What are some of the most iconic, "Everyone Should Play" games... you've not played?

[wongojack | 219]

For @T-Pac and the recent discussion here.  I escaped my adolescence and childhood without ever playing SMB 3, SMW, or ANY Pokemon game.  I was just kind of too old for all of those.  

I actually also never played SMB 2 but did have a traumatic experience trying to trade for it at school where it was stolen from me.  I borrowed it and then lost it!  Boy was that guy I had traded with mad.  I never even tried to play it after that and kinda fell out of playing the NES altogether.  At least for a while

I've since gone back and made an effort to play all of those except Super Mario World (the revelation of which kinda kicked off this whole thread).

Edited April 24 by wongojack

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

38 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

For sure. I don't really enjoy playing Pokemon, either - but it's interesting to hear that there are avid video game fans who've never even touched it before.

Although - maybe I'm misinterpreting the question... In my mind, if you've so much as pressed a single input on a game, you've "played" it. But I think some people are only considering games they've spent a significant amount of time with, "played". And that really changes the dynamic of the question and introduces taste over exposure.

[T-Pac]

I had already played through the likes of Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger when it came out.  And by 1997, my eyes were on these things:

The people who were playing Pokeman at that time were "little kids" in my experience.

And then there was never any reason to go back to it.  Gold comes out and I'm playing Baldur's Gate II.  The GBA ones come, and my eyes are on Shin Megami Tensei III.  The DS comes out and I'm buying Strange Journey.  The 3DS comes out and I'm looking at all of the Atlus titles.

The better question is, why play a Pokemon when so many better alternatives exist?

To be clear, I have played Blue, but not for very long.  So I don't count it.  But I will get to it in the backlog challenge so I can finally check it off the list and get rid of it.

[MegaMan52 | 2,452]

Edited April 24 by MegaMan52

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

3 minutes ago, MegaMan52 said:

You should pop in Rayman.  I don't want to call it "delightful", but that word did spring immediately to mind.

[RH | 4,932]

I own Metal Gear Solid, but other than 5 minutes of the original NES Metal Gear game, I've never played a Metal Gear game.

They are high on my list though.  I definitely need to get the PS2 titles before they get too insanely priced with time.  I feel like all of those games would be right up my alley.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

17 minutes ago, RH said:

I own Metal Gear Solid, but other than 5 minutes of the original NES Metal Gear game, I've never played a Metal Gear game.

They are high on my list though.  I definitely need to get the PS2 titles before they get too insanely priced with time.  I feel like all of those games would be right up my alley.

The PS2 games are dirt cheap and sold like gangbusters.  Unless you want the expanded rereleases.

But even those were ported to every system that's come out since.  The PS5 collection is $30 as we speak.

[G-type | 2,486]

2 hours ago, RH said:

I own Metal Gear Solid, but other than 5 minutes of the original NES Metal Gear game, I've never played a Metal Gear game.

They are high on my list though.  I definitely need to get the PS2 titles before they get too insanely priced with time.  I feel like all of those games would be right up my alley.

I liked Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid 2 (even though its story is really weird, with super long cut scenes) I probably should go back and replay it, and play the other ones too.

[Brickman | 4,000]

Pokemon is a great game and the challenge lies in collecting all the Pokemon. It was harder pre internet guides because you really had to plan out your route and how you would use different Pokemon and pokeballs.

People have come up with ideas on how to make the game more difficult though. Only sticking to the first 6 Pokemon you catch is a good one. 

If you’re a “serious hardcore I don’t like kiddie stuff” gamer you probably won’t like it though 

I also recommend playing the GBA remakes. They did a great job with it.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

31 minutes ago, Brickman said:

If you’re a “serious hardcore I don’t like kiddie stuff” gamer you probably won’t like it though 

Counter:

If you didn't "grow up playing it as a little kid, still wearing dem nostalgia goggles" you probably won't like it feel any especially strong feelings about it 

[Brickman | 4,000]

9 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Counter:

If you didn't "grow up playing it as a little kid, still wearing dem nostalgia goggles" you probably won't like it feel any especially strong feelings about it 

I was 14 going on 15 when they were released here, so definitely not a kid. I don’t really understand the kid argument anyway. A lot of NES games were designed for kids and are still great. The games never were aiming to compete with FF7 and all the more serious RPGs. It’s just a fun adventure game with lite RPG elements.

They’re great games no matter the age imo. People are playing the games and discovering them for the first time at any age.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

Well I'll give my honest and fair assessment when I get to it circa 2026.

Mario Odyssey is one of my favorite games of the last decade, so I think it's fair to see I can give kid-friendly games a fair shot.  

...however, it will be judged again all the other JRPGs I've played.  It's a levelled playing field as far as I'm concerned.  Historical significance means nothing to me as we all know 

[RH | 4,932]

Well, I know this will be a hot take but other than the Paper Mario games, Nintendo can't seem to make an RPG that I neither enjoy or feel isn't uninspired.  Even for the Paper Mario series, the appeal is largely playing an RPG in the Mario universe.  If it were some other generic theme, I wouldn't enjoy it.

I'm not saying RPGs have to be complex to be good but, eh... Nintendo needs to do a bit more work in their storytelling for me to really get pulled into their RPGs.

The ironic thing is that some series like Metroid tell fantastic stories and those games have used little to no dialog to get the point across.

[Brickman | 4,000]

18 minutes ago, RH said:

Well, I know this will be a hot take but other than the Paper Mario games, Nintendo can't seem to make an RPG that I neither enjoy or feel isn't uninspired.  Even for the Paper Mario series, the appeal is largely playing an RPG in the Mario universe.  If it were some other generic theme, I wouldn't enjoy it.

I'm not saying RPGs have to be complex to be good but, eh... Nintendo needs to do a bit more work in their storytelling for me to really get pulled into their RPGs.

The ironic thing is that some series like Metroid tell fantastic stories and those games have used little to no dialog to get the point across.

Not trying to be funny, but I can’t think of a Nintendo made RPG. Paper Mario was made by Intelligent Systems. Pokemon is made by Game Freak. Fire Emblem is also Intelligent Systems.

[RH | 4,932]

1 minute ago, Brickman said:

Not trying to be funny, but I can’t think of a Nintendo made RPG. Paper Mario was made by Intelligent Systems. Pokemon is made by Game Freak. Fire Emblem is also Intelligent Systems.

Earthbound?  Regardless, they stamped their name on it.  I didn't know all of there RPGs were made out of house, though.  Maybe Earthbound is too?

There's also the Xenoblade games, though those might not entirely count since I've only tried XC2.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

Xenoblade is Monolith.  Another 2nd party(?) situation.

[RH | 4,932]

Regardless, Nintendo has to give the stamp of approval on these games. 

[Brickman | 4,000]

51 minutes ago, RH said:

Regardless, Nintendo has to give the stamp of approval on these games. 

You are definitely in the minority if you think RPG games created by second or third parties for Nintendo that get their stamp of approval aren’t very good or uninspired. But this site is well known for bonkers hot takes, so it doesn’t surprise me 

Edited April 25 by Brickman

[Sumez | 2,970]

10 hours ago, Brickman said:

It was harder pre internet guides

I'm not sure there was ever a "pre internet guides" era for Pokemon  The English version came out in 1998. Hell, I played it on emulation while it was still only available in Japanese

10 hours ago, Brickman said:

People have come up with ideas on how to make the game more difficult though. Only sticking to the first 6 Pokemon you catch is a good one. 

6 pokemen might be harder than 1. Because my approach the first time I played the first game, was just exclusively using the one I picked in the intro, and for at least the last two thirds of the game, it'd already grown so strong it would just stomp all over anything it fought before they could do anything, no challenge at all.

9 hours ago, Brickman said:

I don’t really understand the kid argument anyway. A lot of NES games were designed for kids and are still great.

I'll try to elaborate. It might come across like a jab at fans of the games, but it's really just my impression of them.

A lot of the games I play (maybe even a majority?) are games that are definitely designed with kids in mind, and occasionally as the primary audience, which as you say is definitely the case with older games, since kids were the only people really playing video games then. But there's absolutely no reason a game made for kids in that context can't be a great game, with a ton of depth, challenge and well designed, fun gameplay.

But Pokémon conversely feels designed not around just being approachable for kids, but pretty much requiring you to be a kid.
I've actually given the games a pretty fair shake! I played through all of the original when the English language version came out, and I've played the GBA remake all the way through much more recently, as well as one of the GBA sequels. I also got one of the DS games when it came out, curious to see how the series had evolved, but gave up not too far into it out of boredom.
But regardless of all my time spent with the series, and me really wanting to like them, I've always felt my ability to have any fun with them was completely hindered by my frame of reference, comparisons to much better games, and expectations of a game's core gameplay to be at least a little bit engaging.

Pokémon instead hinges entirely of that feeling of compulsion that you get from finding additional creatures to fill out a stupidly large compendium (which can only be filled by giving in to a stupid marketing ploy of crossing multiple simultaneous but nearly identical releases). I could see that being really engaging if I were a kid, but as an adult with plenty of other things to play, I just can't be bothered.

Outside of the games themselves, I think there's a whole microcosm of various other things that helped make the franchise appealing which, once again, would bypass you completely if you were older than 13 or so at the time.
Like a line of toys, playing cards - and the cartoon (which is absolutely 100% a kiddie cartoon) especially was instrumental to Pokemon being a success at all in my part of the world at least.
And finally of course, there's the aspect of trading and fighting pokemans with other kids, which was one of the primary aspects used to sell the game. Again, this is something I've never been able to participate in on account of being too old for that when the game came out (and even then it took a couple more years for the series to actually get any traction at all around here).

Edited April 25 by Sumez

[RH | 4,932]

I agree with @Sumez comments but to it more simply, there's a difference between a game that kids can enjoy playing vs. a game designed specifically to appeal to little children, and I'm not knocking older fans either.

When my son and daughter were both under the age of 5, we enjoyed playing Candyland together.  If you're familiar, there's no skill at all.  Role a dice, land on a square and, occasionally, you move forward or backward extra spaces.  The only appeal to children is that it's "candy" theme and since it's luck-based, they can beat their parents.

But then there are games like pick-up-sticks or checkers. Each is very different but a 5 year old could learn how to play them.  However, skill will vary from person to person.  A 5-6 yo kid who's played a lot of checkers a lot with his grand pa could probably mop the floor with an adult who's only been casually exposed to the game.  A kid can learn it with a degree of mastery.  Same with pick-up-sticks.  It's a dead simple concept but the skills involved to be good are earned with time and young kids, maybe as  young as 3 can start to get into it.  You literally pick up sticks, plus getting hyper-focused to see if your opponent moves other sticks is "fun" to smaller people.

So Pokemon is like Candy Land to us seasoned RPGers.  Super Mario Bros is more like checkers.  The analogy isn't perfect, but it gets the point across.  By the time Pokemon came out, I wasn't offended by it's existence, nor did I laugh at anyone who enjoyed it for being "simple' minded.  It was cool.  It just wasn't for me.  I had matured as an RPGer well beyond it.

[T-Pac | 7,576]

@Reed Rothchild @wongojack @RH @Sumez

Great point about the age thing with regard to Pokemon. I forget that I'm 10+ years younger than most of you, so you might easily see Pokemon the way I see Fortnite haha.

And that definitely skews the "must-play" status of Pokemon in my head - since among my own demographic, having never played a Pokemon game would be like having never eaten a peanutbutter-and-jelly sandwich.

[T-Pac]

[T-Pac | 7,576]

7 hours ago, Sumez said:

But Pokémon conversely feels designed not around just being approachable for kids, but pretty much requiring you to be a kid.
...

Pokémon instead hinges entirely of that feeling of compulsion that you get from finding additional creatures to fill out a stupidly large compendium (which can only be filled by giving in to a stupid marketing ploy of crossing multiple simultaneous but nearly identical releases). I could see that being really engaging if I were a kid, but as an adult with plenty of other things to play, I just can't be bothered.

This is a bit of an ironic viewpoint on a forum full of people who compulsively try to fill arbitrary checklists by collecting games from an era where they were primarily designed and marketed for kids haha.

I respect your take, though - even if I don't think you need to be a kid to enjoy Pokemon. It's personal preference, after all.

[T-Pac]

[Sumez | 2,970]

5 hours ago, T-Pac said:

This is a bit of an ironic viewpoint on a forum full of people who compulsively try to fill arbitrary checklists by collecting games

Fwiw I can't support that tendency either

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

I was gonna say, I love SMT games, but I would never try to "catch 'em all" in one of those.  That shit's for crazy people.

[Brickman | 4,000]

13 hours ago, Sumez said:

I'm not sure there was ever a "pre internet guides" era for Pokemon  The English version came out in 1998. Hell, I played it on emulation while it was still only available in Japanese

6 pokemen might be harder than 1. Because my approach the first time I played the first game, was just exclusively using the one I picked in the intro, and for at least the last two thirds of the game, it'd already grown so strong it would just stomp all over anything it fought before they could do anything, no challenge at all.

I'll try to elaborate. It might come across like a jab at fans of the games, but it's really just my impression of them.

A lot of the games I play (maybe even a majority?) are games that are definitely designed with kids in mind, and occasionally as the primary audience, which as you say is definitely the case with older games, since kids were the only people really playing video games then. But there's absolutely no reason a game made for kids in that context can't be a great game, with a ton of depth, challenge and well designed, fun gameplay.

But Pokémon conversely feels designed not around just being approachable for kids, but pretty much requiring you to be a kid.
I've actually given the games a pretty fair shake! I played through all of the original when the English language version came out, and I've played the GBA remake all the way through much more recently, as well as one of the GBA sequels. I also got one of the DS games when it came out, curious to see how the series had evolved, but gave up not too far into it out of boredom.
But regardless of all my time spent with the series, and me really wanting to like them, I've always felt my ability to have any fun with them was completely hindered by my frame of reference, comparisons to much better games, and expectations of a game's core gameplay to be at least a little bit engaging.

Pokémon instead hinges entirely of that feeling of compulsion that you get from finding additional creatures to fill out a stupidly large compendium (which can only be filled by giving in to a stupid marketing ploy of crossing multiple simultaneous but nearly identical releases). I could see that being really engaging if I were a kid, but as an adult with plenty of other things to play, I just can't be bothered.

Outside of the games themselves, I think there's a whole microcosm of various other things that helped make the franchise appealing which, once again, would bypass you completely if you were older than 13 or so at the time.
Like a line of toys, playing cards - and the cartoon (which is absolutely 100% a kiddie cartoon) especially was instrumental to Pokemon being a success at all in my part of the world at least.
And finally of course, there's the aspect of trading and fighting pokemans with other kids, which was one of the primary aspects used to sell the game. Again, this is something I've never been able to participate in on account of being too old for that when the game came out (and even then it took a couple more years for the series to actually get any traction at all around here).

I don’t agree at all with what you said but at least you gave the games a go instead of instantly dismissing them because you think they’re for kids.

[cj_robot | 545]

For me, personally, the idea that they're just for kids isn't what kept me away. That kind of thing doesn't usually bother me, or at least it doesn't prevent me from trying a game out.

It just happened that Pokemon came out at a time when I was not really messing with the GameBoy anymore. When the next batch arrived, I was in college and not spending a whole lot of time with video games. I was pretty late to the party with the DS, and by now my backlog is so huge that Pokemon, even though I am curious about it, is just one of many franchises I have yet to experience.

It's on the list, but y'all know how that goes.

Edited April 26 by cj_robot