These are some of my favorite games, in no particular order. I have more than this, but these are the ones I could think of off the top of my head right now.
long post ahead, I'll include some pics. thanks for reading!
Yume Nikki, the original RPGMaker one. I had a really old computer when I was a kid, so I got really into RPGMaker games and emulating older games because they were the only games that could run on my computer. I found Yume Nikki when I was in middle school, there was a link to the site hosting it on a forum I used. I spent months just wandering around in the game, the atmosphere of it was really exciting for me. It took me forever to find all the effects, and I had a lot of fun doubling over areas and trying out new effects on them. I was also in a phase of my life where most of my time was spent sleeping, so it felt kinda relatable and the whole concept of it made me feel less alone. The game really felt like nothing I had ever played before, I've replayed it since then and it still holds up too, which is always great.
ILLBLEED for Dreamcast. A lot of people feel like this is an unplayably bad game, but I love it and it's one of my favorite games. It really feels like it breaks new ground in terms of gameplay, which might be a controversial opinion but I've genuinely never played a game that has the same gameplay elements ILLBLEED has. The whole game takes place in a big, spooky theme park so everything is built around that concept. The entire game revolves around a Fear Sensor that tells you if a scare is nearby, which you can then mark to prevent the scare from happening. You have to manage things like adrenaline to keep the Fear Sensor working. If you don't, something pops out at you and you take damage. It also has combat segments, and a really goofy, fun storyline. The enemy designs are really cool. I personally like that you have to replay the whole game a second, different time to get an actual ending.
Space Funeral is a really short RPGMaker game, I think I first found it when I was a teenager but I've replayed it a couple times since then. It's really goofy but it hits me really hard in my
Emotions. It just really speaks to me. I also really love the art style and the music choices. I love that fuckin, campy almost Halloween-y aesthetic it has. I love that your character model spends the entire game straight sobbing. I love that there's a horse made of legs. Just a really,
really good game.
Here's a link in case you haven't played it, heads up you might need to download the font to read the text at all.
Chibi-Robo! for GameCube. In Chibi-Robo, you play a small cleaning robot taking care of a house and trying to help a family with quests and minigames. At night, the toys in the house come alive and you can do quests for them, too. I've played a lot of games but honestly none of them feel as big as Chibi-Robo does, and the whole game takes place only inside one house and a yard. There's just so much stuff to find in that game, and the way the scale is makes everything so
so fun. The cleaning mechanics are really fun and satisfying, I also really enjoy the story, the game's sense of humor and the art style. I've been meaning to replay it for a while.
Simpsons: Hit & Run, wildly fun game. I like that it's got a nice, branching set of quests and a linear storyline but you can also just fuck around as much as you want. All the easter eggs and minigames are super fun, too. I really like how it feels like you can go to basically every location on the map, it's nice seeing something in the distance, or really high up, then being able to actually go there if you try hard enough. It's a super goofy, funny game and I really love it.
White Day: A Labyrinth Named School, the original 2001 one, not the remake. This game scares the hell out of me, by far my favorite proper horror game, and by far the scariest game I've played. It's a game where you're a kid going into your school after dark to put chocolate in your crush's desk. It turns out that at night there's a bunch of supernatural stuff in your school, the janitor is possessed, and you can't leave. There's three girls, including your crush trapped inside the school as well. The whole game's about you trying to get out of the school, but it's a process and involves a lot of exorcisms.
The game has no combat mechanics, but there are puzzles and boss battles. Throughout the game you're stalked by the janitor, who you have to hide from in dark rooms, but if a room is dark for too long ghosts start to pop up. The sound design is amazing, and the game really makes you feel helpless and stressed out. It also has branching storylines depending on how you treat the three girls, and eight endings. It's a pretty long game, I got all 8 endings and it took me like 6 months. The added difficulty modes are really fun, there's one where you have to escape the school before midnight, so the entire game is on a timer.
It's kinda hard to find and play the 2001 White Day nowadays, especially if you need an English translation, but if you can find it I really recommend checking it out.
春日歩の通販生活, this is a game where
Osaka from
Azumanga Daioh hangs out in a room and sometimes goes to her part time job. It can work as a screensaver. She can get items from mail order on the TV, then she interacts with them in the room. The only gameplay on your part is clicking the button to order the items. I like that she plays the bongos. This game makes me happy.
Animal Crossing, in general but my favorites are the
GameCube version and
New Horizons. I really obsessed over the GameCube version when I was a kid, and I was a weird, lonely kid, but I felt like I formed genuine friendships with my neighbors. I still feel like that with New Horizons, which is pretty silly, but I really love the game for it. I've never played a game that really makes me feel like I'm making friends like that. I really like how portable New Horizons is, too. If I'm stressed out, or having a hard time for any reason, I can always go to my little island and hang out with my weird little animal friends. It's a nice form of escapism. I'm also a huge fan of the museum, I get really fixated on catching all the bugs, fossils, and fish. Here's me in New Horizons.