RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 47 (5 votes)

It can't be stated enough how much Dragon Quest has done for the role playing genre and gaming space in general. Being able to translate the Dungeons and Dragons experience to the masses is no small feat, and many would say it's Japan's greatest and maybe even proudest contribution to the gaming space. It wasn't the first, but it set the roots that still hold together the Japanese role playing genre today, and honestly it made me appreciate what goes into every game. Every single word written, every non playable character placed in the world, and every interaction you have with the game itself all the way down to the hero defeating the grand evil while saving the world represents a tale almost as old as time itself. It may not mean much and may even sound cliché to a lot of people today, but in 1986, it was all you ever wanted and needed.
(ExAndOh)

RANK 47 (5 votes)

whether or not you believe Myst sounded the death knell for traditional Adventure Games, it undoubtedly marked a sea change. hark, the unbidden future has arrived: gorgeous, tactile, and inscrutable in turn

the prototypical escape room or puzzle box game; an experience that envelops, asking you to paw and ponder your way out, rather than in. as its quiet mysteries peel back with each revelation — whether by careful erudition or dumb luck — the world begins to reveal its dreamlike form and logic among the trinkets, levers, glyphs, and prose

from Hexen to Outer Wilds, Dear Esther to The Nonary Games, the medium has walked steadily along the many footpaths first worn into shape here. and so the future morphs into the past and back into the future, as if by alchemy

nearly thirty years on, all roads lead to Myst
(HEADWOUND)

RANK 64 (4 votes)

RANK 47 (5 votes)

The original audiovisual masterpiece. OutRun wastes no bytes attempting to complicate the process of driving, instead treating your Ferrari as what is is: a vehicle towards new horizons. Visionary designer Yu Suzuki combines Sega's frantic arcade sensibilities with still gorgeous scenery and a surprisingly mellow soundtrack to create an almost zen-like feeling that remains unmatched, even by modern standards. The wind through your hair, the "whoosh" of leaving other drivers in the dust, the satisfaction of perfectly turning a corner, the shift in color palette as you cross country lines, and that big, beautiful, open sky. What else do you need?
(chump)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 39 (6 votes)

A progenitor of the 'wiki always open' game, a staple of simulation-task allocation games, and a testament to freeware and the indie scene as a whole. Dwarf Fortress maintains a strong legacy of 15+ years with constant updates by two brother game designers, not needing a paid release until just recently. The result is a project in which the player manages and overlooks a fledgling expedition squad of seven dwarves as they dig into the earth and utilize their environment to establish a blossoming settlement.

The spartan ASCII ant farm-like visuals of your dwarves scattering about for tasks keenly betrays the intense meta-detail of each material buried within the generated world, as well as the complexities of keeping your dwarves not just busy, but alive. Keeping a consistent crop cycle going turns into managing a trade depot turns into keeping a hardened defense force standing. Its a notoriously difficult game to parse at first, one that demands constant experimentation, wiki-dives and creative thinking. But it's also the paramount example of the notion 'Losing is fun!'.
(PolaroidJack)

RANK 39 (6 votes)

A good measuring stick for arcade racers derives from the drift mechanics: how versatile, how organic, how consistent, how well-integrated into the overall handling model? OutRun 2 veers so far into the fantasy side of those spectrums that the car damn near goes perpendicular to the asphalt when you lean into a powerslide. Never before had a car felt so effortless to control while simultaneously so twitchy as to spin out of control at the slightest unwanted bit of torque. Beyond maneuvering these corners and U-turns with grace lies little else in a perfect display of AM2's characteristic economy of design. 15 minute-long tracks weave together in a lattice of potential routes for the player to take, all of which the game extrapolates into a bevy of white-knuckle races and quirky minigames in the console version's mission mode. With all that the team inherited from the original two decades prior, they fused those familiar hallmarks of the series into that handling model, which took the pseudo-3D kludge of the original into something just as exaggerated as its predecessor while simultaneously laced with nuance accrued from years of experience building arcade racers. In this way OutRun 2 provides the perfect capstone for Yu Suzuki's tenure as head of AM2, unquestionably the most innovative arcade designers at the height of the coin-op era.
(Pangburn)

RANK 81 (3 votes)

RANK 81 (3 votes)