These are games that comes to mind depending on genre. This isn't a definitive top tier list but can serve as a decent introduction. Some of them I haven't thoroughly played but they're what come to mind when I think of the genre:
Light gun games - House of the Dead, Time Crisis
Driving - Outrun, Crazy Taxi, Lucky and Wild, Mario Kart 64
2d Platformer - Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Lost Vikings, Donkey Kong Country, Sonic the Hedgehog 2
FPS - Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Goldeneye, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
Fighting - Street Fighter Alpha 3, Mortal Kombat 2, One Must Fall 2097
Third person - Super Mario 64, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto 3, Tomb Raider 2, Katamari Damacy
RTS - Starcraft, Warcraft 3
RPG - Ultima 7, Morrowind
JRPG - Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana
Visual novel - Katawa Shoujo
Space sim - Freelancer, TIE Fighter, Star Fox
Party game - Mario Party
Simulation - SimCity
It's interesting that so many of the greatest games for the 2d genre were released on the SNES. The Genesis/Megadrive also had great games and iirc better actual hardware, but the SNES library had an incredible number of hits. (Some real hard misses too like 7th Saga's western release PTOOO). It's a shame Saturn/Dreamcast didn't succeed since they have a number of interesting unique releases that aren't widely known/played compared to Nintendo slop, and even the best Nintendo releases get overlooked by the most popular ones. (Cybernator and Demon's Crest were both underrated imo)
In my opinion a top game list should be compiled by hardware and release date more like a curriculum than just a comparative list, like you'd recommend an anime watch order. I'd then tag games for pacing (action to sim/map game level) and complexity (platformer to RTS etc) as broad categories for filtering out types of games.
I think a top 5 for each genre should really be enough imo. If a clone or derivative does it better than the "classic" then that's what should be listed. I intentionally listed a number of sequels.
One thing I've thought about recently after hearing discussion regarding music is how lyrics are really irrelevant to good music. I think consideration should be given towards whether gameplay or the "experience" should be given the most weight in rating a game rather than simply story or writing.
>>299819
Anon thinks that you have to completely master mechanics and memorize the game to "know" it.
Nobody really needs to be able to reach the donkey kong kill screen to know the game's gay and boring or there's something else wrong with it. I don't care how many millions of hours autists have absolutely wasted on such a shit game.
>>299821
Arcade games are entirely designed to be quarter munchers you fathomless retard. That's the entire business model.
I'll finish this comment with a parting shot: Games shouldn't be like opioids, they should be like climbing a mountain to see something new on the other side. If it's not a fresh experience then you're missing the entire point of the medium's possibilities. The hardware exists to simulate almost countless mathematical possibilities and situations but people limit themselves to tiny sandboxes. It's like seeing a "little old lady who only drives to church on sunday" with a sports car. Completely wasted potential and almost certainly harmful to the vehicle/player. The recent meta of the past 20 years or so has seemed like pounding nails through your own dick has become the "point" of many videogames but then again look how trannyism has decimated the gamer community and how it's always trannies speedrunning garbage like their lives.