of the game (always affected by initial party choice).
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiken_Densetsu_3
Clock Tower was released in 1995. It was a 16-Bit SNES Game which was very unique for it's time.
It was one of the very first true Survival Horror games.
The game put you in the role of a young woman which is looking for her friends and her past, trapped in an old mansion. You Encounter one and one enemy only which can't be killed. Instead you are forced to run away and hide to avoid getting murdered.
Amnesia wasn't the first game with that idea, it was already done in 1995 for a 16-Bit console. Besides avoid being killed, you have to examine the mansion for hinds for what is going on.
Another unique characteristic of Clock Tower is the fact that it manages to create an intense atmosphere with nearly no background music (Silent Hill 2 anyone?).
Would you expect a 16-Bit SNES game to be able to scare you shitless?
Unfortunately the game way only released in Japan only. But a group of dedicated fans released a english patch for the ROM.
I highly recommend this game if you are a fan of Silent Hill and other Survival Horror games.
PS1 or PS2, but I was particularly fond of the PS2 game Dark Cloud and it's sequel Dark Cloud 2 (or Dark Chronicle, depending on where you live). It had an interesting spin on the RPG in that you levelled up the weapons instead of the characters, and upgraded them into new varieties, and there were a LOT of varieties - even with a decent bit of level-grinding, you'd be hard-pressed to reach the final level of weapon before the final dungeon. And even then, you'd probably go back, start with a different base sword and level it up again to see all the different forms it took on the way to the top.
The original was quite rough around the edges, being a release title for the PS2, but the sequel took the first game, fixed 90% of the problems, and was a very enjoyable little title - clearly meant for younger gamers, the plot was a little bare and simplistic, but boy oh boy was it fun.
In The Void you find yourself as the soul of a recently deceased person who, on their way towards absolute Death, alights in the purgatory-esque Void, a bleak world where the only resource is Colour (which acts as your armour, ammo, stats, currency and transport, you could think of it as 1st person resource management mixed with exploration and survival horror elements). You find yourself having to maintain a balance between your own needs, the needs of the beguiling Sisters (who beg you for Colour) and the demands of the monstrous Brothers as you try to find a way out as your very presence as a living soul in a dead world causes the world around you to decay. Raises some thought provoking ideas about the nature of heaven and hell (and how they are subjective eg. someone from a world *below* Hell would regard Hell as Heaven) whilst being rather beautiful to boot. It's rarely that you come across a game that is genuinely *cleverer* than you are, as opposed to simply holding the answers to questions *it* set.
These games aren't for everyone; their atmospheres are almost unrelentingly bleak and their pacing can be rather glacial, but they provide original, thought provoking experiences and there's a good reason that they won a lot of awards in their native Russia and it's a shame that they seem comparatively unknown in the English speaking world and gaming in general (being largely, understandably, focused on the US and Japan).
Like, ideas we might have lost in the grand scheme of things because of the death of consoles like the dreamcast. Surely those platforms at least had a few influencial games? (I know the dreamcast had quite a few, but most had been ported or ripped since then... or maybe some were rips of even obscurer games?)
For PC: "LBA - Little Big Adventure".
PSX: OverBoard, Kurushi, Alundra.
(sorry the English)
Saturdays 5pm EST - HEADSHOT - Getting your First, Third, and everything inbetween shooter news, reviews and gameplay tips
Because I have a suggestion for a game people almost definitely haven't tried. It came out on Gamecube in 2006, so it was destined to be forgotten. Chibi-Robo. While not perfect, and graphics could be a lot better, it is a LOT more than meets the eye. It's a game about a small little robot and his assistant who were purchased to help a family around the home. While the game should be repetitive due to the nature of cleaning up and doing mundane tasks, it's not. Because it has a surprisingly good story. In fact, it has multiple of them. The game is almost open-world in the players' ability to go throughout the entire house without being constrained to anything, and with multiple different storylines to follow and puzzles to solve. Sort of like Arkham City: there's a story, but you can do so much more as well. And these storylines are not as cutesy as the cover art. This game deals with abandonment, financial troubles, family issues, loss, divorce, and even DEATH (No. Not fainting or anything). It's not perfect. But man is it clever, engaging, original, and TOTALLY underrated and unknown.
If you want, you guys could include this in a video on sixth-generation games. I'd like to see that. I miss the sixth generation. It was at a point where games were shifting to more mature experiences, but there were still goofy and lighthearted games. Now they're pretty much all gone. It stinks. You guys could even include Game Boy Advance games. That was another system that people almost completely forgot about. Why did people abandon Nintendo so much during the early 00's? Those consoles were just as good as their newest ones. And they didn't have nearly as much pointless games. Screw consumers. All they want are generic family games, modern warfare shooters, and time-wasting apps.
On other note, Im surprised that there was no mention of the newer Uncharted Waters games, rather with the mentioning of Sid Meier's Pirates. Especially given Uncharted Waters' popularity (in the asian countries)
"Wild guns" over three pages of comments
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What is WRONG with you people? Wild guns is probably the best underrated 16-bit game ever!
EVERONE knows Terranigma...
Or so I thought.
An then you mentioned that it never got an US release... huh?
It was translated to german, but never got an US release?
That's probably the only game to which that statement applies
Also there was one comment about Lufia 2...
EVERONE knows Lufia!
Or not?
A few games I'd like to mention (and their respective platforms), which either deserve a sequel, or (from my experience) didn't get enough attention, OR need to be played by those who did like the sequels, or similar games, as mentioned:
Waxworks (Amiga)
Shenmue (Dreamcast) - If you like Heavy Rain, you gotta try this. Also sequel please
The Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind (PC) - If you liked either Oblivion or Skyrim.
Brigandine (PSX) - was referenced in this episode
Jade Cocoon (PSX) - if you liked Pokémon
Bomberman Fantasy Race (PSX) - If you liked Mario Kart (any)
Neverwinter Nights (PC) - If you liked Baldurs Gate
Diablo (the first one, PC) - seriously, try it if you liked the sequels.
Blaze and Blade (PSX) - if you liked Secret of Mana for the multiplayer aspect
Recettear (PC) - simply unique gameplay.
Also, since you now allowed mods/conversions (Day Z)
Mechwarrior - Living Legends (PC)
-> needs "Crysis Warhead"s multiplayer component (which is a seperate install, called 'Crysis Wars', but uses the same CD-key)
- obviously if you loved ANY Mechwarrior game, Earthsiege, Steel Battalion or ANY game that featured "walking tanks"
If you're gonna play all of these, you should be busy for a while
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Seconding Umihara Kawase as a great game that has been overlooked far more than the ones on this list. It's a platformer that uses a grappling hook as its primary mechanic, so for anyone who loves physics games or the ninja rope in Worms it's a blast. The game is Japanese but there's no text outside of the menus so it isn't an impediment to the actual gameplay.
What I really like about it are a lot of the little polishes, such as gravity. If you find yourself carrying around a mirror for a puzzle, your machine will feel it, you'll find it harder to slow down and might end up crashing into a wall if you're not careful. And if you burn too much fuel controlling it, you might not make it back without losing a life. It's a good one that can get pretty tremendously difficult!
Here's a review on it I wrote:
http://www.ign.com/blogs/turbo_moses/2011/09/02/retro-prattle-sub-terrania-gen
I'd love to see you guys take a look at the Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance selections. Handheld releases tend to get overlooked by the industry at large for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the overwhelming amount of shovelware, half-assed tie-ins to home console releases and mediocre ports that tend to clutter the shelves, but some amazing gems were released for the GBC/GBA and I'd love to see some of them featured.
Terranigma - This game was released in Australia in English, I had it, dunno where it is now unfortunately.