Your Essential Games

Crickentine

Definitely FFVII! After that, Super Mario World, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Mario Kart and Super Metroid. I mainly play it with my kids and it's great introducing them to games i played when i was their age. I think i'm going to move onto more PS1 games next. I seen someone mention Destruction Derby earlier in this thread. I'd forgotten all about that! It's definitely next on the list along with Abe's Oddyssee!

SlipSlot

I never expected this to get so much attention, thanks so MUCH to everyone who's got involved so far. Rest assured I will be checking out each and every one of your suggestions! I'd love to hear some people's suggestions on C64 and Amiga games as I had these as a child but never got to play most the essentials.

Clyde

@slipslot said in Your Essential Games:

Rest assured I will be checking out each and every one of your suggestions!

You may also want to look at @thelostsoul's new thread Important mainstream games in history you missed for more suggestions.

VictimRLSH

@slipslot Someone suggested the C64 version of M.U.L.E. as the best, I concur. Another hidden gem on the C64 I wasted a great deal of my teenage years on was one of those type-in games from Compute magazine called Oil Tycoon. You get an oil derrick you move along the top of the screen and sections of pipe to drill down with. The goal is to empty as much of the oil from the screen as you can. If you drain it all, you get another screen, but it is extremely tough to do. There are rocks you can blow up by dropping dynamite down the pipe, but these destroy the last section of your pipe as well. There are also demons that if disturbed, will destroy your derrick. Once you have broken or blown up too many sections of pipe, your drill will no longer be long enough to reach the oil at the bottom of the screen so you need to focus on those first if you can get at them. If you want more pipe, you can sacrifice the current derrick to get a new derrick and fresh supply of pipe. Sublimely frustrating and a great puzzle game.

EDIT: Found a link to screen shots and description of the game in a C64 game metadata site
http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=5360

I will once again extole the virtues of MechForce for the Amiga, definitely among my essentials. I'd also recommend Breach and Breach II. These are turn based tactical combat games with a riveting campaign. There is also a fantasy version of these, Paladin and Paladin II.

Clyde

@victimrlsh said in Your Essential Games:

I will once again extole the virtues of MechForce for the Amiga, definitely among my essentials.

OMG yes! I played that for countless hours in those days. Thanks for reminding me of it!

I'd also recommend Breach and Breach II. These are turn based tactical combat games with a riveting campaign. There is also a fantasy version of these, Paladin and Paladin II.

Did you know that Breach II could be combined with both parts of the strategy series Rules of Engagement? You could use Breach 2 to fight tactical engagements in them.

VictimRLSH

Did you know that Breach II could be combined with both parts of the strategy series Rules of Engagement? You could use Breach 2 to fight tactical engagements in them.

I did not know that, never played Rules of Engagement. I will definitely need to look into that. It reminds me of the strategic board game Games Workshop came out with, MIghty Empires. The tactical engagements on the board could be played out using Warhammer rules. It took us two eight hour days to play out the board game without that, once you break out miniatures rules for battles I can see a game taking months.

Clyde

@victimrlsh said in Your Essential Games:

It took us two eight hour days to play out the board game without that, once you break out miniatures rules for battles I can see a game taking months.

Hahaha, yeah, I can imagine that. :)

DanPNE

Sega Megadrive

Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Columns, Sonic & Knuckles, Earthworm Jim, Phantasy Star 4, Gunstar Heroes.

SNES

Final Fantasy 4, 5 & 6, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario World, Secret of Mana.

Gameboy (Colour & Advance)

Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, Final Fantasy Origins, Pokemon, Advance Wars.

Dreamcast

Shenmue 1 & 2, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Grandia 2.

PS1

Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, 8 & 9, Grandia, Dino Crisis 2, Heart of Darkness, Abe's Odyssey, Gran Turismo, Digimon World, Chrono Cross, Xenogears.

Gamecube

Luigi's Mansion, Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Twilight Princess & Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros: Melee, Starfox Adventures, Timesplitters 2, Pikmin,.

bruker

Some great amiga games are:

Moonstone
Battle Squadron
It came from the desert
Shadow of the beast
Monkey Island 1 & 2
Turrican
Flashback
Prince of Persia
Duck tales

VictimRLSH

@danpne I never played Final Fantasy Origins, I'll have to check that one out.

barbudreadmon

@victimrlsh said in Your Essential Games:

I never played Final Fantasy Origins, I'll have to check that one out.

To my knowledge (and to the knowledge of wikipedia) it doesn't exist on gameboy. FF Origins is a PSX game and the first localized remake of FF I-II.
The only FF i know on gameboy is "FF Mystic Quest", which is not a FF but a Secret of Mana (actually it is the first opus of the Seiken Densetsu series). But only the US version has FF in its name, probably for marketing reasons.

thelostsoul

@barbudreadmon said in Your Essential Games:

The only FF i know on gameboy is "FF Mystic Quest", which is not a FF but a Secret of Mana (actually it is the first opus of the Seiken Densetsu series). But only the US version has FF in its name, probably for marketing reasons.

I played this game in my childhood. The US title was Final Fantasy Adventure and the EU title was just Mystic Quest. And the subtitle for the Japanese version of Seiken Densetsu included "~Final Fantasy Gaiden~", according to Wikipedia.
And thats only about this one game, there was so much more confusing titles.. holy crap.

VictimRLSH

@thelostsoul FInal Fantasy Mystic Quest on the SNES was WAY too short and WAY too easy. Solved it in one sitting, about 5hrs.

thelostsoul

@VictimRLSH Btw, don't get confused with the Game Boy Mystic Quest (for you its named Final Fantasy Adventure). The SNES game you know as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is known in Germany as Mystic Quest Legend. What the f...un Squaresoft?!

I remember that game very well, it was the very first turn based rpg we got on the SNES, plus it was localized (many games from that time was just in English). That time, I didn't know much about role play games and always wondered how they work and what that turn based fighting mean. At the 90s we rarely got turn based rpgs and every of them was like gold. In example, we never got any Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Bahamut Lagoon, Tales of Whatever, Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Star Ocean, Dragon Quest, Ogre Battle , Tactics Ogre, Romancing Saga OR ANYTHING.

Thats why this game, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, is something very special to me. Even to that day, it was very easy and extremely limited and disappointing in gameplay with restricted party members and magic system and the world map. But that is ok. It might don't win an award for it, but it introduced me the concept. And it have a GREAT soundtrack, I like the dungeon and fight musics, still one of the greatest for the SNES. Looking back, its a shame we never got these games officially on the system. Probably translation was expensive and it was very risky, as jrpgs wasn't very well known and asked in Europe/Germany.