Presentation wise, I'd also say the Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker and Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door have held up very well either. Likely for the most part because the cel shaded look these games went for works a hell of a lot better than the attempts at 'realism' other games did in the same era.
I'd also say quite a few 16-bit platformers hold up well mechanically and often visually, since they nailed the original mechanics first and foremost and actually understand good game design. See for example Super Mario Bros 3 and World, Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country 2, Wario Land 4, etc. Yoshi's Island looks especially beautiful for an SNES game, whereas Donkey Kong Country as a series is an example where even when (for then) impressive visuals got dated, the core games were well made enough that they are still fun to go back to.
There are loads of them. In fact, it is very rare that a genuinely good game would feel 'aged' going back to it or discovering it for the first time. 'Blockbuster' games that were only ever popular because of some great special effects (graphics, multiplayer etc.) would of course age very quickly - just like similar kinds of movies.
> Fallout 1+2. The level of detail in the world and story, and how your decisions affect your character and the dialogue choices, is just absolutely amazing. I haven't played too many RPGs, but nothing else has come close to me. The incredible amount of things you could do in that game that were handled by in game dialogue was incredible. If you married person A in one town, or killed person B in another town, that might come up in some dialogue tree in a completely separate town. It was just incredible how much detail existed in this game. Plus you could shoot bad guys in the dick.
> X-COM: UFO Defense + X-COM: Terror from the Deep. Let's be clear, the graphics were pretty dated back in 1994. But my god, the feeling of tension you have trying to find aliens and kill them is unmatched by any game. Seeing snippets of movement when it wasn't your turn actually mattered. And the different game phases (base-building, air combat, and on-ground missions) were all connected so clearly. The modern sequels (XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2, and the fantastic War of the Chosen) are rare examples of genuinely very good sequels. But they lack that true sense of terror that I think was built up in the original.
The control system for Fallout 1 is atrocious. There some crazy press right mouse once, then choose context action. Two's isn't much better.
XCom has the same flaw as all of Julian Gollop's games, everything's too RNG based. He recently brought out an XCom successor which was poorly received because it was basically the same as the original XCom's.
They were great games, I just couldn't play them today. Literally, I bought Fallout 1+2 a few years ago and it was so frustrating I stopped. If you want a trip down memory lane, play Wasteland 2 instead, still old skool feeling, but with modern quality of life.
My personal favourite though is probably Dragon Age Origins, very sad that none of the follow-ups managed to reach that level of gameplay/storytelling combination.
Closer to now, I recently dusted off Radiata Stories (2005) and it is just as great as I remembered it.
If you can get past the graphics they're truly a peak in single-player game design. I recommend starting with Thief 2 though, it's a bit more beginner-friendly.
For best results, play from the start on Expert and just save scum while you experiment with how it all works. Expert mostly increases difficulty not by making enemies hit harder, but by giving you more stuff do do/incentive to explore.
This game was released in 1998, and recently received a "definitive edition" version that updated the graphics and added a few QOL changes (modern hotkeys etc).
Never played the original, but AoE 2 has become the best game I have ever played.
I consider the game to be like chess at this point, comelltrly timeless and will still be being played 100 years from now.
I'd argue that the rapid advancement of graphics does not really benefit gameplay. I'd further argue that VR will not further increment immersion because immersion is a function of mind, not a function of eye candies.
Daggerfall and Morrowind are old games I still play. They don't make games with such depth nowadays.